Page 16 of The Shake Off

Every head except Kit’s whipped around to me, then back to Ace. Beulah and Lowe looked confused, while three pairs of eyes belonging to the boys all widened, followed by a smirk, that told me they knew exactly who I was.

Great.

Lowe frowned. “Do you two know each other?”

“No,” I replied at the same time Ace said, “Yes.”

“No,” I repeated firmly. “We just met one time.”

Jesus, I was lame.

Even if one of the boys hadn’t coughed some indiscernible word into his fist, it was clear I was lying, especially when Ace raised an eyebrow at me.

The eight of us stood there in awkward silence, until thankfully, Beulah broke it.

“Did you boys need something? Or were you coming to say hi?”

“Came to see if you wanted a selfie,” Tanner grinned, making everyone laugh except me, because while I was looking at Beulah, all I could feel were Ace’s eyes on me, boring into me like lasers. “Nah. Actually, Mr. Shepherd’s looking for you both. We said we were heading out to the grounds and he asked us to find you. He said you’re not answering your phones.”

Beulah rolled her eyes. “Where is he?”

“On the field.”

“Thanks, we’ll go and find him.”

I turned to Kit and handed her my cardboard box of fried chicken. “Can you hold this for me? I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Sure,” she replied with a broad grin I pursed my lips at, and took off as fast as my shoes would let me.

“Payton! Wait up!”

I groaned quietly at the deep voice behind me. I should have kept to the safety in numbers, as I turned to see Ace jog slowly toward me and stop.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“What’s up?” He frowned slightly, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his trackpants. I tried not to stare at the way it made his Lions shirt stretch wide across his chest, or the way his massive biceps flexed.

“Yeah,” I took another step. “What’s up?”

“I guess I wanted to say hi, and tell you I had a good time the other night.”

“Oh, me too,” I smiled, letting out the breath I’d been holding as I tried my best to sound as sincere as I felt, because there were certainly worse ways to end an evening than wrapped around a professional baseball player, especially one who looked like Ace.

But you know what they say? Never meet your celebrity crush… or something along those lines.

“Yeah?” he asked, pinning me with those big blue eyes. Up close in broad daylight they were so much brighter, hypnotic almost, and I forced myself to blink before I fell into a trance. “Then how come you left me alone?”

It took me a second to register his words before I burst out laughing. “Because I had to go to work.”

“Oh.” His shoulders relaxed slightly. “You could have woken me up. I’d have sent you off with a smile.”

“Oh… well, you know… I was in a hurry.”

His gaze narrowed at me, and I’d be willing to bet all of Penn’s billions that Ace was currently in a situation he’d never been in before.

He shifted his feet. “Payton, did you not have a good time with me?”

“Yes,” I replied, slowly. “I told you I did.”

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