Page 70 of The Shake Off

“No,” he huffed, in a way that made it clear he did. “But where were you?”

Lux was too engrossed in whatever bit he’d got to in the masturbation guide to look up at Parker, thumbing to the next page as he replied, “I messaged to say I was coming for an early workout, and I left you breakfast.”

Parker’s eyes flicked to mine. “What about you?”

I bent down to finish tying my sneakers. “I had an errand to run.”

“What sort of errand?” Parker asked as he opened his locker door, retrieving a glove and ball. “You don’t run errands.”

“A none of your business errand.”

“Oh,” he snorted, “that sort of errand.”

I looked at my watch. If I was correct, my little secret had lasted all of twenty minutes, because any second, Lux would want to know what we were talking about. The dude missed nothing. He was also the nosiest person I’d ever met.

Lux snappedCosmoshut and looked up at me. “What are you two talking about?”

“Payton.”

“Who’s that?”

I sighed. “Remember when I came home after I’d hooked up with that girl, and she’d left me in bed?”

Lux nodded, his eyes widening when I didn’t offer up any more information. “Her? The yips chick?”

“Yep.”

“Heads up!” Parker called from where he was now standing on the other side of the locker room, and tossed me the ball. “She’s the reason why we’ve all been reading lady magazines.”

“What?” Lux peered down at theCosmoon his lap. “I’m so confused.”

“Make some sense, will you?” I grumbled, lobbing the ball back to Parker. “And I didn’t hear that girl complaining about it in D.C.”

“You’re right, she didn’t,” Parker grinned, because Lux wasn’t the only one who’d been trying to hone his bedroom skills.

The ball flew through the locker room again. Lux’s hand shot out and caught it before I could.

“Time out.”

I sighed and removed the ball from his fist. “The very essence of my manhood was questioned, and it affected my pitch.”

“And this girl who broke you has helped you find it again? That’s how you got your pitch back?”

I held Lux’s confused stare and nodded. “Bingo.”

“And what’s that got to do with this?” He wavedCosmoin front of my face.

“If I excel at sex, then I’ll excel at pitching,” I replied simply, expecting him to scoff at my theory, but he didn’t.

Instead, he sat back, his head resting against the locker. “Interesting. That’s very interesting.”

“Yeah? You think?”

“Yeah. Have you got anything to back it up already?”

“Only the game when Coach put me back in for the final Red Sox game and I threw those fastballs.”

“You had sex before the game?”

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