Page 72 of The Shake Off

“I’m not where I want to be yet, but I’m closer than I was at the start of the season.”

A low rumble of laughter rolled through my audience.

“What’s changed for you over the last three weeks?”

“I’m hanging out less in the bullpen, that’s for sure. My ass isn’t quite so numb from sitting on the bench.”

This time the laughter was a little louder, especially as Tanner and Parker walked by at that exact moment, Tanner offering up a “He’s got a great ass though.”

“Anything else? What’s been the turnaround for you?”

My mind blanked. Blank except for Payton. For the entire game, whenever I needed to block out the noise, she became the central point I held onto.

She’d become the calm in my chaos.

My focus.

“I reevaluated what I needed to do to achieve what I wanted. I had some strong words spoken to me, and I listened.”

“Can you elaborate on that?”

“Not really.” I shook my head, using a response I’d learned from years of watching Jupiter deal with the media. Not that he ever really offered up more than a grunt, but sometimes words came out. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to hit the showers.”

Smoothing my fingers over my beard, I held my cheeks in place so the broad grin I could feel escaping didn’t give me away. I didn’t think Payton would appreciate it if I mentioned her name.

She probably wasn’t watching anyway.

THIRTEEN

PAYTON

“Yes. Yes, I saw his press conference.” I sighed for what felt like the fiftieth time. “I saw it live, and I saw it again when you sent it to me the next morning, and every day since.”

“He’s crediting her for turning his game around,” Kit called from the confines of the dressing room to any one of our friends who were listening.

Who am I kidding, they were all listening.

I rolled my eyes. To be fair, I was surprised it had taken this long for the subject to be brought up, but we hadn’t seen each other for a couple of weeks, and sometimes more important things took priority over a friend’s sex life – namely shopping. I wish she’d keep her voice down a notch though, but she was replying to Beulah who was two dressing rooms over.

Me? I was sitting on the giant ottoman in the middle of the changing room, refereeing this conversation. I’d given up shopping an hour ago, which was unusual for me because it used to be one of my favorite ways to relax, but nothing had quite hit the spot today.

“No, he’s not,” I interrupted. “He said he listened to some strong words. That could be August Chase for all we know.”

“They were your words,” Lowe said as she opened her dressing room door, wearing a long, white maxi-dress covered in large blue flowers, and twirled in front of the floor to ceiling mirror on the other side of the room. “What do you think of this?”

“It’s beautiful. It suits you,” I smiled. “What do you want to wear it for?”

She shrugged. “Penn and I have a ton of parties to attend this summer, and I realized this week that I don’t have anything to wear.”

“I doubt that,” I grinned, “but you should still get it.”

Lowe had an enviable wardrobe, and a limitless budget. I’d seen that dress she was trying on when we’d walked in, and the price tag was more than my monthly rent. The only place I came close to rivalling her was my shoe collection, but that was because I spent all my money on shoes and had nothing left for anything else.

“Seriously, I haven’t been shopping like this since last year.” She twirled in the mirror again, checking out the crossed straps at the back. “Okay, I’m getting this. Anyway, what were we saying about you saving Ace’s game?”

“We weren’t. And might I remind you all he was also the one who accused me of breaking his game in the first place?”

“Semantics!” someone called, possibly Kit again.

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