Page 89 of The Shake Off

I didn’t get an answer, because he was already standing in front of Marnie. “Hey, there’s the most beautiful star in the sky,”

She grinned up at him. “Hey. Nice game out there today.”

“Yeah? I’ll catch you another ball next time we’re in field.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in for a kiss.

Pretty sure there was something in the rule book about kissing field-side, and if there wasn’t, there should be.

“Jupiter!” Marnie snapped, immediately jumping back up, spinning around to make sure no one had seen. “At least pretend we’re professionals.”

He chuckled. “Where’s the fun in that?”

I turned around so I didn’t have to watch their inappropriate displays of affection, though it wasn’t bothering me as much as it usually did. Maybe I’d gotten too used to it. On second thoughts, was I finding it kind of… cute?

I shook that thought away and went back to the baseball.

“Anyway, Ace…”

My ears perked up, and I tore my eyes away from Saint Velasquez, The Lions’ right field, who was taking his time to get to the batter’s box because he and Stone Philips had a bet going on who could get there the slowest without a time penalty.

So far, Stone was in the lead with .95 of a second to spare, but this would be close.

At least Jupiter was standing further away when I turned around.

“Hey, Doc, what’s up?”

“Can I check your heart monitor?”

“Sure.” Pulling up my shirt, I peeled it off and handed it to her with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, it’s sweaty.”

“It should be,” Jupiter added, leaning against the tunnel wall to watch the game as Marnie crouched down to hook the monitor up to her laptop.

When Marnie had joined The Lions last year, she’d introduced a new material which Penn immediately ordered our uniforms to be made from. The material contained tiny sensors which monitored our sweat rates, oxygen levels, and hydration, among other things, in real time, so she could adjust accordingly during the game. It’s part of what had been credited to us reaching the Playoffs last year, when The Lions had never made it further from the bottom of the standings.

This year, we’d also been fitted with disposable heart monitors embedded into a patch which we stuck to our chests before each game, to monitor our blood pressure and heart rates when we were both fielding and pitching. The overall purpose had been to personalize each of our training and nutrition programs so we could optimize our capabilities.

Since we’d been following her guidance, injuries in the club were down nearly seventy-five percent.

My eyes were flicking between the diamond where Saint was now on second base and Tanner was up to bat, and Marnie’s screen lit up with a graph covered in wavy green and red lines.

“Are you feeling okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah, fine, other than pissed at being pulled out.”

“You don’t feel faint?”

I peered down to Marnie in confusion. “No. Why would I feel faint?”

“Your heart rate is lower than it normally is. It’s been lowering all week, except when you sat down just now and it shot up, which made no sense, but I guess if you’re pissed, that would explain it,” she mumbled, though it was so quiet I wasn’t sure she was still talking to me, especially as she was still fiddling around with the screen.

“Doc?”

“Sorry.” She pushed her glasses onto her head, and turned to me. “During Spring Training, your heart rate averaged around one forty when you pitched.” She tapped the screen and the lines on the graph changed from green and red to blue. “See? This is March.” She tapped the screen again and the red lines came back. “Now this is the beginning of the season. Opening Day and your heart rate spiked at one seventy when you were on the mound. You were pumping adrenaline.” Another tap, and this time green lines reappeared. “It leveled out a bit during April, but since last Monday, it’s been consistently dropping back closer to one forty. Then today, you started at one thirty-seven, but when you came off just now you were one twenty-five… until you sat down.”

“You got all this from those patches?”

She nodded. “Yeah. We’re still testing them, so I wanted to check if it was faulty or if you weren’t feeling good. You look okay.”

“I feel okay.” I scratched through my beard. “What’s Reeves’ average?”

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