Page 43 of The Baller

“Does it?”

I shook my head slowly. “No. It’s never happened before.” Before I could stop them, my shoulders were shaking from the laugh I was trying to hold in. “I can’t believe you thought Jake was a creeper. You should know the guys still haven’t let him forget it.”

“I’m sure he’s happy about that.”

“Not really.”

Lux’s face split wide. This time, the vibration of his laugh reached all the way from my head to my toes. The ache in my core became more pronounced. I sipped my hot chocolatefor distraction… for anything… only I’d finished it, and the minute I thought we’d been standing here must have been nearer ten. Ten minutes I’d been outside on the street, and it hadn’t once occurred to me to move inside for privacy.

“Are you ready?” Lux removed the empty cup from my fingers, and threw it in a nearby trashcan.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“They coming too?” he asked, thumbing over to Ethan and Meg.

“No, they’ll stay there.”

He peered down at me, his eyes narrowed as if there was something important on the tip of his tongue. Before I could ask what it was, he jogged across the street, saying, “Gimme a sec,” over his shoulder.

I watched as he stopped in front of them, his head bent slightly. They weren’t that far away, but he was talking too quietly for me to hear, and I was too shocked to move. This was only the third time I’d met this strange man, this major league baseball player, this sports hero – or every day hero – and each time he’d surprised me into silence. When he shook both their hands and jogged back across the road to me, my mouth had dropped open.

“Ready?” he asked like nothing had happened.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” He winked and pushed the door open; his hand spanned across my back to guide me in, and before I could stop myself, I melted into his touch and totally forgot to ask what he’d said to Meg and Ethan.

The door slammed closed behind us, and we were shrouded in darkness.

“Asher? Ash?” Lux called out, his hand still on the small of my back, preventing me from seizing up completely. “Ash?”

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I noticed bookshelves for the first time; bookshelves filled with old books. I knew we were coming to a bookstore, but this wasn’t what I’d been expecting.

This wasn’t any bookstore.

To start with, there were no people in here.

Secondly, those old books didn’t look like the type you pulled off the shelf. They were more like the ones I shouldn’t have been touching in Brown’s – the ones under lock and key.

Just as Lux opened his mouth to call one more time, a small door opened in the corner and a beam of light shot through the tiny space. On instinct, I took one step closer to Lux, which is when I noticed the room wasn’t black, but rich mahogany with leather padding running along the length of the back wall.

I might have travelled back in time walking down the street, and now I felt like I was in the middle of a speakeasy from the twenties.

“Stop hollering, you’ll wake the neighbors!”

“You need to walk quicker then, don’t you?” Lux snapped back, and while I couldn’t see his face, his tone was all amusement, because the days of walking quickly were well behind this gentleman.

He had to be eighty if he was a day, and that was being generous. Even with a shock of thick grey hair any sixty-year-old would kill for, his right hand was gripped around the ball of a heavy silver topped cane, his wrinkled knuckles protruding from pink skin.

“I’m eighty-nine, I walk as quickly as I want to. We can’t all be sprintin’ around bases!”

Lux’s head fell back with a loud laugh, stepping forward to hug him. “Good to see you, Ash.”

“I saw you yesterday. Don’t talk like it’s been months.” He pointed his cane at me. “Is this the girl you called me about?”

I wasn’t sure if Lux could feel me bristle next to him, because in the next breath, he’d turned to me and said, “I didn’t tell him about youyou;just that I wanted to bring a guest and we needed privacy.”

“Asher Lyman,” the gentleman greeted and held his hand out. “Good to meet you. Your associates outside came for a little look around before you arrived.”

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