Page 57 of The Moment They Can't Forget

“Go, Leaders!” the three women yelled and then turned to shake their butts. The men on the teams clapped and cheered.

“We’re playing ball here,” a woman from the Rattlers said, looking pissed.

Dan struck them out three great pitches later, and it was the Leaders turn to bat again. JD headed to sit with the others while Sawyer went to the plate.

“You okay?” JD stopped in front of Zoe.

“Yes, thank you,” she tacked on in a tight voice.

“Now tell me where you hurt.”

“What?”

“I can see you’re in pain, Zoe. Where does it hurt?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped. “Move back. You’re standing too close,” she then hissed.

“There’s a correct distance for us to stand when we’re together now?”

Her lips went into a tight line that told him she was in pain.

He wasn’t intentionally needling her; he just needed to know she was okay. “Tell me where you hurt.”

“Ribs, but do not tell my brothers. They’ll make a scene, and Mom will come down and yell at all of us.” She looked like a pissed-off teenager now, with her face bare of makeup and her cap on backward.

“Okay, but if you’re bleeding internally, you may need a doctor.”

“Ha-ha, and no, I don’t.”

“I’ll get Keller for you,” JD said, grabbing a bat when it was his turn.

“No, you won’t,” she said in an angry whisper. “I don’t need anyone getting anyone. It was an accident, and Beau apologized.”

JD ignored her and walked away. That fucker was going to pay, and if not by him, he knew one of her brothers would be out for revenge.

“They have three, and we have one. I’m not losing to any team that shithead is on,” Brody said to JD. He was captain for the day. “I hope you can bat as well as you can tattoo.”

“So far I’ve never connected with a ball in all the years I played, but there is always a first time, right?”

Brody groaned as JD walked up to the plate.

He eyeballed Beau Keller on first base. The feud between the Kellers and the Dukes usually made him smile for the small-town BS it was. But now he was joining it. No one knocked Zoe down and hurt her, and he’d examine just why that had angered him so much in, say, ten years.

“Strike one,” Bart called.

Damn, the Rattlers pitcher had whistled one in while he wasn’t concentrating.

“Come on, pretty boy!” Sawyer called. “Don’t you worry about your nails. We’ll have Nina fix them for you later.”

“Piss off, Duke,” JD snarled.

“Move those Macklemore x Air Jordan size 12.5s!” Cill called from the bleachers.

He flipped her the bird.

“I’ll strike you out if you use that gesture again, boy.”

“Sorry, Bart.”

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