Page 51 of Treat

“Bonding?” Esme guessed as Tuck picked Jude up and spun him in a dizzying circle, laughing like a clown.

“Oh. Sure.”

“We don’t have to go to the game if it’s going to be a problem,” Esme began, and Brynn shook her head.

“It’s no problem at all,” Brynn said as Tuck finally set Jude down. “We should go, though.”

With his feet on the floor again, Jude planted a hand on the counter to keep the room from continuing to spin without him. “I have to get my mitt. Glove.”

“You have a glove?” Brynn asked.

He lifted his hand from the counter, pleased when he kept his balance, and did his best to look affronted. “Of course, I have a glove.”

“Since when?” Tuck wanted to know.

“None of your business,” Jude muttered. “It’s down in my truck.”

Tuck grinned. “Then I guess you’re driving.”

“I’ve already got a car waiting, actually,” Brynn said, her eyes invisible behind the oversized sunglasses. “I thought, you know, to avoid parking…”

“And no need to limit our beer consumption,” Tuck put in. “I like her, Jude.”

I like her, too, Jude thought and wished he could see her eyes.

“Speaking of beer, you’re buying,” Tuck continued.

“Says who?” Jude asked.

“Says me, because I’ve been holding off making fun of that mustache for—” Tuck followed Brynn and Esme into the hall, checking his watch, “—at least six minutes, and I deserve a fucking reward.”

Jude let the apartment door swing shut behind him. “I can’t believe I’ve missed you.”

Tuck wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “I’ve missed you too, bud. So, did you lose a bet, or what?”

Brynn had never beenthis miserable at a baseball game. She was sitting in the best seats she’d ever had—right between the on-deck circle and the visitor’s dugout on the first base side—the Tigers had a four-run lead heading into the bottom of the sixth, and Jude’s first pitch couldn’t have gone better. She’d expected some awkwardness, and she’d have bet her newly flush bank account that he hadn’t thrown a baseball since Little League. He had no poker face and hadn’t fooled her a bit with thatI’m a professional athlete, I can throw a ballbit. But he’d pulled it off, managing to get the ball over the plate, look both competent and charmingly out of his element all at once, and drew enough cheers of both recognition and appreciation that she’d had to put her phone on mute in the first inning due to all the social media notifications.

So she should’ve been happy, or at the very least pleased. But it was hot, she was sexually frustrated and emotionally confused, and for the first time in her life, genuinely couldn’t give a rat’s fat ass about baseball.

“Damn, that was a good throw,” Tuck said beside her, and she glanced over to watch him record the out in the scorebook he had in his lap. She’d passed it to him in the third inning when it became clear that she was too distracted to keep track.

On his other side, Esme peered over his shoulder. “Who’s up next?”

“Bridges,” Tuck and Brynn both said.

“Hot bat,” Tuck added. “He’s hitting five-fifty since the all-star break.”

“Well, that’s just ridiculous,” Esme declared.

“It is,” Brynn agreed while Tuck grinned at his wife.

“You’re so fucking sexy when you pretend to know what you’re talking about.”

“Hey, I know the sportsball,” Esme protested, giggling when Tuck snatched her up in a passionate kiss.

“Are they kissing still, or again?” Jude asked, appearing at the end of the row with his hands loaded down with food and drinks.

“Again,” Brynn said, grateful for the sunglasses that let her look her fill without being exposed. She pulled her knees in so he could walk past her to his seat on the other side of Esme. “They said they’re trying to get on the Kiss Cam.”

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