Page 136 of Wild Catch
“Yup.” I grin radiantly at Logan and snuggle carefully into his left side. It was best that I sat here so that he could put his arm around me—like he has it right now—without aggravating his strained shoulder, but also so that I can protect his bruised side from anyone accidentally bumping into it.
He’s trying to school his expression but keeps failing. His eyebrows twitch with the desire to furrow, yet his lips want to smile. It’s interesting to see that I can cause so many emotions on someone, but especially on this particular guy.
“So just to clarify,” he says in his deep voice, only for me, while his hand casually feels the contour of my shoulder under the sleeve of the Orlando Wild jersey with his name and number. “We could’ve gone to any of the amusement parks, or a Michelin starred restaurant, or the beach, or even another city altogether—and what youreallywanted was to watch a Wild baseball game with me?”
“That’s correcto, mi amor.” I reach over with a kernel of popcorn and bring it to his mouth.
Logan’s eyes narrow but he opens his mouth and I drop the popcorn in it. Except that the sneaky man captures my finger.
“Logan…”
“Hmm?”
He’s not biting hard at all, just enough to keep my finger prisoner. But then he closes his lips around it and I feel his tongue lick at the salt on the pad of my finger.
I gasp and glance around. “Oh my word, what if someone’s watching?”
He grabs my whole hand and brings it against his lips, placing an otherwise sweet kiss on the palm. “Let them.”
“What if we get on the kiss cam?” I ask, pretending to be grumpy about the idea.
“Then we give them a show.”
I shake my head and return to eating my popcorn. “Looking forward to it.”
His body vibrates with a silent chuckle.
A few fans turn to look at us none too discreetly and I can’t blame them. It must be bizarre to see Logan on this side of the park instead of on the diamond, making the mastermind calls he’s famous for. But it’s been a week since he got bulldozed and everyone knows he’s only coming back to play in a month at the earliest. With a low key injury like his, he’d normally be watching the home games from the dugout or even the broadcasting area, but I hijacked him instead for our first official girlfriend and boyfriend date.
Yeah, we decided to not screw around and just put labels on it already. It’s not like this is our literal first date.
“So, how does it feel like to be watching the game from here?” I ask him, munching on popcorn with little elegance.
He sticks his hand in the bucket and grabs a handful. Before biting into it, he says, “Weird. Like I assume this is how it’ll feel like whenever I’m retired.”
“Have you thought about what you’ll do when that time comes?” I pick up the gigantic cup of soda we bought for the two of us and offer it to him.
His eyes stay on the play as he sips from the drink. Miguel is stepping up to the plate for his at bat, and the whole place is electric with the collective knowledge that something amazing is about to happen.
While Logan isn’t buzzing, he’s attentive, his mind clearly calculating outcomes and possibilities. I almost think he might’ve forgotten my question until he speaks. “I’ll join the coaching staff and climb my way up to manager one day.”
“I can see that. That big brain of yours can’t possibly go to waste.”
“What about you?” He tears his eyes away a second before Miguel’s bat connects and the ball flies like an explosive cannon. The crowd goes absolutely feral, people jumping to their feet all around us. And yet Logan doesn’t care about that, he saw what he needed to see and his attention is now fully on me.
What a weirdo. And maybe I’m one too, because his antics make my tummy flutter.
“What about me?”
“Didn’t we fake date for the sake of a promotion? What happened to that?”
My feel-good hormones wane and I slump. “Turns out that wasn’t a done deal. I’ll still have to apply when Steve Boateng retires.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a done deal.” He jerks his thumb at the fans that keep peeping at us. “Those people aren’t just looking at me. You’re the face of the team now as well, you know?”
“But—”
“No buts.” He grabs my chin, turning my face toward him. “Also, the kiss cam is on us.”
