Diego grins. “I don’t pitch.”
I smile at him. “That’s okay. I don’t bat.”
His face erupts with a smile so big that it’s impossible not to smile back. “Waverly’s taking meto a party,” he says out of the corner of his mouth to Cooper.
“Lucky duck,” Cooper replies as he moves to squat behind home plate, giving Levi some kind of signal that’s probablyI’m not touching her.
Dammit.
All this opportunity, and he won’t take it.
I’ve spent the past month dropping hints to anyone who’ll listen that I’m open to dating again, but I haven’t found anyone who’s caught my eye.
Not the way my past has.
“Is Diego always that cheerful?” I ask Cooper.
“Always,” he confirms. “Best thing to ever happen to the Fireballs. He really is. You’re gonna wanna choke up on the bat.”
I blink at him. “Choke up?”
“See how your left hand is right at the bottom end of the bat?”
I look at the bat. “Yes.”
“Slide both of your hands up about four inches.”
I slide a look at him.
He’s straight-faced, like he’s not telling me how to hold a bat, which I’m gripping about the same way I grippedhisbat a few times many years ago.
I creep my fists slowly up the bat, stretching and flexing my fingers and basically molesting the barrel of the bat. “Like this?”
His Adam’s apple bobs. “Yes—no. Stop there. Back down about two inches.”
“You messing with her swing, Rock?” Levi calls.
“Hush. I’m sabotaging the enemy,” Cooper calls back. “Team Levi here, remember?”
“How do I line up to the plate?” I ask. “Like this, right?”
I tilt my upper half over the plate, bending my knees and sticking my butt out.
Levi swipes his forearm over his mouth, his eyes dancing like he’s trying not to laugh. “Knees apart, Waverly,” he calls.
“Maybe I hit really well like this,” I yell back.
“Cooper,help her,” Zoe wails.
I’m openly flirting with danger. IwantCooper to step behind me, line his chest up to my back, wrap his arms around mine, and show me how to hold and swing a baseball bat.
I don’t want to marry the man, but I have an itch and I want to scratch it.
“This is about fun, not scoring,” I tell Zoe as I adjust my stance again.
Ingrid’s next to her, and her eyes tell me she doesn’t believe me.
And she shouldn’t.
