Rand nearly snorts beer out of his nose. “If you’re talking about the Mathletes or the Academic Decathlon, then yes.”
“Ooooh, cute and brainy. I like that combination.”
“I likeyourcombination,” Rand leans in to kiss me. I forget all about the baseball game, our trap for Dash, and breathing. Yep. I forget about breathing for a hot second until my lungs complain, and we come up for air.
“Get a room, you two,” Mara’s high-pitched fake laugh brings me back to reality.
“Can’t help it,” Rand slings his arm around the back of my seat. “I’m crazy about my fiancée. It’s Newton’s Third Law. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. She pushes and pulls me to her. I can’t get enough.”
“I know what you mean,” Dash winks at me.
I think I’m going to throw up.
Mara glares at Dash. He holds up his hands. “Sorry, Mara, baby. I’m simply walking down Memory Lane with Lina.”
“Find another lane, Douchebag,” Rand growls.
Dickhead Dash laughs it off.
Maybe I wouldn’t push the heel of my hand into Dash’s nose and break it. Maybe I need to give him the one-two punch in the face or throat, like my sister-in-law Wysdom did to her ex-husband.
I need to change the subject before I begin taking my rage out on Dash’s face. “So, Dash. What are you doing for a living these days?”
“It’s so cool,” Mara gushes. “He’s a drug rep. He travels all over the country to sell drugs.”
“Mara, baby, we talked about this,” Dash leers. “Don’t interrupt when the grown-ups are talking.”
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
“Do you travel all the time?” Rand asks. If you didn’t know him better, you’d swear it was an off-hand remark. But I could feel the tension underneath the words.
“Quite a bit,” Dash shrugs.
“Must have made getting ready for the reunion a problem with him traveling last week,” I wink at Mara.
Mara shakes her head. “Oh, no. He was here all last week, helping me with all of the arrangements. Dash was such a helping hand. I couldn’t have gotten everything ready if it hadn’t been for him.”
Well, crap. If Dash had been in the Tampa area all week, he couldn’t have been in Washington, D.C., kidnapping my terrible anesthesiologist date. If indeed Dr. Baumann was abducted.
“Dash Malum, please report to the home team locker room,” a voice over the public address system booms. “Dash Malum, please report to the home team locker room for a surprise.”
“Oh! What do you think it is?” Mara claps.
Dash shrugs. “Probably season tickets, or money, or something. They must have heard how great I am.”
I try to smile at him but have a hard time not throwing up. When he’s out of the aisle and headed toward the locker room, Rand raises an eyebrow at me.
It’s showtime.
Chapter 36
“You never know when the God’s Honest Truth will kick you in the nuts.”
-Rand
When Dash leaves the row, Carolina gets up and takes his seat on the other side of Mara.
“So, how are you doing, Mara?” Carolina boxes her in.
