“Hi, this is Clover. How was the game?”
Clover groaned. “They’re down by three in the bottom of the eighth.”
“Ouch.” Maddie cringed. “Maybe don’t mention the game.”
“Right!” Clover threw her arms in the air as if the fact that she couldn’t talk baseball was proof enough of her dilemma.
“Just be … cool.”
Her hopes crashed as low as the Redrocks’ winning percentage. “I am the least cool person I know. I’m the least cool personyouknow.”
“Thatisa problem.” Maddie leaned against the desk, deep in thought.
Clover scowled. “Why are we friends, again?”
Maddie tipped her head. “Because I’m good with your crazy, and you’re good with my weird eating habits.”
Clover snorted. “Right, like Celiac puts you on the same level of weird as the girl raised by a gypsy.”
“You make that sound so exotic.” Maddie threw her hair over her shoulder. “I’m trying to decide if you want me to talk you into texting him or talk you out of it.”
“Both,” Clover ventured.
“Let’s flip a coin.” She patted her hips as if checking her pockets—not that her skirt had any pockets, but it was a cute gesture. Everything about Maddie was cute. Arg! Why did her friend have to be so effortlessly fun and adorable? It only made Clover feel more like a hippopotamus in the dating pool.
Clover turned in time to take in Dustin’s last at bat. He struck out swinging at an outside pitch. He was inconsistent with the outside balls. Inside pitches, he could read like a billboard. She groaned. “How is it possible for a man to drive me crazy and keep me wanting more?”
“Chemistry.”
“We are not chemical.” Although the way he’d looked at her last night, with his fingers brushing her skin, that had some definite sparks going.
“How does he smell?” asked Maddie as she emptied the contents of her purse on the counter, apparently still looking for a coin.
“Through his nose,” quipped Clover.
“No.” Maddie laughed. “Does he smell good?”
“Like soap and something … sport manly.” She breathed out a sigh, thinking about being close enough to Dustin to know that.
Maddie grinned, incredibly pleased Clover’s description. “He’s drawing you in with his sport manly pheromones. That is totally chemistry. And you can’t resist.”
“I can too.”
“But you don’t want to.”
Clover bit her tongue to keep from telling the truth. She didn’t want to fight the draw she felt for Dustin—it was unlike anything she’d felt before, and it made her do crazy things like run into his garage in the middle of the night. Not that she was going to do that again. That was borderline crazy-fan mania and definitely outside of the average girl’s rules of etiquette.
The game ended with the Redrocks slumping into the dugout and the fans trudging up the stairs. Her heart dropped two floors in disappointment. She’d wanted them to win this one.
Maddie broke through her baseball trance. “Look, if your pheromones have the same effect on him, then it doesn’t matter what you text—he’ll be happy to get an emoji.”
Clover considered Maddie’s words of wisdom. She made some sense. Clover wouldn’t care if Dustin asked what the weather was; she’d bounce off the walls to discuss the wind. “Have I ever told you what a good friend you are?”
Maddie laughed. She set a quarter on the desk, heads up. “I don’t think we need that anymore.”
Clover laughed. “Fine. I’ll text him after work.” From the blog post she’d read, she’d learned that Dustin would have a full buffet dinner with the team after the game, and the option to get in a workout and a rubdown. She wondered how long he planned to stay, and then decided she’d send the text and find out.
Chapter Twenty
