It wasn’t that I hadn’t found Jared attractive; I had. If I was being honest with myself, I probably would have let him fuck me in the club bathroom had we met ten years earlier.
Except he would’ve been a teenager, and I didn’t want to be on an episode ofDateline, so forget that.
“Sounds like there’s something in the water in Rose City.”
The loud cries of the crowd had us spinning our heads back toward the field, just in time to see Jared and the third base runner both barreling toward home plate. I jumped out of my seat when they collided, the impact sending them both to the ground.
A dirt cloud erupted, circling them like a tornado. My hands shot up to catch the gasp that fell from my mouth. Since when was baseball a contact sport?
Get up. Get up. Please get up.
Jared rolled over to his back and pulled the ball from his glove, holding it up victoriously. Roasters’ fans went wild as he jumped to his feet and brushed himself off. While he smiled and hammed it up for the crowd, I tried to still my racing heart.
A hand gently massaged my shoulder. “Hey,” June murmured. “He’s okay, Ness.”
She continued stroking my back while I gathered myself and steadied my breathing. It didn’t take long—just long enough for the players to jog into their respective dugouts. Thankfully, Ryan and Kaylani had been too caught up in their conversation to notice my random and, frankly, unnecessary freak-out.
I had just finished regaining my composure when Jared trotted over from the dugout, hurdling me out of sync once again. Like he always did.
“Hiya.”
“Jared, what are you—”
“Got a gift for you, angel.”
He dropped the game ball into my lap—the one he had fought, quite literally, tooth and nail for—before jogging back the way he came. My focus skipped from him to the ball in my hands. More specifically, to the words he had scribbled on it sometime before finding me in the stands.
Glad to know you care, angel.
He punctuated the message with a hand-drawn winky face.
My eyes shot up to meet his just as he reached the dugout. He winked, motioning with his hand to roll the ball over. Curiosity got the best of me. I flipped the ball over and gasped for the second time in minutes.
Smile. You’re on TV.
Sure enough, I looked up only to find a larger-than-life version of myself looking back from the jumbotron. Good thing I’d brushed my hair today.
“Holy shit!” Kaylani cried. “We’re on the screen.”
June leaned over in her seat, whispering for my ears only, “You better do as the man says and smile.”
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling if I wanted to. The whole thing was just so outrageous, like something out of a romance novel. Heat radiated off my body. By the time the cameras cut away, my cheeks hurt from smiling so widely.
Things like this didn’t happen in real life. Not to me, at least.
That didn’t stop me from wrapping both hands around the ball and smoothing my fingers over the laces. The next time I looked toward the dugout, Jared was no longer smiling, but rather staring intently.
And he wasn’t the only one. June’s piercing glare was likely to burn a hole through me any second.
“Shut up,” I told her.
I was two seconds away from knocking that smug look off her face with what was left of my latte.
“I didn’t say anything.”
She didn’t have to. Her knowing glance said it all.
In one evening, I’d given away more than I cared to, surprising June, Jared, and even myself. He wasn’t supposed to be a genuine person, just as I wasn’t supposed to care. Nothing about our hairbrained scheme was “supposed to be,” and yet here I was, left rattled, once again, by another Jared Pink encounter. Only this time, I had a souvenir to prove it.
