“Why are you so fidgety?” Logan says when we reach the short line.
I rip my attention from Scottie. “I’ve been cooped up in a car with you for three days. How could I not be?”
“You’re sure it’s not because you’re excited to see someone?”
“Who?” I ask innocently, as if my body isn’t perfectly in tune with her presence, as if I couldn’t find her in the room blindfolded.
“BROTHERS!” a voice calls, and we both spin around to see our sister’s boyfriend and the undisputed best player in Major League Baseball.
Cooper Freaking Kellogg.
He holds out his arms, like he’s waiting for us to run to him.
So I do.
“Coop!” I sprint toward him and jump into his outstretched arms like I’m his bride. He spins me around and then drops me to give Logan a hug. Logan quickly returns to the checkout counter—he’s probably worried about the front desk clerk giving our room away and that somehow leading to Doug canceling our spots on the 40-man. Because, you know, anxiety.
“Took you dorks long enough,” Coop says. “I’ve been waiting all day!”
“Why? What are you doing here so early?” I ask him. Pitchers and catchers always arrive earlier than other players. Coop doesn’t need to be here for days still.
Coop looks away, scanning the lobby of the lux resort, and my eyes follow his, an easy excuse to check on Scottie. She’s still at the table, fingers flying across the keyboard, but her face is tilted toward me, and I get the sense she’s been checking on me like I’ve been checking on her.
The problem is that I can sense Logan checking on me, too. His eyes don’t miss much. Especially not when I’m suddenly allergic to standing still. I force my eyes off Scottie, hoping it looks like I’m trying to absorb all the class in the joint.
As if I care.
The only thing in this entire building that matters is currently typing furiously on a laptop.
“I’m here early,” Coop is saying, “because I was a little distracted during the offseason, and the training equipment here is better than what I’ve got at home.”
“You moved to Chicago during the offseason,” Logan points out.
“Oh, I didn’t mean the equipment at the Firebirds’ stadium. I meant at my actual home.”
“Liesel asked you to come keep an eye on us, didn’t she?” Logan accuses with a shake of his head. “We’re six years older than you were when you got called up.”
“In fairness, Coop was a child,” I say. He was barely twenty. “Still is.”
“I’m three years older than you tweebs,” Coop says, using Liesel’s word for us—twin dweebs.
But Logan’s too annoyed to tease back. He hates when Liesel feels like she has to mother us. I’m usually too used to my family thinking I’m a dummy to get worked up over it, but right now, I kind of get where he’s coming from.
The idea of having two brothers keeping tabs on me in Arizona is even worse than one.
“Man, she really can’t stop micromanaging our lives,” Logan grumbles.
“Can you give her a bit more credit than that?” Coop asks, always defensive on our sister’s behalf. “I came early because the team has a new hitting coach, okay? You’re both big boys, and we’re very proud of you.”
Logan punches Coop’s shoulder. “Shut up.” But he’s smiling, at least.
Normally I like being around Coop, but with Scottie and me being in the same place at the same time, I would gladly punt him and my brother into space and not look back if it could give me ten uninterrupted minutes with her.
I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, and I can’t help glancing at Scottie, hoping it’s from her.
She’s looking down at her screen. Her lips are pressed together, like she knows exactly what she’s done to me with one text.
I want to check my phone so badly, I have to ball my hand into a fist. It wouldn’t matter to anyone in here except Logan, who has a habit of reading my texts or using his face to unlock my phone and go through my stuff.
