Frize is one of the Jetties’ Triple-A pitchers. He’s been up and down between The Show and the minors, and now spends most of his time in Triple-A, acting as a mentor to our fresh pitching talent.
He hands me the notebook, and I do a quick once-over to double-check—yup, no Jed Stone Jr. listed anywhere. I jot our names down and smile back at Frize. “All good.”
Now to let Mr. Grumpy Wumpy know. I sidle up to Stone. “Sup, Pebbles. You excited to play?”
He doesn’t turn from looking out at the ocean. “Looks like the signups are all set. I’ll join in next time.”
I let out a dramatic sigh. “Oh, Pebs. You think it’s that easy?”
His head snaps toward me.
“You better bring your A-game. I don’t like to lose.” I start walking backward, and his forehead furrows.
“Match one in five!” Frize yells. “Nebs, Winters,Michaels, and Stone vs Sanders, Putnam, Jones, and Messina.”
Stone’s jaw tics, and his lips go flat.
I bat my eyelashes like the fucking picture of innocence I am. “Come on, teammate. We’re up first!”
I spin on my heel and jog over to where Paulie and Easton are already on our side of the court. My chest thrums, adrenaline spiking. Apparently, pushing Stone’s buttons gives me a small high. Or maybe it’s the threat of death I’m feeling as Stone’s glare bores into my back.
Paulie shakes his head at me, his face split in a shit-eating grin. Easton, on the other hand, is looking at me wide-eyed, gaze pinging between me and over my shoulder.
“Damn it, Michaels. It’s like you want to give Stone every reason to hate you.” Paulie’s voice is laced with laughter.
I shrug. “I figure if he’s forced to be around me enough, I’ll start to rub off on him. You know how they say if you try something twenty-one times, you’ll start to like it? Pebbles just needs a taste of Shane-O twenty-one times, then he won’t be able to get enough of me.”
“Do you hear the things that come out of your mouth?” a low voice rumbles, and the hair on the back of my neck lifts.
Speaking of the devil.
Paulie’s and Easton’s laughter echoes around us as I turn my blinding smile on Stone. “Why, hello there. So glad you volunteered to be on our team.”
Stone mumbles something, and I think I catch, “volunteer is a generous word.”
We take our positions with Paulie serving for us first. He sends it over, and then it’s a total shit-show. It’s clear that the most any of these ballplayers know about volleyball isthat you’re supposed to hit it over the net and spike it like you’re Goliath. I know the rules—I’m a coastal Florida boy, after all—but not much good that does when the rest of my team doesn’t understand the goal isn’t to just hit the ball hard. It does need to, like, you know…land inside the lines.
I swear it’s just a mass of diving bodies and over-exaggerated spikes. A lot ofI am caveman, look at my big bicepsmoments. Speaking of—I duck, barely avoiding the line-drive straight for my face. It lands about twenty feet outside the lines.
We serve it back over, and the other team somehow manages a decent spike. Stone hits the sand on one knee and miraculously gets a fist under it, sending the ball rocketing upward. I shuffle under it, then set it up for Paulie, who spikes a bullet over the net. The other team gets a hand on it, but it sends the ball sailing out of bounds. There we go. That was almost like we were playing volleyball for a second.
I sneak a glance at Stone. His swim trunks are riding up his thick thighs, which are now covered in sand. His frown is firmly in place on that severe jaw. He’s all hard angles and hard stares. It’s impossible to tell if he’s having any fun, but he’s at least in this to win.
We trade the lead with the big boys a few times, but now we’re up by one with sixteen points. The game is to fifteen, but you have to win by two. It’s our serve and Easton sends this one over. We volley back and forth a few times, neither team able to set up a decent spike.
The ball comes back our way, and East lays out for a bump to Paulie, who sets it up for Stone to make a wicked spike. Sanders blocks it. I drop to my knees and get under it, sending it right back up to Stone—who fucking slams it down. Winning point, baby!
I grin up at Stone. His dark eyes catch on mine, chest heaving and glistening with sweat. His gaze slowly sweeps over me. Something passes over his face, something that sets my nerves on fire. My grin freezes. Images flash in fast-forward through my brain. Hot, sweat-slicked skin. Heavy-lidded dark eyes. Hands fisting hair. Lips parting. Thighs flexing.
I shoot to my feet and book it for the ocean. Shit, shit,shit. I throw myself in, letting the cool March water smack my overheated body back to reality. I’m sure everyone thinks I’ve lost my mind, but fortunately I’m always doing something wild, so no one will blink twice. Perks of being a ball of chaos.
I let the water swallow me and silence the world around me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t silence my thoughts. I’ve been having some realizations about myself over the past year or so. Fairly confident I’m not as straight as I once thought. I resurface, shaking out my hair and wiping the saltwater from my eyes. Easton’s heading my way, so I shoot him a smile. Everything’s fine over here. Not panicking because I almost popped wood over a teammate. Nope. Not at all.
“You good, Shane?” Concern coats Easton’s voice, and my heart squeezes.
Easton truly cares.About me. To the point where I don’t think he’d have given a damn that I grew up dirt poor. I learned early on how little I have to offer the world. My dad wasn’t the only one who walked away. I made friends easily enough growing up—being my school’s star baseball player had that effect—but those friendships never extended past the schoolyard. The second they saw where I lived, I stopped being someone worth knowing. Great to laugh and joke with on the field but never invited anywhere beyond it.
“Great,” I lie. “Just needed to cool down after the match.”
