Page 393 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

Andrew coughs into his Gatorade, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Relax.”

Peter shakes his head, amused. “Nah. You brought her to the dome, bro. This is serious.” He jerks his chin toward the stands. “You gonna sit her in the girlfriend section, too?”

Wait.

The girlfriend section?

I spin on my heel until⁠—

Fuck. The girlfriend section.

Two rows up on the bleachers.

Five, maybe six girls in North Face and matching black yoga pants, hands attached to Stanleys and iced coffee. One of them’s peeling a clementine over a paper towel laid across her knees. Another’s whispering under her lashes, their gazes turning predatory whenever a guy stops to stretch his hamstrings.

Girlfriends. Wives. The fan club.

My future flashes before my horrified eyes… ones that instantly sprint back to Andrew.

I feel the color drain from my face.

“You got life entirely fucked.”

Andrew side-steps into my line of sight, boxing everyone else out. “Stop, stop, stop,” he murmurs, cutting off my thoughts before they commit murder. “Before you start.”

I inch back. “I wasn’t gonna start.”

“You were born startin’.”

His hand lifts, reaching for my face,

to comfort,

to pull me closer,

to wipe Boston kreme from my lip,

but I’ll never know

‘cause his hand stalls halfway.

His focus dead-ends over my shoulder,

his mercy melting.

His hand falls to the strap around his chest, and he slides the folding chair bag off his shoulder, gaze pointed to the open space behind the makeshift dugout as he hands it off to me. “Sit there. Sit up there. Sit wherever you want, aight? Don’t gotta make it a whole thing.”

Before I can open my mouth to argue, he lunges forward, snagging Peter by the arm as he stalks past. “Hey, man—who we playin’?”

Peter pops gum into his mouth.

“Bronx.”

I turn, following the blade that is Andrew’s stare.

On the opposite side of the field stands the same guy from the sign-in line. He’s leaning against an equipment cage, a bat draped over his shoulder, throwing his head back as he laughs with a few of his friends.

“Okayyy…” my voice trails off, eyes still on the guy. “He your secret boyfriend I don’t know about?”