11. Nessa

Nessa

Roasters 95–61

B aseball was boring.

There, I said the thing that was on all forty-two thousand fans’ minds. And it had to be true, mostly because I refused to believe that many people were enjoying this.

What was enjoyable about loud, obnoxious crowds, plastic seating that had clearly not been designed for a size twenty-two body, and subpar snack foods? My hazelnut latte from the on-site coffee roastery was the one exception. It had the precise nut-to-milk ratio that Jo had never been able to perfect, not that I would ever tell him so.

Pink hurled another ball toward home plate. According to the scoreboard, he had already thrown close to seventy pitches, and we were only five innings deep. The ball landed in Bennett’s mitt, making the batter wince and the fans go wild.

“What happened?” I asked when the roars died down.

“Strike three,” June explained. “You know, if you’re going to date a baseball player—”

“Pretend to date a baseball player.”

“—you might want to learn the basic rules of the game.”

She wasn’t wrong. What was worse was I had already spent nearly two hours this afternoon researching rules, teams, and individual players’ statistics. A few things had stuck, but not enough to understand the umpire’s incoherent hand gestures.

June knocked the bill of my new Roasters cap, the one that she had insisted I buy even though it cost more than a week’s worth of lattes. And even though copper-haired queens weren’t supposed to wear red, I couldn’t deny that it looked cute as fuck on me.

“Believe me, I’m trying.”

Here was what I had learned so far. Baseball pitchers didn’t pitch every day, which was news to me. Not only that, but there were several types of pitchers. Starters, relievers, closers—or were they finishers?

I guess they don’t have the . . . stamina of starters.

From what little information I had absorbed, I knew one thing for sure—Jared was a star. Like, a once in a generation, history in the making, three hundred dollar jerseys kind of star.

“Not arrogant, angel. Confident.”

The Roasters were good, but Jared was great, and that really burned my britches, as Granny Gibbs used to say. All this time, I had assumed he was writing checks that that big ass mouth of his couldn’t cash. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case. The man was incredible at what he did.

He made the game look effortless, like anybody could do it, even though I knew that wasn’t the case. What surprised me most was his unwavering concentration. Nothing fazed him. If anything, the crowd’s energy fueled his fire.

He also didn’t look awful in pinstripes. Okay, that was a gross understatement. The truth was, it should have been illegal to look that good in baseball pants.

“Who wants a churro bite?”

I looked up from Jared’s ass in time to see Kaylani and Ryan slide back into their seats, each of them carrying an overflowing tray of carbs. Thankfully, June was ready for the bag of churro bites that Kaylani tossed in our direction; I sure wasn’t. There was a reason I had never taken a liking to baseball—my hand-eye coordination was severely lacking.

“Dang, Ness.” Kaylani kicked her feet up on the cement median, the only thing separating us from the field. “When Jared said he would hook us up with good seats, he wasn’t exaggerating. I can practically taste the pine tar.”

Note to self: Google pine tar later.

“No kidding,” I said around a smile.

“Ryan’s firm has a luxury suite at Madison Square Garden, but we’ve never been this close to the action.”

“I still can’t believe you became a lawyer,” June teased. “Does your firm know about your senior prank?”

“No,” Ryan answered before tearing into his soft pretzel. “And they never will.”

As their farewell gift to Rose City High, Ryan and his cronies had organized a senior class sleepover . . . in the principal’s front yard. Mr. Lee had gotten one hell of a surprise when he’d walked outside to get the paper the next morning, only to find three dozen teenagers camped out on his lawn.

“By the way, Ness, what are you wearing to the benefit?”

I chewed on Kaylani’s question, along with a bite of churro that had me reconsidering my assessment of ballpark snacks.

“Benefit?” I asked after swallowing.

“The charity benefit at the end of the season,” she offered, staring at me with a puzzled expression that no doubt matched my own. “For Swing for the Fences. Don’t tell me you’re not going.”

I quickly racked my brain and sadly came up blank. Swing for the Fences was the Roaster’s charity organization—and Clarke’s pet project—but this was the first I had ever heard of a benefit. That didn’t bode well for me and Jared’s ruse.

“Of course, I am,” I lied. “Are you?”

“Yes! Ryan’s firm is one of the event sponsors.”

Well, wasn’t that just in-fucking-convenient? Was there anything this guy didn’t have a free ticket to?

“And I’m wearing this super sexy, purple dress with, like, no back.”

Ryan wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tugging her into his side. “Why haven’t I seen this dress?”

“All in good time, my love.”

He dropped a hard kiss on her lips.

After spending the first half of the game with them, I couldn’t deny what was staring me dead in the face—Ryan had changed. He was sweet, attentive, and emotionally mature beyond his years, just like somebody else I knew but was reluctant to admit aloud.

Most importantly, he was crazy in love with Kaylani, and really, that was the only thing that mattered. That didn’t mean I had forgiven his actions. It was going to take more than a couple hours and a few bites of churro to change my mind about him, but I was starting to come around.

“You know,” Kaylani said when she settled back into watching the game. The Roasters were up by two runs, but there was still one out to go with runners on second and third.

Wow, that sounded very baseball of me.

“We could go dress shopping in Portland this weekend, if you’re free?”

“I have to open the store on Saturday, but I could probably do Sunday.” On second thought, maybe I was getting ahead of myself. I didn’t even know if Jared was planning to attend this benefit thing, so I probably shouldn’t be organizing shopping trips to Portland.

“Let me check with Jared first, though.” I paused before tacking on, “He might already have plans for us.”

“Aw, that’s so cute,” Kaylani mooned.

“How did the two of you meet?” Ryan asked.

Finally, a question I knew the answer to. And I didn’t even have to lie.

“We met at a nightclub in Portland.”

“A nightclub? You?” Kaylani asked.

I held my cinnamon-coated fingers up in front of me. “Believe me, it was not my idea.”

Kaylani knew I wasn’t a clubbing kind of gal, not even in my twenties. But when Clarke had insisted on a night out—specifically to find her some casual dick—June and I had earnestly tagged along. Instead of a one-night stand, Clarke had gone home with the Roasters’ third baseman—and never left. I, on the other hand, had spent the night dodging flirty glances and pickup lines from the man that was now my fake boyfriend.

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 of Dateline , 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.

Maybe baseball wasn’t so boring, after all.