2. Shira

CHAPTER TWO

Shira

"All right, sounds like a good plan," John—no, Felix, his name is Felix—says.

Of course I looked it up after that fateful day at the club. I spent four weeks unable to do much while my ankle healed. Some of that was spent searching for everything there is to know about the rookie first baseman for the Boston Monsters. Felix Paquette . The name certainly fits him better than John .

Now I'm going to Florida with both of them. What do guys talk about on road trips? Baseball, probably. Food, definitely. That the last time I saw Felix, we kissed . Dancing teaches you that a man who gets what he wants, and one who doesn't, are often two entirely differently people. Who knows what Felix might say—or what Blake might do in response? That possibility beads sweat into the lines of my palms.

You know what would solve that? Pole grip spray, the kind we doused on our hands so we didn't slip off. A laugh bubbles within me like it's forcing its way up my throat. Don't giggle, don't giggle .

A few feet away, Felix is staring at me. Between his hat and the beard taking over most of his face, it's hard to read his expression. The beard is different—not-good different. Did you have a rough second half of the year too? A question I definitely can't ask in front of Blake.

I knew something like this could happen. It's absurd, right? I said goodbye to one ballplayer and meet another on the same team a few months later. I just figured, even with them being teammates, there wasn't a reason for me and Felix to spend time in close quarters.

But nothing is gonna be closer than a few days in the car I vowed Blake would never see.

So I just have to spend two or so days in a vehicle with the guy I'm dating and the guy I don't want him to worry about. Nothing real happened between me and Felix anyway.

Except that kiss you spent months thinking about.

Blake still has his arm around my waist. He squeezes me gently and kisses my hair. "Thanks, sweetheart."

The name slips out. He's called me that a few times, casually, in his Georgia accent that loses the t s in Atlanta. Sweetheart . What I could be—his girlfriend, maybe more. The day after we met, I spent a few hours Googling what being a baseball WAG is like, even going so far as to try to find Blake's exes, though they must all have private accounts. But the general vibe I got was the same answer over and over: Be flexible. Be accommodating. Be willing to put your life aside for his. I need to show him I can do all those things—that I'm good enough for him even if I know I'm not. "Of course, it's really no problem," I chirp. "It'll be fun!"

"Yeah," Felix says, "everyone says that about driving on Route 95. Fun ."

For real, bro? I want to snap. I put on my sweetest, most accommodating smile. I can be a nice, easygoing, well-mannered girl, even if it fucking kills me—the kind of partner Blake deserves.

"Who doesn't love a road trip?" I ask, as if I don't know Felix is being sarcastic. I smile at Felix, sugary sweet. Well, except for the glare. Just fucking roll with it.

"Great," Blake says. At least one of us sounds sincere. "Let's just grab our bags and head out."

Except the crowd is already five people deep around the baggage claim carousel. Even if my bag comes down, there's no way I'll be able to see it. I hop up, attempting to get a view—and wait for a shock of pain to lance through my ankle as I land. None comes. Or none comes yet . Sometimes you don't know how much something hurts until later.

"Excuse me." Blake parts the crowd effortlessly, then pulls his suitcase off one-handed. He sets it down, rolls his shoulder a few times like it's bothering him, then wheels the suitcase back to us.

"That was quick," Felix grumbles.

"Priority tags." Blake taps the orange paper tags affixed to his suitcase. "Worth every penny."

Felix mutters something that sounds suspiciously like figures . I don't know why he's suddenly uptight about money. He always came to the club with neat stacks of bills.

Either way, his bag arrives a few minutes later: a huge travel-scarred blue suitcase that he hefts one-handed like he's making a point.

More bags come off. More owners claim them with irritated huffs and the occasional commiseration about shitty New England weather. Wouldn't want to live anywhere else is the common refrain.

I watch for my bag. And watch. And watch. Nothing appears. Next to me, Blake is doing something on his phone—possibly checking traffic.

"Sorry," I say, not for the first time. This isn't exactly showing him I know how to travel. I didn't even know about the orange tag things until they put one on his bag when we checked in. A knot forms in my stomach like I'm failing an audition—I haven't felt this way in years. In six very specific years.

Blake presses a kiss to my hair. "It's fine." But when he rechecks his phone, a tiny line forms between his coppery blond eyebrows. So it's not fine .

Felix is standing on my other side. Blake's it's fine makes his nostril twitch. I forgot he did that: how big, sweet Felix always knew when someone was lying.

Do not call him on it . I smile. Tension lines my jaw. I point myself at the baggage claim with renewed purpose. And wait.

At minute five, I glance over at Blake, who shoots me a tight smile.

At minute ten, I start to worry that my bag has already been loaded onto the plane.

At minute fifteen, Blake gets a call that he answers with a clipped "I'll call you back" that softens into an "I promise." When I look at him in question, he shakes his head despairingly, not at me but at the call. We've only been seeing each other for the month he's been in Boston, but it's not the first time he's gotten a call he didn't want to explain.

At minute twenty, I'm dividing my attention between the baggage claim and looking out the high windows at the seal-fur-white sky. The snow isn't arriving for a little while, but New England weather always has that feeling, like a line of snow is about to come barreling down on the city.

Next to me, Felix shifts his weight from foot to foot. It's possible he's just impatient to get moving. Or he's eager to tell Blake about how he knows me. I don't know that Felix would—but guys have done less to ingratiate themselves to someone else richer and more influential.

"You need to go home to get the car, right?" Felix asks me. It's an overly familiar question for someone he's supposedly just met. He seems to realize his mistake. "I mean, you could pack something else if you had to?"

The problem is I can't—I'd pack other clothes if I had more to pack. All of my expensive spring-slash-summer clothes are currently in that suitcase.

"No." Blake slides his phone back in his pocket. "If we haven't left the airport, neither has her luggage."

"I'll go ask at the counter." My heart sinks at the snaking line of customers all waiting to do the same thing. "I can take care of it.

"No," Blake says again, this time more definitively. He rolls his sleek hard-sided suitcase over to me and adjusts the duffel bag he piled on top to stabilize it. "You mind watching this for me? If it's not too much trouble."

"Sure," I laugh. "What're you going to do?"

"I'm told I can be very persuasive under the right circumstances." Then he kisses my cheek and takes off, cutting a path through the crowd.

Leaving me with Felix.

"What do you think he's doing over there—?" Felix begins. He stops when I whirl around to face him.

I tap a fingernail against his chest.

He moves back, raises his hands in self-defense.

"He can't know," I whisper fiercely.

Felix's eyebrows climb toward the brim of his hat. "You shouldn't be ashamed of?—"

I cut him off again. "I am not ashamed." Which I'm not. Shame would be simple. I liked dancing. I liked the money and the attention and making friends with the other girls. I even liked having regular customers. Like Felix . Who I liked as more than a customer.

"I'm not ashamed," I repeat when it's clear Felix doesn't believe me. "I just don't want Blake to know about it."

I'm greeted by more disbelief: in the set of Felix's shoulders, in the slightly downturned edge of his lips.

I tap my finger against his chest again, softer this time. A reminder that we're standing in a sea of people. That at some point Blake will be back. "Have you ever had some part of you," I say, "that you were proud of but you weren't in a rush to tell other people about?"

Felix closes his mouth with a click. He nods as if he's thinking of something in particular. "Yeah, I have." He studies his and Blake's suitcases. "What are we gonna do for the next few days?"

The next few days. My heart accelerates. Felix's face is blocked by his beard—but he's looking at me with those same eyes as green as the woods.

No, I made my choice that day in June. Blake is a good man—he's everything I could want. It'd be greedy to ask for anything more.

"For the next few days," I say, "I'm the girl Blake Forsyth is dating and you're his teammate, and we are going to have a nice stress-free trip from here until we get to Florida. Or else ."

Felix's eyebrows rise. "The girl he's dating?"

"Yes."

"Not his girlfriend?"

Not yet . We haven't said those words. I thought we might—I spent a week picturing this trip: sipping champagne or whatever people do on planes in first class. A beach house by the water: not the angry New England ocean, but something placid and blue. Falling asleep with Blake to the sound of the waves. We haven't slept together, in the literal or figurative sense—haven't done much more than kissed. That's item number one on my agenda for this trip. Or it was item number one until this snowstorm decided to show up.

Along with Felix, who feels similarly unavoidable . Whose nostril twitches in disbelief.

"Mind your business," I snap. Only it comes out full Boston. Mind ya business.

For whatever reason, Felix laughs.

"What's funny?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing, nothing."

"So, just so I'm clear, we're not telling Blake about this."

"Yeah, Melody, I mean, Shira. Shit, I'm not trying to screw that up."

"Sure, John , make sure that you don't."

"Would it be so bad if he knew we were friends?"

"Let's pretend we tell Blake that you and I are friends. How'd we meet?"

Felix's cheeks—the slim margins visible above the scraggles of his beard—go faintly pink. It's…cute. I've never seen him blush like that. He must not do that much. Or he does and it was too dark to see in the club. Either way, it's a reminder: I don't know the real him any more than he knows the real me.

"Okay," he says finally, "point taken."

"Great." And I'm about to slip my phone from my pocket, to pretend I've don't nothing since Blake left other than scroll and double tap on Instagram, when Blake comes back.

Felix and I are standing too close to pretend we haven't been talking. Springing apart will only look more incriminating so I stay put.

I try to think of something we could be talking about. What doesn't sound suspicious? "We were just talking about our favorite road trip food. What's yours, Felix?"

"Uh." Felix looks like he's racking his brain for a response. "Milk?"

At least that's awkward. I paste on a smile. Then I spot my suitcase next to Blake. "You got it back?"

Blake grins like there's nothing he'd rather do than win back my suitcase for me. I skip over to him and throw my arms around his neck. Up close, he smells like expensive soap, like the best parts of a beach. Not like grass. A smell I tell myself I don't miss, so I scrunch my hand in Blake's collar. Whisper, "Kiss me."

Blake presses an unsatisfactory peck to my lips.

"C'mon, you can do better than that."

He runs a hand gently up my back. "Why don't you show me how it's done?"

So I laugh and kiss him. His fingers find their way into my hair—not tugging, just gentle pressure on the back of my neck. After a month of dating him, I'm still not used to how he treats me like I'm someone deserving of all his manners—like he'll open every door for me, for the rest of my life. As long as he doesn't know about what you used to do…or what you and Felix used to do…

I shouldn't demand more, but I need to show Felix who I'm with. So I dart my tongue against Blake's and get the satisfaction of his groan.

Blake pulls back just far enough to scan the area around us. "People are taking pictures."

Sure enough, a few people have their phones up. "So let 'em."

"You're such a firecracker." But he kisses me again, deeper, but not quite deep enough.

Eventually we pull back from each other, just far enough that Blake tips his forehead to mine. "Hi," he breathes.

"Hi," I say back.

When it's just the two of us, I can almost pretend that I'm the girl I told him I was—a community college student who took a few years off after high school. A nice girl. A good girl. "Did you have to bribe someone to get my suitcase?"

For a second, he frowns like I was being serious. Then he laughs. "Bribe someone? No. But I might have pulled the do you know who I am? card. Hope you don't mind."

"Somehow, I don't."

He smiles and kisses me again, right at the tip of my nose. I'm not sensitive about my nose—I like my nose—but it was always a part of me guys would avoid. Not Blake. Something inside me melts a little. He's who he is, and somehow, he likes me . No matter how many times I've thought it, each one feels like an achievement.

Or like I'm tricking him.

I hazard a glance over at Felix, who's staring at us from under the awning of his hat. No, glaring would be a better word for it, a gaze that makes the back of my neck heat.

Blake must feel it too. He pulls me to him, against the firm plains of his chest, then whispers in my ear, "Sorry about Paquette."

My smile slips. There goes my heartbeat again, hard enough that for a second I worry that Blake will feel my panic. "What about him?"

"Just, I feel bad for the guy, taking his spot like this."

Breathe. Fucking breathe. He can't possibly mean… "Right, first base. You both play the same position."

Blake chuckles fondly. "Usually teams only have one starting first baseman."

I know that. The last time I was home, my parents had a picture of seven-year-old me in their hallway dressed as a Boston "Monster" for Halloween, my face painted green. I know how many first basemen teams normally have: one fewer than I'm getting in the car with. One fewer than you've kissed in the past year . I can't say any of that—I don't want to talk about my parents to Blake, whose family is so perfect they look like the photo that comes with a picture frame, and I can't talk about it with Felix.

"Oh, right, of course." As if I just forgot.

"I'm sorry about all this," Blake says. "But hey, there's still the beach waiting for us."

I tap my suitcase. "I did get a new bikini." One that cost about ten times what I wore to dance but is made from the same damn fabric.

"Well, good thing plan A worked and I got your stuff back."

"Plan A?" I ask. "What was plan B?"

"Plan B was I take you shopping. I bet you could do some real damage to a man's credit card."

That makes me stop short. The last thing I want is Blake thinking I'm after his money. The small fact of being actually broke makes that a lot more difficult. He doesn't mean anything by that. Blake is being how he is—thoughtful. Uncomplicated.

I hide my momentary panic behind my smile. "That's not—I mean, I don't—" But there's no way to say I don't want his money without seeming like I do. Fortunately, my phone buzzes. A weather alert.

Blake must get the same one, because he studies the screen for a second. "My first nor'easter. Exciting." He actually sounds excited. His smile fades when Felix starts waving his phone at us, a C'mon written clearly on his face.

Blake squares his shoulders—then winces and covers his grimace with a grin. "Just so you know, there's only one person I'd want to get stuck in a massive snowstorm with."

"You mean Felix?" I tease, then immediately regret it when Blake's forehead wrinkles in confusion. Fuck . I need to keep my damn mouth shut. "Well, we're stuck with him anyway."

"Sure are." Blake turns and waves. "C'mon, Paquette, we need to get driving." And so we roll our suitcases out of the airport just as the first flakes of the storm sift down.