3. Blake

CHAPTER THREE

Blake

"Are you sure your car can make it to Florida?" Paquette asks.

A gust of wind answers him, blowing through the parking garage underneath Shira's apartment building. Snow sure is easier to deal with when it's in a snow globe. On our drive over it was already beginning to stick to the asphalt.

Down in the garage, it isn't snowing, but it's gone from chilly to frigid even by New England standards. Another thing I wasn't anticipating about Boston.

How cold the weather can be.

How cold the people can be, except for Shira.

Even Paquette is sending me an icy glare. I will not let my teeth chatter in front of him, not when he hasn't even flinched from the cold. Guess that's the benefit of being as massive as he is, not that I've really noticed. Or if I have, it's just because I'm sizing him up— literally —as a new teammate. Something about him reminds me of a forest: the flannel shirt, the way his treetrunk thighs test the limits of his jeans. How his eyes are very green…and currently studying Shira's car with considerable skepticism.

Just ignore the car's age. And its faded brown paint. And the silver tape patching up part of the bumper.

Paquette points to just above the rear wheel well, then turns to Shira. "You shouldn't let it rust like that."

He might have well just said, Why're you letting her drive around in this heap? If I'd known, I wouldn't have. I didn't think Shira was the kind of girl to keep secrets, but that's not a discussion we're having in front of Paquette.

I don't even know what his problem is.

Well, maybe I do.

The Monsters signed me to play first base. I guess that's what Paquette also plays. It's not like I did it on purpose. There was no way I could stay in Atlanta after last season, and Boston put enough money on the table that it wasn't really a question of where I signed.

Plus two days after I got into the city to look at condos, I met Shira standing in line at a coffeeshop. Things were finally, finally looking up. Until this mess with our flights.

I clear my throat. "If Shira says the car can make it to Florida, then we'll make it."

"Yeah," Shira says, "Lilac's tougher than she looks."

Now it's my turn to study the car. Lilac. Who is definitely, positively brown. "Is this a thing where men see one set of colors and women see another?" I ask eventually.

Shira laughs. "She's named for the Lilac Fairy in the Sleeping Beauty ballet. That was the first part I ever wanted to dance. My parents took me to the ballet when I was four or five. Watching her felt like the ballerina from my music box came to life." She says it wistfully, like there's more to the memory than that—she doesn't talk about her family a lot and when she does, it's only in past tense. I haven't asked. Family stuff can be complicated, and I don't want to press her into telling me anything she's not comfortable with.

"Anyway," Shira says, "Lilac'll get us to Florida. She's reliable like that."

"Sorry—" Paquette cuts himself off like he'd been about to say something else. "Sorry, Shira. Didn't mean anything by it."

Shira cocks a hip in semi-facetious outrage. "Is that who you should be apologizing to?" She taps the trunk for emphasis.

Paquette grins. Don't smile at her like that. Not when his smile takes him from mountain man to… approaching handsome. Maybe. If you're into burly guys in flannel.

"Sorry, Lilac," he says. "Didn't mean to question your, uh, structural integrity."

So we load our luggage into Lilac—and I try to ignore the squeak of her suspension and the occasional twinge in my shoulder. It's nothing. Just the same small tweak I've had since I signed with Boston that should go away any time now.

After we're done, Shira pats the trunk approvingly. "I can drive the first stretch. At least until we get through the weather."

Between her rusting car and her insistence on carrying her own bag, I'm starting feel like a pretty terrible boyfriend. No way she should have to drive us around on top of that. "I can get it. Traffic might take some maneuvering."

"Um"—a faint wrinkle develops between Shira's eyebrows that I want to kiss—"how much experience do you have driving in snow?"

Absolutely none. "Just the occasional north Georgia thunderstorm."

Paquette clears his throat. If his beard didn't hide so much of his face, I'd be convinced he looks smug. "I know how to drive in the snow."

Of course he does. Of course he's using this as some kind of one-upmanship.

"Thanks for the offer, guys," Shira says, "but Lilac needs a certain kind of touch." She hops into the driver's seat before we can argue, then sets about adjusting her mirrors. Her arm extends just so. Her fingers wrap around the mirror, tilting it as she studies her own reflection, thumb against her lip like she's correcting some barely visible smudge.

I get a little lost looking at her. It's funny how that works. When you like someone—really like them—you either can't look directly at them for fear of embarrassment or never want to look away.

Except Paquette's staring too, the way he did when we met up at the baggage claim.

Don't look at her like that.

A feeling that's definitely not jealousy surges within me. Ballplayers come in two flavors: gentleman and dirtbag. I know which of those I am. Paquette can be a dirtbag to people I'm not dating. I trust Shira. She's a good girl. Good girls don't want guys looking at them like that.

Meaning I need to put as much space as possible between him and Shira for her sake. "I call shotgun."

"Sure." Paquette makes it sound like a challenge.

A blare interrupts us: Shira taps on the horn, laughing. "C'mon, guys, we need to go." Fog from Lilac's exhaust is beginning to fill the air.

So I ease open the passenger-side door. Of course the hinges squeak. "Hey, babe," I say as I slide in.

Shira pauses where she's fiddling with the radio dial. Her hair falls softly around her face. How is possible anyone looks so beautiful in yellow garage lighting? I like the lean slope of her shoulders, the point of her chin. The slight scatter of freckles across her nose that make her look playful. Everything, really.

Including the way she's looking at me in question, her mouth slightly parted.

"When we get to Florida," I say, "we're getting that door looked at by a mechanic."

"That's just how Lilac sounds—she's got an accent."

"You mean like you?" I tease.

She rolls her eyes playfully and taps me on my chest. "No, like you . And I'm sure she's fine. The door has sounded like that for years."

"Years? Why didn't you get it fixed?"

Shira bites her lip. I get lost in the press of her teeth against the pinkish curve of her mouth. "Just didn't have time." She gives a polite cough like time might mean money. And even if I never went to college—my parents thought it was better for me to get drafted right out of high school—I know students aren't exactly rich. It doesn't sit right with me that I make more money than I could ever spend and she's driving around like this.

"Well, it's a good thing I'm here to take care of you."

For some reason, that makes her shift in her seat. Lilac's springs complain. "You know you don't have to," Shira says.

"But I can if I want to, right?" I lean to kiss her…

Just as Paquette drops— heavily —into the backseat, bouncing Lilac's suspension like he's doing it on purpose. "Hey, snow's really coming down."

"We better get going then." Shira pulls back, then does something elaborate with the gear shift to put the car in reverse.

There isn't a backup camera—there's still a CD player where one would normally be—so she has to turn around fully to see through the rear windshield. Another mark in Lilac's disfavor, even if it gets me the drape of Shira's arm around me, right in front of where Paquette is sitting. Just reminding you of who she's with.

"Felix, could you duck down?" she says. "You're kinda taking up my whole field of view."

She calls him by his first name. I test out how it sounds in my mind. Felix . A name with a story behind it like Shira —even if I don't know the story behind her name, I want to know it, just like I want to know everything about her. Felix is certainly more distinctive than Blake . I roll the name around again. Felix . No, that sounds like what a friend would call him rather than a teammate. I'll stick with Paquette .

He also hasn't moved. He's sprawled across the backseat, being…infuriatingly large. He's probably pulling his shirt tight across his chest on purpose. Some of the buttons are beginning to strain and small glimpses of his furred chest show through.

Something about my glare makes his lips curve beneath the scruff of his beard. "You good?" he asks, like he wants me to know he caught me looking.

I aim my gaze over his left shoulder and out the car's rear view. "You heard her."

Dutifully, he scrunches down so Shira can navigate out of the spot.

Once clear, she shifts Lilac back to drive , bringing a whine from the engine. "Shh, girl, easy now," she says like she's gentling a horse.

"You sure this is gonna get us to Florida?" Paquette says. As if he can't take Shira's previous answers at face value.

"She said she was sure," I say. Even though it's unclear if Lilac will make it as far as the highway. As my dad likes to say, leadership is about not letting uncertainty get in the way of forward motion. "Shira, show him what this old girl can do."

Shira's eyes shine with laughter as if I've said something funny. "You trust me to get you there?"

I settle my hand over the center console and give her knee a reassuring squeeze. She's probably nervous about driving in this weather. "Of course."

"In that case…" She angles the car toward the garage entrance and readies herself like a Formula One driver right before a race. "Hold on tight, I guess."

Then she drops her foot to the gas and speeds us forward, out of the garage and into the oncoming snow.