been there for him lately. He can’t miss this one.” Her freckled nose wrinkled as though she smelled something foul. “Their father won’t be there. I don’t think he’s left the house in months.”
Reece and Logan’s father was confined to a wheelchair as a result of a car accident several years ago Not that that was the reason he wouldn’t go to his son’s game. He was a bitter man who spent most of his time drinking, and wasn’t the most supportive or attentive father even before the accident that put him in a wheelchair.
Pepper grabbed her messenger bag and paused on the way to the door. “What do you have going on tonight?”
I shrugged. “Pretty studied out for exams. Guess I’ll just start packing up a couple boxes.”
“Oh. Want to come?”
Did I want to go to a high school baseball game? Did I want to sit in the stands with a bunch of parents and high school kids and gawk at a teenage boy like some kind of cougar reliving the moment I had kissed him and he had kissed me back?
With another shrug, I nodded once. “Sure.”
Chapter 5
T HE GAME HAD JUST started when we arrived, and I could tell Reece was anxious to get a seat in the stands. Not an easy feat. It was loud and crowded and we had to climb to almost the very top of the stands and squeeze in between students.
“There he is.” Pepper motioned to the field, pointing eagerly and bouncing on the balls of her feet.
I searched, my heart hammering in my chest and then seizing altogether when I spotted him. I didn’t know a lot about baseball, but I knew he was the pitcher. Standing on the mound, he stared intently at the player coming up to hit. I’d never seen him wearing a baseball cap before and damn if it wasn’t a good look for him.
He rotated a baseball behind his back with the sure movement of his fingers. He held himself still, waiting with seeming idleness, but there was a coiled energy about him that brought to mind the explosiveness of our kiss with a rush of awareness that left me breathless and turned on sitting there on the hard bleacher seat.
I fidgeted, drinking in the sight of him. I’d never seen him so alert, so serious.
Except that moment following your kiss . He’d looked serious then. He’d looked intense, his blue eyes deep and probing and so sexy it hurt.
This Logan was unsmiling as he stood stock-still on the mound, his lean body rigid like a gun cocked and ready to fire.
The batter squared off in front of the base, tapping his bat once and lifting it in readiness, hands flexing as he adjusted his grip.
A hush fell over the crowd as everyone waited, watching. I didn’t even breathe. I leaned forward, curling my hands around the edge of the bleacher.
Then Logan let go. His body uncoiled, leg winding up and then back down as he released the ball.
The batter swung, missing.
The crowd surged and cheered, myself included. Then silence fell again. Even from this distance, I could read the batter’s scowl. Logan adjusted his cap and rubbed a palm along his snug-fitting pants. I tried not to stare at his butt, but in those pants? Impossible.
I wasn’t his only admirer either. As he threw the ball again and the batter missed for a second time, a group of girls a few rows below us screamed his name and followed with several catcalls.
Pepper shook her head with a laugh. “That’s our Logan. No heart is safe.”
My cheeks heated and my skin hurt. I didn’t know why. It’s not as though my heart was in danger. Just my lips.
The rest of the game passed with me riveted to wherever Logan was on the field. Whether he was up to pitch or hitting the ball, my gaze tracked his lithe movements.
At one point, Reece pointed out some scouts sitting in one of the lower rows.
“Are they here for your brother?” I asked.
“Logan already committed to Kellison University.”
“That’s where he’s going in the fall?” Then he would officially be in college. A new college with a new crop of girls for him
Learning to Kill: Stories