glaring right back.
“Emma’s pretty good, isn’t she?” Riley said cheekily to Cassidy as she strolled up
to the plate, keeping her voice and posture casual as though the entire game
didn’t rest on her shoddy hand-eye coordination.
Cassidy’s eyes narrowed just briefly, and Riley caught an unexpected glimpse of
the alpha businessman hiding behind that easygoing lankiness.
Look out, Emma.
And then she forgot all about Emma and Cassidy, about Camille and even Sam,
because it was just her and Jake.
Grace’s boyfriend—no, fiancé—might make a ridiculously attractive Hugh
Jackman look-alike, but right now he was the enemy.
“Who’s the scorekeeper?” Jake yelled to the bleachers. “Better get ready to write
another K for this one!”
“I don’t know what that means,” Riley hollered back, “but let’s hope you’re wearing
a cup today!”
“He’s not!” Grace yelled from the dugout.
Riley gave her trademark cat smile as her eyes dipped to the vicinity of Jake’s
waist. “Excellent.”
But Jake Malone was made of stronger stuff and knew Riley well enough to be
wise to her tricks, because he merely slipped on his game face and got into a
rather intimidating pitcher’s position.
Playing the part, Riley stepped up to the plate and hovered the bat over her
shoulder.
“Just keep your eye on the ball, Riley,” she heard Mitchell call from the dugout in
his calm, nothing-riles-me voice.
“I always do,” she called back, getting the expected laughs.
She wanted to sneak a look at Sam, but then Jake was doing his windup thing,
and she became determined not to be one of those girls who couldn’t manage to
hit a little ball because she had a crush on a boy.
She could have sworn that the first pitch was going to be way to the right, but
then it did some weird thing where it came back at the last second. Riley knew
even before she heard Cassidy mutter a satisfied strike right before Camille’s
more begrudging pronouncement of the same call.
“Lookin’ good,” came the husky voice from behind the catcher’s mask as he
tossed the ball back to Jake.
“Shut it, Cole.”
Cole Sharpe was one of Oxford’s other golden boys and normally fun to flirt with
in a harmless, platonic kind of way, but right now she wanted to win.
The second pitch was outside, although just by a hair.
“The count’s one–one!” Cole hollered needlessly. “Two more strikes and it’s beer
time.”
“One more hit and it’s beer time,” Riley snapped.
Cole’s teeth flashed white in a way that claimed bullshit.
Riley remembered that she’d have to actually swing. So she did.
She missed.
Strike two.
“I thought this was supposed to be as simple as keeping your eye on the freaking
ball,” she grumbled.
The next pitch looked almost perfect but seemed to dip low at the last second,
and Riley checked her swing.
Camille declared it a ball.
Then Jake declared Camille a scheming witch, which ended up in a rather
fantastic shouting match. Riley gladly stepped away from the plate and let her
boss and Grace’s fiancé duke it out.
Riley snuck a glance at Sam, who was leaning against the chain-link fence, arms
crossed over his chest and hat pulled low.
She couldn’t actually see his eyes to know that he was watching her, but she felt
it. Despite the fact that the game was inexplicably held in late September instead
of summer, Riley felt suddenly hot.
Camille won the argument by a landslide, surprising nobody, and Riley stepped
back up to the godforsaken plate.
The count was two and two, and her palms were beyond sweaty. To think she’d
thought her biggest hurdle of the day would be getting caught staring too long at
Sam.
The next pitch came at her so much faster than any of the ones before, perhaps
fueled by Jake’s temper, and Riley didn’t have any time to gauge whether or not
this was going to be high or low, or in her freaking face.
It was swing or die, and Riley wasn’t about to go to her grave an almost virgin.
She swung.
There was a sharp crack that was so foreign in its loudness that she didn’t realize
exactly what had happened until she heard someone yell run.
Probably Emma, judging by the manic intensity of the shout.
Riley sprinted toward first, and although she wasn’t sporty like Emma or a runner
like Julie, her days as a high school midfielder kicked in and she made it to first
base just seconds before the ball thumped into Jason Kendall’s mitt.
She barely heard Jason’s good-natured curse over the cheering coming from the