Reece scooted down, making room for her.
“Hey, Rachel, this is my friend, Georgia,” Pepper introduced.
“Hey.” She nodded once at me and then looked away to the field as if I was of no interest. I released a breath.
“Hello,” I returned. Apparently she wouldn’t out me.
Through the rest of the game, I felt Rachel sliding glances my way. I caught her looking several times. It was with great effort that I trained my stare straight ahead. I also made a point not to be overly exuberant in my cheering so she didn’t read anything into it. She was probably wondering why I was here. Suddenly I was wondering that, too.
What would Logan think when he saw me? That I was sniffing around because I liked our kiss? Because I wanted an encore? God. I flushed hot with embarrassment.
The rest of the game passed with Logan’s team pulling ahead. They won 7–5, largely due to Logan.
Everyone stood and began filing down the stands. In the crush, a few people slipped between me and Pepper and Reece, putting distance between us.
“What are you doing here?”
I looked sharply to my right. Rachel had hung back and positioned herself beside me as we descended the metal steps.
I shrugged. “Pepper asked me to come.”
Her darkly lined eyes stared hard at me. “No.”
It was a single word, but it dropped like a stone between us.
I stared at her for a moment, trying to think how to respond. I knew that I didn’t want to ask for elaboration. I was afraid what more she might say.
She continued anyway. “You’re like all the others, after a taste of him.” She looked me up and down before pushing past me, tossing the single word over her shoulder. “Pathetic.”
The words gouged me, and I hated it. Hated that I had become this insecure—this vulnerable. My breakup with Harris had stripped me and left me raw and bleeding. I’d been trying to patch myself back up ever since. Trying to figure myself out for the last couple months. There were days when I felt close to luring whoever I was, who I was supposed to be, who I wanted to be, out into the world. And then something like this happened that cut me back down.
Rachel’s words felt like a stab into the open wound.
I watched as she moved ahead, weaving her way down to the bottom of the bleachers and catching up with Reece and Pepper.
I TRAILED AT A sedate pace, determined to keep my distance from them as they approached the dugout. A chain link fence separated the players from the fans, but Reece’s deep voice carried as he called for Logan. I knew from Pepper it was important to Reece that Logan knew they came. That Logan knew they loved and supported him.
Logan’s head popped up at the sound of his name. His signature grin broke out and he separated himself from his teammates and stepped up to the fence to talk to his brother and Pepper. Rachel soon joined them, too.
Logan pushed back his cap on his head slightly, revealing more of his face. Still so good-looking it made my chest ache a little.
God. This was stupid. Me being here. I couldn’t take it back now, but I wasn’t going to rush to the fence and be the pathetic thing Rachel just claimed I was.
Logan nodded, smiling almost modestly, and I knew they must be congratulating him, insisting that he won the game. He shook his head and motioned behind him, probably insisting it was a team effort. I could read it in his body language. Logan might be one of the most self-aware guys I’d ever met, but he wasn’t full of himself.
He was looking at Pepper, listening to her when suddenly his posture changed. He head shot up, scanning the diminishing crowd, searching.