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Apparently, he wasn’t too pleased with Naomi, either, for keeping my secrets. If only he knew the secrets I kept. Secrets like how I was seriously contemplating forensic pathology, and how I thought I was falling in love with Kane. Possibly. It was hard to be sure, considering I had no experience. Was there a timeline that dictated when that should happen? I wasn’t even sure what we were. We didn’t have a label. What I did know was that I’d never felt like this before about any other human. And whatever it was, I wanted to keep it. I should talk to Naomi about this. I knew she would want me to. And, unlike with my father, I did want to spill my guts to her.
Regardless of my relationship with Auggie, I still found myself sitting between him and Kane at the ballpark that night. It was odd, as Auggie should have been in the suite Armstrong Labs had reserved for all the executives and their families. But Kane had said the only way to watch a game was from behind home plate, out where you could breathe in the smell of grass and hear the crack of the bat hitting the ball. Kane obviously loved baseball. Really, there wasn’t much Kane didn’t love. He had this incredible zest for life. It was contagious and I wanted to catch as much of it as I could. Anyway, what all that meant was Auggie had decided he needed to sit with us. It felt like he was babysitting. What did he think Kane and I would do in public?
Not to say Kane was shy about public displays of affection. He was all about the kissing, no matter where we were. I didn’t mind. At. All.
So, there we were, in the heat of a July night, surrounded by Auggie, Eva, and a hundred of our coworkers watching the Braves take on the Pirates. At least I think that’s who they were playing.
Kane looked beautiful in his khaki shorts and Braves T-shirt which showed off his godlike figure. I especially liked the baseball cap he was wearing backwards. But he wasn’t as relaxed as he typically was when we would go out together. I noticed his leg had a slight bounce to it and he kept stretching his neck from side to side. Our family and work situations were awkward, and it was on full display tonight. On the drive over, Kane maintained that he could keep his work and personal lives separate, and he was proud to be anywhere with me. Regardless, I knew our relationship, or whatever it was, had caused some tension between not only him and Auggie, but also Kane and his momma. She was worried that Kane was ruining her chances of beating the odds of becoming the last Mrs. Armstrong. And people thought I was naive.
Despite the awkwardness of it all, before the game started, Kane pulled out his phone and smiled at me. “We need a picture to post.” He’d been documenting all of our dates on Facebook. He tagged me in all the photos, which meant I’d had comments from people I had no idea I was even friends with. Their shock disguised as playful comments jumped off the page. Believe me, no one was more shocked than me. I was still wondering if the space-time continuum had malfunctioned and I was in some weird alternate reality where Kane’s brain was scrambled causing him to choose to spend all his free time with me despite his crazy work schedule. I swore Auggie was purposefully sending him on more business trips. In the last few weeks, Kane had to cancel on me a couple of times for emergency meetings back East. I wasn’t upset with Kane—I understood he was in the middle of trying to close the biggest deal of his career and Armstrong Labs’ existence. I was frustrated that Auggie kept sending Kane to in-person meetings for something that probably could have been dealt with during a conference call.
I knew the drill by now. I took off my glasses to prevent any glare and leaned into him.
Kane held out his phone in front of us and snapped a couple of shots. Then he pointed to his cheek. “Lay one on me right here.”
I knew what that meant now. Thankfully, Mindy had clued me in before I embarrassed myself even more around Kane. Mindy and her date, Reese, happened to be sitting behind us. In fact, most of my stepsiblings were here, scattered nearby with their dates. Good times.
I tried not to concentrate on all the weirdness. Instead, I focused on how happy I was to oblige Kane. My lips landed on his stubbled cheek as he captured the moment on his phone’s camera.
While Mindy oohed and aahed about it, Auggie cleared his throat. He did that a lot when Kane and I were together in his presence.
