“Um…”
“I mean, you’re trying to be bold, right? To take rejection like a champ?”
She understood the core of what I was doing, but I didn’t trust the sparkle in her eye. “I’m making great progress.”
“Of course you are. But being embarrassed in front of a store clerk isn’t the same as boldly sticking to your guns at work.”
Fear made me lurch forward in my chair. “I’m not saying something stupid at work!”
“No, no, not there. But how about here? Among friends, in the comfort of your parents’ backyard?”
“Um…” I twisted my foot underneath me as I considered. The thing is, so far, I’d learned that I could do something stupid in front of strangers and promptly put it behind me. But these people were friends. I looked around the yard. Besides all the superhot baseball players, there were Mr. and Mrs. Hartmann, who’d let me shoot hoops in their driveway, their son, Craig, and his new wife, Mary, who sat beside him, plus a half dozen other people from the neighborhood.
It was bad enough to embarrass myself in front of them, but then there were all of my cousin’s teammates, whom I knew by reputation and media coverage. They’d be in Connor’s life for years to come. I couldn’t act like an idiot in front of them. “Mom and Dad would be horrified.”
“Well, yeah,” Rachel said, laughing. In her world, embarrassing our parents was a bonus. She’d excelled at it as a teen. The day hadn’t been complete if Mom hadn’t sputtered into her tea or jerked twice on her double strand of pearls. Me, I’d hated every second of the screaming fights they’d had while I was growing up.
“I can’t—”
“It’ll be easy. Do it now while Mom’s inside bragging about her potato salad.”
“Do what?” I huffed.
She made an expansive gesture at the abundance of men talking sports in the backyard. “Ask one of them on a date.”
I gaped at my sister, feeling insulted and terrified at the same time. “It’s supposed to be an exercise in rejection,” I groaned. “Not a way to scar me for life.”
She flushed. “I didn’t mean it that way. I thought you could ask a married guy or something.” Then she abruptly brightened. “But now I have a better idea.”
“Rach—”
“Him.” She pointed to a group of ballplayers hanging around our cousin. I knew without looking which guy she meant. Jake Armstrong, the Bobcats’ shortstop. The guy who was so good-looking that my heartbeat went into overdrive just thinking of him. In a very-much-regretted drunken moment, I’d once confessed to my sister that he was my secret crush. And now she wanted me to get rejected by him?
“You are no longer my favorite sister.”
“I’m your only sister.”
“See how far you’ve fallen.” I pushed to my feet, thinking I’d head inside to watch Mom brag about her cooking. Yeah, like that was fun. Unfortunately, I hesitated long enough for Rachel to grab my arm.
“Listen to me,” she said as she tugged me down. I dropped because she had a grip like a steel vise. “Remember what Connor said about Jake? That he was known for never going out with a girl he couldn’t bed by midnight?”
I winced. Yeah, Jake was definitely a player. It was mostly kept out of the press, but Connor was on the team, so he knew all about it. And as soon as my loose-lipped sister had told him about my crush, my cousin had wasted no time in warning us away from Jake, the man-ho. And yet the hot shortstop still filled my dreams. He had, ever since I first read an article about how he made it a point to visit sick kids in the hospital. Not just once for the cameras, but every week for the last year.
“I remember,” I half growled. “And now you’re saying he wouldn’t date me.”
Shetsked. “Of course he’d date you. You’re a hot, curvy woman with strawberry-blond curls and sass in her step when you’re feeling good.”
I blinked at my sister, unsure of whether to take that as a compliment or wonder if she’d just called me fat. A moment later, I realized she had meant it as an honest compliment, and I got even more confused. “So why would he reject me?”
“Because you’re going to make it clear, right up front, that you have standards. That you won’t be treated like one of his bimbos.”
I waited, expecting her to explain. Only she didn’t. At least, not until I threw up my hands in a WTF gesture. She huffed and started talking.
“Here’s what you do…go up to him and tell him you’d like to go out with him.”
I immediately choked and shook my head. I couldn’t go up to the one guy I’d been fantasizing about for months and ask him out on a date. Not in a million years. Sadly, Rachel didn’t see my budding panic and continued on with her insane plan.
“Then you tell him that you’d like to go to the most expensive restaurant in town, on him. But there won’t be any after-dinner hanky-panky. You don’t do that on a first date.” She leaned back with a satisfied grin. “He’ll turn you down flat. And—bonus—you’ll prove to Mom and all her nosy neighbors that you aren’t a slut.”
