It was only good-natured teasing, but Ellie flinched. At her reaction, Connor turned a sickly shade of puce. Fortunately, the girl had spunk. She pulled it together quickly and shrugged. “Not yet, but it’s early days.”
Everyone chuckled, but Connor still looked as if he’d kicked a puppy. “What happened?” he asked.
Ellie’s sister answered, her voice as loud as her nail polish and equally abrupt. “Wrong meds. Doctor’s fault. Long story. Hey Connor, would you mind helping me and Dad bring up another case of beer from the basement?”
Mr. McDonald looked around in confusion. “Nobody wanted any more beer, honey,” he argued, but she cut him off.
“Yeah, but that was so long ago.” She drained her can for emphasis. “Besides, Mom wants to move the couch and we can’t do that alone.” She tugged on Connor’s arm. “Come on, coz. I need your help.”
Connor obviously wasn’t fooled, and the girl sure as hell couldn’t lift him if he didn’t want to go. But what could the guy do, sit there and refuse to help? He wasn’t stupid. He knew girls came on to me all the time, so he shot me a hands-off message before he heaved his muscular bulk out of the lawn chair. And then he swept his gaze across the rest of the team, telling us all, without words, that we were supposed to behave.
That was Connor: the team killjoy. The one who always thought five steps ahead when the rest of us were thinking with our dicks. It was annoying as hell, but he was also the voice of quiet confidence that was as much a backbone of the Bobcats as the coach and the support staff. We wouldn’t be a winning ball club without him.
I nodded to show that I’d gotten the message. Then he turned to his uncle with a sigh.
“Come on, Uncle Bob,” he muttered. “Show me what needs lifting.”
“Great!” Rachel chirped as she put her arms around the men in her family. “Hurry up, Daddy. We’ll get it done in no time.” They followed along, but not before she shot her sister a Significant Look. Ellie, on the other hand, rolled her eyes in the way that all younger siblings do, and I liked her even better for it.
We all watched Rachel drag her father and cousin away, waiting patiently to see what would happen once the McDonald menfolk were gone. Of course, I was busy coming up with percentages to possible what-comes-next scenarios.
There was a 9 percent chance Ellie would drop into a lap dance on my knees. She was too good a girl to actually make it to my lap.
And a 47 percent chance she would stammer something about how great I played, and how she’d been following me since my AA days with the Indigos.
A 21 percent chance she’d chew me out for dating and dropping one of her best friends. No, make that 28 percent. Even though I steered clear of the wholesome type, every single wild child had a friend like Ellie. Given the amount of heat climbing up Ellie’s neck, the odds were getting stronger that I was about to get a tongue-lashing, and not the fun kind.
And there was a 10 percent chance she’d just stammer out something incoherent and bail.
Which left 6 percent for miscellaneous charity things. She probably knew somebody with a sick kid who was dying to meet me or something. This possibility had been in the 98 percent chance category until Rachel dragged her father and cousin away. No one dispensed with the menfolk only to ask a favor for a sick neighbor. Unless the favor was scandalous? A striptease for a lecherous old lady?
I was still amusing myself with the possibilities when Ellie came to stand in front of me. She had to clear her throat twice and her hands were clenched like a prizefighter’s, but she spoke clearly enough. Of course, two sentences in, I knew that all my guesstimates were shit.
“Okay,” she said as she took a few short, quick breaths. “I hate doing this with an audience, but my sister insisted.”
I quirked my lips. “Lose a bet to her?”
“What? No. Why would you think that?”
Strike one.“Uh…I just had a hunch.”
“Oh. Well, it was wrong.”
I nodded. What else could I do?
“I know this is weird, but I’d like to go out with you.”
My teammates chuckled and nudged me, acting like adolescent boys. I glared at them and put on my best choirboy smile. “You know, it’s always fun to talk to a fan. Especially one who has been following me since the Indigos.” I figured there’d be a 100 percent chance her next words would be “How did you know?” delivered with an awed gasp.
“The what?” she asked.
I frowned. She was moving off script. “My AA team. I was called up—”
“Oh, right. Sorry. I didn’t even start following baseball until Connor was picked up by the Bobcats.”
Strike two.“So, you’re not a fan.”
She flushed a pretty pink. “Of course I am. Go Bobcats!”
