Page 28
“Ball and glove or it’s no deal.” Dad might’ve been a fool putting the stadium up for grabs this summer, but I wasn’t one.
“Fifteen.”
“Twelve.”
“Do you always have to have the last word?” he asked.
With you? Yes. “Twelve or it’s no deal.”
He sighed and slapped his glove with the ball in it onto the railcar before climbing up, his T-shirt lifting just high enough to show a hard, toned stomach.
But abs didn’t change anything, no matter how sharp those lines were. Nope.
After he reached the top, I snatched his glove and scooted a couple of feet away, letting out a loud yelp when my thighs hit the scorching metal.
Perfect. Less than, what, a minute, and already he was making me burn myself?
I whipped out my phone and set an alarm for twelve minutes.
Twelve minutes.
I could last for that long if it gave me another sixty or so of peace before I had to head home.
But then he grabbed my play from my lap.
“Hey, give that back,” I yelled.
He set it down behind him. “If you get my glove, I get your play.”
Ugh. “Fine.”
He could have it, but I wouldn’t be the first one to speak.
“Man, it’s really hot today,” he said after a long seventy-five seconds. “I had forgotten how bad the humidity gets here.”
Grandma had always said the humidity kept her skin healthy, but I still hated it.
The high-pitched music of the ice cream truck sounded from Main Street. The kids in Fairfield were probably jumping on their bikes, racing one another to Mr. Lee before he ran out of his famous homemade shaved ice.
“Man, I’d kill for a strawberry-mango right now,” Reed said, turning toward the sound.
“Blue raspberry is still top tier.” I crossed my legs.
“False.” Reed drummed a rhythm on the metal. “Honestly? I’m craving a burger.”
He glanced my way, but I checked my phone. Ten minutes and seventeen seconds to go.
“How’d you get here?” He looked around the parking lot, completely unfazed by my Jeep.
“That’s mine.” I pointed to the Jeep. “It used to be my grandmother’s. TJ fixed it up for me.”
He took off his hat and scratched his head. “I thought you drove a BMW?”
“Who told you that?”
“Heard it somewhere.”
With the way this town fawned over my family, I wasn’t surprised. “The Jeep just feels more like me,” I whispered.
