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She looks at me then to Drew and Chloe. “What?” Drew asks.
“What do you do for a living?” she asks him.
He looks at me, and I give him a subtle nod. “Third baseman for the Tennessee Blaze.”
Drew gives zero fucks about shouting from the rooftops about what we do. Me, on the other hand, I sometimes like to just be Easton. In my family, that’s how things work. No matter what your profession, you’re still just one of the Monroes. “I can get you tickets to a game,” I tell her.
“Uh-huh.” She nods, a small smile playing on her lips.
She doesn’t believe me, and that’s okay. What’s more important is to keep her talking. I need to know more about her. For example, do her brown locks with a hint of gold feel as soft as they look? How will her lips feel pressed against mine? What does she look like underneath all those clothes? That’s a start, but I’m intrigued by the brown-haired beauty who is working her way through college and what her other obligations are that keep her from frequenting bars.
“So which restaurant do you work at?”
“The Vineyard,” she says, not taking her eyes off her beer bottle where she’s currently peeling back the label.
I whistle. “Nice place. I’ve been there a few times.” This gets me a nod, but that’s it. What’s it going to take to get to this girl? Looking across the table, I see Drew huddled up close with Chloe, and they’re deep in conversation. What is it about Larissa that has me off my game tonight? Finishing off my beer, I stand. “Anyone ready for another?”
Drew holds up two fingers, and I know he’s ordering for Chloe too. “You?” I ask Larissa.
“I really shouldn’t,” she says, lifting her bottle and taking the final sip. I watch as she tilts her head back, the long column of her throat exposed. My lips ache to kiss her, to taste her skin.
Bending down, placing my lips next to her ear, I whisper, “I’ll be right back.” She can’t hide the way her chest inflates with her heavy breath or the way goose bumps break out across her skin. I make my way to the bar and order four bottles of beer, all the while trying to hide my smile. She’s more affected than she lets on. When I turn to head back to the table, I see the girls are gone. Quickly, I scan the room and find them huddled over the old jukebox in the corner.
“So, your girl’s hot,” Drew says when I set two bottles of beer in front of him.
“Her name is Larissa,” I remind him.
He holds his hands up like he didn’t mean to offend me. “Good to see you back in the game, brother,” he says before taking a long pull from his bottle.
“I’m not back in the game. It’s not a game, and if it was, I could say I never left. I don’t make a sport of dating and hooking up.”
“Not now.”
He’s right. When I was a rookie, I ate that shit up, but it got old, and it’s hard to hear Mom call and ask about “all the women.” I hate to hear the disappointment in her voice. I’ve heard whispered stories about my dad and my uncles and their antics all my life, but I’ve never really seen that from them. They’ve always been madly in love with their wives. My grandparents are the same way too. I grew up surrounded by couples who are blissfully happy. I’ve had my fun, not that I’m against more of it, but one day I’d like to find someone to take home to my family.
“Good choice,” Drew says when the girls join us. It’s an old Aerosmith song, “Dream On,” that you can’t help but sing along to.
Chloe points across the table. “That’s all Larissa. She’s the music guru.”
“What’s your favorite genre?” I ask.
She smiles over at me. “All of it. Well, I’m not much on the super heavy metal stuff. It gives me a headache. Other than that, I’m a fan.”
“Really? You go to a lot of concerts?”
“Not really. No time.”
When the song changes to Cole Swindell’s “Middle of a Memory,” I can’t fight my smile. Standing, I offer my hand to Larissa. Drew catches on and does the same with Chloe.
“What?” Larissa asks, her green eyes staring up at me.
“Dance with me.”
She looks around nervously. “There’s no dance floor.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Drew and Chloe head to the darkened corner, leaving us alone. “Dance with me,” I repeat. Reluctantly, she places her hand in mine and allows me to guide her to the same corner Drew and Chloe disappeared into. My hands on her hips, I pull her close and sway to the music. I listen to the lyrics and think about how they relate to me, to us in this very moment. There is something about this girl that grips me.
“I feel like everyone’s watching us,” she says, glancing around.
