the spring semester even starts.”
“Oh.” She sounded caught off-guard. “I didn’t realize that.”
“Yep. We play a bunch of non-league games, so they don’t count in our official record, but they still count overall.”
“Are you excited?”
I shifted in my stool and straightened my back. “Very. I can’t wait to play. You should come to a game. I can leave you tickets.”
“Don’t students get tickets for free?” she teased as she took another drink. Her glass was almost empty already.
“They do, but I could leave you better tickets. The student section is trash.”
I thought back to giving Cole shit for leaving Christina tickets last season, but he had been right. The student section sucked, and he’d loved seeing his girl front and center, knowing that she was there to watch him. I knew that I’d love to look behind the plate and see Danika there. I’d love it even more if she were there with me.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Not sure if you’ve heard”—I crooked my finger at her, calling her closer—“but baseball’s a real hot commodity at this school,” I whispered.
“You don’t say?” she whispered back, and goddamn, I wanted to grab her by the back of the neck and taste her lips.
I was so attracted to her. I wondered for a second how stupid I was to put us in this position, alone together and drinking. Maybe I enjoyed the torture.
Thankfully, we were interrupted by a commotion at the entrance doors. We both turned at the same time to see her boyfriend walking in with a group, who I assumed to be his frat brothers. Jared scanned the room, eyes landing on us for only a second before he started laughing at something.
“Shocking,” I said sarcastically under my breath.
Danika looked at me. “I didn’t know he was coming, I swear.”
“I know,” I said because I believed her.
I should have known that there was no way he’d be able to stay away from here tonight. Not when I was involved. It was in that exact moment that I realized that everything I had thought about Jared was spot-on.
I had ignored my gut reactions and my instincts because I wanted to be mistaken when it came to him. I’d tried to convince myself that every bad thought I had was either born out of jealousy, miscommunication, or the sheer fact that the guy had something I wanted—her.
But I wasn’t wrong. And no amount of conversation now could convince me otherwise. He was scared to lose her. And he was threatened by me.
“Can I bring you two another round?” The waitress reached for Danika’s empty glass.
I answered for both of us, “Yes, please.”
“I was going to say no,” Danika argued as the woman walked away.
“I know you were. Which is why I said yes.”
Danika’s head swiveled between me and her boyfriend. I’d assumed he’d come right over to our table and sit with us or at least say something, but he didn’t. Instead, he and his bros sat down in a booth near us but never looked toward us again.
“Are you kidding me?” Danika said, her tone disgusted and annoyed. “He knows I’m here. He looked right at us when he walked in.”
“Maybe he’s just giving us space to do our own thing,” I suggested with a shrug.
“No, he’s not.” She was agitated and perturbed.
“Then, what is he doing?”
Two fresh drinks were deposited on our table, and Danika reached for hers before answering me. She swirled it around with the tiny straw before taking a sip, not a gulp.
“He’s …” She sounded flustered, like finding the right words were a struggle. “He’s being possessive.”
“And you don’t like that?” I was genuinely asking because I had no fucking idea what girls liked, but I knew that my mom seemed to enjoy it whenever my dad got a little crazy over her.
“I do not like that,” she said slowly, drawing out each word. “No one likes that.”
I cocked my head in disagreement. “Hmm … I think some women like it.”
She contemplated my statement, and I knew she was deciding between asking some smart-ass question or not. “Okay, sometimes, we like it. But not like this. Not all passive-aggressive.” She waved a hand in Jared’s direction without looking at him.
Nodding my head, as if that had made all the sense in the world and totally cleared things up, I asked, “So, you like it when it’s aggressive-aggressive?”
Danika laughed, her lips toying with the tiny red straw. “I guess. No. I don’t know.” She put her drink on