Kiss King - Mickey Miller Page 0,38

people. Have you noticed that? They listen to you. Everyone does. Hell, I do.”

A chill runs down my spine. “I haven’t noticed that.”

“What I mean is, I can’t tell you what you need to do with your life. Only you have all the information to make that decision.”

“All righty then, Yoda.” I cock my head to the side and look at him. “Fine. So, I might just be in the wrong major, and I need to have a talk with my father. I’ll keep thinking on that. What about you, Mister? What was your big ‘decision’? You didn’t tell me. Isn’t this part of the ‘Grant Way’? We think about a decision we have to make, Mr. Shaman?”

“The only thing on my mind is baseball, and getting into the starting lineup this year, so I can make it to the majors.”

“Wait a minute, we need to analyze you ‘The Grant Way,’ too.”

“Fine,” he says as he pulls up a painting and looks at it, then hands it to me so I can view it.

Expulsion from Paradise, on a special exhibit in Chicago, is the famous painting Michelangelo did about Adam and Eve getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

“Hmm,” I hand the phone back to him. “Are you being tempted by something right now? A distraction, maybe?”

“College is full of distractions, I suppose.”

“A girl, maybe?”

He shrugs. “No one I can think of.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, come on, Grant. It’s me, Maya. We used to talk about this stuff…remember freshmen year? What happened?”

Grant shrugs. “Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve got to focus right now—it’s a big year and I’d sacrifice a limb to play baseball. And college is way more fun than the minor leagues. Only a small percentage of players make it to the majors.”

“What about Luke Rutledge? He made it.”

“Well, Luke is an anomaly.”

I sigh. “I can see you’re getting stressed. Let’s switch to talking about something else.”

“We could play that old game we used to, freshmen year. You know the one where we would guess the sex lives of people in the room just by looking at them?”

I giggle. “Fine. You pick.”

“Okay.” Grant looks around the restaurant. There are several couples, old and young sitting at the booths and the bar. He turns back to me with a smirk. “Which of these couples are going to have the wildest sex tonight?”

I scan them. There’s a couple in their seventies at a booth who seem really into each other. A young couple at the bar who can barely be twenty-one but who seem nervous to be around each other.

Then there’s a couple at a bar table who appear to be in their thirties. Both the man and the woman appear to be relaxed, conservatively dressed, but they’re both very attractive. I point them out.

“Why do you say them and not that young couple at the bar? The young couple is showing way more skin.”

I grin. “My mom rarely used specifics when she talked about her sex therapy clients. But one thing she said once after a couple of glasses of wine was, ‘it’s the most normal looking people who are into the freakiest shit.’”

Grant busts up laughing. “I’d like to meet your mom someday.”

“Maybe you will.”

After a walk around town, we head back to the hotel and we’re pretty tuckered out from the day’s traveling and activities.

I chat with Jude for a while on the phone while Grant works out using the hotel gym and then takes a shower, puts on his PJs and gets a book out to read.

When I’m done, I smile at him. “Aww, look at you, all snuggled up.”

“This mattress is so fluffy. And the thread count of these sheets is incredible.”

I giggle. “You know about thread count?”

“Of course. Comfort is important, especially on your birthday, and we’re going to sleep like the dead.” He pauses. “How’s Jude?”

“Jude is…good. He’s going out with the guys tonight.”

“I thought he was sick.”

“I guess he’s feeling better.”

“Well, that’s good…for him. Too bad he missed your birthday. Happy freaking birthday. Your present hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Oh, Grant, you didn’t have to…”

“It’s nothing. And today is your official birthday, right?”

“No, tomorrow,” I respond. “January fifteenth.”

“Which makes you neither a Gemini nor a Leo.”

I squint. “Um…what are you talking about?”

“Uh…nothing. Anyway, Jude. He seems like a good guy.”

My body heats as Grant sits in his patented position, leaned back with his hands comfortably behind his head.

“I think he is,” I reply.

“You think?”

Shoot. I shouldn’t be confiding