The Ninth Inning (The Boys of Baseball #1) - J. Sterling Page 0,39

annoyed glares. “Using her is his last-ditch effort.”

“It’s all he has left in his arsenal,” Mac added. “He knows if this doesn’t work, nothing will.”

I wanted to call Logan out on it. Make him admit that he was only using her to get to me, but I knew that it would embarrass Christina. And no matter how desperate I was to show her the truth, I’d never willingly put her through that.

“Hey, Cole,” Logan said as the two of them walked straight up to me, Mac, and Chance. “You know my date, Christina, don’t you?”

I looked straight at her. “Hi,” I said, only to her, but she didn’t respond.

She looked uncomfortable as she wiggled her body to move out of Logan’s grip, but he refused to let her go.

Instinctively, I reached out and removed his hand from her. “She wants you to let go.”

He cocked his head and sweetly looked at her. “I’m sorry, babe. Was I holding on too tight?”

“No, I just”—she stumbled on her words before recovering—“want to go out back and get a beer.”

“I’ll go with you,” Logan started to say, but I put a hand up to stop him.

“I’ll go with her,” I offered with a grin. “Unless you have an issue with that?”

It was a challenge. One I knew that Logan wouldn’t accept. He cared too much about what people thought of him to act ruffled over me walking his date to the keg.

“No issue,” he said just like I had known he would, and I waved a hand toward the backyard and waited for Christina to start walking.

She kept her pace ahead of mine and didn’t look back at me. “You don’t have to come with me.”

“I know I don’t have to. I want to,” I said as I reached for her arm, forcing her to stop moving.

“Why are you doing this?” She sounded exhausted. But only like she was exhausted with me … like I exhausted her.

I wanted to tell her everything that I had realized during the game today … everything that I had been dying to tell her since the second I figured it all out. But I couldn’t. Not here. Not right now. The timing was off, and I knew she wouldn’t believe me anyway. Christina would convince herself that I’d only said those things because she’d come here with someone else.

“I didn’t want you to walk out here by yourself. And I really want a beer. We have the day off tomorrow,” I said with a smile as I reached for the keg and started filling her cup.

“I know. I heard,” she said, the words grating on my nerves, knowing exactly where she’d already gotten the information from.

Logan suddenly appeared and ruined the moment. “You were taking too long. I missed you,” he said, and I shot Christina a look, wondering how much of Logan’s shit she actually believed.

She offered him an awkward smile, and I handed her a half-filled cup. “Only half?”

“It gets warm otherwise, and you hate warm beer,” I said, remembering when she had told me that once before.

“It’s so gross when it’s warm,” she said, and I agreed.

“It’s chilly out here. Let’s go back in, yeah?” Logan asked, and she nodded before walking away and leaving me behind.

I sulked for only a moment before I followed them back inside, heading straight for wherever they were. It was going to destroy me to watch her with him, but I figured that I deserved the torture for everything I’d put her through.

Watching him with her was like throwing gasoline on my guts. I was afraid to breathe too hard, worried it might come out in flames.

Watch me burn it all down, motherfuckers.

“You good?” Chance sidled up next to me.

“Not in the slightest,” I answered honestly as I took a swig of beer.

“Why don’t we go sit over there?” He nodded toward the empty couch in the living room. “You can still see them from there. This is awkward as hell. You’re making shit weird.”

As much as I wanted to throw some sort of childish tantrum and stalk off, pouting, I didn’t. If I left Christina and Logan alone, it would give them privacy, and I refused to grant them a single ounce of it. I was going to stand wherever they were and make it uncomfortable as fuck. If they even thought about leaving the room, I’d follow. If LeDouche wanted to touch my girl, he’d have to do it in front of me and pray to