The Ninth Inning (The Boys of Baseball #1) - J. Sterling Page 0,70

behind her with each bouncy step she took.

I headed toward the meeting spot where girlfriends and family members waited for the boys to exit the locker room. We never knew how long the guys would take after a game ended. Between Coach’s speech, hitting the showers, and sometimes food, it could be anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour. I usually used the time to my advantage, waiting farther away from where everyone else was so that I could work instead of socialize. I wasn’t trying to be antisocial; it was just that once Cole was out of uniform, we tended to monopolize each other’s time … willingly.

I pulled out my phone and started scrolling through my emails, making sure to respond to each one before checking the latest social media insights for my clients. Reaching into my purse, I pulled out a tiny notepad and a pen and scribbled down notes that I needed to add to my spreadsheet at home for comparison. As I jotted down updated page view counts and searched for videos and pictures that not only had the most views, but also the most interaction, a throat cleared, and I instantly looked up. I had no idea how long I’d been lost in work, and my smile instantly fell when I realized that it wasn’t Cole standing in front of me but Logan.

“Hi,” I said to him, my tone coming out weird, but I wasn’t sure what he wanted or why he was looking for me.

“Can we talk?” he asked before reaching for my upper arm and pulling at me.

I shook him off. “Sure, but let go of me first.”

“Sorry.” He started walking slowly away, distancing us even more from the waiting crowd, and I followed him, wondering what on earth we possibly needed to discuss. When he stopped, he turned on his heel and leaned toward me. “I really liked you, Christina. I still can’t believe that you left me for him.”

“Left you for him? What do you mean?” I asked because I was not only genuinely confused, but it had been over a month since Cole and I had gotten together, and Logan was coming out of the woodwork now, all upset about how things happened.

He started pacing in small steps back and forth, and I looked behind me to see if Cole was on his way, but there was no sign of him.

“What do you want, Logan?”

He stopped pacing. “I want you back. I want to try again.”

A sick laugh tore from my throat. “You never had me. We were never together. It was one date.”

“That’s not fair,” he said a little too loud before glancing up quickly and recomposing himself.

“But it’s true.”

“Only because he stole you from me.” He pointed a finger at my chest like he wanted to poke me there to further his point but didn’t.

Did Logan really forget how things ended that night at the party? How he left me outside and told me to find my own way back home? How it had been exposed that he was only using me to bait Cole?

“And you let him take you away. Like I meant nothing. Like he meant everything.”

I could never belong to Logan because I’d always belonged to someone else, but guys like Logan didn’t take well to coming in second place.

“Logan”—I tried to sound calm so that I didn’t set him off any further—“Cole and I have a lot of history. No one was going to be able to compete with that,” I said, hoping he would take the rejection less personally even though I hadn’t rejected him in the first place.

“I still like you,” he said.

“You never liked me,” I argued.

He shook his head like my words were insane to him. “Cole broke code by dating you after me. I’m better than he is on every level, and he knows it. Tell me you’re not attracted to me anymore.” His tone grew more desperate by the second.

I found myself looking around to see if anyone, not just Cole, was watching us or not, but the other girlfriends were focused on the entrance, looking for their boyfriends. No one was paying attention to Logan or me. We were too far away.

I had no idea what to say at that point. Every response was only going to egg him on further. Logan seemed irrational and illogical. You couldn’t win verbal battles when someone was in that frame of mind. He stepped toward me, more words on the