Page 22 of Fun Together (Make Romance #1)
Faye
“If I contract the latest mutation of the West Nile virus out here, I’m going to kill you.” Rett gives her arm a smack. “Why are we here again?”
“Because Eli thinks I might hit it off with someone on his team and I didn’t want to come by myself.”
“Where is he?”
I point to where Eli is standing on the field. “Third base in the hat.”He says something to the short brunette woman from the other team who made it to the base during the last hit. Whatever he said makes her giggle so loud it echoes through the park.
He’s funny, but he’s not that funny.
“No. I mean, where is the guy he’s setting you up with?”
“I’m not sure. He didn’t tell me much about him.”
He didn’t tell me much of anything, because Eli is notoriously bad with details.
“I still don’t get why you don’t just date Eli.”
“Because I like having another friend besides you. And he’s like a brother to Andrew. It would just feel wrong.”
It sort of feels wrong to be getting closer to Eli even in a platonic way.
Would Andrew see our friendship as a betrayal?
I’ve kept my promise to myself and haven’t reached out to Andrew at all while he’s been gone.
Being over at his place the other day when Eli had his plant debacle was a little weird.
Not because I once lived there too, but because Eli’s presence there was . . . loud.
“Do you at least know this mystery man’s name?”
“The only things I know are that his name is Chris and that he works at an animal shelter. Or a cat café. Something with animals.”
“Well, that’s kind of cute.” She yawns and I notice that her energy seems low.
“Are you okay? You seem a little down.”
“Sorry, I’ve been trying to keep Minnie under control from two-hundred miles away. She’s not adjusting well to nursing home life, and for her own cosmic reasons, she thinks I’m the only one who can take care of it.”
I give her a side hug, even though she hates displays of affection. “I’m sorry. If you want to go home, just say the word. I don’t want to make you be somewhere you don’t want to be.”
She shoves me away in a brushing off motion. “No, it’s fine. This is a good distraction. I like watching people chase each other around in what amounts to an elaborate game of fetch.”
Eli is still talking to the woman and now he’s laughing at something she said. Why is the game not moving along?
Finally, the person at bat hits the ball and one of Eli’s teammates catches it.
That makes three outs, so the teams switch places.
I make eye contact with Eli as he jogs to the dugout, and he waves at us with a smile.
I return his wave and laugh when he stumbles over one of the bases.
I glance at Rett, and she looks at me in a very knowing way.
I ignore it.
Eli is up to bat first. The first pitch is too high, but he hits the ball on the second one. It goes toward left field, and he makes it to first base. I watch as he lifts the bottom of his shirt up to wipe the sweat from his brow, catching a glimpse of the sprinkling of hair going down his stomach.
“Do they ever do shirts versus skins in this league?” Rett asks.
“Hmm?”
She laughs. “God, you are in denial. Do friends check out other friends the way you are blatantly checking him out right now?”
“I just happened to be looking that way.” He bends down to tie his shoe, and his forearms flex with the motion. “And even if I was, there’s nothing wrong with a friend appreciating another friend’s aesthetic appeal,” I say primly.“I appreciate your beauty all the time.”
“Yeah, okay,” she grumbles.
A few innings and ten mosquito bites later, the game ends and Eli’s team wins when someone hits a home run. He’s all smiles as we meet him at the bottom of the bleachers.
“Thanks for coming,” he says, giving me a very sweaty side hug. He turns to Rett. “Good to see you again, Loretta.”
“No hugs,” she says, holding her hand up to stop him from hugging her, too.
“And here’s Chris, our MVP for the night after that last play,” he says, motioning for an attractive Black guy with wire-rimmed glasses to join us.
Chris jogs over, and I notice it’s the guy who hit the home run at the end. He shakes our hands with a warm smile. “Nice to meet you all.”
“Congrats on the win,” I say.
He smiles shyly and reaches up to push his glasses up. “Eli is exaggerating. He had a pretty good run there in the fifth.”
Rett leans over to whisper in my ear, “Are we going to have to talk about softball all night?”
I shush her with my eyes.
Eli bends down to zip up his backpack before putting it on. “I’m starving. You guys want to get something to eat?”
“Sure, we’re down,” I say. Rett and I didn’t discuss getting dinner after this, so I hope she’s good with me volunteering our acceptance.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Third Base Woman approaching us. As she walks by, she shouts, “Hey Eli! This was fun!”
Eli turns to her and waves. “Maybe we’ll be on the same team next time!”
“Hope so!” She shouts before getting into her car.
“Who was that?” Rett asks him, a sinister sweetness seeping into her question. I would normally discourage her intrusion, but I’m curious myself.
“Oh, that’s Dani.”
From our spot on the bleachers, I couldn’t really see what she looked like.
But up close, I’m seeing that she’s maybe one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen.
When Eli told me she was nice, I’m ashamed to admit I thought that was his way of saying he wasn’t attracted to her.
But if he invited her to play softball, they must have hit it off.
Maybe he didn’t want to rub it in after hearing how disappointing my date was.
I suddenly don’t feel hungry at all.
Rett hums in a very disapproving tone, before locking arms with me. “Faye wants pizza.”
I don’t miss that her suggestion just so happens to be my ultimate comfort food. “I want pizza, or you want pizza?”
She grins. “Who doesn’t want pizza?”
We decide to go to the Italian restaurant in the strip mall next to the park. It smells like warm bread, and the air conditioning feels amazing after sitting outside in the sticky heat for the past few hours.
“Faye, what do you do for work?” Chris asks after we order a couple of pizzas. He’s seated next to Eli, diagonally across from me.
“I’m an executive assistant at a software company. What about you?”
“I own a pet grooming business.”
“Wow, that’s impressive.”
“Well, at the moment I’m a one-man show, so I don’t know how impressive that is.” He looks down and toys with the napkin-wrapped silverware. “Right now, I have a van I drive around to people’s houses, but I just got a permanent space I’ll be opening soon.”
“So business must be good, then,” I say.
Chris very humbly shrugs his shoulders and takes a drink of his water.
“I’m dog-sitting for my parents next week so maybe I’ll call you up,” Eli says.
“Sounds good. What kind of dog do they have?”
“Great Dane. She might be bigger than your van, though.”
“I’m sure we could make something work. I went to a house last month and the lady had three Dobermans.” He takes a sip of water. “I was so exhausted after that I don’t think I moved for a week.”
“I’m kind of jealous you have an active job like that,” Eli says. “I hate sitting at a desk all day.”
I snort. “As if you sit at your desk all day. You need to start wearing a sign at work that says, ‘Don’t talk to me unless you want to waste two hours.’”
Eli gives my foot a playful knock under the table. “Someone has to provide the office morale.”
I make the mistake of looking over at Rett at this moment and she mutters the word, “Denial” under her breath.
Neither Eli nor Chris notice because they’re now busy talking about how Chris once got an appointment to groom this guy’s cat, and it went about as well as you’d expect. Chris found himself in urgent care requiring stitches because the cat had treated his torso like its very own scratching post.
“Well, if you ever want to help me out on weekends or anything, I could use it,” Chris says to Eli. “Can’t promise you won’t also sustain any cat-related injuries.”
“I might just take you up on that,” Eli says. “You’ll have to put an injury claws in my contract.”
We all laugh at his stupid pun, even Rett giving a begrudging snort, and Eli beams at us in the way he always does when he’s got all eyes on him. He loves being the one to make everyone laugh.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Chris says.
Chris seems like the kind of guy who probably gets along with everyone, easygoing in a way that makes you immediately at ease with him.
We continue eating and talking, and before we know it, it’s almost ten o’clock. I can’t stifle a yawn.
“I thought you were a night owl,” Eli says, reminding me of our late-night phone conversations that have become something we regularly do now, almost every night. I hope we talk tonight because I kind of want to ask him about Dani.
“I may stay up late, but I have to do proper pre-sleep marination first. I’m usually queuing up a relaxing rug cleaning video right about now.”
“Have you ever seen the yard mowing ones?” Chris asks me.
“Yes! I love those.”
“They’re just so satisfying,” he says.
Rett leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. “This is why Faye has to do the fun list.”
“What’s the fun list?” Chris asks.
“It’s nothing,” I say, shooting daggers at Rett.
“It’s not nothing,” Eli says. “Which reminds me, what’s next?”
I look around at them, vowing to kill Rett and Eli with slow and painful deaths and say, “Um, I think it’s the small get together.”
“I have an idea,” Eli says. Hearing these words from Eli’s mouth sends a spike of equal parts excitement and dread through me. “You should have a game night.”
Rett looks skeptical. “A game night? Like Monopoly?”
Chris seems excited about this idea. “Game nights are the best. My friends and I used to have them all the time back in school.”
“I guess I could do that? Would you guys come?”
“I’m in,” Chris says. “Let me give you my number so you can give me the details.”
He puts his number in my phone while I run through everything I need to do to prepare for this.
It doesn’t have to be a big thing, though.
Just a few people over to my apartment. It will give me a good reason to do a good deep clean.
Plus, Chris does seem really nice and maybe it’ll be a good way to get to know him more.
Maybe it will end up being fun.