Page 10

TEN

SCOUT

“ W hat’re looking at?”

I spun in my chair, coming face to face with a pair of high-tops crossed at the ankle on my desk. Ankles and high-tops belonging to Alice. I pushed them off.

“Nothing.”

“Oh yeah?” She leaned around me and peered out of the window by my desk. “You sure do have a good view of nothing. In fact, d’you wanna swap desks? Yours is obviously sooo boring here. Mine’s far too distracting.”

I peered over to hers, easily the messiest in the office. Piles of magazines, stacks of paper she’d printed out and not dumped in the recycling, empty cans of Diet Coke—you name it, it was on her desk. The cleaning staff had long given up trying to tidy around it.

“I’m not sitting over there.”

She turned to me with a grin. “I was kidding. There’s no way I could sit next to a window like this. It’s not even a window. It’s a wall of glass. No, it’s like one of those walkway things at the Empire State or whatever where you’re standing directly above a mile high drop. You know if the window breaks there’s nothing stopping you from falling out.”

She shuddered dramatically.

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen then,” I replied. “Are you going to tell me why you’re interrupting me? What do you want?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. Just noticed you’d been staring out the window for twenty minutes instead of working. Obviously, I wanted to know why, and now I do.”

“No, you don’t,” I answered way too quickly.

“You’re not staring out the window because Parker King is down there at practice waggling his cute little butt?”

“He’s not waggling.” My eyes darted around to all the occupied desks in earshot, though thankfully that wasn’t many, given it was nearly lunchtime and people were already starting to head out into the sunshine. But there were still ears around to pay attention to what Alice had to say. “And will you keep your voice down?”

Her focus went back to the field. “I’d say that was waggling.”

“Alice…”

“What? If you’re not staring out the window at Parker King and his cute butt, wondering what it would be like to date him, then what does it matter who hears?”

“I don’t know why I tell you anything.” I huffed and focused back on my laptop.

“Hey, when a hot major league ball player asks you out, not once, but twice, it’s only normal to wonder what dating him would be like.”

“I wasn’t wondering.”

She spun around and pinned me with her big brown eyes. Alice was kind of intimidating when she wanted to be, especially when she didn’t blink.

“I wasn’t, I was thinking about the new job.”

It was half true.

I hadn’t yet had the job description, so I’d been wondering when it would arrive. That’s what I’d been thinking about. She didn’t need to know I was also thinking about Parker because, yeah, I’d been watching him practice.

And I hadn’t been thinking about dating him. I’d done that already.

I’d been thinking about the way my belly did that little flip whenever he smiled at me.

Or how big his smile grew when I caught him looking at me—which was way more than I should have.

Or maybe Parker was catching me looking at him . Because however you viewed it, the pair of us spent a lot of time staring at each other.

“You could do it for me, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Find out what that cute little butt is like.” She laughed.

I pushed her chair to the side, making room for me to roll in next to her, and resumed my staring at what I’d been staring at for far too long before Alice rudely interrupted me.

Not much had changed.

Grounds staff were prepping the stadium for the game later—picking up any trash left from last night’s game, followed with hosing down the stands and bleacher seats. On the field, the lawnmowers trimming the grass had left behind thick green stripes. More staff were cleaning the bases, tidying the wide fan of terracotta that ran around the diamond, and brightening up the Lions logo in the center.

But it was in the corner, behind the Lions’ dugout, where my attention had been, and was once more.

Parker was in the batting cages, running drills with the coaches and a couple of the relief catchers.

While I couldn’t tell who was pitching to him from this distance, I knew without doubt that the guy crouching behind the plate was Parker, even with his ball cap and cage mask. It was the width of his shoulders, the thickness of his thighs, the way he was rocking ever so slightly on the balls of his feet from side to side. Something I’d noticed he did every time he got into position.

I guess it could be interpreted as waggling.

I leaned into Alice so only she could hear. “I agree it’s a cute butt.”

“Hmm,” was her only reply, before she side-eyed me. “Have you heard any more from Shit Head?”

“Not since I blocked him.”

She reached behind and picked up a pot of lip balm from my desk, twisting the top off to sniff before putting it back down. Her eyes barely left the batting cages however. “Sure you don’t want to get back on the horse?”

“I’m sure,” I replied firmly, though even as I said it I wasn’t quite sure I meant it.

“Because that horse sure is sexy,” Alice continued, like she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. “With his cute little waggling butt. And the coffee thing…come on, that was adorable.”

“He made fun of my order.”

“It is disgusting, Scout. He’d have lost points if he hadn’t made fun of it.” She scoffed.

“That’s why I don’t tell anyone about it.”

“You told Parker.”

“Yeah, I know.”

She didn’t respond, and two minutes passed before she said anything else, which had to be some kind of record. Her forehead rested against the glass as we stared down at the field. It was kind of hypnotizing, and not at all surprising how little work I’d gotten done today.

Perhaps I should move my desk away from the windows.

The pair of us were so engrossed in staring out at the green expanse, that neither of us was particularly focused on any one thing. Alice noticed it first, and by the time I caught what she was saying, it was too late.

I couldn’t hide. I couldn’t duck behind my chair. I couldn’t do anything except watch Parker King turn and stare directly at the window, my window, and wave.

Not a small wave either. Parker’s big arm shot right in the air, moving side to side like a windshield wiper. It was obvious enough that one of the guys he was with turned around.

“OMG,” said Alice.

“No. Nothing happened. That didn’t happen.”

“Um, we both know he just waved at you.”

“No,” I hissed again, turning to make sure no one else was looking out of their window. Thankfully, just me who was obviously not doing any work. “There’s no way he can see it’s me from this distance. And he doesn’t even know where my desk is. Or the window.”

“You can see him,” she countered, “and I was here when he came up, remember? He’s obviously worked out which your window is.”

“No way, he didn’t. Who does that?”

“Parker King,” she replied as she stood up.

I thought she was finally returning to her desk, but I should have known better.

Instead, she waved back, if you could class what she was doing as waving. Jumping up and down while her arms flailed about. If he wasn’t two hundred yards away, he’d probably be able to hear her banging on the glass too.

I pushed as hard as I could against the window, zooming away in my chair, and shrunk down so no one could see me. Though thankfully I don’t think anyone paid the slightest attention, they were all far too used to Alice’s behavior to care what was causing it today.

She finally turned away. “Phew, well, I’ve done what I came to do, and watching those guys is really making me crave hot dogs. Let’s go and get one for lunch.”

“Sure.” I snatched up my purse, anything to get out of here and away from the window.

“Hey, Scout?” she said, pressing the elevator button. “If you don’t want Parker, can I have him?”

I bit down on my cheek, though I didn’t need to think about the answer. “No.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”