Page 13

THIRTEEN

PARKER

“ D oc…you’re…killing…me…”

“One more minute,” Dr. Marnie Matthews replied, not showing any signs of giving a shit that I was about to die.

“I’m…gonna…be?—”

“Parker, if you stop talking it’ll be easier. Not to mention I can’t hear you through the mask anyway.”

I grunted at her loudly instead. I guess she understood I was on the verge of collapse as she hit the Decline button and slowed the treadmill down to a stop.

“Okay, hop off.”

I’d never jumped to the sides quicker. Ripping off the mask, I attempted to suck down as much oxygen as I could.

My lungs burned. My thighs burned. My calves burned.

Even my ass was burning.

“Stand up straight, you’ll get more air in,” she ordered.

Snatching the towel, she was holding out to me, I did as I was told, doing my best to mop up the sweat pouring down my body, even with the AC on full, but I’d been running flat out on a 4 percent incline while my oxygen levels were monitored, and now I was the equivalent of a human furnace.

“I’m not built for sprints, doc…I’m a catcher…I’m built for squatting…” I puffed out, rubbing the towel over my face right as she rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Parker, I know. You tell me every week.”

“And every week you still make me come in here and do them. Even though I hate sprinting.”

Hated it. Always hated it. Hated it at school. Hated it now. Hated.

Marnie was still talking like she hadn’t noticed or didn’t care I could barely stand. “…and your results are good—oxygen extraction figures are higher than they were at the start of the season. You’re getting fitter, Parker.”

Huh. That was interesting. “Yeah? How fit? I’m already fit.”

“ Fitter ,” she repeated, peeling the disposable heart monitor from my chest and plugging it into her laptop.

Immediately her screen filled with colored graphs and wavy lines containing the data she and her team monitored closely.

I stepped down off the treadmill and grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge and another sweat towel from the shelf, and sat down while she worked her magic.

Doctor Marnie Matthews, the Lions’ president of baseball science and data, had been brought to the Lions by Penn Shepherd when he’d taken ownership of the team.

An astrodynamicist—or superbrain, as most of the guys called her—by profession, she’d come from NASA, where she’d spent the previous decade launching rockets into space. Because, If she could launch a rocket, she could make a baseball fly more efficiently , according to Shepherd.

She’d been tasked with helping the team win.

No small feat, but she’d succeeded and almost single-handedly turned the club’s losing streak around overnight. The data she collected on how each of us individually played our game had been the biggest contribution to the Lions winning, beyond the players themselves.

Through a series of tiny changes she’d implemented—from the way we traveled, ate, and slept, to how our bats were stored and the dugout was kept—we’d become a slick, almost unbeatable team.

She’d introduced Penn Shepherd to a new type of material embedded with tiny sensors that could monitor everything from heart rate to hydration and muscle fatigue to oxygen levels during a game, and account for them in real time. Therefore, she could make any necessary adjustments in real time.

If our sweat levels were up when we played during the high summer months and we were close to dehydration, then we’d be sucking down hydration packs during the batting. Last season we had 47 percent fewer injuries than the season before, which had 70 percent less than the season before that.

Her team of data scientists focused on each player as individuals, and when we came together, we were fitter and stronger because of it. I wasn’t entirely sure I understood everything she did, but we were winning, therefore I didn’t care a whole lot.

She could do what she wanted.

On the flip side, she was engaged to Jupiter Reeves, so she had her faults.

I watched as she flicked through the different charts she’d brought up.

“Hey, doc, how are my results compared to, say, Ace’s?”

“Ace is a pitcher. He doesn’t have the same cardio abilities you do. He doesn’t bat, he doesn’t run bases,” she replied, not looking up from the screen.

“Okay, what about Weston?”

“He’s center field. If you want a fair comparison you need to go with Robson Barry.”

I rolled my eyes.

I liked Robson. He usually started a couple of times a week when Riley Rivers was pitching instead of Ace, but I didn’t want to be compared to another catcher.

It was too easy.

I wanted to know the goddamn hill sprints I’d busted my guts for were at the same level as the fielders.

“What about Reeves, doc. Am I fitter than Reeves? He’s heading toward old man territory now, right?” I chuckled, wiping another cascade of sweat from my face. “Must be nearly forty.”

“He’s thirty-four and does he know you call him an old man?”

I shook my head. “Of course not, I don’t have a death wish.”

She chuckled in response, her head flicking up to one of the guys on her team as he walked into the lab. “Marnie, Scout Davison is here for you with a couple of guys. Can I let them in?”

Even through the haze of sweat and lack of oxygen, my ears immediately pricked.

Scout was here.

If my heart wasn’t still pounding from the treadmill, it would be pounding from that news. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of days, except from far across the field during the home games we’d played.

I’d been toying with the idea of going up to the fifth floor to see her but hadn’t decided if that was too much, especially because I couldn’t come up with a decent excuse as to why I’d be up there.

Which reminded me, I needed to get her number somehow.

But this…this was perfect.

Nothing forced about her doing her job while I was doing mine.

I jumped up from the seat and stood in front of the mirror. I might have been on the verge of collapsing only minutes ago, but I also looked good.

My muscles were popping, my skin was still wet with sweat and these shorts made my ass look super peachy. It was all on display for Scout to get her fill. I eased the waistband down an inch so it sat on the divots girls went wild for.

I couldn’t have planned it any better.

“Scout? What for?” Marnie’s eyes flicked over to me and frowned, then back at the guy by the door.

“Something for the website. She said you’d okayed it last week.”

“Dammit.” Her eyes widened and she slapped a hand to her head, turning back to her screen. “I forgot. Crap. Can you ask them to come back in thirty, can they wait until then? Parker’s done?—”

“No!” I shouted as I was forced out of another one of my fantasies where Scout fell in love with me. And if the expression on Marnie’s face was anything to go by, too loudly. My head snapped to her colleague. “Tell them they can come now, I’ll do it. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.” I turned back to Marnie. “If that’s okay, doc?”

“No, Parker. Boomer can do it, he’ll be rested. We’re doing the VO2 max test.”

I was too busy buzzing with the renewed energy of Scout being outside to panic about what I was volunteering for. “Please, doc. Just go with it. I’ll do it, get me on the treadmill again.”

Her entire face screwed in confusion. “Why?”

“Just ’cause,” I pleaded, throwing in my best puppy dog eyes. The ones I knew the girls liked. “Please, doc?”

She shrugged and puffed out an exasperated sigh and nodded to the guy. “Okay, tell them they can come in.” As soon as he left, she turned to me with narrowed eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” I tried to keep my tone as casual as possible. “Just want to help out, is all.”

Suddenly her brows shot up. I could almost see the lightbulb hanging above her head, shining bright.

“Oh, wait. Is this the girl you like?”

“What?

“The girl you like? Scout’s the one you like?”

“Jupiter’s got a big mouth,” I grumbled.

“He likes to tell me about his day.” She smiled, a smile so sugary sweet it made my guts churn. Gross. “Sometimes you come up in conversation.”

“What else has he said?”

“Not much, that you like a girl and won’t stop talking about her.”

“I don’t talk about her all the time.” I huffed.

“And I’m right, it’s Scout? She’s cute.”

“I know .”

“Wow, you must really like her if you want to go through a VO2 again.”

“We’re just friends.”

She popped a hip and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re offering to put yourself through something you just told me under no certain terms that you absolutely hated. I think you’re more than friends, Parker.”

“We’re not,” I grumbled, again.

“Uh-huh.” One of her eyebrows shot up, and I could tell she was trying to keep her amusement to a minimum. “Shall I fetch you a T-shirt then? Wouldn’t want her to get the wrong impression with you exercising in only a tiny pair of shorts.”

“C’mon, doc…gimme a break,” I pleaded again, really stretching out the vowels until a loud knock sounded at the door.

Marnie’s eyes flicked back to mine with a wink, before she greeted Scout with a big smile.

“Scout, hey. Come in. Come in.”

“Hey, Doctor Matthews, thanks so much for doing this, we thought it would be fun content…” Scout stopped walking as her eyes fell onto me. “Oh! Parker!…I, uh, um…didn’t know you’d be here.”

If I had any doubts about this stupid plan of mine to get Scout’s attention, they vanished into the air.

Her mouth dropped into a perfect oval, her full lips pursed. Lips I wanted to see wrapped around my dick.

I’d thought about it before, more times than I should admit, but now with her in front of me while I was only a pair of shorts away from being naked in front of her, it seemed almost real. Especially with her eyes wide in shock, and the longer she stood there staring at my damp chest, the pinker her cheeks grew.

Oh yeah, I could definitely see my dick in her mouth.

Fuck, she’d look incredible.

“Scout, I’m finishing up with Parker if that’s good. I have a couple more tests to run with him, and you can film those if that works for your content.”

In the future if anyone asks me what the hardest part of this session was, I’d answer trying to keep a straight face when a broad grin was threatening to break at the struggle Scout had to tear her eyes away from where they were currently trained on my abs.

Yeah, I should win an award.

“Oh, sure. That works, thanks…” Scout turned to me. “I mean, if that’s good for you, Parker. We’re doing a piece for the website. It’s a week behind the scenes at the club.”

I was about to respond when Marnie jumped in, “Parker’s fine. Let’s get started, shall we?”

The two guys, who seemed to follow Scout everywhere, were closely behind, each with a tripod under their arm.

“Scout, you good if we set up here?” the skinny one asked. “Doctor Matthews, anything we need to avoid?”

“Yes. My screens. You can film Parker on the treadmill, and that’s all.”

“No problem,” he replied and placed it directly behind me.

Fine by me, my ass would look great on camera. It was almost unnecessary for Marnie to whisper, “I’ll make you look good, don’t worry.”

I already did look good. Even if I did have to wear an ugly as hell mask.

“Can you explain what we’re doing here today?” asked Scout, pointing the microphone at Marnie, though she wasn’t paying attention, seeing as her eyes darted to me every couple of seconds.

“Yes, we’re measuring the VO2 max levels in Parker, which is to say we’re looking to see how his body uses oxygen. The higher the level, the better his cardiovascular function, which is needed for sprinting around the bases.”

“Sounds good,” Scout replied, her eyes darting my way again. I wasn’t even sure she’d looked me in the eye yet, she’d just been staring at my chest the whole time. Chest, abs, arms, ass.

“Parker, hop up on the treadmill.”

I did as I was told.

The whole process was the same as it had been thirty minutes ago when I’d walked in fresh, Marnie fixing the monitor around my chest so she could track my heart, while I eased on the mask. I could hear the guys behind me, setting up their equipment.

“We do this in stages, we keep increasing the speed until Parker is working at his max effort.” Marnie reached over and checked the straps holding the mask in place. “You ready? We’ll begin at a quick jog.”

I nodded.

“Scout, are you ready?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied, from somewhere out of my eyeline. “We’re good.”

Marnie set the speed and incline on the treadmill.

Regret set in almost immediately.

I didn’t know what Marnie meant when she said she’d make me look good, but I definitely wouldn’t look good if I collapsed dead, which is exactly where I was headed if she increased this speed by even a little bit more. And that would be a shame because I kind of wanted to see this thing with Scout through, especially as it felt like I’d been getting somewhere over the last week.

Since we’d shared Twizzlers.

I had barely settled into my stride when Marnie turned up the speed again. My mask hid the scowl I shot her. There’s no way I was going this fast during my actual VO2 max test. I don’t think I’d ever gone this fast. The incline hadn’t been this steep either.

Definitely not.

My legs were pumping so quickly to stop me from falling off the end, they were about to dislodge from my body.

I was concentrating so hard I barely heard Scout talking.

“Why do you keep increasing the speed?” she asked.

“Because we have to build to stop his lungs plateauing. We can’t measure his capabilities until he’s at max effort.”

“And does everyone run at the same speed?”

Marnie shook her head. “No, it depends on their personal capabilities and how well their body works to convert oxygen. Parker is above average, so we always start him much harder. Due to his dense quad and glutes, he can handle a lot. Parker holds a lot of power in his thighs.”

I made a mental note to tell Marnie I loved her, especially when I caught Scout’s eyes dropping to my ass again. The euphoria only lasted a couple of seconds, however, before it gave way to panic that my lungs might explode.

My legs were definitely going to fall off.

Or I was going to fall off.

The power of the treadmill belt would splatter me against the wall, like a cartoon.

This is how Road Runner must feel.

If I didn’t die, I’d need to be stretchered out of here. I’d have to spend the afternoon in rehab just to regain the use of my legs.

Marnie dialed up the speed again. The only thing stopping me from collapsing was the fact I could see Scout from the corner of my eye, standing at the side of the treadmill.

Scout was watching me.

Why was I putting myself through this again? To impress her?

What a chump.

I didn’t know how loudly I groaned, but it was loud enough that Marnie called time on this stupid plan of mine.

“Okay, we’re done. I think we’ve pushed Parker as far as he can go.” Marnie hit the Slow button on the treadmill, and it was all I could do to grab the bars on either side of the belt. I didn’t even have the strength to jump to the sides.

“Wow, Parker, I’m impressed,” Scout said as I ripped off the oxygen mask and jogged to a stop. “That was really something to watch.”

“Thanks,” I puffed out, wiping myself down for the second time with a sweat towel.

If I hadn’t been concentrating on not throwing up, I’d have seen Scout track the movement, eyes wide.

“Thanks, Doctor Matthews, I think we got what we need.”

“Are you sure?” Marnie replied in a tone full of amusement as her eyes flicked to me. “We still have a couple of tests to run.”

There was no need to translate the grunt I let out.

“I’m sure.” Scout laughed, while the guys packed up. “Thanks for letting us interrupt, we have a few more things to add, but the video will be up some time next week.”

“We all look forward to seeing it.” Marnie grinned at her.

“Bye, doc. See you around, Parker.”

The second Scout left the room, I grabbed the trash can and hurled my guts up, before collapsing onto the floor.

Through the black spots blurring my vision and the ringing in my ears, I could just make out Marnie standing over me. “Are you okay?”

Even if I could speak, I didn’t have an answer.

“I have to say, Parker, that was truly impressive, and I can tell you now Robson Barry couldn’t have done that twice. Maybe not even Jupiter.”

I perked up a fraction. Not even the great Jupiter Reeves, though it was debatable he’d do something this stupid to begin with.

If I wasn’t careful, this friendship thing with Scout was going to kill me in more ways than one.