Page 30 of A Whole New Trick

“I know you try to hide that you’re a baseball player,” Carlee tells Joshua. “But I didn’t know you had a secret profile.”

Joshua sighs. “That’s kinda the point.”

“Whoops.” I wince. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He shakes his head. “It’s not like I use it anyway.”

“Why not?” Carlee asks.

“I don’t know. It feels weird to lie about who I am to get a girl. Even if I have a good reason. Relationships are supposed to be based on honesty. You know?”

“Yeah, they definitely should be.” Carlee shoots me a pointed look.

I narrow my eyes at her in reply.

“Chen,” Corey shouts from across the field. “Get your ass over here. We’ve got a game to play.”

“Language!” Carlee shouts at her fiancé.

“Sorry, babe!”

The players and kids around the star pitcher chuckle. Carter makes a whip motion, accompanying it with the appropriate sound effect.

Corey shoves his childhood friend on the shoulder, eliciting another round of laughter from the audience.

“Sorry, ladies. It looks like I’ve got to go.” Joshua shoots me a wink. “I’ll text you later.”

I shake my head and smile. “Go away.”

He laughs and then jogs over to join the large group.

“So… are you sure this thing with Dane is fake?”

“What?” My eyes snap to my best friend. “Of course it is. Why would you ask me that?”

Her brows arch skeptically. “Many reasons. One is that you were just at each other’s throats at the airport.”

She’s talking about when we all got together to welcome Valerie back after living in California for a few months. I bite my cheek and remember the petty remarks I lobbed Dane’s way. I was pretty rude.

I pretend it wasn’t a big deal and shrug. “Things change.”

“Clearly.”

My forehead creases. “What does that mean?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No.” I frown.

She laughs and shakes her head. “Dane is clearly into you, Morgan.”

I ignore the way her words make my stomach flip. “No, he’s not.”

I never told Carlee what happened between Dane and me. I didn’t want her to mention it to Carter and have it get back to Dane, and I didn’t want the hockey star to know how much it stung when he didn’t text me after asking for my number.

And while Carlee is one of the most level-headed women I know, she’s also a hopeless romantic. Unsurprisingly, she sees Dane’s willingness to act as my boyfriend as a sign that he’s into me. She wouldn’t understand another motivation given how tense he and I have been acting towards each other recently.

No doubt, she thinks we’re perfectly set up to become an enemies-to-lovers love story. The romance novel fanatic probably imagines so many sexually charged encounters and palpable angst between us.

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