Page 5 of The Strike Zone

“He was so into you last year.”

“No, he wasn’t,” I shot back. “It was a rumor. The gossip around the club last year was out of control. If he’d been into me, he’d have asked me out. And he didn’t.”

It was a conclusion I’d come to recently, during a period where I’d briefly questioned my life choices. I’d found myself fantasizing about different paths, one of which was spent wondering if the whispered rumors were true, that Parker King had liked me, and where I’d be now if hehadasked me out last season.

It might have saved me some time dating douchebags, or maybe he’d also have turned out to be a douchebag himself.

But you live and learn.

And what I learned about dating my most recent ex was that I had terrible taste in guys, and/or I needed to do better at picking them. Probably both.

Alice shrugged. “I dunno. Those rumors are still going strong.”

I turned to her, my brow furrowed, though more from annoyance that my ex-boyfriend popped up uninvited once more in my thoughts. “According to whom? How do you know all this? The season hasn’t even begun,howis it you’re already at the center of the gossip?”

“Hey, gossip doesn’t discriminate between seasons.”

“Alice—”

“I listen?—”

“Ali—”

“Pablo told me,” she replied with a grin. “I always bring him a coffee in the morning, and we spend a little time catching up before I head up to start work. He doesn’t take time off during the breaks, he sees everything that happens here and keeps me updated on the news.”

Pablo Garcia was the security guard who manned the reception desk. He’d been with the New York Lions longer than I’d been born, as he liked to remind me, and nothing got past him. He knew everything and everyone.

“That’s how I knew about Lux Weston dating Radley Andrews before the papers got it. He brought her to the gym.”

“And he told you that Parker King is into me?”

She nodded solemnly. “Yup. According to Pablo, Parker King’s had the hots for you for a while now, but then you started dating Shit Head and he thought he’d blown it. He’s been waiting for you to be single again so he can swoop in.”

“Oh come on.” I scoffed so hard it burned my throat, and I coughed out the rest of my sentence. “There’s no way that’s true.”

Alice jerked a shoulder up. “Hey, I’m just telling you what I heard. You wanna know what else? Which we could possibly call bigger news, it’s gonna cause some problems at least.”

“Sure—”

“You know how Ace Watson screwed up last Opening Day?”

“Yeah.” I shuddered, because how could we forget.

It was unlikely we ever would. A day to go down in history.

It had been a blood bath. Ace absolutely crumbled on the mound in Philly,andin front of President Andrews, who’d made the first pitch, then stayed to watch her precious Philadelphia team annihilate us. I could still feel the humiliation and tension that clogged the air when the guys returned to the hotel after the game.

It was the worst start to a season the Lions had ever had, and for weeks everyone was on edge.

Ace had been immediately replaced by Riley Rivers as starting pitcher, and rumors quickly spread he had the yips.

It didn’t last. Miraculously, Ace turned it around to make last season his best season ever and ended it by winning the CY Young Award.

Probably the first pitcher to ever win after tanking an Opening Day.

“I heard it was because of a girl.”

I tore my eyes away from Parker’s face and the daydream I was about to slip into, and glanced at Alice. “Is it just everyone’s sex life that you and Pablo gossip about?”

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