Page 66 of The Strike Zone

Parker: Yup

Scout: How about I set up something real special, just for you

Parker: I’m listening

Scout: *eye roll emoji*

Scout: I’m sorry about tonight, there’s no way that ball was caught before you reached base

Parker: Yeah, Coach complained but it won’t be overturned. Only positive is we’re heading home. Are you ready for our big reunion?

Scout: Our what?

Parker: Our reunion. Tomorrow. Our spot, same time as usual

Scout: I’ll be there

Parker: Can’t wait

Scout: Me too

“Where are you?”

“Waiting for you,” I replied, scanning through the dozens of people wandering along the boardwalk running around Lions Stadium.

I just couldn’t see the one person I wanted to.

“At the coffee shop?” Scout asked.

I knew she was close because I could hear the music playing inside the shop, both through the phone and because I was standing outside.

“Obviously.”

“I don’t see you.”

I spun around, searching again until I finally spotted her walking next to a behemoth of a man wearing a Velasquez jersey.

Her eyes darted left and right, with two identical creases forming between her brows while she tried to find me. Before I could stop it, my face split with the biggest grin as my chest thudded erratically, as though it had been months and not the six days that had passed since I’d left her standing in the loading bay.

But the difference between this away series and every other one where she’d been left behind was that I returned home to New York knowing—okay, 95 percent certain, because she never actually admitted it—that Scout had missed me. And it was all down to Jupiter Reeves.

I’d never been much of a texter, definitely never spent hours sending messages back and forth until my thumbs got sore, but in the last week nearly every spare minute I had was spent messaging Scout.

Countless times over the last week I’d taken back every bad word I’d ever said about Jupiter, and I did it again.

I’m sure I’d pay for it at some point, and when that time came, I’d happily hand over my Amex.

I’d never thought of my cell phone being a beautiful thing before, and yet it had become my most prized possession. Since last Tuesday I’d flown across two time zones, a dozen states and played six games while learning as much as I could about this girl currently searching the early game day crowds for me.Me.

This girl I’d crushed on for nearly a year was here meetingme.

This girl whose favorite color was green. This girl whose roommate traveled so much Scout almost qualified for living alone.

The one who used the same dryer sheets her mom did because they reminded her of home, and I held back from telling her that the fresh, cottony scent permeating the air whenever she was within a couple of feet would always and forever make me think of her.

Scout’s favorite holiday was July 4, her birthday was in October, and the last vacation she took had been to Mexico with Alice, her friend at work—the girl I’d met the day Rangers Douche turned up.

I’d learned her dad was pretty high up in the Army, and while her family home was now in Virginia, she’d grown up in Germany where her brother was still out there serving in the Air Force. But her heart belonged to Texas, because that’s where both her parents were from. Even though the coffee sucked.

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