Page 72 of The Strike Zone

I expected her to jump up with a loud whoop, but instead, she leaned in further.

“And you’re more than friends?”

“No. We’re friends.”

“Who…”

I waited to see if she’d finish the rest of her sentence. “Who what?”

Her head quirked. “Nothing else has happened?”

I shook my head. “Like what?”

“All this time you’ve been spending together and you haven’t been making out in the janitor’s closet or screwing in the locker room after dark?”

“No…Alice, jeez,” I hissed, “where are you getting all this from?”

She let out a disappointed huff. “My active imagination, I just figured something was going on and you’d tell me when the time was right, especially after that thing with the shithead. But it’s been a couple weeks, and I was getting impatient.”

“Please take my sex life out of your imagination. Nothing’s happening.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not nothing. You guys are flirting.”

I gave one long, deep nod, because she’d got me there. Parker and I definitely flirted. We flirted in person. Over messages. Every time I closed my eyes and saw him, we were flirting. And what’s more, I liked it. I liked his stupid jokes, I liked that he tried to make me laugh with them, and I liked his teasing.

As stupid as it sounded, it made me feel…good. Special. That I was important to him.

“Yeah, we flirt.”

“Well, you know what happens next.”

I shook my head, confused. “No, what?”

I wasn’t sure if she paused for dramatic effect or if she was really considering her answer, but then she threw her head back with a loud cackle.

“You become friends who fuck.”

My own head snapped around, checking to see that absolutely no one in the vicinity or neighboring desks heard her. “Alice! Don’t say ‘fuck’ so loudly. And that absolutely isn’t what happens next. Jeez.”

“Mark my words,” she said, jabbing the air with her finger, “it’s going to happen. So you better be ready.”

“Ugh, shut up.”

Pushing out of the chair, she rubbed her hands together in glee. “Ooh, I can’t wait for you to tell me how right I am.”

“I’m not going to,” I snapped back.

“We’ll see. Hey, you wanna go out after the game tonight?”

I shook my head, purposely focusing on my screen, or anything other than Alice. “I can’t, I’m heading to L.A.”

She dropped down in her chair again, gripping onto the armrests of mine and spinning me until I faced her.

“I didn’t know you were scheduled for this away stretch. Haven’t you been on three of the four last away series?”

“No, I haven’t been away for the last two. I went to the plane for game day fit. But I wasn’t on the plane, which you know. And for this one, Dave took vacation, so I volunteered.”

“How convenient.” She smirked. “Looks like I’m going to be correct much quicker than I thought.”

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