Page 45 of Home Run

“Then can we not talk about vaginas,” Parker hissed.

“But they’re so fascinating. Says right here that?—”

“Dude!”

“Okay,fine.Listen to this one, then. Did you know theheart grows during pregnancy so that it can pump extra blood around the mom’s body?”

Before you ask why Ace was reading pregnancy books, there’s a small possibility that when they all arrived—all thousand dollars’ worth—I had a minor freak out about being able to read them all in time. I wasn’t the fastest reader by any stretch, but seriously, I’d orderedwaytoo many. And while you could argue that they probably all said the same thing, what if they didn’t? What if one held a vital piece of information the others had missed? And then I had to decide which book to read first.

It was Parker who came up with the idea to divide and conquer. We’d done it withCosmo, we could do it with pregnancy books, too, he’d argued, because the areas of interest were almost the same.Almost.

We’d never broughtCosmoto breakfast though, but Ace didn’t seem to want to part withThe Dad’s Guide to Pregnancy—from which he’d started reading random facts—so we’d sat far away in the corner at the farthest table we could find. Unfortunately, being the trendsetters we were, everyone else on the team decided to sit near the corner, too, therefore most of our conversation was being conducted in whispers.

Parker picked his spoon back up and dug back into his cereal like nothing had happened. “Huh, no way. Thatiscool. I wish our hearts could do that for running bases.”

“We should speak to Doctor Matthews, she could make it happen.”

Doctor Marnie Matthews was the Lions head of baseball science, and resident genius. Ex NASA scientist, her entire role was to make us better players. She did this byscrutinizing each element of our game—from how we sprinted to how our muscles moved with each swing of the bat—and monitored it against how our bodies worked under pressure. She’d designed our uniforms from a material made from thousands of different sensors, each checking for our heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen, and sweat levels so she could adapt in real time during each game.

The results had been impressive, our injury rates were down, and our wins were up. The Lions had moved from bottom of the standings to one of the top contenders to win the World Series in a matter of seasons. Every year we’d gotten further and further into the postseason, and this year we were expected to go all the way. It was no secret that Penn Shepherd—the Lions owner—wanted the Commissioner’s Trophy.

“The doc can’t make our hearts grow. She’s notthatclever.”

“Don’t let Reeves hear you say that.”

“Don’t let me hear you say what?”

A shadow fell over the table. I might have groaned, Parkerdefinitelydid, as the four of us looked up to find Jupiter Reeves, the Lions’ third baseman. He might be widely regarded as one of the best players of our (and any) generation, but he was also a colossal dick when he wanted to be, which was most of the time.

Full sleeves of tattooed arms dedicated to his one other obsession beyond baseball—the aforementioned Marnie Matthews—were crossed over the Lions tee, hugging his wide chest. The perpetual glower, the slightly narrowed eyes framed by a fan of creases, and a mouth constantly set onthe verge of a snarl, all gave off the appearance of someone who didn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought. Therefore, it was always wise to stay on his good side.

I still hadn’t figured out what Marnie saw in him, especially for someone with an IQ as high as hers.

Parker’s book of choice—What the Dads Do During Pregnancy—was still unopened and on his lap. Ace slammed his shut and moved it behind him. It would have been less obvious if he’d written a sign and waved it above his head.

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing.” Jupiter’s eyes narrowed further. “Looks like you’ve started a new reading club.”

Ace’s gaze darted around the table. I readied my foot to deliver a sharp kick to his ankle in case he had any thoughts about announcing my news, but I didn’t need to use it.

He sighed dramatically. “If you really want to know, we were talking about vaginas.”

Not one of us dared look at another. Next to me, Lux spluttered a cough, but I don’t think anyone else noticed.

“Vaginas?”

“Yup. They’re fascinating,” replied Ace with all the enthusiasm of an OBGYN (yes, I’d learned what that was) and not someone who’d spent the thirty minutes we’d been sitting at breakfast reading about the different stages of pregnancy. “For example?—”

“Nope.” Jupiter cut him off with a slash of his hand through the air. “I am not being dragged into this.”

“Wow, that’s the quickest we’ve ever gotten rid of him,” I remarked as Jupiter hurried off to join Boomer Jones and Saint Velasquez on a table four down from ours. From theway the two of them turned around, it was obvious Jupiter had relayed our brief conversation.

“Who knew the great Jupiter Reeves would be scared of vaginas,” Parker drawled once Jupiter was fully out of earshot.

Lux stuck a fork into his egg-white omelet. “He has a point, you know.”

“About what? Vaginas?”

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