“Lunch.” If he knew he wasn’t exactly my favorite person in that moment, he didn’t let it get to him. “How’s your day goin’?”

“Good.” I kept my mouth flat. “You?”

“No complaints.” That pretty pink mouth of his twitched and he raised his eyebrows, his impressive smile growing by the second. “You mad at me too?”

My mood felt like a balloon that had been pricked by a needle. I sighed and took a step closer as the line behind me shifted. “Maybe.”

He straight up smirked. “Aww, honey, don’t be like that. We gotta be fair. The boys can’t see y’all goin’ at it and think there’s no consequences if they get into fights.”

I started to open my mouth about how we hadn’t gotten into a fight, but closed it just as quickly. The thing with being an adult sometimes, was that it sucked. I hated admitting I was wrong to other people, even though last night while I’d been talking to Josh I had admitted having a part in what happened. But Trip was right.

“If it matters any, I would’ve been rootin’ for you and not Christy.”

How could I stay mad after that, especially with that beaming grin he had aimed in my direction? “At least you would have. I don’t know what I did to your head coach. He makes me feel like I have cooties. Every time I talk to him, it’s like I’m a burden on his soul. If he didn’t want Josh or me on the team, he could have said something before, or just not put him on the team to begin with.”

“What?” Trip chuckled, his forehead scrunched up in confusion as he did it. I was starting to see this man laughed more than he did anything else. It was so cute. “Dallas?”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t about to tell him about the first day we met. It wasn’t any of his business what had happened to Dallas’s brother, family or not. I didn’t know what Dallas could or would have told others about that night. Maybe he had told them everything. Maybe he had told them nothing. But it wasn’t my news to share with other people. I would hate for him to spread my business around.

The blond’s forehead became lined even more, and he shook his head just slightly in disbelief. “He was the one who pointed out your boy in the first place.” He paused and shook his head again. “He’s being like that?”

I nodded.

“Nah. That doesn’t make any sense. I’ve known him my whole life and I’ve never seen him get mad at anybody. He’s pretty fuckin’ chill.”

Were we talking about the same person? I had seen him get mad at two people in the handful of times I’d been around him.

He seemed to think about it for a moment before making a noise deep in the back of his throat. One of his eyes went a little squinty. “You hit on him?”

The snort that burst out of me was so insulted, there was no way he could have taken it a different way. No fucking way. “No.” I didn’t even have to think about it. I hadn’t. Not even a little. Maybe I’d checked him out a tiny bit, I wasn’t a saint, but I hadn’t told him to come out of his room in only his boxers. But I’d cut myself off from looking at him below the neck the instant I learned he was married.

Trip looked more than a little amused. “I’m just askin’. He gets a little sensitive about that shit.” Because he was married or separated or whatever the hell he was? “He hasn’t said nothin’ to me about you.”

Not knowing what to think or say, I rubbed my hands across the front of my pants nervously. “I just don’t want things to be awkward if we have to see each other all the time. I swear I didn’t do anything to make him dislike me. He was pretty nice at first—” At that moment, I realized I was complaining to a grown man about his cousin. I needed to stop. There were plenty of pointless things you could do in your life and whining to a man about another man seemed like it would be at the top of the list. “I just don’t know what I did, and I don’t want things to be awkward.”

“I’d ask him. I don’t always get what climbs up his ass and what doesn’t,” Trip explained casually, so openly it caught me off guard since we didn’t really know each other well. “You’re easy on the eyes, honey. I know I wouldn’t mind you flirtin’ with me.”

“I didn’t flirt with him,” I practically ground out, replaying every conversation I’d had with the man. Nothing. I couldn’t see any flirting in there.

Trip raised his shoulders in this casual gesture, still grinning; that could have meant “I believe you” or “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Great. I scoffed, taking into consideration his words for later, and then focusing again on the man in front of me, grinning. “Stop smiling at me like that,” I said, watching him.

That only made his smile wider. “Like what?”

He knew exactly what he was doing. I wasn’t a fool. He definitely wasn’t one either. “Like that. I’m a lost cause. Don’t waste all that—” I waved my hand in a circle. “—on me.”

His laugh reminded me so much of Ginny, in that moment, it seemed like I’d known Trip half my life. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about.”

“You’re a damn liar.” I snorted at him, smiling seriously.

The more he laughed, the more the edges of us not knowing each other chiseled away and made me feel like we were friends already. “Gin already told me to pretend you were married and had warts all over your face.” His hands went up to pat the stained white T-shirt he had on. Something told me she wasn’t the first person in his life to make that distinction clear to him. “She said her scissors would slip or some shit like that if I tried anything.”

Oh, Ginny. I wasn’t sure how I got so lucky to not just have one great friend, but to have two just seemed like a blessing not many people got in their lives. “You don’t mess with a girl and her shears.” I raised my hand and made snipping motions with my index and middle finger, eyebrows raised.

“I know how to behave.”

I eyed him. “I don’t believe you.”

The smirk on his handsome face, all five o’clock shadow and yellow-gray hair, confirmed just how full of shit he was. At least he wasn’t going to bother continuing. And now that the ground rules between us had been set into place, it made me feel even more at ease with him.

“How’s Josh likin’ the team?” he asked, as if sensing that our lines had been drawn.

I told him the truth. “Good. He’s ready to start competing.” I had already started mentally preparing myself for sitting through game after game, hour after hour, for the next chunk of my life. Competitive baseball was probably one of the hardest things I’d had to adapt to when I first got Josh.

“How long has he been playing?”

“Since… tee-ball when he was three.” That was almost eight years ago. I’d been almost twenty-two when he’d started. If that didn’t have the ability to make me feel like life had flown by, I didn’t know what could.

“Your boy’s got that look in his eye. I kinda feel like a dumbass now that I never paid much attention to Gin when she’d bring up her coworker’s boy that played.”