Wild (The Ivy Chronicles #3)(13)

The batter squared off in front of the base, tapping his bat once and lifting it in readiness, hands flexing as he adjusted his grip.

A hush fell over the crowd as everyone waited, watching. I didn’t even breathe. I leaned forward, curling my hands around the edge of the bleacher.

Then Logan let go. His body uncoiled, leg winding up and then back down as he released the ball.

The batter swung, missing.

The crowd surged and cheered, myself included. Then silence fell again. Even from this distance, I could read the batter’s scowl. Logan adjusted his cap and rubbed a palm along his snug-fitting pants. I tried not to stare at his butt, but in those pants? Impossible.

I wasn’t his only admirer either. As he threw the ball again and the batter missed for a second time, a group of girls a few rows below us screamed his name and followed with several catcalls.

Pepper shook her head with a laugh. “That’s our Logan. No heart is safe.”

My cheeks heated and my skin hurt. I didn’t know why. It’s not as though my heart was in danger. Just my lips.

The rest of the game passed with me riveted to wherever Logan was on the field. Whether he was up to pitch or hitting the ball, my gaze tracked his lithe movements.

At one point, Reece pointed out some scouts sitting in one of the lower rows.

“Are they here for your brother?” I asked.

“Logan already committed to Kellison University.”

“That’s where he’s going in the fall?” Then he would officially be in college. A new college with a new crop of girls for him to divest of panties. He was a jock. They’d treat him like a superstar on campus.

It was a good reminder of just how different we were.

“Yeah.” Reece nodded, looking very much like the proud older brother. “We’re going to miss him.”

“It’s not that far,” I said. Forty minutes at the most.

“Yeah, but he won’t be working at Mulvaney’s anymore. He’ll be caught up in school. Playing ball.” Some of the pride slipped then and Reece looked a little sad that his brother would be moving on.

Pepper sensed this, too. She covered his hand with hers and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “We’ll always be family. This is a good thing. He needs to get out from under your dad. And Rachel. Time for him to live a life of his own.”

Rachel? I understood the reference to his dad, knowing most of the Mulvaney backstory. Logan often got stuck in the caretaker role for the cantankerous man, driving him places and taking care of the house when he wasn’t at school or work. Mr. Mulvaney would finally have to hire someone or accept help from his sister and stop relying on Logan. But Rachel? He had said she was just a friend. Obviously, she was more than that.

“Speak of the devil.” Pepper nodded toward the dark-haired girl walking up the stands, searching for a place to sit. She was still dressed in head-to-toe black, her lips that bright coral-red from the other night. She still possessed that hard, almost untouchable beauty.

Students recognized her. They nodded in her direction as she made her way up the steps, her heavy boots clanging over the metal. I couldn’t hear their words, but they were followed with laughter and sly glances.

“Rachel!” Reece called, waving her over. Her hard expression gave the faintest crack. She smiled the closest thing to a smile I had seen on her face yet, but that smile slipped when she spotted me. Clearly, she remembered me.

A panicked flurry of butterflies erupted in my belly. Would she mention the kink club? I still hadn’t said anything about it to Pepper, and I didn’t want it to come out this way.

Reece scooted down, making room for her.

“Hey, Rachel, this is my friend, Georgia,” Pepper introduced.

“Hey.” She nodded once at me and then looked away to the field as if I was of no interest. I released a breath.

“Hello,” I returned. Apparently she wouldn’t out me.

Through the rest of the game, I felt Rachel sliding glances my way. I caught her looking several times. It was with great effort that I trained my stare straight ahead. I also made a point not to be overly exuberant in my cheering so she didn’t read anything into it. She was probably wondering why I was here. Suddenly I was wondering that, too.

What would Logan think when he saw me? That I was sniffing around because I liked our kiss? Because I wanted an encore? God. I flushed hot with embarrassment.

The rest of the game passed with Logan’s team pulling ahead. They won 7–5, largely due to Logan.

Everyone stood and began filing down the stands. In the crush, a few people slipped between me and Pepper and Reece, putting distance between us.

“What are you doing here?”

I looked sharply to my right. Rachel had hung back and positioned herself beside me as we descended the metal steps.

I shrugged. “Pepper asked me to come.”

Her darkly lined eyes stared hard at me. “No.”

It was a single word, but it dropped like a stone between us.

I stared at her for a moment, trying to think how to respond. I knew that I didn’t want to ask for elaboration. I was afraid what more she might say.

She continued anyway. “You’re like all the others, after a taste of him.” She looked me up and down before pushing past me, tossing the single word over her shoulder. “Pathetic.”

The words gouged me, and I hated it. Hated that I had become this insecure—this vulnerable. My breakup with Harris had stripped me and left me raw and bleeding. I’d been trying to patch myself back up ever since. Trying to figure myself out for the last couple months. There were days when I felt close to luring whoever I was, who I was supposed to be, who I wanted to be, out into the world. And then something like this happened that cut me back down.