Not only is she beautiful, but she also has a mouth on her.

“I thought only horses slept standing up, Ump!” Wren yells from her place by the fence. “He was out!”

The umpire shoots her a dirty look, but I catch him grinning as he bends to wipe home plate clean. “Shepherd, you had better get your girlfriend under control,” he calls to me.

I pull the brim of my cap a little lower and look back at him from my place behind first base. “I would, Ump, but I kind of want her to go out with me again.”

He nods. “Can’t say I blame you.”

The pitcher releases the ball and it sails directly into the catcher’s mitt. “He’s out of here!” the umpire yells.

“Finally!” Wren yells, jumping up and down. “I suddenly feel the need to swap some spit with you, Ump!” she calls.

The umpire looks at me again and makes a zipping motion across his mouth.

I trot over to Wren where’s she’s white-knuckling the fence. “Hey, Wren,” I say. She looks at me, her eyes glazed with happiness.

“Yeah?” she says as she watches the pitcher throw a few test balls to stall for time. She barely pays me any mind at all.

“The umpire’s going to kick you out of the game if you don’t cut it out.”

She looks over my shoulder toward the field. “What do you mean?”

“You’re heckling the umpire,” I say calmly.

“Yeah, so? That’s what they’re there for.” She cups her hands around her mouth. “What are we waiting for, Ump?” she yells.

“You’re really adorable, you know that?” I tell her.

“That’s sweet,” she says. She’s still not looking at me. “Now get back in the game. Hustle. Move it. Go.” She finally looks me in the eye. “Don’t make me come out there.”

“Behave!” I tell her.

“Make me!” she taunts. She leans her forehead against the fence so she can glare even harder at me. Then she grins and it’s so damn cute that I can’t help but laugh.

“I tried, Ump,” I tell the umpire as I jog back to first base.

One more out, and it’s our turn at bat.

I swing, and get a strike on the first ball. “Your last name should be Straw, Shepherd,” Wren calls. “You suck!”

I point the end of the bat at her and stare down the length of it with one eye closed, like I’m setting her in my sights. “You’re going to be in serious trouble, Miss Vasquez,” I warn.

She points to her chest. “Who, me? If you had the potential to actually swing and hit something, I might be worried.”

I widen my stance, and wait. My bat makes contact with the ball with a loud thwack and I pull my cap off my head so I can watch the ball fly over the fence. I run the bases, and when I get back to the dugout, I find Wren standing there. She jumps up and down and then, suddenly, she leaps into my arms and wraps her legs around my waist.

I freeze. She pulls back, but I have her ass in my hands and she’s hitched up around my waist. “Wow,” I remark. “That’s all I had to do to get your legs wrapped around me?” I chase her lips with mine, but she’s already leaning away.

“Sorry, I got really excited.” Her voice is suddenly quiet.

“I could tell.”

“This is awkward.” She lowers her legs from around my waist. “Nice hit,” she says, and she pats my shoulder.

She runs back to her spot by the fence and resumes her cat-calling.

I don’t hit another home run, so she doesn’t jump in my arms again. But she’s there the whole time, and she’s having so damn much fun that I can’t even scold her.

When the game is over, a guy in a pair of jeans and a polo shirt arrives with pizzas, sodas, and beer. “What’s this?” the boss asks.

“A snack,” Wren says as she takes a piece of pizza from the box and lifts it to her mouth. “Go ahead,” she says around a hot bite. “I got it for the team.” She swallows and turns around. “Hey, Ump!” she calls out. The umpire turns to face her. “Want some pizza?”

He grins and comes over to eat with us. Wren climbs up on the top of a picnic table and sits down. Her delivery guy hands her a lime soda, and she takes it from him. He sits down at the edge of the group and tries to look like he belongs. “Don’t mind him,” she says. “He’s with me.”

“Anybody with you, Wren, can stay,” my boss croons as he pulls her baseball cap from her head and ruffles her hair. Her security guard jumps to his feet, but she quickly quells him with a look. He sits back down, but he watches her closely.

I climb up onto the table and sit down next to her. “Thank you for the pizza,” I say. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She shrugs. “Your team put up with me.”

“Barely.” I laugh.

She winces. “I forgot to tell you how much I love baseball.”

“Really? I’d never have guessed.” I nudge her shoulder with mine.

Her face colors. “Our dad used to take me and Star to all of Tag’s games when we were little. And then when we got old enough, we played too. Well, we did until…you know.”

“Your birth parents died in a car accident, right?”

She nods. “Yes.”

“Did you play any after they died?”

“No.” Her voice gets soft. “Things were different after that. Then Star and I were adopted, and we discovered music.” I know her older brother Tag wasn’t adopted by the same family, and that they spent years apart. “We never played again, but I still love to watch.”

She leans back and rests on her palms. “If I ever have a kid, my kid is going to have to be a ball player,” she says. “There’s no way around it.” She takes my cap off my head and turns the bill backward, then pulls it down around her ears. “Can you see me as a coach? I’d be good at it, right?”

“Or you could just let your other half do the coaching,” I say.

Her face falls. “No other half. There’s just me.” She pushes up from the bench.

“Maybe by then…” I start. I leave the words hanging there in the air between us.

“I don’t think I want another half. At least not any time soon,” she says quietly. “I kind of like just being me. I’m okay with that.”

“So that one moment when you jumped in my arms and wrapped your legs around me…?” I say. I wait.

She looks at me sheepishly. “I would have done that to anyone who hit a homerun.”

But she hadn’t. Other people hit homeruns too and she did nothing of the sort. “Liar,” I say. “I think you liked holding me close to you. I think you should do it more often.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“I need to do this by myself for a while. See what it’s like.”

“Being alone?”

“Being single.”

“Oh.”

“But we can still be friends, right?” She nudges my shoulder.

“Yeah, of course.” I hold out my pinky finger. “Pinky swear.”

She smiles and loops her pinky with mine. “Pinky swear,” she says. “So, when’s the next game?”

“Next week.”

“Can I come?”

“Can you behave yourself?”

She snorts. “No.”

I wouldn’t have her any other way. “You can come.”

We finish up the pizza and sodas, and the team thanks her for feeding them.

“We’ll see you at the next game, right?” my boss asks.

Wren’s eyes meet mine and there’s a question there. Do I want her to come? Hell yes, I want her to come.

I grab her in a gentle headlock and give her a noogie. “She’ll be here.”

She grins and wipes her hair back from her face.

“I haven’t had this much fun in a really long time,” she says as she lifts her wavy dark hair from her neck. Little wet tendrils of it stick to her skin. “Thanks for bringing me.”

“Thanks for coming.”

We walk quietly back to the car, and she gets in first. I left my car at her building, so we go there. The driver drops us at her door.

She freezes when we step out onto the sidewalk.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

But I may as well have stayed in the car. She stares intently at the man leaning against the building.

“Wren,” the guy says.

“Shane,” she replies. “What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

“Okay.” Her voice quivers a little and I reach for her elbow, but she pulls away from me. Then she realizes what she did, and she turns to face me. “I had a really good time at the game. Thank you.”

I want to reach for her. I want to tell her that no matter what’s happening right now, I’ll help her. I’ll do anything she needs.

“I need to talk to him,” she whispers.

“Can I do anything to help?” I ask quietly.

She tilts her head toward the street. “You can go.”

“Okay.” I bend down to kiss her forehead, but she steps back.

Her eyes skitter between me and him.

“Good night,” she says to me.

Then he follows her into the elevator and the door closes behind them.

“I hate that fucker,” Henry says.

“Who is he?”

“He’s her ex, the father of the baby she lost. Lying, cheating, piece of shit asshole that he is. I was wondering when he’d show back up.” He shakes his head and goes to stand behind his desk again.

“So…what are my chances, Henry?” I ask.

Henry’s brow furrows. “Chances for what?” Henry sorts mail as I stand and wait.

“Chances with her.”

Henry’s gaze finally jerks up. “I thought you were just friends. When we had lunch today, she specifically said you two are BFFs, whatever that means.” His eyes narrow. “You like her,” he says. It’s not a question.

I nod, rolling my keys around my finger. They make a tinny clanking sound as they spin. “I like her.”

He heaves a sigh. “You might like her, but she’s in love with him. No matter what he does, she always goes back.” He finally looks at me. “You might want to save yourself some torment and move on.”

“I don’t think so.” I spin my keys some more and take a seat in Henry’s lobby. “I think I’ll wait it out.” I pull out my phone so I can kill time on it while I wait. I won’t sit here long, I tell myself. Just long enough to find out what’s going on.

Barely twenty minutes have passed when Shane comes storming out of the elevator. He flips Henry the middle finger and stomps out the door.

“Well, he’s a shining example of adulthood,” Henry remarks. He shakes his head and blows out a breath. “I’ll go check on her.”

“Henry,” I call out. He turns to face me. “Would it be all right if I do it?”

“Do what?” he asks absently.

“Check on her. Now.”

He looks toward the waiting elevator and back at me. “I suppose that would be all right.”

“Thanks,” I say. I jam my keys in my pocket and step into the elevator. Henry calls out her apartment number as the doors close.

I tap my fingers on the rail of the elevator and sing a little song as it rises.

I’m afraid of what I’ll find.

I knock on the door and wait, and suddenly the door opens and she stands in the threshold. She has a gallon of ice cream tucked in the crook of her arm and a ladle full of it lifts toward her mouth. “Mick,” she mutters around her mouthful. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m checking on you.”

She steps back and motions me forward by tilting her head. She goes and flops down on the couch. “I’m fine,” she says.

“Shane looked pissed.”

She rolls her eyes. “Shane always looks pissed.”

“What did he want?” I sit down next to her.

She shrugs. “The same thing he always wants.”

“Sex.” I stare at her.

“Well, that too,” she says. “But mostly it was just another chance.”

“And what did you say?”

She blows out a breath through her lips, making them rattle. “I told him to go back home to Kathy.” She holds the ladle out in my direction. “Want some?” she asks.

I eye the shovel she’s using for a spoon and then lean forward. She lets me take a bite off the end, and then she licks the backside of it.

“This is what BFFs do, Mick. One of them has a bad day, and the other commiserates. Ice cream!” She scoops up more and holds it out toward me. I shake my head. “Do you want me to get you your own spoon?”

“No, thanks.” I scrub a hand across my nose. “I should go. You seem okay.”

She nods. “I’m okay.” She laughs. “You know, that’s the first time he’s ever come crawling back that I didn’t fall into bed with him.”

“What’s different now?” I ask. I grab her wrist and bring the ladle toward my mouth, take a bite, and then let her go.

“I think I am,” she says thoughtfully Then she laughs, but it’s a sound with no pleasure in it. “I’m different. I don’t know when that happened, but when I saw him tonight, my gut didn’t twist, my heart didn’t stop, and my girly parts didn’t go crazy.”

“They didn’t?” I have to cough to clear my throat. Her heart may not have stopped, but I think mine just did.

She shakes her head. “Not a bit.” She gets a dreamy look on her face. “He was really good in bed. Like, fantastic. Phenomenal. It was almost extra-terrestrial what he could do with his penis. Like, I expected that fucker to glow! Looking back, it was probably because he stuck it in every hole he could. He had tons of practice.”

I scrub my hand across my forehead. “Okay, this is strange,” I say more to myself than to her.

“Why?”

“Because you’re you and I’m me and I don’t usually talk about other guys’ ginormous dicks.”

“I didn’t say it was ginormous. I said he knew how to use it.” She licks the ladle again.

“Same difference.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Her face falls. She points to her ice cream, which is still nestled in the crook of her arm. “Are you sure you don’t want a spoon?”

I shake my head. “So, you’re okay?”

“Of course.” She leans back and says, “So do you want to talk about Shane’s dick some more?” She holds up her pinky finger and shows it to me. She starts to say something, but I grab her hand, push her finger down, and I lean over a few inches and press my lips to hers.

She freezes for a second, but then she kisses me back. Her mouth opens and her tongue touches mine. She’s tentative at first, but my blood surges in my head and in all my other body parts all at one time.

She pulls back first. In fact, she puts her hand against my chest and pushes. “Whoa,” she says. She licks her lips, sticks her ladle into the ice cream container, and sets it on the coffee table. “Why did you do that?” she cries. “Besties don’t kiss!”

I swipe a hand down my face. “Sorry, but I don’t want to be your bestie.”

“You don’t?”

“And I don’t want to talk about the size of anybody’s dick.”

“Okay…”

“And I don’t want to let you think I’m not interested.”

“Interested.”

“Interested.”

“In what?”

“In you!”

“Why?”

I run my hand through my hair. “Why what?”

“Why are you interested in me?”

“Because you’re…you’re you, dammit. That’s all there is to it.”

She snorts. “Me has never been enough to keep anyone interested, Mick.”

“Maybe you should let me decide if I’m interested or not.” I tweak the end of her nose. “How about that?”

She shakes her head. “I’m so sorry. I gave you the completely wrong impression.”

I sit back. “Wrong?”

“I just got out of a shit-tastic relationship. I’m not ready for anything new!”

“Well, get ready, Wren.”

She jumps to her feet. “You have to go. Get out.”

I stand up, thoroughly confused.

She shoves my shoulder. “Out. Now. Out. Go.”

“Are you angry?”

“No,” she says on a sigh. “I’m confused. And maybe a little irritated, but not angry.”

“What’s the difference between irritated and angry?” I ask.

“Irritated is when you get sand in your shorts. Angry is when someone pulls your shorts down in front of people on the beach.”

“Oh. So, you’re irritated by the fact that I kissed you.”

“No, I’m irritated that you’re messing up our bestie-dom.”

“Bestie-dom?”

“You know, that kingdom where we’re BFFs and get to do lots of fun stuff together with no sexual tension.” She looks at me like I should already know what she’s talking about. “And now there’s sexual tension!” She shoves my shoulder again. “Out. Get out. I need to think. And my ice cream is melting. Out!” She pushes me toward the door.

“Are you serious?” I go where she shoves me, but under protest.

“Totally. I need to think. By myself. Out.”

She shoves me through the doorway and I turn to face her in the hall. She slams the door in my face.

Well, damn.

I go back downstairs, and find Henry waiting by the elevator. “How is she?”

I scratch my nose. “I’m not sure.”

“Is she all right?”

“Oh, she’s fine.”

“What happened?”

“She threw me out.”

Henry grins.

“It’s not funny.”

He belts out a guffaw. “Oh, sure it is.” He laughs out loud some more. “You did something stupid and she kicked you out. What did you do?”

“I kissed her.”

“Ohhhh,” he says. And he nods like he understands, but I still don’t understand anything. Nothing at all.

“What do I do now?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“On what you want.”

“I know what I want.”

“What’s that?”

“Her. I want her and all that crazy BFF-penis-ice-cream-shovel funniness that’s her. I just want her.” I want a chance to get to know her. I want to ask her out. I want to find out who she is. “This is strange.”

“Very.” Henry stares at me. “Are you drunk?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should start there. That always helps.”

He pulls a bottle and two tumblers from a drawer in his desk. “Join me,” he says.

“Sure. Why not?”

Henry tosses back a shot and I do too. I slam the tumbler down on his desk. “Again?” he says.

“Sure.”

“The first thing you have to remember is that you can’t fight with a woman unless what you’re fighting about is worth it. You just can’t. You won’t win. Never. Ever.”

“Okay.”

“So, start there.”

“Now?”

He pours me another shot. “I’d wait until tomorrow.” He motions for me to sit on the nearby sofa. “Have a seat. I’ll tell you about my Nan.” He grabs the bottle and follows me. “Settle in. It’s a long story.”