It Was Me Read Free Page B

traced my fingers up her bare stomach before putting them in my mouth. Her eyes widened as I sucked my finger, tasting her. “Mmmm.”
    Her hand was still on my shorts and she reached for me, grabbing me hard. “Killing me,” she said, her voice strained, ragged.
    I pushed my dick into her hand and moved my lips back to her ear. “First chance we get, Abs. I'm laying you down on that bed and I won't tease you.”
    She rubbed me before dropping her hand. “You better not.”

FIVE
     
     
     
    Mr. Sellers peered out from behind the paper in his hand. “You see this?” He held it up in the air.
    We were out at the pool with her parents, Abby and I in the water, her parents stretched out on chaise lounges next to one another. The sun was beating down on us and it felt a thousand degrees hotter in the desert than it did in San Diego. I hadn't been out of the water for more than ten minutes at a time and Abby and I had taken up roost on the steps that led in to the pool, our fingers intertwined beneath the water.
    I shook my head. “No, I didn't look at it.”
    He swung his legs off his chair. For a guy his age, he was in good shape and he didn't look awkward in his red swim trunks the way my father would've. Maybe an extra pound or two around the middle, but otherwise he looked and moved like an athlete ten years younger than he was. Lean and strong with broad shoulders. I wondered if he'd downplayed his baseball skills.
    He crouched down at the edge of the pool and handed me the folded back sports page. He tapped the top of of it with his finger. “Halfway down.”
    My eyes drifted down the page to a small, two-paragraph column in a box with the headline “Open MLB Tryouts.” I read the two paragraphs. Major League Baseball was holding an open tryout the next day over at the University of Arizona fields. Anyone and everyone was welcome.
    Mr. Sellers waded into the water, dropped in up to his neck and then turned back to Abby and me. “You ever thought about doing that? Trying out?”
    I paused, then shook my head. “No, not really. I was set on playing in college.”
    “Can I see?” Abby asked, squeezing my hand under the water.
    I handed her the paper and she held it with her wet fingers. Even with her sunglasses shading her eyes, I could see she was focused on the small article.
    Mr. Sellers nodded. “Sure. I just wondered if you'd ever thought about playing professionally.”
    I had, of course. I couldn't remember when I hadn't thought about it. Ever since I'd spent my afternoons throwing tennis balls against the garage door as a kid, I'd thought about what it would feel like to put on a professional jersey and run out onto a pristine diamond in front of fifty thousand people. But when I'd lost the scholarship to Stanford, those thoughts felt like nothing more than stupid dreams.
    “Yeah,” I said, shrugging. “But I'm not sure I'm good enough.”
    “Can't find out unless you try,” Abby's dad said, his eyebrows bouncing above his sunglasses.
    “You'll have to excuse him, West,” Mrs. Sellers said from her chair.
    I looked at her as she sat up. It was easy to see where Abby got her good looks from. Just like her husband, Abby's mother looked ten years younger than she probably was. Trim, fit and attractive in a more modest suit than Abby had on, I had to admit that I probably would've stolen more than a few looks at her if she wasn't my girlfriend's mother.
    She adjusted the visor above her eyes. “Doug is living vicariously through you. He wanted nothing more than to be a Padre. I'm pretty sure he still thinks he has a chance to make it, even though he's never been able to hit a curveball.”
    “Ouch,” Mr. Sellers said, but he was smiling.
    “So excuse him if he's running off at the mouth about baseball,” she said. She grinned. “He might be more than a little excited to have someone around to talk baseball with other than his wife and daughters, all of whom couldn't care less about the game.”