Page 12 of Under Pressure

The guy talking sounds confident enough. I don’t know who he is or why he’s speaking, but it doesn’t matter. As often as I can, I avoid all things sports. I’ve never been interested in watching men skate around and bodycheck each other or hit tiny white balls across fake grass. I hardly have the time to do the things Idolike.

Eli sits back down between us and kicks his feet up on the bean bag chair we use as a stool. “You know that’s the same guy who comes here almost every morning, right?”

“Woah, actually?”

“Okay, so you’re being sarcastic. That’s nice,” he mutters.

Callie blows out a soft laugh. “Clearly, she knows he’s been coming. It’s been months.”

“Exactly.Months! And not once have you asked him if he could get me a signed ball or jersey. It’s like you don’t even like me, Quinn.”

I lift a brow, unable to mask my reaction. “You’re kidding, right?”

“It’s easy to tell that he’s got a thing for you. The coffee here is good, but notthatgood.” He folds his arms across his chest and stares pointedly at me.

Ignoring him, I put all my focus on the TV and immediately wish I hadn’t.

Beck is jogging across the turf now. His dark hair is smashed beneath a green hat that’s facing forward instead of flipped the other way like he has it every time he comes here. I spy the arms of a pair of sunglasses above his ears, but the lenses don’t rest on the brim of his hat like I expected. He doesn’t have a long-sleeve beneath his jersey like most of the other players do, and there’s a silver chain tucked beneath the collar. It flashes every few seconds, holding my attention longer than necessary.

His glove is the same deep green as his jersey and hat, but there’s white stitching that offsets it a bit. I pay a bit too much attention to the way he keeps using his other hand to flex the leather. It’s a fidgety movement, though I doubt he’s nervous. A guy like him? I doubt he’s ever been nervous a day in his life.

He certainly never was when I knew him.

“You can’t just ignore me, Quinn,” Eli muses beside me. “I’m right.”

He isnot.

Beck has reached the small hill I know he’ll pitch from. His grin is wide and bright and so perfect it’s almost painful to look at. The dual rows of perfectly straight, white teeth seem to glow in the sunlight as he lets a guy dressed in black check his hands and glove.

Even his scruffy jaw is sexy, and I’ve never been a huge fan of facial hair. I find it scratchy and lazy when it’s not well-kept. And that’s exactly what his is. Lazy. Like he doesn’t care to shave it because he knows how good he looks with it just like that.

“If he wants to keep coming here to get his coffee, then so be it. It’s been good for business to have him do so,” I say.

Callie adds, “It’s true. Everyone knows which players get their coffee here and now come all the time when the team is playing at home.”

“I don’t want customers to come only so they can have a shot at seeing some baseball player. I want them to come for the coffee, and the food, and the environment,” I snap.

A thick silence follows my words. Reaching behind me, I gather my hair into a big, messy ball and exhale, guilt chewing a hole through me.

“I’m sorry. That was . . . I didn’t mean to sound so harsh.”

Callie reaches behind Eli, sliding a hand over the back of the couch to touch my wrist. “You don’t have to apologize. I get it. You’ve worked hard for this. A group of men don’t get to come in and take credit for the success you gained all on your own.”

Pressure lifts from my chest as I take her fingers and squeeze them. “I have no interest in getting mixed up with a professional athlete. It would be easier if they stopped coming, but at the same time, I’m not too stubborn to admit that the boom in business is great in the long haul.”

“So, does that mean you give me permission to ask one of them to sign something for me the next time they come?” Eli asks.

My sister slips her hand from mine and uses it to tug on a blue-painted stripe of his messy blond hair in punishment, making him cry out. I grin at that and settle into the couch, willing myself to relax. We’ve still got an hour before we open, and from the look of the game, it’s nearly over.

The numbers on the screen are easy enough to understand. Beck is close to striking out his third consecutive player, which sounds like it should be an accomplishment of some sort. If he were a stranger, I might have even been happy for him.

Instead, I’m annoyed because I know that this game is only going to increase his confidence, which will make him even more obnoxious the next time he’s here. God knows why he’s even grown so interested in this place, especially when I know that he can’t stand coffee.

At first, I thought maybe he just didn’t know what he liked to drink, but the more he came, the more options I gave him. Each different variation of coffee—whether hot, cold, espresso, cold brew—had him struggling to hide the visceral disgust thatwould follow each testing sip. After the third week of him coming by, he’d tried almost everything on the menu. One after the other, he’d force himself to drink every sip and come back again ready to punish himself.

I don’t understand it now any more than I did then.

Only now, I’ve stopped trying to find something that he will like and have begun tweaking each drink to make them even worse for him. Day after day, I wait to see if he’ll finally admit that he hates coffee, but he doesn’t. He still forces them down and gives me that ridiculously attractive grin that pisses me off more than it should.