“What’s happening?” Ares, which I’d learned was Lock’s sister’s name over his lengthy diatribe about who he was earlier during the hot dog incident, asked.
“Pitcher change,” Lock said.
“Great,” Ares muttered.
Lock started to laugh softly as he said, “It’ll be okay. Maybe he’ll see you and freeze.”
I really, really wanted to know what they were talking about, but without actually asking, letting them know that I was listening to every word that they said, I couldn’t show my hand.
Instead, I just sat there all miserable.
“Thank God,” Tad said, realizing that there was a pitcher change happening. “I need to pee.”
Tad was gone seconds later, and I let out a relieved breath, returning to a straight up and down position in my seat.
“Problem?”
It took me a second to realize that the rumbled question was directed at me.
I turned slightly and said, “Umm, what?”
He gestured to where Tad had been sitting. “Is there a problem?”
I made a face.
An awful, I’m ready to leave because my date is a dick, face.
“My date didn’t turn out to be as charming and charismatic as I thought he would be,” I admitted. “But he’s not necessarily a problem as much as a nuisance.” I smiled then. “I’m okay.”
He touched my cheek with one fingertip.
My smile widened.
I liked this guy.
He’d already done more for me since the game started—even if it was just buying me a hot dog and asking if I was okay—than my own date had.
The crowd around us started to talk, softly at first before their words got louder and louder until they were cheering.
“Hey, y’all are on the Kiss Cam!” Lock’s sister tittered. “Look!”
Lock and I both broke away from our stare, and I found myself staring at…myself.
Oh, and Lock.
Lock was looking up as well, then his face was turned toward me—at least on the screen, anyway. I was still looking at the screen.
People around us started to cheer and chant.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
I yanked my gaze away from the screen, cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
Then Lock was grinning down at me.
“Kiss?” he teased.
And something inside of me just…snapped.
I wanted to kiss this man.
He was offering…so who the hell was I not to take it?
I’d be dumb not to…
I saw the moment he knew that I was going to kiss him.
His hand came up to cup my face, and all of a sudden, I was partially up on my knees in my seat and leaning over the armrest so that my face could reach Lock’s.
The fact that my father was watching this game from home and would probably see me kissing some strange man didn’t matter.
Also, the fact that I’d arrived with a different man than I was kissing didn’t matter.
What mattered in that moment was that I was kissing Lock, and he was the single best kiss I’d ever had in my life.
Well, if I were getting technical, I’d never kissed a man like this before.
Sure, I’d gotten pecks on the lips from a few boyfriends, and I’d even gotten a tongue kiss from a girl once.
But never a boy—no, a man.
Definitely never a man.
And definitely never like what Lock was giving me.
Cheers rose up all around me, and Lock finally pulled away, a grin on his face.
I stared at those lips that’d just been kissing mine, admired the beard that had tickled my chin and nose. Then I grinned right back at him.
For all of two seconds, because I was knocked to the ground in the next second.
When I looked up, it was to find Tad standing over my prone body with a knife in his hand and a look of death on his face.
“That’s my fuckin’ girl, asshole!” Tad bellowed. “My. Girl!”
“Dude, didn’t look like your girl when I was watching y’all,” came a man’s reply. “You were all talking to that other chick that had to move. When you propositioned her for sex but said you’d have to do it later after you dropped your date off, and she moved, that didn’t sound like the girl was ‘your girl.’”
I looked over, still on the ground, staring at the man that was behind me.
He was a big bear of a man.
Five-foot eleven or so.
Standing there, leaning over the chairs, looking like he was calm, cool and collected as he talked to Tad.
I, on the other hand, was nowhere near calm, cool or collected.
In fact, I was hyperventilating.
Also, I was lying in a pool of mustard and squished hot dog from some little kid that’d dropped it on the ground on his way to his seat.
So no, let’s just say I was not a happy camper at the current moment in time.
“Put the knife away,” Lock said, hands up slightly and his eyes locked on Tad. Watching his every move.
The game behind us had stopped.
There were now security guards all around us, but the crowd was so thick that they were having a hard time getting to Tad.