Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Discover more of Entangled Teen Crush’s books…
The Crush Collision
The Boyfriend Bid
Offsetting Penalties
All Laced Up
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Amy Fellner Dominy. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 105, PMB 159
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Crush is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Stacy Abrams and Judi Lauren
Cover design by Bree Archer
Cover photography by
Look Studio and LightField Studios/Shutterstock
ca2hill/GettyImages
ISBN 978-1-64063-843-3
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition August 2019
Dear Reader,
Thank you for supporting a small publisher! Entangled prides itself on bringing you the highest quality romance you’ve come to expect, and we couldn’t do it without your continued support. We love romance, and we hope this book leaves you with a smile on your face and joy in your heart.
xoxo
Liz Pelletier, Publisher
To Terry Lynn Johnson for always reading, listening, commiserating, understanding, encouraging, supporting and inspiring me.
Chapter One
For a cold day in hell, it’s unseasonably warm.
I squint against the sun, but unfortunately that doesn’t change the view of what’s ahead—or the fact that I’m heading there of my own free will. A baseball field. The one place I swore I’d never step foot again.
Mai stops me with a hand on my arm. “How do I look?” A breeze ruffles the spiky edges of her chin-length bob.
“Nervous,” I say.
“This is a bad idea, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I tell her. For about the tenth time. “I’ve never seen you this crazy over a boy before.”
“I know, and I don’t like it.” She’s wearing her usual—a button-down shirt over leggings and sneakers—but she’s added red lipstick. She never wears makeup. Mai is one of those naturally beautiful girls who doesn’t try and doesn’t care.
Until Anthony Adams turned his million-watt smile on her six days ago.
“We can still leave,” I say, making it sound like the best idea ever. Because it is.
“I can’t,” she groans. “My girl parts have staged a coup and taken control.” She glances to the field where our baseball team, the Cholla High Wildcats, is now jogging out for the start of the first inning. She grabs my hand and holds it against her chest. “Feel how fast my heart’s beating?”
“He’s a jock, Mai. You don’t even like sports.”
“I know.” She looks at me helplessly. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Mai is the kind of person who’s intense about everything. It makes sense that when she finally decided to fall in lust, she’d fall hard.
But Anthony is the complete opposite of Mai’s dream guy. I know. I’ve seen her checklist. I get the whole bad-boy vibe with the longish hair, the tees that hug his muscles—even the heavy chain he wears around his wrist is kind of hot if you like that look.
Which Mai never has.
But Anthony is also a player—in every sense of the word. This year I have to pass his locker, and a few of his teammates’, to reach mine. I’ve seen the constant rotation of girls. Maybe it’s innocent, maybe he’s a great guy, but I grew up around baseball and I’ve seen enough that, I’m sorry, but they’re guilty until proven innocent.
Especially when it comes to my best friend.
But even though I’ve warned Mai, here we are. This is so far from her comfort zone, I’m hoping that watching a game will be enough to crush her crush. But still…baseball. There’s a clear crack as someone’s bat finds the ball and then a cheer from the crowd on the bleachers.
I shudder under the warm Phoenix sun. I vowed it would be a cold day in hell before I ever watched baseball again. But Mai is my best friend. You do not send your bestie into enemy territory without backup.
I grab her arm. “Let’s get this over with.”
Hell, here I come.
We’re in the fifth inning. Anthony Adams is, as I predicted, uninterested in the brainy girl mooning at him from behind home plate. The bleachers are surprisingly crowded, which is why we’re so close to the action. My seat is partially blocked by the elevated broadcast booth, which I didn’t mind at first, but now I’m getting annoyed. I can hear everything the announcers are saying, and these guys are awful. I’m sure the only people listening are parents and grandparents, but even so, they deserve better.
“That’s a hit from Clemens.” It’s the one with the higher voice. He must be right by the door because I hear him the loudest. “Too bad it was caught by the right fielder.”
I knock my knuckles against my forehead. “It’s not a hit if it gets caught.”
“Shhh,” Mai says. “Don’t distract me with actual information about the game.”
“I thought you liked learning new things.”
“Not about this.”
“Mai Senn.” I add her last name because I know she hates it. It sounds like you’re saying “My Sin.” Her first name is actually Maya. It has something to do with a Greek goddess, springtime, and the month of May—which is when her parents adopted her. But everyone calls her Mai.
I’m thinking about how to get her out of here when she squeezes my arm. “Did you see that? Anthony almost caught the ball with his mitt-thing.”
“It’s a baseball glove.”
Mai has to be the only one here who knows less than the announcers. To be fair,
