Center Stage: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 8) by Mindy Klasky Page A

that whole perfect attendance thing going. I couldn’t give it up for… What? Watching the sun rise on the beach?”
    “Watching the sun rise. And eating French fries for breakfast. And getting sunburned playing beach volleyball. And missing a full day of school, without anyone ever really getting in trouble.”
    “Sounds like I really missed out.” And it did. She couldn’t keep the note of longing from her voice.
    “So skip tomorrow.”
    “I actually graduated seven years ago,” she said, her voice a little tart. He didn’t have to rub it in. She knew she was a dork.
    “Skip work. Call EKG. Or EMT. Whatever that place is called.”
    “CRT. Children’s—”
      “Repertory Theater. Yeah, I know. Leave them a message. Say you won’t be in tomorrow.”
    “I can’t do that!” Just the thought made her throat tighten. She’d never missed a scheduled day in the box office.
    “Why not?”
    “It’s a co-op. We all have to pull our weight. That’s the way it works. That’s what keeps it fair.”
    “Fair? Like their not casting you in a show for the past nine months?”
    Ouch . When he said it like that, it sounded like she’d be stupid for going in to work. But the more she thought about it, the more Ryan made sense. Other people missed their shifts all the time, and they didn’t agonize over finding a replacement. Everyone else was trading labor for getting cast in the theater’s plays—for getting roles like the ones she hadn’t seen for a couple of productions. Three, if she counted Itsy Bitsy Mouse .
    A good girl might keep her head down, might keep slaving away in the box office, hoping her luck would change. But what would a bad girl do? What would Lindsey do?
    “So what? I leave a voicemail message saying ‘I quit,’ and then I hop on I-64? Drive east till I hit the ocean?”
    He laughed. “If you want to end up in the middle of the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.”
    “You say that like a man who’s tried it.”
    “Yeah. Once or twice.”
    He laughed as he said it, but she heard something deeper beneath the words. What in the world could ever have made Ryan Green feel sorry enough for himself that he wanted to drive away from it all? She thought about asking, point blank. But that would just be rude. Instead, she asked, “So where should I go instead?”
    “Chester Beach.”
    “You had that one ready to go. That’s where the Satellites play, right?”
    “There’s a little stadium there, double A. But there’s a boardwalk, too. Late-night bars. Lots of tattoo parlors. Plenty of options for a bad girl like you.”
    “You don’t think I’m serious!”
    “Oh, I know you’re serious. I also know that I grew up in Chester Beach, and this time of year you won’t find a hotel room within fifty miles of the beach.”
    She was surprised by the lance of disappointment that nicked her heart. She’d really been ready to do it, too. Ready to call CRT, to resign her membership in the coop. Let them figure out how to cover the box office on short notice. Let her figure out the next step in her acting career. And let her walk along the beach at dawn, the waves breaking over her toes as the sun broke over the horizon.
    “Oh well,” she said. “It was a good idea.”
    “It still is. If you don’t mind having a chaperone.”
    “A what?” She’d heard him, though. She’d heard him, and the very word chaperone had her thinking thoughts that made her realize she needed one.
    “We can crash at my father’s house. But he’ll be there, so it won’t quite be like breaking all the rules.”
    “Close enough,” she said, surprising herself. “Let’s do it.”
    “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
    She should tell him to forget about it. She should remind him that he only had one day left on the DL before he had to report back to the team, before he needed to be at Rockets Field. She should say it was too late, the idea was too crazy, he didn’t need to drive her to Chester