Page 72 of The Love We Make

“What? Who?”

He pointed, with the driver in his hand, toward Aaron, “You know who.”

Instead of waiting for a response, he just walked off, leaving me to wonder what made him say that. And also wondering if he was serious. I could use a little backup.

It wasn’t but 30 minutes later and we were back in the clubhouse. Team Madison, as I liked to call them, lost big time. But they all had fun and a lot of money was raised for Chase’s youth baseball foundation.

Once the small ceremony was over, I began saying my goodbyes to my team. Cam and Preston gave me each a quick hug but Aaron lingered. Eventually, he wrapped me in another awkward hug.

“Have dinner with me tonight.”

“I can’t,” I said quickly. Too quickly. I didn’t even prepare myself with an excuse.

“Not because of Ethan’s stupid game, right?”

That sounded good. I could use Ethan and the deal he made with Aaron.

“Actually,” I started. But I never finished. I was pulled away from Aaron and my back landed against the hard surface of Ty’s chest.

“I asked her out at hole 1, man. She is going out with me tonight.”

I couldn’t see Ty’s face but I felt his hands on my hips where he had pulled me away. Aaron was looking over my shoulder to Ty and nodding. He didn’t seem excited about Ty’s fake news, but he wasn’t going to argue either.

I bet no one argued with Ty.

I didn’t even argue with Ty. I just slowly nodded my head and agreed to what he was saying. It seemed like the safest and easiest way out of saying no to Aaron.

“Ok. Well. Good luck with Ethan Jones.”

I couldn’t have rolled my eyes any further if I wanted to.

Ty scoffed and his voice deepened, “You think I am scared of a pitcher?”

Aaron just laughed and shook his head at us, “That isn’t what I meant, man.” He walked off, laughing louder as he left and adding over his shoulder, “You’ll see what I mean.”

What did he think Ethan would do? Strike him out with a slider?

Ty didn’t look like he played baseball, at all. In fact, I remembered Cam mentioning he was his teammate. So Ty played football. Andthatmade more sense.

Once Aaron was gone, I turned to face him. “I’m not going out with you.”

“I only did it to save you,” Ty smirked.

“Well,” I looked around, “Yeah, I am thankful for that.”

“Tyson,” I heard from the side of us. I looked to see Chase approaching. Ugh. Now it was even more awkward and I needed to leave as soon as possible.

“Bye,” I added quickly and started to leave.

“Wait, Madison,” Chase added. When he finally got to us he looked at me. “You know you’re too good for Ethan, right?”

I laughed at the bluntness of his words, “Back to that again?”

“Just my way of saying, thank you, even though I know you hate me for stalking you.”

“Am I missing something,” Ty asked.

Chase just laughed at our inside stalking joke and waved Ty off. “Nah. Just a joke we have. But Madison was the reason I was at 678 the night I ran into you. So,” he turned back to me, “thank you for that too.”