Cat's Out - Book 2

Chapter 6 - take me out to the ball game

If I were just tad quicker on the uptake, I may have realized that Grant and I were being watched. It wouldn't have been too hard for my new friends to figure out who my southeastern Michigan contacts are. And Grant would have been the most recent call on my phone.

Idiot. I'm lucky they didn't pick him up and slice him open for whatever sicko ritual they were trying to perform on Jack. And they'd probably sat in a car in the Frosty Freeze parking lot and watched me licking an ice-cream cone. Hard to look intimidating when you're working on a large chocolate soft serve.

"If you're going, I'm taking you." Grant, in full chivalry mode, repeats this several times during our walk back to my house.

I argue, but it's weak. First, I've been lucky with my little underage driving maneuvers. Grant is a Michigan state authorized operator of road vehicles. I, being several months younger, am not. Second, it would be nice to have someone watching my back. Even though Comerica Park is a large, public stadium, I don't like the idea of accepting an invitation from a guy who'd just murdered my sister and was about to perform a live autopsy on my friend. Call me paranoid, be he seems untrustworthy.

I mount the front porch steps and turn to him, my eyes now above his. "Okay. But you'll stay back. Can you get a ticket?"

"Have you watched the Tigers this year? I can get the entire upper deck."

"We'll save that for my birthday party." I kind of like the view from up here. He has nice hair.

"Does that mean I'm invited?" He smiles his perfectly crooked little smile.

"Only if you survive long enough."

"I'll make that a priority." Grant takes my hand. "I know there's something about you that you're not telling me, but you're not unbreakable. Be careful. Are you sure we shouldn't just call the police?"

"Because a random guy bought me a Tiger's ticket? They'll just tell me not to go."

"That would be my advice, too."

"Grant, we go back--what?--two days? You should know better by now."

"And to think you might make it sixteen years."

"I have nine lives."

"Not enough." He pulls out his phone and checks the time. "Okay. I'll pick you up around six."

"Our second date. How fun!"

"If we don't die."

"Well, yeah, there's that." Before I realize I'm doing it, I bend down and kiss him on the cheek. "Oh...sorry."

His crooked grin is back. "No complaints. Better than being punched."

"That's for odd numbered dates." I sense that my mother is lurking behind a curtain nearby. No, I don't hear or smell her. I just know that it's what I'd be doing. "Okay, see you at six."

***

Dressing for a baseball game is a bit easier than dressing for a night of stalking and possible shapeshifting. Adorned in full Tiger regalia, I meet Grant on our porch at six.

"Was your mom okay with this?" He holds open the Camaro door for me. For some reason, that gets me kind of...um...purring.

I wait for him to walk around the front of the car and climb in. "Yeah. She says crowds are safe and there's no chance of my getting pregnant in box seats."

I believe my date is actually blushing. "You know I wouldn't..."

"Not if you don't want more bruises." I save him with a change of subject. "So here's the plan. We find out where I'm sitting, then you hover around a couple sections over, or behind me."