Baseball and Other Lessons (Devil's Ranch Book 2) by Aubrey Gross

going all True Confessions in his head about a woman he’d once had a one-night stand with, they’d think he was certifiably crazy.
    To be fair, Matt sometimes wondered himself. This constant need to be around Jenn had to be madness, right?
    “You okay? That was a pretty heavy sigh.”
    Matt opened his eyes at Chase’s voice and turned his head to see his younger brother standing a few feet away from the edge of the hot tub.
    “Just thinking too much about stuff.”
    “Anything you want to talk about?”
    Matt shrugged. “Go take a look at my phone and the latest tweets.”
    Chase didn’t move. “Haven’t we all told you to ignore Twitter?”
    “Yeah. But even if I turn it off I still get text messages and emails about what other people are seeing on Twitter. It’s easier to keep up with it myself rather than getting them second and third-hand.”
    Chase shook his head. “So what you’re saying is Baseball Yoda is more than willing to dish out advice, but not so willing to take it?”
    Matt pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not going to argue with you.”
    “There’s a first.”
    Matt barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “So where’s Jo?”
    “She’s having a girls’ night out with Jenn. They’ve barely spent any time together over the past few weeks, and apparently margaritas and then dancing were called for.”
    “Dancing, huh?”
    Chase glanced at him. “Since when are you into dancing?”
    “I’m not. Was just asking a question.” He could totally be into dancing if Jenn were involved, but he wasn’t about to share that information with his brother who also happened to be pretty protective of the woman in question.
    “Actually, I was kind of thinking about crashing their girls’ night a little bit later. Jo hinted it would be okay, so if you want to get out and maybe have some fun, you’re welcome to come with Owen and me.”
    “Sure. I have nothing better to do.”
    Chase grinned. “I figured you would say that. And hey, turn off the fucking tweets for the night.”
    #
    “Don’t look now, but the boys just walked in,” Jo yelled in Jenn’s ear over the strains of “Uptown Funk.”
    Jenn kept dancing and didn’t bother to look towards the front door of April’s, the small bar she, Owen and Chase had been frequenting for the past few years. “I thought this was supposed to be a girls’ night out?” she yelled back, a smile on her face.
    Jo’s guilty look pretty much said it all. “Sorry!”
    “No worries! Let’s go say hi so you can make out with your man.”
    Jo’s skin flushed even pinker than it had been and Jenn laughed. They wound their way through dozens of dancing bodies towards the table the boys had co-opted. It wasn’t until they reached the table that Jenn realized Matt was with Chase and Owen. Their gazes met, and Jenn barely resisted the urge to smooth her hair and fidget with her tank top. Instead, she glared at him briefly before smiling at Owen and leaning in to hug him.
    “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight,” she shouted in his ear.
    “Chase didn’t want to crash y’all’s party alone. Where the hell have you been?”
    Jenn tried not to feel guilty about not seeing or really even talking to Owen all week. “Busy. I’ve been working on a bunch of lesson plans and dodging calls from my mom.”
    Owen was the only person who was privy to all the details about her parents’ new lifestyle, and only then by accident; he’d happened to be at her place one day when a shipment of MREs had arrived on her doorstep. Being ex-Army and a current member of the Army Reserve, he’d taken one look at the packages and asked her what the hell was going on. Really, she’d had no choice but to break down and tell him. He’d laughed and shook his head at most of it, and hadn’t judged her for her parents’ actions. Not that she’d thought he would but, well, her parents had kind of gone off the deep-end.
    “What crazy stuff are they up to