You better be home.
Amy is a doer. She has an idea and shedoesit. She makes it happen. But sometimes she doesn’t always care who she has to bowl over to get there.
And usually the person she has to bowl over is me.
Fine. I’ll do my best. What’s the surprise?I ask.
She just sends back a poop emoji.
“That was a little embarrassing.”
I fumble with my phone to black out the screen and hide the shit.
Ms. Blunt sits down beside me on the dugout bench.
“Yeah.” I shift to face her. “I guess I kind of oversold my expertise.”
She shakes her head. “I meant...” She gestures to the last dregs of our ragtag team. “I’m sure it just takes time. It’s like that with any team.”
“That seems wise.”
I wave to Emily over Ms. Blunt’s shoulder as she gets into her car. I still have to collect the bases and put all of the gloves and bats away because no one has stayed to help.
Except for Ms. Blunt.
I take my cap off and scratch my head with the bill. I don’t have an itch. I just need something to do with my hands when she sits this close to me. Smelling like coconut while I’m sure I smell like sweat and dirt, dugout. I feel the need to apologize but I’m not sure exactly what for, the smell of me or maybe the way I snapped at her earlier.
I resist the urge to check out her legs in the yoga pants, again. I feel fairly positively about them—the shape of her thighs, the curve of her calves, hell, even her ankles are nice. I should probably apologize for that, too, but I’d have to admit it to her first.
That’s never fucking happening.
“You don’t have to stay and help clean up or anything. I don’t mind doing it.”
My chest tightens at the idea of going home too soon. Cleanup might actually be my savior.
“I wanted to say...” She looks out over the empty field. “Thank you. For your help today...or last night.” She waves her hand around in the air. “Anyway, also I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Nothing she’s done recently has required an apology. She frowns at me and it clicks.
“Oh. That.”
The way she’s treated me up until recently. I would rather just pretend we already had this conversation than hash it out.
“It’s fine,” I say, waving my hand to emphasize the point. My glove flies out of my grasp and hits the chain-link fence. I don’t go after it. Maybe if I ignore it, it will be like that never happened. Corrine waits until the fence stops jingling before she speaks again.
“It’s not, though. Your first day, I heard what you said, it sounded like you preferred Richard. And what Mark said about me. But I didn’t hear your response. I just heard you laugh.”
“No—”
She holds up her hand to silence me. “I assumed you didn’t want me as your mentor because I was a woman, and from your laugh I thought you were in on the joke. I was disappointed, especially because Richard spoke so highly of you.”
She swallows visibly, staring straight ahead. “I was embarrassed and angry and I wanted to punish you. So, I did.
“I’m sorry for how I treated you in the past.” She swallows again, her pride, I think. “I’d like the chance to do better in the future.”
As much as I’d love to stare coolly back at her, like I’m sure she’d do to me if the tables were turned, I think my eagerness is written all over my face.
