They’re whispering about the party, and I’m being a paranoid ass.
“Great job, Lola!” Bridget calls. “But try to wait to swing untilafterhe pitches it, yeah?”
Teague makes a noise, but Bridget shushes him. “We’re saving people’s souls, Dad.”
“Snowshoe baseball can’t save people’s souls,” he replies.
“But we’re overflowing the stands and selling out of baked goods, aren’t we?”
Jane and Tavi are whispering again.
“Dylan! You’re on deck,” Bridget calls.
“Dick!”someone yells from the Deer Drop stands.
“Shutup,” Hannah snaps back.
“Heisa dick, sweetheart,” Andrew yells from the pitcher’s mound while Willie Wayne swerves to avoid getting too close to Lola as he heads to the batter’s box and she sighs dramatically on her way back to the dugout after striking out.
Tavi squeezes my arm. “Don’t let them get to you. I put superglue on Constance Yang’s chair once in the dressing room at a beauty pageant, and it soaked through her dress and made it stick to her ass, and when they used nail polish remover to get it off, that gave her a rash, so she couldn’t sit for like two weeks.”
I smile at her despite not feeling it. “You’re such a terror.”
“Somuch,” she agrees with a smile right back that I swear she’s not feeling either.
Lights flicker in the edges of my vision, and I know exactly what she’s thinking.
And tomorrow no one will remember, because tomorrow we’ll remind the world that we’re just friends, no matter what these pictures make it look like.
It’s frustrating as hell that the first woman to intrigue me in years is one who doesn’t want to stay and is hell bent on keeping me at arm’s length.
If I told her how I feel, would it change anything?
I don’t know, but I know I can’t keep living like this.
“Go get ’em, sweetheart,” Mom calls as I step out of the dugout. “And don’t let that trash talk get to you! I’m so proud of the man you’ve become!”
I flash her a smile I don’t feel either. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Mama’s boy,” Andrew says out on the pitcher’s mound.
I ignore him.
Out loud, anyway.
In my head, I’m about fifteen again, and that asshole is going down.
Chapter 27
Tavi
This snowshoe baseball game is awful.
I mean, notawfulawful. We’re winning one to nothing in the top of the sixth inning, but everything else is awful.
Lola’s still playing second base.
I haven’t had my chance to do what I need to do yet, which is giving me a knot in my stomach and making me question if I really want to go through with the plan that Naomi and I hatched to get everything lined up right for our marketing pitch on Friday.
