I wink. “Have we met? I’m a fuckinggod.”
After one more long glance, she rolls her eyes and heads to her place for the shoot, and I blow out a slow breath.
Played through worse than being a little hot before.
Probably.
My teammates and I all work up a sweat under our gear every practice and game, but we’re on ice when we do it.
Not standing under the blazing July sun that’s so hot, it’s evaporating all of the sweat off my face.
The director calls, “Action!” and I take one more big breath before lumbering my way to home plate and lifting my hockey stick like a baseball bat, my pulse ticking higher. This is the last take whether the director likes it or not.
“All right, big guy, let’s see what you’ve got,” I call to Silas Collins, a young player from the Pounders who’s prepared to pitch me a rugby ball.
Backward, since that’s how they do it in rugby.
Addie steps up to the plate too. “You’re holding the wrong bat, Captain.”
Whoever wrote the script for this knows her well.
I give her a cocky grin. “You mean I’m holding the bat wrong.”
Someone off-camera tosses her a baseball bat. She catches it one-handed almost without looking, then flips it to offer the handle to me while she holds it by the barrel.
“The wrong bat. You can’t hit a baseball with a hockey stick.”
“The word you’re looking for isshouldn’t. Icanhit a baseball with a hockey stick. But Ishouldn’t.” Okay, yeah, despite the heat, this is a fun script. Whoever wrote it knew me well too.
But it’s still hotter than balls and I’m about done with this shit for today.
“Actually, with your stance like that, you won’t hit anything at all,” she says.
“Bet,” I reply.
I readjust my stick the way she showed me before we started shooting, digging my skates into the dirt.
Ground crew’s gonna hate us.
Not my problem though.
My problem is having enough patience to wait Addie out while she realizes I’m what’s missing in her life.
“Pitch it, Collins,” I call while Addie shakes her head and backs away with an audible, “Your reputation, Captain.”
“Get ready to strike out,” the rugby player retorts. He turns his back to me on the mound, then arcs the rugby ball backward toward me.
Fucking weird sport. They never toss the ball forward, only sideways and backward. Unless they kick it, then it can go forward. Dudes don’t wear padding. They’re hardcore.
I swing for the fucking fences as the ball soars my way, pulling my stick around to connect with that bloated football at the exact right moment.
But the rugby ball doesn’t go sailing.
Instead, there’s a crack that reverberates in my wrists as my hockey stick splinters and goes flying.
Straight at Addie.
I lunge for her, but my skate catches on the edge of home plate, and I, too, go flying.
