In some ways, I wanted to convince myself it wasn’t as big a deal as we were making it out to be. Sure, we’d gone viral, and now we’d gone viral again. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was actually pretty damaging. If nothing else, to our own personal trustworthiness, my GPA, and potentially Brielle’s summer internship at Teen Writers. Oh yeah, and I couldn’t forget the recruiter who thought I was such a good guy. I hadn’t ever told Brielle about that pressure point, and now I was glad I hadn’t. She’d feel worse than I knew she probably already did.
School was torture. I kept my head down. I felt Jenessa’s pitying eyes on me all through physics. I noted Brielle’s absence during Lit. In fact, I hadn’t seen her all day. She’d either gone home or she was hiding from me.
I needed to see her. I needed to get things cleared up as fast as possible. She didn’t need to face her dad alone. I’d go with her and take the fall. I mean, I was the one who’d agreed to the fake dating scheme in the first place.
The truth? I felt gutted about the whole thing. It was really hard to go to practice after school. The entire team was pretty quiet. Coach finally pulled us all together at the dugout for a meeting.
“So,” he started. “Stuff has happened today that is—well, I’d say typical teenage drama, but I guess this isn’t typical in that in my day, we didn’t have social media that spread it across the world.” Coach looked at me. “So yeah, you’ve got a lot of extra attention lately and now get ready for the backlash.”
I didn’t know what I was supposed to say, so I stayed silent.
Coach looked around at all the guys. “The fact is, this will blow over. It shouldn’t affect how we play or our games. It’s drama, and drama fades fast.”
“What else are you faking, Mason?” Hunter grumbled.
“Nothing,” I ground out.
“We know he’s not faking that he can play,” Reece offered. “That’s what’s important. That he can play the game. Right?”
A couple of the guys muttered their agreement.
“Right,” Coach nodded. “Now set it aside. Move on. I hate to be the one to tell you, but you all are likely going to break up with your girlfriends at some point, and there will be drama, fake or real, it doesn’t matter. So I want this to be done. Got it?”
The guys nodded.
“All right. Let’s play ball.” Coach slapped his hands together. The guys all jogged onto the field, but Coach put out an arm to stop me. “Hold up, Mason.”
Great.
I waited.
“So, a couple of things,” Coach started. “One, you’d better get that grade up for Lit, or we’re going to have problems. I know Brielle is your partner on the semester project.”
“I’ll get it done. Don’t worry,” I assured him, even though I wasn’t sure myself.
“Good.” He nodded. “Then my buddy—the recruiter?”
I was going to be sick.
“He’s—uh—he’s going to be here for the first game of the season. Not for you specifically, but ‘cause he’s a family friend. So he said he was interested in coming out to see the game, watch how you play, that sort of thing.”
A little bit of hope sparked in me. The recruiter was coming?
“So that means,” Coach’s eyes narrowed, and he leveled as stern a stare on me as I’d received in a long time. “You’d better up your behavior. This whole lying to the school thing—it might be fun and games, but you’re part of a team. You hear me? And I take the integrity and character of my players very seriously. I was hopeful when we met that you’d be a responsible kid, and aside from this stupid stunt, you have been.”
I waited.
“So don’t let me down. No more of this, got it?” he asked.
“Got it, Coach.” I nodded.
“Good. Now get out there.”
As I jogged to my position behind the plate, I couldn’t help but sense some relief. Okay. So that hadn’t been as bad as I’d thought it might be.
But even as I slammed my fist into my glove, I had the sickening feeling that Brielle’s experience wasn’t going to be so easy. Coach was one thing. But Mr. Walters? He was another.
And, I knew I was going to have to face him, too.
