“As all good boyfriends do, doing things.”
“Shut up,” she goaded, resting her head on my shoulder for two seconds. It made my heart skip a beat and I wasn’t sure why. “It’s important to be friends with the person you’re with—meaning, there is a foundation to completely be yourself without judgment. Zade and Callie, Aaron and Greta—they have that. That’s tough to find and why I probably won’t have a boyfriend for a good long while.”
“Don’t believe in love?”Wait—do I even believe in it? Why did I ask that?
“No, I do. It’s a lot of effort to find that with someone, isn’t it?” she asked, her green eyes hinting at something I couldn’t figure out. They were the brightest shade, almost like outfield grass, and I loved the color.
“Yeah. It is. We’re a lot alike, you know. For different reasons, relationships just aren’t in the works for us. At least not for a good while.”Good, she won’t be with anyone soon.
“That’s why this fling is perfect.” She gave me a toothy grin, making me laugh, and I wished for the first time that our fling could maybe be something more. But the illusion burst when she asked about my one true love—baseball. “You going to try and head to the field next week?”
I swallowed the uncomfortable ball in my throat.Baseball.That was my life. My dad had tried calling, again, and the itch to get my mom and brothers safe brought my focus to the front.Money, draft, baseball.“I’m gunna try and just have a presence there, but not dress for practice, or Coach and our trainer will kill me dead.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, TJ, but I’m not going to be upset if you have to wait another three weeks before you can play. I’ve really enjoyed hanging out with you and we still have…let me see…twelve more things to knock off my list.”
“Yeah?” I reached around her and flipped her book to our list. “Damn. Twelve more times between your legs, naked, screaming—”
“Tanner! Shh!” she laughed, putting her fingers to my lips to get me to shut up. “We are in public, Mr. Johnson. Behave.”
“I like it when you’re bossy.”
“If that’s your kink, I can boss you around all night.” She pursed her lips with all her confidence, looking adorable as hell, and I didn’t think. I leaned forward, kissing her softly, tentatively, and hummed in pleasure when she parted her mouth for our tongues to connect.
It didn’t last long, but that kiss felt different. Real different. She looked up at me with hooded eyes and it felt like a sucker punch in the gut seeing all that warmth directed at me.Say something. Do something to make it not weird.Clearing my throat, I said, “Do you need help picking classes? I am a wise senior who’s survived up to this point.”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
Thank god. Normal. We are back to normal.“What do you have so far?”
She tilted her screen at me, but in order to see it, I had to scoot closer to her. This put our torsos together, her body heat combining with mine, and it took a copious amount of effort to not react.Focus on her classes.
“Since I have no idea what I want to major in, like, seriously, no clue, I’m going for all gen-eds. English 101, American Politics, Psychology 101, but this is where it gets tricky. I’m at nine credit hours. I need fifteen. Do I pick a language since I skipped over them in high school? Or do I pick a math class that I know will be super hard? Both? Help meeee.”
Her dramatization of asking for help made me laugh and she joined in. “See what time they’re offered. You’re a morning person, but you might work late nights. Psych is tough. Your grade is the midterm and final. That’s it, so you’ll need to make time to study a hella amount of hours.”
“Ugh, studying is not my thing. I’m a worker. I like tasks I can cross off my list, but studying…that’s a hard concept for me to tackle. Okay. Times available. Let’s see.” She scrolled on the screen, herfocusedface involved her teeth coming down on her lip and her forehead wrinkling in the middle. “Hm, this one is eight a.m. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. No thank you.”
“Try to load up your classes on two days. I know that’s not conventional, but it helps me a lot during season. Sports management has a lot of hands-on, project-based classes that take up a lot of time so I try to only go to classes Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“Is that what your major is?” she asked, bringing her gaze to my face with a slight tilt of her head. “Sports management?”
“Yeah. It was beaten into my brain that baseball is just an injury away from not having a future. My mom made it pretty clear I had to have a back-up plan if baseball doesn’t work out. I love sports and coaching, teaching, working with a college team…I’d be happy doing any of those.”
She gave me the toothiest grin. “Tanner, I don’t think there’s much in the world youwouldn’tbe good at, but I can see you liking any of those options.”
“Thanks, Kenny.” I nudged her shoulder, wishing I could show her how much I enjoyed hearing her say those things. “It’s a constant worry—one injury could derail every dream I’ve ever had. It’s not an excuse for my behavior last week, because you didn’t deserve the brunt of it, but it terrified me. If I was out for two months, someone else could earn a starting spot in the lineup. It’s that simple.”
“Hm, I’d like to give your coach credit. You wouldn’t be replaced that fast.”
“It’s a business, so yeah, I could. I accept the rules and am willing to play, but the line of what could be or what could’ve been is real thin for me. That’s what I need to be focused all the time.”
“No, I get that for sure.” She snorted and gave me another look I couldn’t decipher. “Man, all these fans and cleat chasers, they have no idea the emotional and physical toll the sport has on you. They see fame and fortune, the pretty face with the big paycheck, but it’s so much more than that. I’m glad you all have a circle of people you trust.”
“I am, too. You’re in that circle, you know. At least for me.”And her brother’s, but I’m not bringing him up.
“Yeah, I worked myself into yours pretty quickly.”
“That you did, Kenzie.”
