“Come on.” I tapped a finger on the tip of her nose. “We don’t want to miss the first pitch.”
BRENNA
Eight years ago
Our normal routine of watching Owls games broke the moment we sat on his couch. We ate our usual array of snacks and ordered a half-pepperoni, half-mushroom pizza from Ray’s. We turned on the surround sound to create an immersive experience. We wore Owls merch—Nathan in a baseball cap, me in a loose tank top.
But instead of a healthy distance between us, Nathan took the seat right next to me and pulled my legs across his lap. In the same way he’d pulled me into his room and pushed me against the door, his movements were steady and smooth, as if we’d been this way with each other for years. This new frontier was thrilling and comfortable in equal measure.
“When did you realize how you felt about me?” Nathan asked during the commercial break after the first inning, his fingers moving in lazy circles on my calf.
I swallowed. It was surreal to talk with him about the feelings I’d kept secret for so long. “Do you remember that trip to Albany before high school?” I asked, staring into the turquoise eyes I loved.
“The tournament over July Fourth?”
I nodded. “That’s when.”
“Oh yeah?” He grinned, creating a set of parentheses on either side of his mouth. “What did I do?”
I looked away, nerves crawling into my stomach over sharing myself like this. Even if I was sharing with the person I trusted most in the world. “You didn’t do anything other than exist. It’s like the feelings were just… there one day.”
I still remembered the first flutter in my stomach, when Nathan scooped me into his arms after he struck out the last batter and secured the first win of the weekend. I didn’t want him to let go.
“What about you?” I prayed silently he wouldn’t say last night. My heart couldn’t take that.
Distantly, I was aware of the game returning from the commercial break, but Nathan maintained eye contact, ignoring the TV. “Last season Ax said he wanted to ask you out. He asked me about it, like he needed my permission or something. And it… pissed me off.”
“That he needed your permission?”
He shook his head. “No, that hedidn’t.”
The stomach flutter returned in full force. Any fantasy I’d ever had about crossing this line to being more than friends didn’t come close to the reality.
“Oh, um… I didn’t…” Ax and I had been friends for years. I had no idea about his crush. “He, uh… he never said anything.”
Both of us turned back to the TV to watch the Owls try to score their first run.
“I told him not to, that it would mess with team chemistry.”
My head whipped his way. “Do you think it will?”
I wondered what our teammates would think when they found out we were dating. Apparently, Ax would hate it. But everyone else, would it bother them to have their star pitcher-catcher duo become more than friends?
He laughed. “No, but it was the best I could come up with. I was… confused about my feelings. I had to be sure about how I felt, how you felt. So I paid attention until I left for the summer.”
“How creepy of you, Nate.”
He tossed a pillow at the side of my head, but I batted it away.
“You could have just asked me.”
Nathan cocked his head. “Back at you.”
“I did,” I said, flashing back to a painful memory. “Um… homecoming dance, freshman year. I tried anyway.” I took a deep breath, shedding the lingering hurt. “I put it away after that.” Having Nathan in my life was more important than any specific role he played. “Sometimes it wasn’t easy.”
“Tell me about it,” he groaned. “I thought about coming home and kissing you all summer.”
“You did?”
