It didn’t matter that our team won the game—narrowly. I hadn’t pulled my weight, and it was obvious to everyone. The only one who didn’t rag on me was Jessalyn, though if we’d lost, even she would have had a hard time not blaming me. When we were finally alone in the dugout, without fear of being overheard, she laid it out.
“I know you are dealing with unbelievably hard stuff right now, and it kills me that I can’t help you, but, Dana, you can’t keep doing this. We need you here, all of us. We’re a team and when you’re late like this, it looks like you don’t care.” She sat next to me, close enough that her shoulder leaned into mine, and the contact helped to soften the sting of her words. “I know you care about every player on this team. I just don’t want them to doubt that, okay?”
I nodded, but I couldn’t do more than that. Jessalyn wasn’t trying to kick me when I was down, but I was so low at that point it felt like it anyway.
I left her gathering her stuff in the dugout and ran smack into…
“Nick.”
He’d been MIA at my games since we’d talked. I understood, but that didn’t mean I’d missed seeing his face any less. Things between us at school were still strained, but according to Jessalyn, he was fine at work and, though she didn’t say it, basically anywhere I wasn’t. I wasn’t going to assume he’d come to the game just for me, but the fact that he had come despite knowing he’d see me meant I could hope our friendship wasn’t done for good. I could use a little hope right then.
“I’m really glad you came.”
Nick swallowed three times in rapid succession. “Yeah, I um… Dana, I’m not—I mean, yeah, but—”
I smiled at him. He really was a great guy, even flustered and so nervous that he couldn’t meet my eye. I heard someone coming up behind me and I turned back to see Jessalyn emerging from the dugout. She slowed when she saw me with Nick, but I waved her closer. Nick would probably be more comfortable if it wasn’t just the two of us. My smile fell as I turned back to Nick, who wasn’t having any trouble looking at her. In fact, his expression was almost pleading when she reached my side.
I started as if someone had fired a gunshot. How had I been so stupid? “You like him,” I said to her. I would have picked up on it if I hadn’t been so distracted by everything with my family.
Jessalyn met Nick’s gaze before answering, though the look alone was confirmation enough. “I’ve liked him all year.” She said it almost like a confession. Maybe to him it was.
Guys were kind of a gray territory once they’d dated another teammate. Nick and I had never been officially anything, but it was close enough that Jessalyn wasn’t bounding with excitement waiting for my reaction.
“All year?” I asked, my voice registering how stunned I was. “Are you kidding me right now?”
She slowly drew closer but said nothing.
“Jess—” I had no idea what to say to her. I turned to Nick. “And you came tonight for her.”
He tried to make his head disappear into his shoulders.
I could suddenly see how it must have happened. All the shifts they were working together, and they were probably talking at night. Another piece fell into place. “That night I came over and you were weirdly secretive about your laptop, was that because you guys were messaging?”
“Nothing was remotely going on then. I just wasn’t sure how you’d feel, knowing I liked him with everything else going on. Are you mad?” Jessalyn asked.
I felt disoriented and hurt, like I’d taken a ball to the head. “No, I’m not mad, but then why did you keep pushing me to…” I’d been going to say she’d been pushing me to go out with him, but she hadn’t. She’d been pushing me to decide how I felt without making me take her feelings into consideration. It had never even occurred to me, because Nick was so shy and Jess was so not-shy. But even if I never would’ve thought of the two of them, I’d have expected her to tell me—and Nick—straight off if she liked him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what? That I was falling for the guy who practically levitated every time he saw you? You kind of did,” she added to Nick when he and I both made a strangled noise of protest. “What good would it have done?”
“Dana!” Mom was shouting at me from the parking lot. “I need your keys.”
My eyes shut. Dad would want to drive home alone with me so it would be nice and private when he chewed me out for nearly being late again. “I don’t know what to say right now, but I have to go.”
Jessalyn’s face fell. “But we’ll talk, right?”
“Dana!” That time it was Dad calling me.
“Yes, we’ll talk. I promise.” I hurried to the parking lot, registering the sympathetic look from Mom when I handed her my keys and watched her drive off.
“You’ve never been late to a game before,” Dad said. He didn’t get in the car right away. Neither did I. “And now you’ve been almost late twice in a month.” He rested his arms on the hood, his head shaking as he spoke. “You almost didn’t play tonight, and college isn’t that far away. I’ve been talking to the coach at ASU about you—other schools too. Is that what you want them to see? You warming the bench the entire game? Because that’s what’ll happen if you pull this again.”
“I don’t want that,” I said, my gaze on the asphalt.
“You made a commitment to this team, to me. That’s supposed to mean something.”
The muscle behind my eye started throbbing. I didn’t want to think about how little he’d once cared about commitment. I just wanted to feel one emotion at a time. I wanted to be only angry with him or only feel sorry for him, not this stomach-churning mix that kept me from even looking at him.
“I won’t be late again. I promise.”
