“Dude, I’m busy, is all. What’s up, though?” He’s been trying to be less . . . him. I’ve noticed the effort, and I’m sure our mom is in his ear. When the social stories started coming out rehashing our father and the accident, it hit her harder than any of us. She’s good about living life forward, but sometimes bigger forces drag us back.
“I need a solid from you,” I say.
Selling Scott on this idea was easy compared to my brother. Adriel . . . he’s another story.
“I told you, get your own damn phone numbers from the ladies in the club. I can’t always carry you,” he jokes. He laughs at himself, but when he only gets silence from me, he stops.
“Yeah, yeah. I know. You’re taken and shit.”
He hasn’t come around to respecting my feelings for Colby completely, but that’s because of his own demons. My brother doesn’t understand relationships, because he watched our father fuck up his own. He was older. He saw more. Understood more. And he protected me from a lot of it.
“It’s about Colby,” I say, stopping at the open exit from the clubhouse.
I kick at the metal threshold and glance outside, scanning the parking lot and the walkway in both directions. The summer sun is cooking me, but I feel as if the heat will power me through this conversation, so I step outside and wander around the stadium grounds. A few kids who arrived early for the game are playingcatch, so I stop under a tree to watch them and remember how fun this game can be.
“I want you to give her a shoutout, for your streak,” I say.
Adriel’s laugh is instantaneous. “Fuck no.”
“Come on, man. You know she got you to pivot. Sure, it wasn’t much. But she said the right things, got you out of your own damn way.” I’ve used that line on him a few times over the last few weeks, trying to soften him to the idea of giving someone credit other than himself.
“Whatever. I’m the one swinging the bat.”
He’s right. He is. But also . . .
“Yeah, and how were you swinging before she told you to stop affecting so much and instead focus on getting your bat through the zone?” He doesn’t know that she told me what they talked about. And I can tell he hates that I know by the scoff he makes into his speaker.
“Adriel, I’m not suggestion you say you couldn’t have hit last night’s home run without Colby Kessler. I’m just saying maybe, for once in your damn life, do something unselfish and throw that woman a bone. She’s been through hell, and our father sent her there to begin with. Maybe a little fucking restitution, yeah?”
My brother’s heavy sigh gives me hope.
“I’ll think about it,” he finally says.
He ends the call before I can tell him about batting leadoff today, so I shoot my mom a text about it. And then, I take some of my own advice, and send the news to my first Coach Kessler—the guy who, years ago, got me out of my own damn way.
TWENTY-FIVE
COLBY
I’m tired of hiding.
Everyone knows now. I mean, I guess it was obvious before, and everyone knew then. So obvious it disrupted an entire ballclub.Apparently. But now that I’ve been reprimanded and tucked into the abyss of Sweetwater, working with the black sheep of the team and the catcher’s son who has a massive chip on his shoulder, I might as well have a sign on my back that reads: Fucked Around and Found Out. Literally.
“What can I get ya?” Daisy slides a napkin toward me, and I pull my gaze away from Jayden at the other end of the bar to meet her warm smile.
“I want the cheap stuff that tastes like the expensive stuff,” I say.
She chuckles and nods, pulling a mug from beneath the bar and pouring me a cold one.
“On the house,” she says.
I quirk a brow and pull the beer toward me, taking a sip as I eye her over the rim.
“Oh-kayyyyy?”
It’s not my birthday, so the only other feasible reason for this gesture must be the sad-sack look on my face.
“Haven’t you heard?” she says.
