“All right.” She drops the second ball back into the bag and marches toward me. I relax my legs and sigh.
“I said half-speed. I know your swing like the back of my hand, Jay. You don’t need to show off for me. I know what you’re capable of.” She wraps her hand around the barrel of my bat, pulling it away from my shoulder. I let go.
“I’m not showing off,” I say, my tone coming out more defensive than I’d like. It’s the truth, though. I’m nottryingto show off. I’m fucking nervous.
“Fine. You’re not listening, though. I want half swings. We need to work on your warm-up routine, and maybe . . .” She trails off, and my brow pinches as I wait for her to finish. Instead of words, though, she nudges my back foot with the toe of her shoe.
“My stance? That’s what you want to work on?”
She sighs and backs up a few steps before raising her gaze to meet mine.
“No, Jayden. And I don’t want to work on your swing, either. I want to work on your head game. But I know you, and you gettouchywhen anyone questions your mental game, so I was biting my tongue.” She draws in a deep breath, holding it as her eyes remain wide open and focused on mine.
My mouth pops open, but for once in my damn life, I think a fraction of a second before speaking, and rather than protesting that my head is fine, I simply utter, “Okay.”
We both blink, and after a moment, Colby exhales and drops her gaze to the ground as she pinches the bridge of her nose.
“This isn’t going to work,” she mutters.
“I’m sorry. I’ll be better. I’ll listen.” I lower my body and touch the plate like I did before, ready to swing. “Go on. Toss again. Half swing. No machismo bullshit. Isn’t that what you always called it?”
A reluctant chuckle slips from her lips, and she shakes her head.
“My dad called it that. I believe he learned that phrase from your mom. She said it was something you and Adriel got from your?—”
She stops before uttering the worddad.I remain locked in my position, though my body wants to deflate. He’s the ghost in the room, always. Hell, we’re not even in a room, yet here he is, floating about and choking off all hope that I might be able to repair things with the one person who always got me.
“You can talk about him. I can handle it,” I say.
Colby blinks as she stares at me for a beat, sucking in her lower lip before turning to head back behind the L-screen. I’m an idiot. She didn’t halt her words for my benefit. She did it for hers.
I manage to swing at half-speed through a full bag, and other than the occasionalstep out of it, and the perennialgood,Colby doesn’t utter a word. I drop my bat and help gather the balls, but the acute suffocation of silence becomes too much to bear.
“Have you been home to Katy lately?” I ask. I already know she has. I thought about paying a visit myself while she was back home, but then I’d also have to see her dad, and he and I didn’t exactly part on great terms.
“Uhhh, yeah. Before I started with the club, I got to spend a month back home. It was . . . strange.”
I nod, not really sure which strangeness she’s referring to. There are a lot of reasons for our hometown to feeloff.
“How about you? When was the last time you went back?” She takes the full bag from me and drops it in a corner before pushing the screen out of the way.
“I try to hit the big holidays. It’s hard to split time here and put in the work during the off-season with training. I thought about training at home last winter, but since your dad sold the hitting facility, I didn’t want to assume he’d still be down to take on a side gig.”
“Side gig? You?” Colby snickers. “You were always his favorite. You know that.”
Colby’s dad, Rick, had a warehouse on the outskirts of town that he turned into an indoor hitting facility for the local youth teams to use when Texas weather did its thing. I had my own key so I could use it whenever I wanted. I often found myself there in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep. Going there was easier than running away when my dad came home drunk.
“My dad would buy a whole new facility if that’s what it took to get a chance to coach you again,” Colby says over her shoulder before nodding for me to line my feet up at the plate. “You should visit him at the high school field next time you’re in town. His players would die, I’m sure.”
She waves her hand at me, then turns her attention to the tee, adjusting its position on the plate as she sits a foot or two away on an upside-down bucket. I’m glad her focus isn’t on my face, because I can feel how tight my mouth is, and I know my eyes are squinting from doubt. Iwasher dad’s favorite. But that was before. A lot of things were different before. And it startedwaybefore Colby and I kissed.
“Let’s do a few with the one-hand drill. I want to see how your top and bottom hands are isolated.” She narrows her gaze and rests her chin on her fist while her elbow balances on the kneecap of her propped-up leg. How she can contort her bodyso much yet still sit on a stool baffles me. Women are nimble, I guess. I’d be on my ass by now.
I nod and follow her instructions, working through the drill while she studies the path my arm takes, and how the bat meets the ball. She makes notes on her iPad, then has me switch hands so she can do the same with my left hand. It’s a nuanced exercise. Tedious, in fact, and if any other coach had me doing this, I’d be bitching up a storm. I suppose there’s a lesson in that for me, as well, one I’ll unpack later . . .or never.
Since it’s Colby, I play along, trusting her process. Respecting her because I know she’s good at her job. But my mind is still swirling around the conversation Iwantto have, my focus on constant lookout for the perfect opportunity. When I relent that there simply isn’t going to be one, however, I blow up the easy working routine Colby’s built to carve my own.
“I caught your semi series,” I blurt out.
