She rolls her eyes fondly—crystalline blue, almost, under the setting sun and the reflection off the water. “You drive a hard bargain, but alright. You start, though.”
“Okay.” I tap a thumb against my cup before ditching it beside me, too. I don’t know how to tell her that rib in my chest, the broken one protecting the home she’s building or whatever it is she’s doing in there? It swings pretty constantly, the more and more people talk about us online. That it’s moving so fast maybe I’m getting dizzy because when Yas texted me saying things were looking up, I couldn’t really tell which direction that was. “Uh, so—you know how I told you I ... wanted a trade? How much do you know about contracts and trades in professional sports? Like, specifically baseball?”
“Absolutely nothing.” Ren smiles, swinging her feet out again.
“Right.” I swallow and try to look anywhere but at her legs. There’s a group of seagulls strolling along the shoreline of the water. I try to watch them instead. But her feet kick into my periphery with every move, and all I can think about is her knees. Pinching my eyes closed, I tug on the ends of my hair and start to talk. “So, uh, I don’t really need to get into the specifics. But I’ve got a good contract. Long. Lots of money, but it makes me expensive. To keep and to buy. I’m, uh, worth it though.”
Her feet stop swinging, and she shifts on the bench to face me. She angles her head, face lighting up with a soft smile when she murmurs, “You should do that more.”
“What?” I break away from the seagulls. She’s a better view. Hands fucking down.
“Compliment yourself,” she says simply. “Say you’re worth it.” She leans forward, brows lifting. “You are, by the way.”
All the space she takes up inside me grows. I almost forget, looking at her, all lit up from the changing shades of the sunset that do something to the colour of her hair that makes me want to die—that there are all these other things living there too that tell me otherwise. That I’m not worth much of anything.
Not in comparison, anyway.
I grin, cocking my head, pretending Ren Jacobs isn’t settling down and carving out a plot of land beneath my rib cage. “I’ll tell my agent you said that, next time she’s negotiating.” Ren smiles again, and I think my heart opens its front door. “But, uh, my GM—Olson—you met him at the gala? I asked him for the trade at the start of the season, but he, uh, needed to think about it because of the ... media, obviously.”
She gives me a soft smile. “Right. One of the hopeful byproducts of us being seen together.”
“Uh, yeah. And I mean, it’s been a lot going from playing beside Matty to under a banner meant to memorialize him. But I’ve still been playing well ... It’s more just ... all the baggage could jeopardize the return Olson could get for me.” I chew on the inside of my cheek, waiting for the inevitable clench in my chest, the pinch of pain behind my eyes whenever I’m forced to talk about Matty. To think of him as anything but the best person I’ve ever known. It comes, but it’s duller than usual. More distant. But I feel the hammer of the pictures she’s hanging up along my chest wall all the way down to my feet. Swallowing, I keep talking. “GMs don’t typically run around trading their starshortstops if they don’t have to ... but he, uh, it’s looking like it’s ... working. Yas and my agent, Shay, seem to think he’s coming around.”
“What does that mean?”
For some reason, I’m nervous to keep looking at her, so I watch the seagulls again. “That, uh, seems like he might ... work to trade me. Somewhere I could start fresh. Start over. Without some of the ... legacy of it all.”
“Oh,” she breathes quietly, and I can see the perfect blue of her eyes blinking in and out in my periphery. “That was ... quick. Is that—this is what you wanted, right? It’s a good thing?”
“You ask me that when we met, my bags would have already been packed,” I say dryly. “But now? I don’t know. Leaving doesn’t ... feel like the most important thing.”
Ren considers, full lips moving as she chews the inside of her cheek. “Whatisimportant to you now?”
“Uh—” I take one last look at the seagulls, bracing my hands against my knees when I shift to face her. Still beautiful. Still better than the birds. Better than anything, probably. I gesture between us with my tattooed hand, the piece of Matty I’ll always carry around. “This is. Trying again. Helping you ... realize.”
You are.The words paint new colours on those new walls she’s building in that new house, but I don’t say them out loud.
She inhales. “Realize what?”
“That there are a lot of fucking reasons to be you. And there always were.”
She starts blinking, eyes sparkling, when she repeats quietly, “Oh.” She takes a steadying breath, lifting her shoulders in a tiny shrug. Her voice pitches a bit too high, and she keeps blinking. “But what about at the end of the season? Your list will be done, you’ll have tried again and gotten what you wanted ... and hopefully I’ll have found at least one thing to love about myself.”
She says it all with this breathy laugh, like we’re just putting check marks beside a to-do list you might find on someone’s desk at their day job.
Not like we’re pieces of former people and former lives, all jagged around the edges, except, maybe, with each other.
Not like the whittled-away edges of her might fit right beside the broken ones of me.
Not like the world isn’t real when I’m with her.
And not like she might want her knees and bruises and all those painful parts of her heart to be kissed better by the likes of me.
“Then I guess, uh—” I grip my jaw and try to swallow down the way that hurts. Burns a bit, not unlike the way talking about Matty did before her. “If he follows through ... I’ll decide at the end of the season.”
She nods along, too quickly. “Don’t rush into anything. Take your time.”
“Yeah, sure. No rush,” I echo, but it sort of rings out, all hollow, and I’m not really sure why. So I clear my throat, asking, “What, uh, why was your week weird?”
