“No.” She snorts a laugh. “But I’d like to have at least tried to pretend.”
I angle my head closer to her. “I’ll go easy on you, I swear.”
Her breath catches, eyes sweeping across my face, and I don’t miss the way they carve across my mouth, just a bit longer than anywhere else, but she takes a step backwards, and whatever interest in me she had disappears as quickly as it came, and she points her gloved hand at me. “I’ll be watching you.”
Turning on her heel, she leaves me alone in the shed, wishing that when she packs up and leaves for that job out east, she’ll go easy on me, too.
She’s not proficient. It takes only a few throws to see that.
We try for overhand tosses at first, but she fumbles every single one.
“This isn’t a glove, it’s an overgrown crab claw.” She makes a pinching motion with the glove as it slips around her hand and the ball sits nestled in the grass at her feet. “Do you have overgrown crab claws for hands, Miller?”
“Uh, no. Not last time I checked.” I shake my head. “Here, toss it back to me. Underhand. We’ll start there.”
Ren lobs the ball back across the yard, and it lands in my right palm with a dull thud.
“Oh, come on!” She flings an arm towards my right hand. “You didn’t even use your glove for that. I am wildly outmatched.”
“Nah, you’ll get it.” I offer her a grin. “Try it this way.”
She pulls some sort of fake pout but rolls her eyes fondly in concession. “Alright, let’s see what you’ve got.”
We tell each other things with each throw.
On her first underhand catch, she tells me her favourite candy. Some sort of squishy British thing that Imani hates.
When she throws it back, I tell her that I smashed my knee open the first time I tried riding a bike and needed ten stitches.
She pauses the game so she can see the scar for herself, and she taps her index finger along each ridge where a stitch sat before she goes back to her side of the lawn.
She tells me she spent four weeks in Germany during her undergrad, taking a course on some fossil that finally linked dinosaurs to birds and proved ancient reptiles had feathers.
I tell her Matty and I spent our summers at a baseball camp down in Florida, and we ended up finishing high school there.
We trade pieces of ourselves for hours, tossing them across the yard with the ball, and I think, they all fall neatly into each other’s hands.
“Think you’re ready for an overhand now?” I throw the ball in the air a few times and she stares, concentration setting her mouth into the most beautiful frown on the planet, before I pull my arm back, lobbing it towards her.
She watches, practically cringing when she raises her hand in what looks like a half-hearted attempt to catch an overhand throw, but I hear the second the ball thumps against the leather.
Full lips part, surprise colours her cheeks, and crystalline eyes dart back and forth between me, halfway across the yard, and the ball, grass-stained and nestled in her glove.
“Oh my god, I did it,” she mumbles, offering me a surprised blink, and then she shrieks—all joy and happiness and excitement.
Probably one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard, actually. Second only to her laugh.
“You did it.” I smile, but I don’t have time to ask her to throw it back so we can go again—she ditches her too-big glove, sprints across the yard, and throws her arms around my neck.
Her fingertips ghost by the waves curling there, begging her to touch them. But her hands find my shoulder blades when she pulls back, and maybe that’s a good thing—I’m not sure I’d survive Ren Jacobs twirling her fingers through my hair.
Swallowing, I offer her a grin, letting my gloved hand rest against her waist. Feels safer than touching her with my bare hand.
She looks up at me, all radiant and a smile that might as well be supernova. “Careful, Miller. I’m in the market for a promotion. Maybe I’ll come for your job instead.” Her fingers drum along my shoulder blades, and even though she’s not touching my skin, I bet she leaves scorch marks anyway. Her brows flick up. “Do you think they’d let me start?”
“Yeah, why not? I’ll take myself off the starting lineup tomorrow. Pascale won’t mind.” I shrug a shoulder and try not to groan when her fingers dip down the planes of my back.
“Great, look out—” she starts, but furrows her brow.
