“Let’s hear them.” I lift my glove, and pretend my heart isn’t about to beat through my rib cage.
She clears her throat, making a big show of straightening the paper in her hands. “Go on a real date. No pretending and no practicing.”
First thing on the list and she’s already taking a hammer and nail to all the cracked framing in my chest. “Agreed. We’ve done enough pretending and practicing.”
She sniffs. “Stay in an overwater hut in Palau and snorkel in Jellyfish Lake every day until we discover a new species.”
“Seems dangerous,” I offer.
“Those particular jellyfish have evolved not to sting,” Imani mutters.
Ren’s eyes flick up to mine, a small wet laugh in her throat, and there’s something like hope, too,written in all that blue.
“Cool.” I nod. “I’m there. What’s next?”
Tears pool and she drops her head, voice shaking. “Be herself, even if, sometimes, she forgets who that is. And she’s so, so very sorry, by the way.” She worries at the inside of her cheek. “She doesn’t—I don’t—I never want to forget who I am for a single second again. Not when this version of me is so lucky to know you.”
“All good. I know who you are. Big fan.”
Her lips part, soft, when she looks up at me. “Figure out how to fall in love the right way.”
“Seems easy enough.” I shrug. “Already got that one figured out, I think. Heard I’m a great teacher, too, so, you’re in good hands.”
“I like your good hands,” she whispers, before her teeth come down on her bottom lip and her eyes find the bottom of the page. “And she’d like to stay off base with Miller Colson-Burke for the rest of her life. I know off base means to be wrong, or to be mistaken. But I think there’s another definition.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes.” Her fingers tremble against the paper. “See also, off base: to be wherever it is that Ren Jacobs and Miller Colson-Burke go when they’re together. Where she’ll always choose him. Where she always, always wants to stay, because he’s worth staying for.”
I push off the wall, tugging off my glove and tossing it to the ground. “Yeah, alright.”
“Alright?” she repeats, angling her shoulder so she can wipe a stray tear off her cheek. “It’s that easy?”
“With you?” My mouth tugs sideways when I nod. “Yeah. Can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be, actually.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want you to stay here if you can’t be here anymore, and you waived your clause so if you—”
“No. I didn’t.” I shake my head.
Ren whips towards Imani. “You said he waived his clause! You said I needed to act fast because the league’s sexiest shortstop was bound to get snatched up right away, you made me sprint down the street so we could get here faster!”
“I said that was the rumour!” Imani hisses, shoving her glasses up the bridge of her nose before she sinks lower in her seat, shielding her face so she’s hidden on the giant stadium screen.
“That’s the thing about rumours,” I start, gripping the infield wall before I vault myself over. My cleats hit the cement on the other side, and Ren takes a sharp inhale when I straighten, angling my head down towards her. “They aren’t always true.”
She blinks up at me. “What about the rumour that you like pretty girls?”
“One.” I wrap my hand around the back of her neck. “I like one pretty girl.”
“She likes you too,” she murmurs, shining tears falling over the pillow of her cheek.
“Great.” I drag a thumb across her cheek, sweeping away the tears, and I catch sight of the ink stretching across the back of my hand. “Can I kiss you?”
Ren nods softly. “That feels like the adult thing to do.”
My mouth crashes against hers, my lungs fill with her the way they do with air when your head finally breaks through the surface of water, sunshine paints all those walls in my chest, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more awake in my entire life.
Ren
