Page 11 of Convincing the Catcher

Ending the call, I slam my phone down on the bench beside me, and even though I consider myself a badass bitch who doesn’t like to cry … I cry like a baby because type 1 diabetes isn’t something I can wing. I need a solid plan. And right now, it just feels like every single thing in my life is falling apart.

CANE

I stand beside the dugout, not knowing what the hell to do. One of my community service jobs is to clean all the dugouts, as well as different sports facilities on campus, and I just accidentally overheard NEU’s catcher, Harley Meadows, talking to someone on the phone about her insurance and her medication. And from the sounds of it, she can’t afford to buy it. So, now I’m stuck, wanting to help but also knowing that from what I’ve seen of her, she’s an independent, fierce woman who probably doesn’t want me to swoop in there and try to save her.

So, instead of doing that, I decide to quietly walk to the other dugout and give her time to gather herself up. There’s something foreign inside of me that wants to go in and hug her because I can hear her sniffling, but I don’t know this woman.

Even though I kind of want to.

When I walk to the other dugout, I go around the back of it before entering where she can likely see me. From the corner of my eye, I watch her through the mesh, eyeing me over. I begin sweeping, pretending like I don’t notice her at all as she begins gathering her things up. I time it right though, so that when she makes it to the door, I lift my head and make it look like I just realized she was there.

Her sunglasses are on now, no doubt a mechanism to hide that she’s been crying from me.

“Wow, Catch,” I say, jerking my chin up at her. “We keep meeting at the ball field.”

“More like you keep being creepy and lurking around the ball field,” she sasses back. “Seriously, I was here all last year and never even ran into you. Now you’re popping up like a jack-in-the-box.”

She moves with confidence, and it does something to me because elite softball players just have a type of swagger about them that is pretty fucking hot.

“Just admiring from afar, I guess.” I shrug. “Nah, I’m kidding. I get to drive around and clean up dugouts before I go to the field house and wash benches.”

She watches me, leaning against the dugout door. “I mean, I guess that’s fair, right? You didn’t get kicked off the team from what I’ve heard. You basically got a slap on the wrist for doing something pretty freaking awful. So, in my opinion, cleaning dugouts isn’t too bad.”

“I’ll add that I also have to wash the team’s uniforms for the next month.” I nod. “So … there’s that.”

“Cups and all?” She scrunches her nose up.

“Cups and all,” I say, my lip forming a flat line. “I even get the honor of cleaning the toilets in the men’s locker rooms too.”

“Ew, that’s really gross.” She feigns a gag. “But … you deserve it. You know you do.”

I nod, raking my hand over the top of my head. “Yeah, I know.”

I want to ask her if she needs some help buying her medications. An athlete like that shouldn’t have to worry about how the hell she’s going to afford to care for her diabetes. But then she’d know I was eavesdropping. And something tells me she wouldn’t like that.

She eventually looks away before stepping out of the dugout.

“Well, have fun, Baseball Boy.” She smirks. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

I give her a wave, and with her huge catching bag in tow, she walks the path down to the parking lot. I watch her longer than I care to admit. I admire her luscious ass and the way the fabric of her softball pants hugs her curves. But when she finally reaches her car—an old Jetta with a dent in the door—she looks back at me and laughs. Because she knows she just busted me checking her out.

I don’t care though. I’d do it all over again for a look at that perfect ass.

SEVEN

CANE

“You pitched good today,” my mom says, walking up to me as I pack up my shit in the dugout. “Your team is looking strong.”

“Thanks.”

Today, we scrimmaged against a New Hampshire team and won four to one. Seeing as I hadn’t been at practice for the majority of the week and just came back two days ago, I hadn’t really expected to play. But Coach likes to win too much, I guess.

My mom adjusts the strap to her camping chair and shifts on her feet.

“I heard a few girls talking behind me—they didn’t realize who I was, I guess.” She swallows. “They were saying your social media is under attack right now?”

“It’s fine.” I brush it off, putting my Bruce Bolt gloves in their case and sliding them into my bat bag. “It’ll blow over.”