When my roommate and best friend, Lauren, had suggested we come to the baseball party in the first place, I’d wanted to ask her if she’d lost her damn mind. She was the one person who knew all of Cole’s and my history and had been there to witness most of it. Just last month, she’d offered to cut off his nuts for me if it would make me happy again. I hadn’t realized that I wasn’t—happy, that was—but she had been right. That night in August had taken something from me.
Lauren and I’d met in the dorms our first year even though we had been assigned to other suitemates.
She was convinced that her roommate was going to get kidnapped because she “doesn’t pay attention to anything! Ever! She’s always on her phone, staring down at it instead of looking at her surroundings!”
I remembered laughing at what she’d said because most teenagers were like that, but Lauren had been deadly serious. I stopped laughing and started nodding furiously, promising that I’d pay more attention whenever I walked alone. She seemed satisfied with my answer and declared us friends. We’d been inseparable ever since.
So, here she had been tonight, pushing for me to go see Cole in person, when I’d been doing so well at avoiding him for months.
I grimaced and shook my head, proclaiming that it was a really bad idea, but she still insisted we go. She told me it was a test.
“I hate tests,” I whined.
“But this one’s important.” She jutted out her hip and placed her hand there.
“Please tell me why I’d willingly put myself in this position? I’ve been doing so well,” I asked, waiting to hear her logic.
If I wanted to see Cole in real life, I’d go to a baseball game. And I hadn’t done that so far this season even though I knew it was his last one.
Like I’d said, I was done making a fool of myself for him.
“To prove to yourself that you’re over him. Once and for all. Cole Anders cannot have this effect on your life forever. And I’ve got twenty bucks that says you’ll see him and feel nothing, but we won’t know until we try.” She pulled out a twenty and waved it around in the air like a maniac. “It’s been seven months. We need to see.”
She sounded so convincing in her argument that she actually had me believing I needed to know how it felt to look at him in real life, too, instead of just on the baseball website. Which I didn’t look at … often.
And that was how I’d found myself here, at the baseball house, where Cole lived, dreading the moment I’d finally see him. A part of me reveling in whatever his reaction would be to seeing me in person, too, considering the fact that I’d dressed the part. If I was going to prove that I was over him, I was going to do it looking as hot as possible.
Please don’t be with a girl. Please don’t be with a girl, I repeated the mantra, irritated that I even cared in the first place, as I walked through the house in search of beer.
Someone pointed out the keg in the backyard, and I made a beeline for it. If I was going to run into Cole tonight, I needed a little liquid courage running through my veins.
I stepped into the yard, and my skin suddenly prickled with awareness. He was close by; I just knew it. My eyes searched and quickly spotted him. He looked different, bigger, more muscular. Was he taller? Did guys still grow after twenty-one? It felt like I was seeing him for the first time. One look at Cole’s brown hair peeking through his backward hat, and I knew that I had failed Lauren’s test.
He affected me. Looking at him affected me.
No matter how much time had passed, whatever it was between us still existed. At least, it did for me. And that was why I should have turned around and walked right out the same way I’d come in instead of heading straight toward the keg where he stood with another unattainable ballplayer.
Seven months of work down the drain with just one look. I was a fool for coming to this party, and now, I officially knew it.
Girls Versus Baseball
Cole
“Christina seems like a cool girl,” Chance said as we both watched her walk away.
She looked fucking gorgeous, and I was kicking myself for being such an idiot.
I shot him a look. “Yeah, she’s great. You interested or something?” My tone came out bitter, jealous, and possessive. All things I definitely was whenever it came to her even though I had no right.
Chance threw his hands in the air and made a sour face. “Not even remotely, bro. But you clearly are.”
I palmed the side of my head, moving my hat up and down, thankful that no one else was hanging around the keg where we were; otherwise, I would have kept my mouth shut.
“I don’t know what it is about that girl,” I groaned before bending over at the waist like I was struggling to catch my breath. All I wanted to do was follow her inside the house and make up for the last seven months, but I stopped myself. I had to.
“Why haven’t you guys ever gotten together?” he asked.
“We have,” I argued, sounding like an angry lunatic.
Seven months without seeing her face had been seven months too long. I’d always known that I missed her, but I never realized just how much until I saw her. It was like a damn sledgehammer to the chest. Seeing her had knocked the wind out of me.
“I just meant”—Chance shook his head before laughing—“why isn’t she your girlfriend? It’s obvious you like her. She clearly likes you. What’s the deal there?”
Is it really obvious that I like her? And vice versa, I wondered but didn’t dare ask out loud.
I glanced up at the mini white lights in the yard before shaking my head. “It’s not that simple.”
“Look, man, I get it. When it comes to baseball and girls, it’s hard to maintain balance and focus. They both require a lot of attention, but only one of them talks back and gives us shit over it.”
Nodding my head, I looked directly at Chance. “I won’t do girlfriends until I’m drafted. And I’ve always tried to keep her at arm’s length, but we keep sharing these moments,” I admitted, knowing that I sounded like a total pussy, but I wasn’t sure how else to word it.
“Sharing moments? What kind of moments?” Chance questioned, knowing better than to make fun of me, as he kept his tone serious and inquisitive.
“You know, the kind of moments where you stay up, talking, and before you know it, it’s six o’clock in the morning and you’re watching the sun rise together and you don’t realize how tired you are because talking to this girl is way better than sleeping could ever be.”
I hadn’t meant to say all that, but it’d spilled out.
Christina had gotten to me like no other girl ever had. She’d been doing it since freshman year. We circled around each other, always gravitating back, and I never understood why. Or more honestly, I never tried to figure out why. It was a puzzle I had carefully avoided putting together, hoping some of the pieces would simply get lost along the way so I’d never have to. I drowned myself in other girls, in baseball, working out, and anything else to convince myself that I didn’t need her.
“Can’t relate,” Chance offered with a shrug. “But it sounds nice.”
I laughed. “Yeah, in theory, it does sound nice. But it’s my last chance at the draft. Who knows if I’ll get signed or not? If I don’t and she’s my girlfriend, I’ll blame her for it, you know? Make her the reason why it didn’t work out for me. Maybe we’d fought too much. Or spent too much time together. Or maybe she’d wanted to spend time with me when I should have been working on my hitting. That kind of shit.”