Out of My League

by Sarah Sutton

  “Where’s Walsh now?” I had to find him.

  Scott raised a shoulder, not a care in the world. “No clue. But I’m definitely having a celebration tonight. A ‘Beating Walsh Hunter’ party. I like the sound of that.”

  “Ugh,” Jewel sighed loudly, stepping out from behind Scott’s shoulder.

  Her eyebrows were pulled together in the meanest look I’d ever seen from her. Honestly, I didn’t think her face could contort into a frown. But there it was, in full force, and totally directed at Scott. She came to stand by my side. A united front, a wall of the girls Scott had dated.

  “You’re so childish,” Jewel said. “Going on and on about how Walsh doesn’t deserve to be captain, but he does. Because he’s worked for what he’s gotten. He’s earned it. You don’t work for anything—you just complain about everything!”

  My gaze darted between the two of them, torn between shocked and amused at the way things were unfolding. It honestly felt like I was dreaming.

  “You can be mad at Walsh all you want,” she went on, not losing steam. “But he’s a better guy than you could ever be. And if it’s not obvious, this is me dumping you.”

  No, not that I was dreaming. It felt like I’d been thrown into another soap opera, watching this dramatic, heated scene unfold. Just Desserts.

  I bit down on my lower lip before it split into a grin. Yeah, definitely amused.

  I watched as Scott’s raised eyebrow fell. “You’re—”

  “Breaking up with you.” Jewel enunciated each word carefully.

  “She’s tried to fix it,” I told him, unable to help myself from mimicking his own words, and it felt so good. “But she just can’t do it anymore.”

  Scott’s glare wavered from me to Jewel before he rolled his eyes. “Fine by me,” he scoffed. “I got what I wanted. Have fun with your issues, crazies.”

  Then he stomped away, dragging his shoes through the grass as he headed for the gate. I took a moment to watch him go, to watch his tense posture. It’s funny how a fake relationship could feel so much more genuine than my actual relationship with Scott. And how fitting—Scott broke up with me to find someone “better,” and she ended up dumping him anyway. Universe, I owe you one.

  I turned to Jewel, raising my free hand. “I think you deserve a high-five for that.”

  She smacked my palm lightly, giving me the smallest smile I’ve ever seen from her. “Thanks. So you’re crazy too, huh?”

  “Apparently. But I’ve heard that being crazy is more fun.” I nudged her arm. “Besides, if we’re going to talk about crazy, it’s most definitely the guy who is so cutthroat about being team captain.”

  She laughed. “Definitely agree with you on that.”

  I smiled, happy that this situation with Scott brought about one good thing. Even though Jewel was supposed to be the “other woman,” she never felt that way. If anything, she’d be a great friend.

  “Sophia!” Edith called as she hurried in through the gates, her makeup smudged slightly from the rain. “Walsh—he’s out by the fence talking to some guy. He’s by the corner, away from all the people.”

  He’s still here. I clutched my plastic-covered poster board tighter, nerves chittering to life. “Jewel, help Edith find Zach. You can tell her about what just happened and how you rocked it. I’ve got to go.”

  “Wait, what did happen?” I heard Edith ask Jewel as I hurried away.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Most of the crowd had already filtered from the baseball field, heading home. The line at the ticket booth dwindled down to only a few people, and I passed them, eyes peeled.

  All the air whooshed from my lungs as I spotted a figure down near the far end of the fence, Royals uniform, hat backward with blond hair peeking from underneath.

  Walsh.

  My body refused to move forward, but my brain started to immediately soak up the details.

  Walsh didn’t have his bat bag with him, but he did have his mitt tucked underneath one arm. He fiddled with his fingers as he spoke to the tall man in front of him, one who, I noticed, held a clipboard. Walsh nodded to whatever the man said, his attention totally captured.

  Until his gaze slipped past the man to mine.

  I was thrown back to a moment so long ago when the same thing happened, back in the hallway on the last day of school. Walsh, completely in his element, looking directly at me as if I’d spoken to him. Back then, I’d glared at him with all the anger I could muster.

  Now, looking at him evoked a kaleidoscope of butterflies to stir in my stomach.

  The next few moments happened in rapid succession—Walsh’s lips moved quickly, my brain too slow to try and read what they were saying, and the man passed over a small business card before walking away.

  And then Walsh strode straight to me.

  Part of me almost wondered if this was a dream; the boy coming toward me could’ve been a mirage or someone else entirely, but my heart knew. My heart would know him anywhere.

  Walsh’s lips twitched a little, and he stopped a few feet away. His expression was filled with a nervousness that made my blood hum, holding his baseball mitt between his hands. “Sophia.”

  I held my bag tightly to my chest. “Hi.” Despite my brain willing me not to, I found myself taking a step closer, the blood rushing to my head. The last time I was this close to him, his skin had been slipping against mine, his lips touching my lips, intoxicating. It brought a stinging feeling to my throat. “Who was that guy over there?”

  “His name’s Tom Fletcher. He’s the coach for the Fenton County baseball team.” Walsh’s voice sounded a little stunned. “He was asking me a few questions.”

  “Did he ask you why you quit just before the final game started?” I asked, my malfunctioning brain forgetting what tact was.

  One corner of his mouth quirked up. “He did.”

  “And?”

  Walsh shrugged. “I told him what happened. About how I didn’t want to play for a cheating team. I’d rather never play baseball again than be grouped in with a team of people who cheat their way to the top. I told him…” His lips twitched again. “I said that I love the sport.”

  I almost smiled at his words. “But you hate the game.” I wanted to kick myself so badly in that moment for ever thinking that Walsh knew about the team’s methods of winning. “And what’d he say?”

  Walsh lifted up the small card Tom gave him, and I watched as he turned it over. “Told me to call him on Monday.”

  A wave of relief flooded through me, one that nearly made my knees weak. “The fact that he wants to talk to you more is a great sign.”

  “Yeah,” he chuckled almost incredulously, looking into my eyes. “I guess it is.”

  We stood regarding each other for a moment, neither one of us talking. “Was it scary telling the umpire about the cheating?”

  Walsh raised his eyebrows a little bit. “I didn’t tell him. Zach did, actually.”

  Zach confessed about the cheating? I wouldn’t have seen that coming. But it made me look at him in a different light, in a different way. He stood up for something that was right, and I admired him for that.

  I wanted to go on, to say what I’d been rehearsing for the past day and a half, but my mouth refused to open, my tongue refused to cooperate. It seemed that the erratic heartbeat in my throat swallowed my ability to speak.

  Walsh cleared his throat first, shifting on his feet. “I’m sorry. About what happened.”

  I began shaking my head. “You don’t have to apologize, Walsh. Seriously. I do. I never should have written that stupid article—especially not after we spent so much time together. That was messed up of me.”

  Walsh blinked like I’d been speaking a mile a minute. Maybe I had been. He took a small step forward, slipping the business card into his pocket. “I haven’t stopped thinking about Wednesday night, Sophia. I haven’t stopped.”

  Wednesday night. Heat flooded through my cheeks.

  “The house was d
eadly silent that night, and I was thinking and thinking and thinking. About a lot of things. Dad took my mom to rehab that night, did I tell you that?” He shook his head, dragging his cleats along the grass. “No, I don’t think so. That’s why Janet was over—that night, Mom asked if Dad would take her. She…she asked for help.”

  I reached out with my free hand and slipped my fingers into his, squeezing it. “Walsh, that’s great news.”

  “It is, but I couldn’t stop thinking. About my mom, about the final game, about you. I kept wishing you’d call me or text me because I just needed to hear your voice. And then you just showed up at my house.”

  I had been the one needing to hear his voice. After Mom’s truth bomb, all I wanted to do was hear his voice. And he felt the same way. “I’m sorry for everything,” I told him, my voice unsteady. “For writing that stupid article. And for getting upset with you. That wasn’t fair.”

  “It was completely fair. I should’ve told you the minute I realized what was going on. Once I knew about you and Jewel, I should’ve said something, brought it up.”

  In all honesty, if Walsh approached me before Scott broke up with me, I wasn’t sure I would’ve listened to him. I probably would’ve told him where he could shove it.

  “I didn’t plan the fake relationship,” Walsh said, this time dropping his voice. “The way Scott spoke to you that night was so…I couldn’t help myself. I wasn’t even thinking—I just stepped in.” He shook his head. “After I saw how shocked he was, my motives became a little less selfless. But I started out with good intentions, I swear.”

  Seeing Walsh here, opening his heart out to me, felt like a dream that I was just about to wake up from. I watched him for a long moment, trying to burn this memory into my mind. It recorded over the last memory I had of him, of our argument, of me being so angry.

  I looked down at the plastic bag, watching as a lone raindrop slid along the side. “I threw away my article.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It was selfish,” I said, and even though the words felt ugly in my mouth, I knew I had to be honest. “Though the school is seriously messed up when it comes to idolizing baseball, what right did I have to take away your dream to fund my own? And it wasn’t the kind of writer I wanted to be, you know? That’s not who I am. I write about how plastic straws are damaging the environment, not exposés that can hurt someone’s feelings. That’s not me.”

  “Too bad,” Walsh said, causing my gaze to jerk to his. “I could’ve given you some juicy content.”

  “I wanted to tell you so badly, but I was afraid you’d never talk to me again.”

  Walsh reached over and grabbed one of my hands with his own. He had to feel the clamminess, but clung tightly, almost like he was afraid I’d pull away. “Sophie, I don’t think I could stay away from you if I tried. I…I love being around you. Yeah, we started hanging out to sell our fake relationship, but along the way, I just wanted to be with you. Without others around, without having to show off. Because being with you, I could just be me. I wasn’t Mr. Perfect or team captain or anything like that. No one was looking at me other than you, and I could be me.”

  Everything inside me screeched to a halt. My heartbeat, the air in my lungs, the blood pumping in my veins—everything stopped because that was exactly the way I felt. He’d repeated my own thoughts back to me without even knowing it.

  I pulled my hand from his, reaching for the ties on my bag. “I made this,” I said as I pulled the board out. “You were supposed to see it from your pitcher’s mound and swoon, but you had to go and mess up the game.”

  Walsh laughed at my attempt of humor. “I’m pretty good at messing things up.”

  The board shook from how bad my fingers trembled, but I dropped the bag to the ground, turning the board so he could read it. “I’m not the best at making signs,” I told him quickly. “So don’t laugh.”

  I watched as his blue eyes roamed across the white poster board, as the expression on his face fell into a stunned sort of shock. In that moment, I totally could’ve thrown up. In the second between him reading and realization crossing his features, I could’ve thrown up all over his fancy little uniform.

  “That circle thing is supposed to be a baseball,” I pointed out, words coming rapid-fire, feeling ten thousand kinds of silly. “It was dumb. I just—”

  “‘He stole second base and my heart,’” Walsh read. And then the corners of his lips pulled high, showing me his beautiful smile. It lit a blue-flamed fire in his eyes, and it had that scar by his eye crinkling up. The butterflies were back in my stomach, making me feel like I couldn’t breathe. “Sophie.”

  “Welsh.”

  Walsh’s lips twitched, remembering that nickname from once upon a time, but he kept going. He reached out and put one of his hands on the sign, lowering it until it touched the ground. “Give me a chance. A chance for you to roll your eyes at me a million more times and for me to call you Sophie, a thousand more lame parties and baseball games and dog walking and fireworks. A real first date, where we can read more romance books that you love and eat Janet’s cookies. I want to give you everything because you deserve it. You’re worth it all, and I’ll prove it to you.” Then, quietly, almost self-consciously, he added, “Please?”

  I couldn’t breathe for several moments—the thought of inhaling would’ve been laughable if I had any air inside my lungs—so it seemed like I was deliberating. I tried to play my silence off like he hadn’t just struck me speechless yet again. Like my heart wasn’t about to explode inside my chest and my knees weren’t about to give out in front of the baseball field. Like everything that I’d been wishing for wasn’t coming true.

  “Did you recycle the speech you used the night of the party?” I found myself asking, insides quivering.

  Walsh’s eyes curved as he smiled. “I bulked it up a bit.”

  I stepped closer to him, stepping over the trash bag on the ground. “I’m not sure I can roll my eyes a million more times,” I said, reaching for him. “But I’d love to try.”

  Walsh leaned forward and pressed his mouth against mine, lips just as velvety and wonderful as I remembered. His one hand found the dip of my waist, holding me to him. And this—oh, this wasn’t like our first kiss, all fire and desire. This was so much softer and slower, and technically the first real kiss of our relationship. This was the kind of kiss people wrote about in books—the toe-curling, heart fluttering kiss I’d always dreamt about.

  I only heard the dull sound of applause when Walsh pulled away, and I turned to meet the eyes of Edith, Jewel, and Zach, all watching us.

  “That was beautiful,” Edith said, leaning against Zach’s side. I noticed that his hand brushed hers. “Seriously adorable.”

  “I second that,” Jewel added, clasping her hands together.

  Zach didn’t say anything, but he grinned.

  Yeah, I know. Mortifying.

  Walsh ghosted his fingers along my temple, his skin cool against mine. If someone presented this moment to me months ago, I would’ve claimed I were high, drunk, or acting, because never would I ever be kissing Walsh Hunter in my right mind. But this was the realest thing I’ve ever experienced.

  Totally threw that no-kissing rule out the window.

  “Let’s go get ice cream,” Edith suggested, and Walsh picked up my sign, holding it close. “All of us.”

  “We’ll meet you over there,” Walsh said, grabbing the plastic bag from the ground and pulling on my hand.

  I didn’t glance over my shoulder as we walked away, but I heard Edith’s voice trailing after us. “You riding with Jewel and me, Zach?”

  “Only if I get shotgun,” he said immediately in response, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  Walsh tucked my hand close, giving it a squeeze. “I found something yesterday, something that I think you’ll love.”

  Most of the cars were gone as we crossed into the parking lot, and Walsh’s rusting SUV stood out as we walked up to it. He fished t
he car keys from his pocket, and the car clicked as it unlocked.

  “Is it better than my sign?” I asked, watching as he tucked it safely into the backseat. “Well, probably a lot could be better than my sign. My baseball kind of looks like a basketball.”

  “I love it,” Walsh said, pulling something from his car and offering it out to me. “So, I went walking around my yard yesterday, just needing to think. I went out to the railing and saw it, plain as day. When you threw it, it must’ve landed on a rock. It didn’t get washed away with the tide.”

  It took me a long, long moment to recognize the rectangular object in his hand for what it was—with the stickers emblazoned on the front and the scratch along the bottom corner.

  It was my writer’s notebook.

  The edges of the pages were wrinkled a bit from the heavy rain we got, but since it was hardbound, it was relatively okay. I flipped open to a random page, the ink still intact.

  I didn’t realize the significance of seeing it until something turned over in my chest, like a lock undoing itself, allowing a tidal wave of pressure and relief to burst through my bloodstream. My journal. My writer’s notebook. It was here. It hadn’t been eaten by the sea. Walsh found it, saved it, and was offering it out to me.

  He couldn’t have known how important this was to me, how desperately I’d been missing this bundle of paper. A part of my soul. I was itching, desperate to get my hands on it, to feel it solid underneath my fingertips. Maybe even more importantly, I wanted to kiss Walsh.

  So I did both.

  I grabbed onto the journal while pushing onto my tip-toes, finding his lips with my own. His other arm came around me, holding me close against the fabric of his jersey and the firmness of his body. It was the most comfortable place in the world, being in his grasp. And I fit so perfectly, like I’d always meant to be in his arms.

  My eyes closed as every inch of me hummed with happiness. I realized I’d experienced it with my mom the other morning, being in her arms, hearing her comforting words. “Thank you,” I said, reaching up and tracing the angle of his jaw with a fingertip. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”