I stare at my unopened water as his question sinks in. “You know what I drink? How much information does Google have?”
“It’s what you got at lunch the other day.”
I’m still confused. “You noticed what kind of drink I made?”
“Observation, Walters. You got to read the field.”
My father’s words.
They take me back to that little girl standing at the fence. Wanting to be just like her dad. I unscrew the cap, my fingers turning damp with condensation. “My dad always preached that,” I admit. “Field awareness.”
His seat squeaks as he shifts. “I thought it would have been cool to have a dad in baseball. Guess it depends on the dad, huh?”
I shrug because what else is there to say? “Did your dad play?”
“Never. Hates sports unless it’s NASCAR.”
“Is that a sport?”
“According to him. He loves cars. My uncle Max was the ballplayer.” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out his key chain. “This was his.”
“That explains the M. I thought maybe you couldn’t spell.”
“I know all twenty-three letters,” he jokes, but I don’t miss the sadness in his eyes as he squeezes the key chain. “I got in a lot of trouble when I was little, and my mom didn’t know what to do with me. Uncle Max told her I needed to hit something. He took me to the batting cages, but I didn’t want to go. The way he tells it, I grabbed the first baseball I saw and threw it at him—hard. And that’s how he knew I should be a pitcher.”
“Did you really?” I’m smiling as I try to picture it.
“I really did,” he says with an answering smile. “But I missed by a mile. Still, over the years, he would show me the scar from the injury. Every time it was in a different place.”
“Sounds like a good guy.”
“The best. And he was right about baseball. It gave me something to focus on. I loved the rules. The sense of order. But also how fast things could change. We’d go to games together and he’d make me keep score. You know how that is.”
I nod. “You can’t take your eyes off the field for a second or you miss something.”
“It quieted my brain. Gave me something more interesting to do than get into trouble.”
“Sounds like you spent a lot of time with him.”
His eyes drift with his memories. “As much as we could. He’s the one who came to every one of my games—who took me to watch the Diamondbacks. We spent every spring break traveling around and catching preseason games.”
“Not anymore?” I ask.
“He died of cancer last year.”
“Oh, shit,” I murmur, realizing that’s why he’s carrying his uncle’s key chain. “I’m sorry.”
He works his fingers around the metal, his thumb rubbing over the M. “He fought hard. Lived a year longer than the doctors expected, so I try to be grateful for that. And at least he died before I got hurt. That would have killed him faster than the cancer.”
Both of us look at his scars. “How did it happen?” I ask. “Was it during the playoffs?”
“I wish. Maybe it wouldn’t feel so senseless that way.” Frustration bleeds through every line of his frown. “The truth is that I fell during a game of pickup basketball. I was charging the hoop against a guy fifty pounds heavier.” He mutters a curse under his breath. “All these years, I did everything right to protect the arm. Always watched my pitch counts, never threw on short rest. I was playing the long game from the time I was ten.”
“Even though most guys don’t make it?”
His chin tilts up as his burning gaze locks with mine. “I hit ninety-two on the radar gun the week before the accident. I wasn’t going to be like most guys.”
I can’t look away. Though I’ve heard similar words from ballplayers before, I’ve never believed them as much as I believe Garrett. It pierces my heart, but also makes me want to keep my distance. He’s as focused as my dad. “I’m sorry,” I say. The words surface from a place deep down. A place that still remembers how much broken dreams hurt.
His nod is slight, but our gazes stay locked. It’s as if more passes between us than simply words. “I’m not giving up. Uncle Max never gave up on the things he loved. He taught me to do the same. He always said you didn’t have to be strong, tall, fast, or smart to play baseball. You just had to have one out of the four.”
I find myself nodding. There’s truth to that. “Is that why you love the game so much?”
“It’s reason number nine.”
“Number nine? You’ve got a list.”
“All the way to one hundred.”
My jaw drops. “Even when I loved the game, I couldn’t have come up with a hundred.”
“Ah,” he says, cocking an eyebrow. “So you did love it.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“You still love it. You’ve just forgotten.”
I hide behind a look of exasperation. “Please. You think you’re right about everything.”
“I am about this. I’ll prove it in two words: Cracker Jacks.” His grin erases the sadness. “How do you not love Cracker Jacks? Would we even know about them if not for baseball?”
I roll my eyes for effect, but he’s managed to make me smile. “Okay, I’ll give you Cracker Jacks. That’s one good baseball thing.”
“Two things. Superstitions,” he reminds me. “By the time we’re done with this contest, I’m going to have reminded you of all the reasons why you still love the game.”
His eyes spark with so much expectation, I almost wish he could. “Save your energy, Blondie. Baseball is not part of my plan. Let’s focus on how to win this thing.”
“You should come over to Seger’s house tomorrow night,” he says suddenly.
“What?”
“Jason Seger. A few of us are going to watch the Diamondbacks game. Scottie will be there. We can ask him about the interview.”
“A baseball party?”
“You worried about being seen with ballplayers? You can wear the dino costume if you want to come in disguise.” He pulls out his phone. “Come to think of it, I got a great picture of you waving those cute, fuzzy hands.”
“You did not!” I may not chase popularity, but that doesn’t mean I want to commit social suicide two months before graduation.
He flips through a screen I can’t see. “I wonder if it’s too late to get this in the yearbook.”
“Garrett!” In one quick move, I slide out of my bench and into his. I lunge for his hand.
“Hey!” He twists away when I grab hold.
He lifts his phone higher. I find the skin under his arm and tickle.
He shrieks and his elbows flap like chicken wings.
I’m shaking with laughter, but it worked, because I’ve got a hand on his phone. I grab it free and escape to my side of the booth. “Now who’s giggling?”
“You tickled me!” He’s still laughing, his big shoulders shaking with it.
“The great Garrett Reeves is ticklish.”
He bites his lip as he leans in. “You think I’m great, huh?”
“I think you’re a pain in the ass.”
“Nah, you like me.”
“Never! And stop flirting.”
Laugh lines deepen around his eyes. “It’s okay, Walters. I like you, too.”
“Hello?” I say drily. “More flirting.” I wiggle his phone, my cheeks hot, my mouth hurting from trying not to grin like a complete fool. “Now how do I open this?”
He laughs again and gestures to his phone. I hand it over and watch as he messes with it a second. When he hands it back, it’s open to his contacts page. “Give me your phone number. I’ll text you the address for tomorrow.”
I tense, my fingers hovering over the screen.
My number in Garrett’s phone? Am I really doing this?
I have forty-two contacts in my phone. With a quick swipe of my thumb, I scroll through a list of names. It looks like he has forty-two just b
etween A and B. And most of them are girls. I’m adding my name to a list of names.
I don’t want to be on Garrett’s list. I don’t want to know he can call me.
I don’t want a day to come when I want him to call me.
But I add my contact info and hand the phone back, shaking my head at myself. “I doubt I can go.”
“For the contest, Walters. That’s all.” We both stand. “And if you can make it, you should bring Mai. Anthony will be there.”
I gasp. “That’s bribery.”
His grin agrees with me 100 percent. “See you tomorrow.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I’m having an existential crisis.”
I drop my purse on the carpet of Mai’s bedroom and sit on her unmade bed. “I’m not sure what that is,” I say.
“I’m not sure, either. I just heard it on a TED Talk.” Sure enough, there’s a man frozen on her computer screen, the TED background behind him.
“Well, can your crisis wait?” I ask. “I have something important to talk about.” I’ve just come from the café and I’m still scrambled from the meeting with Garrett.
She spins in her desk chair. “An existential crisis is extremely important.”
“Fine. Your crisis first.” I lie back, loving the softness of her bamboo sheets.
“I’m working on my valedictorian speech. Would you say you’re the author of your own ambition?”
I lift my head so I can see if she’s serious. She is. “What?”
“This man thinks we’re little better than robots, going through life doing what other people think we should do.”
“Why are you watching that?”
“I started out watching graduation speeches and ended up with this.” She leaves her chair and climbs up beside me, pulling the pillow under her head. “I always thought I had things figured out.”
“Because you do.”
“I know where I’m going and what I’m doing, but how do I know it’s what I want? I’m seventeen. My mother still packs my lunch.”
“I’ve known you for four years. You’ve always wanted to be a microbiologist.”
“Because it’s what my parents do.”
“Calling bullshit,” I say. Above me is a dark smoke stain from a science experiment Mai conducted when she was thirteen. “If you weren’t into science, you wouldn’t have signed up for all those extra camps and winter intensives. You wouldn’t have picked one of the top universities in the country.”
She sighs, and I know she’s thinking back to what she doesn’t actually remember. An orphanage in a small country in South America. A little girl with glossy dark hair and brown skin. A mix of features from everywhere and ties to no one anywhere. “They picked me out of all those babies. They brought me here and gave me every opportunity. How could I not push myself?”
I tilt my head to look at her. “You seriously want to do something else?”
“Honestly? I never thought about it until I was asked to give the valedictorian speech.”
“Is that what’s going on? Or does this have something to do with Anthony?”
“No. Well, yes. Maybe.”
“I think that covers all possible answers.”
“He’s a part of it,” she admits. “He’s part of what I’m not choosing.”
I shift to face her, and she curls on her side so our knees are touching. Moving around as much as I did, it was never easy to make friends. I usually didn’t bother trying, but with Mai I didn’t have to. We just fit from the first day we met at the school library. I’m not sure when we had our first heart-to-heart, but I know we’ll never grow too far apart to have our last.
“When you choose one thing, it means you don’t choose another,” she says.
“I guess. But that’s how it is with everything, right?”
“I just hadn’t thought about it that way.” Her brow wrinkles the way it does when she’s working through a math problem. “When you think about it like that, it’s scary. Or maybe it’s sad. Knowing there are things you can’t have.”
I hate to see her second-guessing herself. “I wish they’d never asked you to give this speech.”
“I know. I’m making too much out of it when no one’s going to listen anyway.”
“I’m going to listen.”
She folds her hands under her cheek. “And what would you like to hear?”
I pretend to think. “Maybe something Yoda would say. Yoda is very inspiring.” I deepen my voice. “The force will guide you. If not, a general business degree good will be.”
“That’s a terrible impression.” She rolls to her back again, and I do the same. I smile at the stain on the ceiling. It’s a sad smile, though, because I’m going to miss Mai so much. I’m going to miss staring at that blot on the ceiling with the only friend who feels like family.
But I’m in denial about her leaving, so instead I say, a little too loudly, “Now! Can we move on to a different existential crisis?”
“Absolutely.”
I tell her about my meeting with Garrett. Except for the tickling, I-like-you part. “He wants me to go to this thing tomorrow night,” I finish. “To talk to this guy, Scottie.”
“Why can’t he talk to Scottie?”
“Exactly.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“That’s what I said.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said Anthony Adams would be there.”
She shoots upright.
“He’s using your crush to get me to do his bidding,” I say. “It’s selfish and manipulative. And we’re not falling for it.”
“Are you sure we’re not?”
“Mai, really?”
“Why can’t we go? It would help you for the contest.”
“Because I don’t want to be around him. I don’t like him.”
“Calling bullshit. You don’t want to be around him because you’re afraid you do like him.” Her eyes challenge mine, and all I can do is groan and flop back to the mattress. Her voice softens. “Would that really be so awful?”
“Yes!”
As we settle into silence, deep reverberating music floats up. Mai’s mom and dad must be working in the downstairs office. It’s meditative music that’s supposed to help the brain focus. It would put me to sleep, but then again, they’re both geniuses. Seventeen years ago, they went to Guyana to study water safety, taking their infant son with them. Eighteen months later, they came back with baby Maya, too. What if they had picked a different baby? She wouldn’t be here and neither would I. I shudder over the stream of my thoughts. If you think about choices for too long, you can end up never making another one again.
“I think we should go,” Mai says. “You can see Garrett in his natural environment, surrounded by pretty girls and a sense of entitlement. You’ll immediately remember why you hate athletes.”
“And what will you do?” I ask.
“See if I can get my thighs around Anthony Adams’ neck again.”
“You’re such a big talker.”
“I am,” she agrees. “Another one of those choices I’m making.”
The hint of sadness in her voice convinces me. I’m still not sure what’s going on with Mai, but I’m hoping it’s just the stress of graduation. I’m sure it’s why I’m feeling off, too.
Chapter Sixteen
“This is weird, isn’t it?” Mai asks. She’s sitting beside me in the truck, and we’re both staring at Jason Seger’s house across the street.
“The two of us parked here like creepers? Yeah.”
“I mean the two of us at Jason Seger’s house for a party.”
“It’s not a party. It’s a baseball game.” As if to prove that, I do a quick glance at my faded jeans, plain black tee, and comfy sandals. My hair is freshly washed, but it’s pulled back into a ponytail. No one, not even Garrett, could think I dressed up for this.
Mai is wearing a sleeveless tuxedo shirt over her leggings. She’s beautiful a
nd also a little scary the way she’s staring at the house. “I’ve had one class with Jason Seger. It was ceramics my freshman year and I don’t think I said a word to him.”
“We don’t have to go in.” I check the clock on my dashboard. The Diamondbacks game started an hour ago. If we sit here for another hour…
Mai pulls out her phone and takes a picture of the house.
“What are you doing?”
“I want a visual record.”
“Of a house? You know what we’re going to find inside? A bunch of guys sitting on a couch watching baseball. You’ll be bored in five minutes.”
“Josie.” She blinks at me. “I was just studying the chemistry of a shrimp. This is not boring.”
“You love chemistry.”
“Right now, I love a couch full of baseball players.” She tucks her phone away. “Will they have Cheetos? I’ve always wanted to go to a party with Cheetos.”
“You’ve been to parties before, Mai.”
“When I was little. And I’ve been to your birthday parties, which are always movie-bingeing-sleepovers and have never included Cheetos.”
“I don’t like how they get all over your fingers.”
Her expression says, My point exactly. “I’ve been to book club parties and parties for National Honor Society, Language Honor Society, and Science Honor Society. None of them with cheesy puffs.”
“I’m going to buy you a bag of Cheetos,” I say. “I’m feeling like a terrible friend.”
She pops open the truck door. “We should go in.”
My heart yo-yos uncomfortably. I’m more nervous than I should be, which makes me even more nervous. Laughing with Garrett, teasing, tickling—it left all kinds of holes in my defenses. I keep trying to rebuild and then his words topple them again.
It’s okay, Walters. I like you, too.
“Oh, and call me Killer tonight,” Mai says, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Killer?”
“It was my nickname at the pool.”
I shake my head, releasing an exasperated sigh. “When you let loose, you go all out.”
She stops at the open front door, only a flimsy screen in our way. Voices spill out from inside.
My heart takes another trip up and down my throat. “Hello?” I knock gently on the metal part of the screen.
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