by Ginger Scott
Maybe that’s why I wanted to come here.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, so I slide it into my hands so I can keep an eye on the boys in the truck while I answer Taryn’s text.
TARYN: Almost there. My lighter’s jacked. I had to buy a new one.
ME: K. Three dudes just pulled up in a truck. Maybe they have some stuff.
I don’t hit the hard stuff. But sometimes I like to smoke a joint or take pills, like vikes or OC. I tried spice at the last party Taryn and I went to, but it made me super paranoid. I don’t need to add to my anxiety; I need to escape it. I don’t think I’ll be getting anything from these dudes, though. They’re pulling bats out of the back of the truck and a bucket of balls, which means they’re probably coming over here.
Shit.
My phone vibrates again against my leg with another text.
TARYN: I don’t want any shit today. But are they cute?
I laugh softly, pressing the edge of my phone to my lips as I glance up at the three figures walking toward me. The one in the middle is the tallest, and he’s wearing a dark blue sweatshirt and black shorts. It’s hard to tell from here, but his hair looks like it’s light brown, maybe a little long. It sticks out from the sides of his hat. The other two are wearing gray sweatpants and black T-shirts, and the one on the right is African American. They don’t look familiar, and I wonder if they go to North.
ME: Can’t tell yet, but looks promising.
She sends me back the thumbs-up emoticon and says she’s two minutes away. I push my phone into my back pocket and twist the cap from my water bottle to take a drink, giving me a good cover to stare at my approaching company a little longer. The wind is picking up, so I take the hair tie from my wrist and pull my hair back in a ponytail then pull the sleeves of my flannel shirt into my palms to keep my hands warm. It doesn’t really get cold in Bakersfield, but in January, with the wind, the sixty degrees feels colder than normal.
I can tell the guys are talking about me as they cross into the infield area and step up on the mound, setting the bucket down and dropping their bats in the grass. The tall one pulls his hat from his head and smooths his hair back before sliding his hat on backward. He looks right at me when he does, and I dare myself not to look away or change my expression for his benefit at all, even though his blue eyes are freaking unbelievable.
He’s unbelievable. He pushes up his sleeves and stretches one arm over his chest as he talks to his two friends, but he keeps glancing at me between his words. I don’t give in, and I watch him the entire time. I won’t smile. He doesn’t. We’re both being stubborn. It’s like I’m invisible, and he doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that he’s looking at me. His expression is blank.
“What’d I miss?” Taryn asks, sliding in next to me on the bleachers. She hands me her lighter, and I grab it without looking away.
“Nothing,” I say. “They just got here. They parked over there.”
I nod across the field to their truck, my eyes still on him as he bends down for a ball, swinging his arm around a few times in the throwing motion to warm up—still looking at me.
“Huh,” Taryn responds. “Well, at least they’re cute.”
Yeah. They’re cute. The shortest one seems to have the biggest arms, his biceps completely filling the sleeves of his shirt. He’s blond…I think. I don’t look at him long, because I don’t want to lose this staring contest with Mr. Backward Hat. I was right about the other guy being African American, and Taryn claims him as hers the second he pushes up the legs of his sweat pants, revealing the dark, strong muscles of his calves while he takes a bat in his hands and sways it side to side.
“Damn, girl. I hope he’s new. I’m totally gettin’ on that welcoming committee,” she says, her eyes locked on his broad-shouldered figure, the bat now stretched across his back.
I don’t speak, instead bringing my fist up to my mouth, my elbow rested on my knee while I chew at my knuckle and concentrate on the boy on the mound. He quit looking at me when his friend crouched behind the plate, pounding his glove for a few warm-up throws. Now that he’s not watching me, I can study him more closely.
He tosses the ball up a few times in his bare hand, then readies himself along the rubber on the mound, kicking his foot in a few times to loosen up the hard dirt. The junior high field is old and small, so they’ve used one of the bucket lids as home plate, moving it back a good fifteen feet from where the younger kids’ one is. Finally satisfied with the ground under him, the pitcher stands perfectly still for a few seconds before stepping into his windup motion, his arm taking a long path from far behind his head and around his body, the ball hitting the glove with a crisp snap.
“Shooooooooot,” Taryn hums next to me. “That was fast.”
“Yeah,” I say, my lips still pressed along my knuckles. I’m grinning against my hand, but I don’t want anyone to see that I’m impressed—not Taryn, and not the guy throwing the ball.
He repeats his motion six or seven times before his friend finally steps up to the plate. There’s no way in hell he’s hitting him.
I lean back, letting my legs drape forward along the bleachers, the shoestrings from my Vans dangling along the sides, my skinny jeans hugging my ankles over my socks. I click the lighter a few times in my palm next to me, holding the flame on until I feel the heat as I watch Hat Boy pull up his knee and stretch the length of the mound, firing off a pitch a good ten miles per hour faster than his warm-up throws. His friend swings and misses.
“Jeeee-zussss,” Taryn says, leaning back next to me. She hands me a cigarette, but I shake my head. I don’t feel like smoking. I hand her the lighter and she puts hers to her lips, burning the tip and puffing once while we watch the catcher throw the ball back to Hat Boy, who shakes out his arm and lines himself up on the rubber again.
“So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?” the batter says, shrugging his shoulders a few times and tapping his bat on the edge of the plate.
The catcher chuckles, mumbling something that makes them all laugh, and I wish I could hear whatever it was he said because Hat Boy is leaning forward now, looking in for a sign with one side of his lip raised in the cockiest fucking smile I’ve ever seen.
I was smitten with his eyes. They’re pretty to look at, a unique blue, bright enough that I can tell their color from fifty feet away. His smile, though—well…as Taryn said—jeeee-zussss.
He pulls his arms together and presents for his next pitch, and I sit forward again, watching the details of his movement. He turns the ball in his glove, the lines of muscles along his forearms ticking with each twist until his fingers are gripping the ball just right.
He’s going to throw a curve.
As the ball releases, I stand and jump down over the two rows of bleachers to the ground, walking closer to the backstop while his friend swings and misses again, the curve sailing low and away. He never had a chance.
“That fucking dickhead,” his friend who’s batting mutters through a laugh to the catcher. The blond guy scoops the ball low, throws it back to Hat Boy then pounds his fist in his glove to knock away the dirt.
“It was a good pitch, man. Good swing, he just got ya—that’s all,” he says, tapping his glove on his friend’s leg.
“You call that pitch?” the batter asks.
“Nah, man…you know better than that. He never throws what I call. That was all him,” he says, pounding his glove one more time and adjusting his body on his heels. “Come on, dub. Give him something to hit!”
The pitcher adjusts his hat again; pulling it forward now, low on his brow—the brim casts a dark shadow that obliterates the blue in his eyes. I hate that I can’t see his eyes—it makes me feel uneasy. He runs the side of his arm along his brow before twisting his neck, the same smirk from before the curveball sliding across his lips. I watch him pull his hands together and work the ball in his glove, his lip ticking just a hint higher when he settles on his grip.
“Watch the changeup,” I say
, my fingers now curled through the chain link and my forehead resting against the backstop.
The batter glances at me quickly, his brow low. He makes the typical who the fuck are you? face, then turns back toward Hat Boy, digging his feet into the batter’s box a little harder and tsking at my suggestion as he rolls his shoulders. His leg is twitching to step already, and his bat is wiggling up and down his shoulder.
He’s going to miss.
Hat Boy winds up the same way he did the first two times. His body is impressive—not just in a hot guy sort of way, but like an athlete. My father would love him. His control is ridiculous. And he wears the game face my dad’s always telling his guys to have. Intimidation, he says, is fifty percent of the game. For me, it’s always been ninety percent.
If I were to overlap video of all three pitches, his release point would be exactly the same. His gift, though, is his ability to make the ball move anywhere he wants it to—at any speed. The batter anticipates, just like I knew he would, and his swing is done by the time the ball sails by, landing softly in the catcher’s mitt.
“That’s at least fifteen slower,” I whisper to myself.
The batter hears me, though, and looks up with one eyebrow cocked.
“Dude, Wes, that was killer. Throw that again, man. Lovin’ it…lovin’ it!” the catcher says, pulling his mask off and tossing it on the ground. He throws the ball back to the pitcher.
His name is Wes.
“Hold up,” the batter says, flashing a hand to Wes and the catcher. He walks over to me, and I feel my stomach clench. I used to think I hated confrontation. I don’t. I love it. And I’m good at it.
I wear my game face.
“You were late,” I shrug, one lip pulling up to the side as I kick the toe of my shoe into the bottom of the backstop. I feel Taryn walk up next to me. She drops her cigarette in the dirt, stepping on it to put it out before grabbing hold of the fence too.
“You called a changeup,” the guy says, his mouth a hard line and his eyes looking at me with suspicion. He thinks I made a lucky guess, and he’s a little pissed I made fun of him. I probably shouldn’t have, but there’s something about these three that makes me want to bring out my snarky side.
“Yep,” I say, leaning away from the fence while holding on, stretching my arms. I glance at Wes over his shoulder, his hat still low over his eyes. He’s looking at me—his weight leaning on one leg, his glove propped against the hip of the other. “Want me to show you how to hit it?”
The catcher starts to laugh behind him, his hand balled in a fist over his mouth. “Day-umm. She just called you out, TK!” he says.
TK swings his bat around his body, sliding it through his hand and holding the grip side out, his lips pursed and his eyebrows raised in expectation. I chuckle to myself, and look down, shaking my head.
“Oh, you don’t really want to show me? Is that it?” he taunts, holding his other hand out to the side as he takes slow strides backward toward the makeshift home plate.
“Don’t be an asshole, TK. She was just being nice,” the catcher says. I like that he’s sticking up for me, but he’s wrong—I wasn’t being nice. I was calling TK out on his weaknesses.
I glance to Taryn, who knows I’m not leaving here without sending the ball back at the pitcher’s knees. She laughs quietly then moves to the front level of the bleachers a few feet behind us as I step around the backstop, my hand dragging along the fence until I reach the end. I stop before the dirt, bending down to tie my shoes, then pull my flannel shirt from my arms, tying it around my waist. I wore my black tank top with the thin rose painted down the middle, and my arms chill from the wind. I can’t swing in anything clingy, though, so I rub both of my arms a few times before reaching out for his bat.
“TK,” I say his name, taking the heavy bat from his hands. I flip it around to read the numbers; it’s a few ounces heavier than I’m used to. I tap the barrel against the bottom of my shoe a few times, then close one eye as I look back up to my sparring partner. “So does that stand for Technical Knockout?”
He laughs once through his closed mouth, the sound rumbling from his chest. I smile at the sound because he reminds me of Conner, except Conner’s laughter bellows, because he’s about two hundred pounds of his mom’s pies and cookies. TK is two hundred pounds of Mack Truck. “Uhm, that would be TKO, Cherry. And no, it stands for Thomas Kennedy,” he nods.
“Cherry?” I scowl, slapping the bat in my hand like I’m tougher than I actually am.
“Yeah, your cheeks are all red and round. They look like cherries.” The same laugh mixes with his words. I join in, looking over at my friend, now sitting in the center on the bleachers, her legs folded up underneath her. She shakes her head, because she knows me—I don’t do nicknames, especially not ones like cherry.
“Ahhhh, I see,” I say, stepping up to the plate. Wes shuffles his feet around the rubber on the mound. Up this close, I can see his eyes under the shadow of his hat, and I catch him rolling them, his mouth a hard line. He’s not amused, and he thinks this is a waste of time.
“I thought cherry was a commentary on my virginity,” I say, steadying my feet into place as I swing the bat around twice before resting it on my shoulder. I feel them all freeze at my mention of the word virginity. “If that were the case…TK…I ain’t no cherry.”
The blond guy starts coughing to cover his shocked laugh. TK and Wes remain silent, TK running his hand over his mouth while Wes’s jaw flexes and his tight mouth bends into disapproval. Fuck him—now I really am going to take out his kneecaps.
“You gonna pitch? Or you wanna stand there a little while longer and judge me?”
Taryn whistles softly behind me, and TK chuckles while he takes a few steps back.
“A’right, Wes. Let’s see what she’s got,” the catcher says, crouching down and patting his glove a few times.
Wes turns his head, tucking his chin into his shoulder, working the ball in his fingers against his thigh. His lips part, and he says something to himself. I can’t hear him, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t say anything nice.
I dig my foot in while he shifts his body, readying for the throw.
“Show him how it’s done, Cherry!” Taryn chants from behind the backstop. I pull my hand from the bat and flip her off. It only makes her laugh again. I’m sure she’s giving me the finger back, but I don’t bother to look.
Wes shakes his hand by his side, then brings the ball into his glove, his eyes lazily looking at the plate as he cocks back and tosses the ball with an arc to the catcher. I drop the bat and snag it before it hits his glove.
“Don’t,” I say, shaking my head at him. I fire the ball back, hoping the sting of it punctuates my point. He lets the ball sit in his glove in front of him, his eyes squinting at mine, his jaw working while he chews at the inside of his mouth. “Don’t treat me like I’m not just as good as you.”
My cheeks burn a little. I’m letting him piss me off, and that pisses me off. I swing the bat around again and rest it on my shoulder, twisting my back foot into the dirt. He tosses the ball in his hand a few times then steps back to the mound, repeating the same presentation as before, never once adjusting his grip or moving the ball in his hand. He’s going to throw me the heat.
Good.
His wind up is the same; his motion—the same, and I arm my muscles early, knowing I’ll have to swing fast. My bat is at the plate the second the ball is, and I foul it off behind me over the fence, into the dirt lot overrun with weeds.
“You’re finding that,” TK says.
“Whatever,” I answer, nodding for Wes to pitch me another.
He bends down and grabs another ball from the bucket behind him, rubbing it on his shorts a few times, his thumb twisting it in his hand until his fingers have all found a seam. He doesn’t adjust again, and I know he’s going to try to catch me off balance.
Wes winds up, and everything in my world slows down—I hear my own breath stop, I see the way his swea
tshirt rides up around his waist, I notice how low his shorts rest on his hips and how absolutely touchable his stomach is. His mouth gets tight, his face showing the restraint he’s putting into every frame of his movement, and his eyes look driven. When the ball releases, I watch the rotation, sitting back just long enough to step with the pitch and send the ball to the fence down the third base line.
I didn’t hit it at him like I wanted to. But I hit it hard. I made my point. And the fact that he’s resting his glove and throwing hand on his head, watching my ball bounce to a stop about three hundred feet out leaves me more satisfied than any high.
“I’m Levi Stokes, and I think I want to marry you,” the catcher says, taking the bat from my hand.
I laugh lightly, unable to stop my smile at his over-the-top line. It’s sweet. And while most girls would probably swoon over a guy that looks like him—blond hair, green eyes, muscular build—Levi Stokes is not my type. I don’t want a type, really. But I also know I have one, and Wes—he’s pretty much the paint-by-numbers version of my greatest crush weaknesses.
“Thanks, Levi,” I say, glancing to the mound where Wes is now pacing, tossing a ball, bored with me already. His indifference stings, and I hate that I care. “But I don’t want to have to take care of a man all my life.” I add this just to get a reaction. It catches Wes’s attention, and he takes a few steps closer. “Marriage is shit—no offense. You can give me and my girl here a ride home, though.”
“Deal,” Levi says, reaching out his hand for me to shake. I take it, and his grip is hard—masculine.
“Damn, Cherry. That shit was tight,” TK says, holding out knuckles for me. I smirk at his hand and pound my fist lightly into his.
“Thanks, Knock Out,” I wink. “And you can call me Joss.”