Full Count (The Catcher Series Book 1)

by Bri Izzo

  “Sky said the doctor told you to lean on us more,” Tiffany speaks up. Then she reaches her hand across the table for me to grab, so I comply with a small smile and hand squeeze. “Just talk to us. We’re all here for you.” Her beautiful sandy eyes have a storm brewing in them as she glares at Leah, but I have to pretend like I don’t see that signal.

  “He told you that?” I question, glancing at Tiffany, Benny, Rex, and Sam individually. I know he wouldn’t have told Leah or Makenna that. They all nod, and I sigh in disgust. This much attention is too much for me to handle. I like to be the absent one that runs away from the spotlight. “I didn’t realize it was too much for him,” I mumble, thinking out loud.

  Tiffany yanks on my hand to regain my attention. “Hey!” she lightly shouts. “It’s not too much for him. He would do anything for you. Don’t overthink this.”

  With everyone acting like I’m their newborn baby they’re all parenting, I’m so done. I love them all, but I feel smothered. Can I bolt without them following me?

  “You’re lucky to have someone who cares about you so much,” Leah pipes up again, and this time her voice is genuine with a pinch of hurt, most likely from Rex. I rarely see how he is with her, so I can’t judge. He’s a good brother to me and Baylee, so I have to believe that it transfers over to his girlfriend, too. Guys with sisters make the best boyfriends because they know how girls are in their “real” state from living with them their entire lives. They’ve seen them cry, when they first wake up, when they’re angry, when they’re laughing at something ridiculously stupid, when they open their Christmas presents and it’s exactly what they wanted. Trust me, these things are useful to witness in order to effectively keep up with a woman.

  “Rex cares about you, too. I’m just not fully recovered, so everyone’s keeping an eye on me,” I explain to her.

  “Well Skyler definitely has two on you,” Leah giggles, lightly nudging me in the arm like we are suddenly besties. We’re far from it, but I applaud her effort, even if she’s faking it. Her lighthearted comment is enough to relax the table’s mood and bring everyone’s defenses down again.

  “I’m gonna go get a Gatorade. You need somethin’, B?” Rex asks as he squeezes my shoulders standing behind me looking down.

  “I kind of just want an ice cream,” I admit, trying to hide my childish smile. I’ve been craving an Oreo ice cream bar all day long, which is so weird, but I know the cafeteria has them.

  “Really?” he laughs.

  “Yes, please,” I whine.

  “Alright,” he caves, walking away from the table to go back in line.

  “Okay, so just between us girls, how good of a kisser is Skyler?” Leah whispers as soon as Rex leaves. Us girls? Benny and Sam are still here. What the fuck? Makenna starts coughing on whatever she has been eating, and I immediately start choking on my own saliva and shooting daggers at Tiffany to make a dramatic exit with me. We beeline towards the bathroom but continue down the hallway without looking back at Leah’s jaw that is probably on the ground with her squinty bitch eyes. I can’t believe Leah expects me and Makenna to compare notes on Skyler. How does she even know I’ve kissed Skyler? We purposely don’t do that in front of anyone. Rex will probably be mad he has to eat the ice cream now, but I just don’t want to talk about Skyler like that.

  “How was your first half of the day?” Tiffany asks me with wide eyes beneath her side bangs, holding onto my arm I link with hers. She totally gives Leah a run for her money in the beauty department. Tiff is the Serena Van Der Woodsen to my Blair Waldorf - beautiful inside and out. And she is definitely the most loyal girl in town.

  “I fell asleep in math and got detention,” I have to laugh as I say it.

  “Nice… You alright after that grooling?” she jokes once we are for sure out of Leah’s earshot.

  “Yeah, but I wanted to tell you I plan on trying to switch lunches,” I confess.

  “Took you long enough,” she smirks, playfully rolling her eyes. I expect her to be surprised and a little insulted, but that isn’t her reaction at all.

  “What?” I question her.

  “Skyler has a different lunch than the rest of us. I’m surprised it took a cat fight with Leah to make you want to switch,” she explains. For a blonde she is pretty smart.

  “It’s not that I don’t love you guys-“ I try telling her, already feeling guilty.

  “I know. It’s okay, B. We understand,” she speaks for the group. It’s then that I know almost everyone has figured out about me and Skyler. We have to avoid talking about it just in case it gets out and around to McCallum. And actually I’m not certain Rex knows; our friends know to keep talk of Skyler and me to a minimum with him around. Sky and I still have to deny at all costs.

  “Speaking of, we need to talk,” I remember.

  “Are you breaking up with me?” Tiffany snickers jokingly. Her greenish brown eyes squint into a deep dark forest color.

  “No, seriously,” I tell her. “I know you know… about me and… Cookie.” I blush as I refer to Skyler as the code word we used to have for him when we were younger and didn’t want anyone knowing we were talking about him. Tiffany shares in laughing at this ridiculousness but lets me continue. “I just need you to-”

  “Be quiet? Yeah. I’m not about to start World War III,” she assures me.

  After discreetly exchanging our secret best friend handshake, we part ways to our separate classes where I spend the hour sleeping again. Thankfully my study hall aide doesn’t care.

  After eighth period I go straight to detention in hopes of Skyler not finding out about it. I should know better. However, I’m grateful he waited for me so I don’t have to walk home.

  “So how was your day, Miss Trouble Maker? Did you try to make something of yourself or are you still trying to impress other people?” he flawlessly quotes Breakfast Club and I have to smile in appreciation for him liking one of my favorite movies. I swear I was born in the wrong decade.

  “It’s Mrs. And I’m pretty sure I was the Athlete,” I tease, although it’s totally true. Everyone else in detention was a complete gothic bad ass. It was nothing like the Breakfast Club.

  “Did you share a joint with a stoner?” he asks me. I wish. It would probably make my head feel better.

  “Unfortunately no. But Leah talked to me at lunch,” I enlighten him. His face falls into a deep concern most likely because he knows he wasn’t there to back me up. “Rex and everyone had my back.”

  “Was she fucking mean to you again?” Skyler huffs like he’s about to go to her house and run her over with his Jeep.

  “No. She apologized but it was all for show. I guess it was her way of clearing the air,” I brush it off. I’m not going to tell him she asked me about his kissing abilities, which are absolutely fantastic by the way. Just don’t tell Leah.

  “What a bitch,” he mutters.

  “I have an idea, and I kind of might need your help,” I interrupt his insults. I just want to let go of everything with Leah. It isn’t worth my time or energy anymore.

  He totally thinks my mind is running evil thoughts. “B, we can’t actually kill her,” he blurts out, which makes me laugh unexpectedly.

  “Whoa, slow down slugger,” I giggle. “I just want to switch my lunch and have my study hall before.”

  “Oh,” he says in a serious tone.

  Damn. He really doesn’t like Leah; his mind is definitely drifting into a scheme plotting.

  “I think I could convince Pamela to do it for me,” I add.

  “Then we would have lunch together,” he states as if it isn’t my reason for wanting to switch.

  “I know. Is that a problem?” I really hope it isn’t. With Makenna now joining our table, it’s going to be musical chairs every day and I’m bound to lose out. Plus it really sucks not seeing Skyler at all during the day. At least this will give me some motivation to get through the first half of my day.

  “No. Why would it be a fucking problem?”
he questions me like he’s actually mad I think that.

  “Because maybe you have a full table,” I throw out a possibility.

  “Then I would move tables,” he deadpans.

  “Who do you sit with?” I wonder. All of our immediate friends are in my lunch so I’m curious.

  “Some baseball and football guys,” he tells me.

  “Ooh, a jock table,” I sing, laughing afterwards.

  “You realize you’re a jock, too, right sweetheart?” he teases, reaching across the console to shake my leg as if I am sleeping.

  “Yeah, but I don’t rub it in people’s faces or walk around like I’m the shit,” I argue.

  “You must be mistaken us for some other type of jock. This is the misfit jock table,” he snickers, taking his hand off my knee and putting it back on the wheel.

  “Then I’ll fit right in,” I smile back.

  I pass out before I even eat dinner. I somehow managed to finish my algebra homework, but anything else I have to do suffers from my necessary sleep. I wake up once to go to the bathroom just to pee, and I reach out for Skyler to wake him up. Except he isn’t there. I hate these nights. I hate waking up in my bedroom feeling like I’m trapped alone in an attic.

  After walking to the bathroom, I turn on the light and allow my eyes to adjust before completely walking inside. I learned my lesson from last night. I pee and then quickly return to my room where I sit on my bed and lean up against the headboard. Without even thinking twice, I call Skyler.

  “Hey,” his raspy voice answers after the fourth ring. I close my eyes and pretend he’s curled up next to me and says it so I can feel his breath on my shoulder. If this is what one night without him feels like, I’m in serious trouble. “B, you okay?” he asks when I don’t respond. His voice makes him sound really tired, and I feel bad for waking him up.

  “Yeah,” I reply right away. “I woke up to pee and reached over to wake you up but you weren’t there.” I laugh as I say it because it sounds so ridiculous, but it’s a kind of ridiculousness that makes me happy. He’s my favorite part about going to bed and waking up every day; we’ve had this arrangement since my accident, so I’m used to it.

  “Aw, I’m sorry,” he chuckles. “Alex said you pretty much passed out right after you got home, so I just wanted to let you sleep.”

  “I sleep better when I’m with you,” I blurt out.

  “Me, too, sweetheart,” he agrees, and I can tell that he’s smiling. “But it’s almost 5:00 a.m. so you can’t really come over since we have to get up in an hour.”

  “Wow, I slept that long? Jeez,” I realize it totals twelve hours. That’s impressive.

  “At least one of us slept,” Skyler mumbles.

  “You didn’t sleep?” I question.

  “Nah, I did. Just not for too long. I woke up worried about you.” My heart aches for him, to be next to him but also to have him sleeping soundly again. I hate that he’s constantly worried about me no matter how nice it is to always be on his mind.

  “I wish you didn’t worry so much, Sky,” I plead.

  “It’s part of my job,” he states. As my boyfriend. Ah, that will make me smile forever knowing that he’s mine. Some ruffling in the background awakens me from my short daydream on Cloud Nine. “Can you hold on a second?”

  “Sure?” I answer. He just complained about being tired but okay. I’m not going to go to back to bed anyways. I’ll just wake up more tired if I do. Some creaking sounds but I can’t tell if it’s through the phone or at my window. So I crawl over to my window and look outside. Sure enough, Sky is scaling the gondola ladder just outside my bedroom window. I don’t want to scare him so I step back after unlocking the screen door.

  “You still there?” I hear him ask over the phone.

  This is easily the best morning of my life. I’m not sure if I’m dreaming or not, but I nod as he peers through the glass door with a small guilty smile on his face but serious eyes. His expressions always make me question how one half is expressing one emotion and the other half is showing another. But I’ll take his smolder and broody eyes any day.

  He welcomes himself into my dark bedroom with only the pool lights outside illuminating the area. The sun hasn’t started coming up just yet.

  “What are you doing here?” I chuckle as I greet him, throwing my phone on the floor and pulling on the bottom of his shirt so I can have him closer to me.

  “I wanted to kiss you,” he admits, leaning down to kiss me. He’s making up for lost years of not acting on our crushes for each other. Forget about morning breath; I can kiss Skyler morning, day, or night. “Damn, you really did pass out when you got home,” he laughs, examining my wardrobe. I’m still in the outfit I wore to school yesterday. Oops.

  “I was tired,” I defend myself in a giggly whine.

  “It’s fine. I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he says with dark, passionate eyes. My chest floods with butterflies scurrying around, igniting my whole body. It doesn’t help that he’s running his fingertips along my exposed skin everywhere - my neck, my arms, my lower back.

  “I’m okay,” I promise him. When he reaches around my thighs and picks me up, I almost screech but he quickly goes in for a kiss to muffle my noise. After guiding me down onto my bed, Skyler climbs over me, continuing to work his lips on me. We spend the next hour making out and goofing around simultaneously until he has to climb back down my house so he won’t get caught in my bed this early in the morning.

  When Rex sees me in the hallway on my way to the breakfast table, he asks me in a mumbled voice, “Why the hell are you so chipper this early?”

  Shrugging, I play it off. “It’s what happens when you get twelve hours of sleep. You should try it sometime.” Or when Skyler sneaks into my bedroom before the sun rises and claims me as his for about an hour.

  “Is that including the two hours you slept in class yesterday?” he snaps in a fatherly tone. It’s kind of creepy, honestly.

  “No, Dad, it’s not,” I answer.

  “If you need to skip school and sleep, everyone will understand. I’ll help you keep up with classes,” he offers.

  “I’m fine. I just needed to catch up on my sleep from the night in the hospital,” I tell him.

  I scurry to the freezer to grab a waffle and stick it in the toaster as I pass Baylee making a smoothie. “Morning, Bay,” I cheer, giving her a kiss on top of her head. Another year or two and she’s going to be taller than me, but in the mean time I’m still capable of reaching the top of her model-like hair.

  “Morning?” She’s probably wondering the exact same thing as Rex but is too tired to deal with actually asking me, afraid she’ll get an answer too chipper. As Rex is pouring a glass of milk for himself, Baylee mutters, “Why is she so… buzzed?”

  “She slept for twelve hours,” he repeats my fact.

  “Wow. Must be nice,” she slurs.

  A little while later Skyler pulls up the driveway to pick me up for school, and I literally skip down the sidewalk and jump into his passenger seat, watching his eyes narrow on me.

  “Good morning!” I smile like an annoying elf who is overly happy on Christmas day and wants to spread the cheerful disease. All Skyler does is shake his head and laugh with a raspy sound like he has just woken up - but I know better. He wasn’t going to go back to bed when he left my room this morning. He left at the absolute last second before we would’ve been caught. “You look as surprised as Baylee and Rex were when they saw me.”

  “If I were them I would think you just fucked me with how happy you look,” he blurts out. At first he’s just staring at the road, and I think he’s going to avoid my gaze, but then he turns and meets me looking like we’re about to fuck right here in his Jeep. A chill shoots through me making the spot between my legs flutter.

  “If Rex thought that he probably would’ve made me stay home,” I point out, laughing at his hypocrisy. Skyler told me Rex and Leah have sex frequently, so I’m prepared to use that informa
tion however necessary when the time comes for me to lose my v-card.

  The rest of the short ride to school is quiet, which allows me to daydream again about Skyler scaling the side of my house to come see me so early in the morning. He just wanted to kiss me at 5:00 a.m. as if it is the most normal teenage boy thing to do. I know he worries about me and that’s partially the reason for him coming over - to check on me - but at least he makes me have fun while he’s doing it.

  Skyler pulls into his parking spot and turns his head dramatically towards me. “I like seeing you this fucking happy,” he whispers, placing two of his fingers under my chin to support me as I melt into his eyes. After starting to lean in for a kiss, I hesitate. We’re at school in the open parking lot. Anyone can walk past us at any moment, and the rumor will spread like wildfire. But I don’t want to worry about it. He deserves a kiss. “Damn it, Buzz,” he whimpers, resting his forehead on mine.

  “What? I’m sor-” I try apologizing. I know we’re in public. Actually it’s worse; we’re at school, the forbidden zone. I must be giving him really good bunny eyes because Skyler’s lips disrupt my words by linking with mine, giving me what I want after all.

  When he separates our lips slightly, he asks me, “Have you forgotten about our deal?”

  “Oh, right. The secre-” I begin to answer him, but he does it again. Every time he interrupts me mid-word with a kiss it takes me off guard and gives me a whole new rush of feelings. “Sky… why do you keep doing that?” I giggle.

  “Because I’m jealous of the air that constantly gets to be touching your lips,” he taunts me with a sensual face.

  I literally take the deepest breath that I can fit into my lungs and let it out, my mouth forming a small “o” shape as my chest rises and falls rapidly. It isn’t even 7:00 a.m. and I’ve already lost any prayer of focusing in my classes.

  34 Skyler Swanson

  Thank fucking God that Buzz switches her lunch to mine. Going a whole day, five days a week without seeing her for eight hours was fucking torture. Her fifth hour study hall is on the opposite side of the school from my fifth hour history class, so I figure I’ll see her in the cafeteria.