Game On (24 page)

I may not be good at many things, but getting people half-naked seems to be one of my strengths. And I'm totally going with it.

Chapter
Nineteen

Bri

I lied. Sort of. Dad
is
coming back into town any time now, but before going home, I need some serious head-clearing girl time. I find Becca by her Jeep in the parking lot after the game, tapping her phone's screen. When she glances up and spots me, she tosses her phone into the driver's seat without another look.

If Eric is quicksand, then Becca is my solid ground. She's been the only constant in my life for a long time. Back when Dad started driving trucks, I'd stay at Becca's for weeks at a time. A year passed before her parents not-so-discreetly told her that they could only house and feed me for so long.

She snuck me into her bedroom for another week before they noticed.

“I need a milkshake,” I tell her. “I need the biggest, most fat-filled deliciousness of milkshake that exists in town.”

Pursing her lips, she nods once. “Done. Sammy's it is, then.” She flashes a smile and climbs into her seat. I head to my car and follow her across town. The roads are empty thanks to game night; nearly every place in this town shuts down when there's a home baseball game.

Sammy's is an old cheeseburger dive with chipped paint and horrible lighting. They also put any big-name fast-food place to shame. And I'm pretty sure their giant milkshakes are illegal in at least seven states.

Thank sweet Jesus for South Carolina's love of amazing food.

Becca
and I settle into a booth near the back, even though the place is deserted. A Dolly Parton song crackles through the one functioning speaker mounted behind us. Becca's hair is drying a heck of a lot faster than mine, hers falling into flawless red waves while mine probably rivals a llama's.

Or a drama llama. Which, with the way I'm feeling, isn't entirely inaccurate.

Becca stares me straight in the eye. “Spill.”

I suck down half my milkshake before I finally have the guts to say, “Eric Perry.”

“Is hot.”

“Not helping.”

She tilts her head to the side, her shoulders heaving with her sigh. “It's okay to like someone. Normal, even. Especially guys who are actually, you know, nice to you.”

I point at her. “No. I'm not allowed to like anyone right now. I need you to keep me in check.” I look out the window, at the caution light flashing across the wet, deserted street. That's one thing I'll love about leaving for college in August: going to a place that isn't a total ghost town on nights like these, a place that has life outside of baseball. Sometimes I think that's the only thing holding this town together.

“Fine,” Becca says, and I look back to her. “I'll keep you away from the baseball boy.” She takes a sip of her milkshake. “But you're not allowed to keep me away from the baseball boy's friend.”

I can't help but laugh. “Blake's pretty hot. But he's as much of a player as Eric.” As much as Eric used to be, anyway. Ever since that thing happened with Laura, I've barely seen him talk to another girl.

“
This is where you and I are different. I'll let him play me all he wants. Because I can play the game even better.”

My grin only grows. “What the heck am I gonna do without you next year?”

Her eyes widen. “No,” she says firmly. “We're not doing that right now. It's
March
. We're gonna think about soccer, and hot baseball boys who are
not
douches, and the fact that you're turning back into someone who actually smiles again.” She pauses. “I've missed you.”

Her words are a hit to the heart, but in a good way, I think. “I think I'm starting to find my way back,” I say after a moment.

She eyes me, shaking her head slowly. “No, I don't think so. I'm not sure you can be that Bri again—you're never really the same after something, or someone, like that, you know? But you can be a New Bri. A Take-No-Shit-Bri.”

I like that Bri. I hold out my cup, which she taps with her own. “I'll drink to that.”

~

By the time I make it home, my stomach is full of ice cream and utterly blissful. Which is a good thing, because Dad's truck cab is in the driveway.

His coming home is always a double-edged sword. On one side, I'm more excited than a kid in a candy store. On the other, it sucks. Because it's only a matter of time before he leaves again.

But I've got to say, it's sort of amazing to walk inside and already have the lights on.

Dad's sitting on the couch, flipping through channels. And even if my stomach is in knots at the inevitable “this is how long I have” conversation, I grin and plop down beside him.

He
slings his arm across my shoulder. Presses a kiss to the side of my head. Settles on some fishing show, which is incredibly lame, but whatever. One thing I've learned is to enjoy the time we do have with people.

“How was it?” he asks.

He asks the same question every time he comes home, and my answer's always the same: “Fine,” I tell him.

And even though he knows good and well that it's a bold-faced lie, he nods, just like he always does.

Something else I've learned: No one ever wants to address the elephant in the room, even if the elephant is tap-dancing around in pink stilettos. Sometimes a lie, and accepting that lie, is so much better than dealing with the painful headache of the truth.

Chapter
Twenty

Eric

Saturdays are easily my new favorite day of the week.

By the second Saturday of March, I'm more than okay with riding shotgun to Bri, listening to classic rock, and letting my stomach growl while serving food to old men who make fun of me and teaching baseball to kids who don't hate me so much after all.

All day, the girl beside me has been smiling. And all day, I haven't been able to take my eyes off that smile. Which sucks, considering today was our last Saturday together.

My sentence is complete. Served in full. I'm a free guy.

I'm not so sure that freedom is all it's cracked up to be.

It's just past ten when Bri pulls into her driveway, after helping me at the church. Despite the truck cab in her driveway, all the lights in her house are dark, aside from the porch light.

“Your dad isn't out hunting us down, is he?” I ask her. Ever since he came home this week, he's been staring me down like I'm a deer in his crosshairs.

She shakes her head. “That's the beauty of texts. I already let him know where we were.”

“And he's okay with it?”

She hesitates. “I didn't say that. I just said that he knows where I've been. He's probably asleep already.”

It shouldn't bug me so much that the man hates me, but it does. I guess he can put up with the punk kid next door, but when I'm actually around his precious daughter, I'm as worthless as spoiled meat.

She
unbuckles her seatbelt and slides out of her car, and I do the same. We branch off toward our houses, the same paths we've taken for years. But this time, I can't bring myself to fully walk away. I want to walk her to her door. Tell her goodnight.

Maybe do more than
tell
her goodnight.

She stops in the middle of her lawn and turns, the full moon shining on her like a spotlight. She catches me staring and smiles. She's been doing a lot of that lately. So have I. “What is it?” I ask.

She stuffs her hands into the pocket of her hoodie and takes a step toward me. “Honestly? I'm not really ready to go home yet.”

Okay.

She stares at me for a long moment before adding, “Are you?”

Nope. I am definitely not ready to go home—not while she's looking at me like that. “I'm up for whatever you are.”

“You wanna come over to my house?” She winces. “Wow. That makes me sound like I'm ten.”

Ten was a good year. Ten was full of backyard campouts and climbing trees and kissing. So I'd be more than happy for us to pretend we're back there again, especially since the kissing came to a very disappointing halt after that year. “I remember when you were ten. You were cute.” Walking across the driveway, I can't help but add, “You're not so cute anymore though.”

Her eyes widen. “Thanks?”

I stop at the edge of her lawn. Shake my head. “Not cute. Gorgeous.”

I half expect her to roll her eyes. To tell me to screw off. Instead, her smile widens.

I
glance at her house. “We could have another sleepover. More pizza and TV and sleeping on your couch.”

“I don't think my dad would like that.”

“But would
you
?”

Chewing on her lower lip, she hangs her head. “I did like that sleepover.”

“We should have them more often.”

“Eric.” It's a one-word warning to tone it down a notch.
Noted.
We stand in silence, with her staring at the ground and me at her. I don't know what she wants from me. I don't know what I want her to want. All I know is that now, I really don't want to go home, either.

“Sometimes,” she begins, and pauses. Looks to the sky. “I don't know,” she says more quietly. “Sometimes it's just nice to be held. To know that someone's there.” Her gaze finally lands on me. There was warning in her voice minutes ago, but now her eyes are full of confusion and pleading and “what the hell do we do,” all at the same time. And I don't know. But I do know something we can try.

“Come here.” I walk down my driveway to my truck and pop its tailgate. My boots thump against the bed liner as I jump inside. Bri appears at my side, looking on as I reach into the toolbox and pull out the flannel blanket I keep inside for emergencies.

“A blanket, Eric?” she says. “Really?”

I gape at her. “It's for emergencies.” She lifts an eyebrow. “Seriously.”

I didn't say what
kind
of emergencies. Sometimes there are clothes-less emergencies. But judge not, and all that. Regardless, she walks around to the tailgate and climbs up. I plop down in front of the toolbox, leaving plenty of room for her. She stares at me long and hard before sitting
and
stretching her legs alongside mine. And then she turns to me, her lips slightly parted. “No funny business,” she says, the words almost a whisper.

I shake my head. “No funny business.” She leans forward just enough for me to wrap the blanket around both our shoulders. More than anything, I want it to be my arm around there, to let her know I'm here anytime she may want me. Or need me.

With any other girl, I would have made that move already, but she's different. And that sounds stupid and cliché and I refuse to drop the “she's not like other girls” bullshit, because she's just like plenty of other girls around here: she's smart and gorgeous and hilarious and a blast to be around. But she is different. She's the only one who makes
me
want to be different. She makes me want to be better. For her.

She gazes at the sky, a peaceful smile spreading across her face. “Carolina nights are sacred, you know,” she says. “There's something magical about them. The wide open sky. The stars.” She glances at me out the corner of her eye. “It's nice when the nights are still. But when the breeze kicks in, it's kind of like the universe is tossing its beauty in your face.”

Right on cue, that breeze swirls around us. And it's the cheesiest damn thing that's ever crossed my mind, but she's wrong about one thing: it's not the universe's beauty being tossed in my face. But there's no way in hell I'm telling her that. Because holy cheese.

I squint, spotting an eyelash beneath her eye. I gesture to my own. “You got a—” I circle my finger, the universal gesture for
you've got an eyelash
and for some reason no one ever says the word “eyelash.” She rubs her eye, but it's still there. Chuckling, I swipe it from her skin and hold it out for her. “Make a wish.”

She
eyes me for a moment, a weird mixture of confusion and something I can't place clouding her face, before blowing on my finger softly. And damn, if that doesn't send chills shooting through every nerve in my body.

She's right—Carolina nights are sacred. As long as those nights involve her, under a blanket, right beside me.

I swallow hard. “What'd you wish for?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “You're not supposed to say your wish aloud. It won't come true.”

I grin. “You can tell me. Promise. Your secret's safe with me.”

Her gaze falls as her lips curve into the slightest of smiles. “It's stupid, anyway.”

“I don't think anything you say could be stupid.”

She yanks off her beanie, and her hair spills across her face. I'd kill to run my fingers through that hair. The longer I stare at her, the more I'm convinced that no girl has ever been prettier.

I'm not supposed to fall for anyone—I told myself that after last year, when Rachel was the third girl in a row to screw around on me. I'm sure as hell not supposed to fall for the girl next door, the one who deserves more than someone like me. But I am. I'd be an idiot to try to say that I'm not.

She shifts beside me, snapping me back to the moment. Minutes pass—maybe hours, I have no freakin' clue. But right now, I'd give anything for time to stop. Because for the first time in over a year, all I want is a girl's head on my shoulder, a hand in mine, someone to hold and to kiss and to just be with for more than one night. And not just any girl—this girl.

For the first time in over a year, I want to believe that happiness is an actual thing.

She
moves way too soon, lifting her face to look directly at mine. “I wished,” she says, “that I could let you put your arm around me. That I could fall asleep beside you under a sky full of stars without being terrified, like we used to.” She sighs heavily. “And I wished that our exes hadn't royally screwed us over, and that we weren't so scared of trusting people again. Then we could be okay with giving each other a chance.”