Dare You to Fall for the Catcher

by Lacy Andersen

  “Thank you...I guess,” I said, pouting a little. It shouldn’t have been that hard to say thanks, but saying it to Jayden Paul almost felt like admitting defeat.

  “Feel better soon, Amanda.” Jayden closed my car door, giving me one last cocky smile through the window. “And just remember, I won fair and square today.”

  A sudden and unexplainable twinge of heat burst in my belly as I watched him walk away in those low-slung board shorts. Whatever it was, it went away as quickly as it came when I realized what had just happened.

  I came this close to blowing my future—all over a stupid dare with a silly boy.

  I might have been stubborn, but what Jayden didn’t know was that my stubborn attitude was the only thing I had going for me. That, and my running. And if anyone was going to come back from this, it was me.

  There was no other option.

  Chapter Two

  The urgent care waiting room was cold and smelled a lot like hand sanitizer. A rerun of Frasier played on the TV. Mom plopped into the chair next to my wheelchair, her blonde hair escaping from its bun at the nape of her neck. She held her giant black purse on her lap and dug her arm deep inside it.

  “Do you want a piece of Big Red?” she asked, glancing at me, the lines in her forehead deepening. “Or a Werther’s candy? Or how about a tic tac? Those always make you feel better.”

  “Yeah, when I was six,” I said with a suppressed smile.

  “That’s probably for the best. Turns out that was actually my heart medication.”

  Mom managed to get a laugh out of me, despite my foul mood. She always did. Mom seemed to have this idea that the key to happiness was stashed somewhere inside her purse. Whenever she was nervous, she would pull stuff out of it. I swear, she was like the manic version of Mary Poppins, except blonde, curvy, and with a wicked ability to create underrated and totally awesome meals for the diner. Oh, and a heart condition called cardiomyopathy that got worse with stress.

  I’m sure this wasn’t helping.

  “Okay then,” she said, sticking her nose back into the bag. “What about a crossword puzzle? I’m sure I stashed one of those little game booklets in here for times like this. Just let me find it—”

  I put a hand on her arm and she halted her frantic searching to look over at me. “Mom, I’m okay. Let’s just wait and see what the doctor says.”

  She nodded gratefully and dropped her giant purse back to the ground, redirecting her attention to the TV.

  Audrey had called my parents at the restaurant the moment we got on the road. Despite the fact that I knew they’d be overwhelmed with the lunch hour rush soon, Mom had insisted on meeting us at urgent care. My friends had offered to stay, but I shooed them back to the party at the Cascades. Their boyfriends were still there and somebody had to keep an eye on Charlotte. That girl was getting on my nerves. It was nearly impossible to keep her at home.

  The good news was that the pain in my ankle had definitely lowered down to a dull throbbing level. In fact, it seemed silly to be here at all. What I needed was a night to baby it and I’d be back on my feet. This whole fuss was entirely Jayden’s fault. If he hadn’t demanded I go to urgent care, I’d already be at home and Mom never would’ve had to find out.

  I’d been taking care of myself since I was practically a tiny kid. There was no need for everyone to make such a fuss.

  A nurse in blue scrubs walked through a door and glanced at her clipboard. “Amanda Hale?”

  I winced at the sound of my full name, reminded once again of Jayden’s prodding from an hour ago.

  “Here!” Mom jumped from her chair and snatched her purse. “We’re here.”

  She jerked my wheelchair forward and I hissed as pain shot up my leg. I hadn’t wanted to sit in the wheelchair in the first place, but Trina had given me those big green puppy dog eyes until I relented. Everyone thought she was so innocent, but she knew how to use her superpowers to her advantage. If I didn’t love her so much, I would’ve told her just where she could put that wheelchair.

  “Sorry, sweetie.” Mom patted me on the head as she pushed me down the hall after the nurse. “I’ll be more careful.”

  We were herded into a small exam room with barely enough room to fit the wheelchair, let alone three people. I ended up having to stare at the white chipped paint on the wall as the nurse asked my mom questions about my medical history. Meanwhile, my phone was buzzing with notification after notification. Finally, with a groan, I pulled it out of the hoodie pocket and unlocked the screen to see what all the fuss was about.

  RockValleyBiz tagged you in a photo.

  My heart rate jumped just a tiny bit. Nothing good ever came out of being tagged in the Rock Valley Instagram gossip rag that was RockValleyBiz. My thumb hesitated over the icon for a mere second before I opened the app.

  What popped up was a photo that made my cheeks burn as if I’d shoved my face into a campfire. It featured Jayden carrying a sopping wet me against his very firm and very sculpted chest. He looked every bit like a superhero in an action movie, the gray sweatshirt tied around his waist acting like a miniature cape. He even had the chiseled jawline. I was the unfortunate damsel looking way too comfortable in his arms. Scrolling a little farther, that embarrassment only grew when I read the posting below it:

  Is track goddess Mandy out for the season? Or just craving an intimate moment with our catch(er) of the year, bachelor Jayden Paul?

  As I scanned over the numerous comments popping up under the caption, my head swirled with all kinds of regret over this morning’s events. Never in a million years did I think I’d be accused of being one of those girls who would fake an injury to get a guy at her side. It was so not me. They had the wrong idea.

  Especially not with Jayden Paul.

  Staring at the picture, I realized with a start that the sweatshirt hanging from around his waist was the same sweatshirt I had on now. The one that I’d been gratefully snuggling for warmth since we left the Cascades. The realization made my skin itch. If I hadn’t been wearing a bikini underneath it, I would’ve stripped right then and there. Anything to put some more distance between that picture, me, and superman Jayden.

  “Hello, I’m Dr. Kim.” A new voice piped up from behind me. “What seems to be the problem here?”

  I twisted my neck as far as I could to see a stout little man with olive skin and crazy black hair standing behind me. He smiled at me and then my mom as he rubbed hand sanitizer between his palms.

  “Mandy’s hurt her ankle,” Mom said, pointing to my leg currently wrapped up in bags of ice we picked up through a Burger King drive-through. “She’s a long-distance runner. This girl lives and breathes running. As you can guess, she’s very upset.”

  “It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at,” I said, forcing a smile at him, although my neck was starting to cramp. “So I need you to tell me I can get back to running as soon as possible.”

  Dr. Kim laughed, his belly jiggling. “First things first, young lady. Let me take a look.”

  It took a little finagling, but we finally got the wheelchair into a position that allowed Dr. Kim to examine my ankle. When he took the ice off, all three of us hissed in horror. In the time it had taken to drive over here and wait to see the doctor, it had swollen to three times its size.

  “That’s normal, right?” My eyes grew wide as I stared up at him. “Tell me that’s normal.”

  He grimaced. “It’s not a good sign. But let me first feel it for any broken bones.”

  I gripped the armrests as his fingertips pressed into my flesh. Whatever he was doing made me want to scream out like when a character was being tortured in a TV show. Someone needed to get me a piece of leather to bite on. My eyes burned with unspent tears by the time he was done, but I made it through without kicking anyone.

  “Good news,” he said with a smile and a pat on my knee. “No broken bones. I’ll send you for an x-ray, just in case, but this looks like a simple case of a sprain.”

>   A smile instantly sprung to my lips. The torture had been totally worth it. “So, I’ll be good as new in a couple days?”

  “It’s rest and ice for you. I’ll refer you to a physical therapist as well so that you can be running-ready as soon as possible. But stay off it for the next three weeks.”

  “Wait, what?” My gut clenched as if I’d come down with a sudden case of stomach flu. If my life had a soundtrack, right then would’ve been the soundbite for impending doom. Instead, I was met with a total and resounding silence as I attempted to suck in a breath. “You can’t be serious. Our first track meet is next Friday.”

  He giggled, as if I were a stand-up comedian. “No can do. You wait three weeks.”

  I leaned forward and narrowed my eyes at him. “One. I’ll do one.”

  “Mandy, this isn’t a negotiation.” Mom’s eyes darted between me and the smiling doctor. “You have to take a break. Doctor’s orders.”

  “But three weeks in track season is practically a lifetime,” I said, desperation entering my voice. “If I’m not training, I’m not improving my times. And if I’m not improving my times, I’m not winning heats. All of my scholarship offers are going to be pulled.”

  Her eyes slanted with sympathy and she patted my knee. “Mandy, this isn’t the end of the line. You’ll come back from this injury. And if you don’t, we’ll figure something out. We Hales always do. You know that.”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek and stared down at the floor. This wasn’t like other times. Mom wasn’t going to come out and say it, but they’d been depending on me getting that track scholarship. We couldn’t afford school without it. I might as well trade in my metal cleats for an apron at the diner because I’d be stuck working late shifts for the next four years to pay for a single semester.

  “Two weeks,” I said, blinking away the tears to look up at Dr. Kim. “How does that sound?”

  For the first time since he’d walked in the room, the smile on Dr. Kim’s face dissolved. He pulled his stool closer to me and looked me directly in the eyes. “Amanda, if you push yourself too fast and run before you’re ready, you’ll do even more damage and there will be no season for you. Period. Healing takes time. Do not rush this, or I’m afraid you will be sorry for it.”

  I gulped down the lump in my throat, feeling Dr. Kim’s warning strike me clear to the bone. He was right, I didn’t want to do more damage. I wanted to come back from this stronger than ever. If I had to put in the time, then I would. No running for me.

  I could do this.

  “Okay, I wave the white flag,” I said, whirling my finger in the air. “Three weeks of no running.”

  It was going to be the longest three weeks of my life. February and March would be totally wasted.

  A smile quirked on Dr. Kim’s lips and he went to open the door with a satisfied grunt. “Very good. I think you made the right decision. Let me know if anything changes. We’ll call with news of your x-ray.”

  I tried to wave goodbye at him, but my arm felt like it now weighed a million pounds. Mom hopped up from her chair, wearing that beaming smile that said she knew just how to make everything better.

  “Maybe, in the meantime, you’ll find something else to occupy your time,” she said, shooting me a hopeful smile that lit up her blue eyes. “Something that you’re really good at. Like a hidden talent! I’ll bet you’re a fabulous cook and you don’t even know it.”

  I snorted and tucked my hands in the hoodie pocket.

  Jayden’s hoodie.

  The hoodie I needed to ditch as soon as possible so this nightmare would end.

  “Mom, you’re forgetting that time I tried to make boxed mac and cheese and nearly burned down the kitchen.”

  She sheepishly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and squinted. “Oh yeah. Not cooking then. Maybe coding? Or playing the piano? Oooh, what about becoming a movie critic? When you were in kindergarten, you couldn’t watch a single cartoon without listing off every single plot problem.”

  As she listed off idea after idea and wheeled me out of the room, I kept my lips glued together. Mom might’ve had a heart condition, but it was still a good heart. She was the patcher in the family—always patching holes to keep things together. But there was nothing to patch this time.

  I’d agreed not to run for three weeks. But training wasn’t completely off the table. I’d find a way to keep going. I always did.

  My phone slipped on my thigh and I snatched it before it could slide to the floor. The picture of Jayden carrying me was still on the screen, making my gut clench again. Never again would I be in that situation. Mandy Hale wasn’t a damsel in distress. She was someone who put in the hard work and suffered through the pain and tears to win.

  And winners never quit.

  They just found other ways to train.

  Chapter Three

  Crutches were going to be the end of me. By the end of school on Monday, I’d nearly tripped and fallen on my face a dozen times, muscles I didn’t even know I had were on fire, and my armpits were starting to chafe. So when I smacked straight into a solid chest on my way to track practice, I was just about ready to throw myself on the ground and cry.

  It had really been that kind of day.

  “Excuse me,” I said, keeping my eyes glued to the floor and attempting to circumvent the owner of the man pecs.

  Moving forward on crutches was one thing. Sideways was nearly impossible. Urgency blazed in my head. I needed to get to the track as soon as possible to start my own personal brand of training. No running included. That was a given. But I wasn’t giving up so easily.

  “How’s it going, A-man-da?”

  I closed my eyes against the onslaught of unpleasant emotions that Jayden’s voice brought up at that moment. Of course, I’d run into him. It seemed like ever since the polar plunge on Saturday I couldn’t avoid him. That photo on RockValleyBiz haunted me. So did his gray hoodie that I’d planned on returning ASAP this morning, but had somehow forgotten at home.

  Calming myself as best as I could, I peeked through my eyelashes to see him grinning at me and holding his black catcher’s mitt in one hand and a baseball in the other. He stood so close and I had to lift my chin up to look him fully in the eyes.

  “I’m walking around with metal sticks under my armpits,” I said, tilting my head to one side. “What do you think the answer is to that question?”

  His eyes glittered with laughter as they swept over me and back to my face. “I’d say, no one rocks crutches like you can, Hale.”

  My cheeks burned and I tore my gaze away. He was always laying it on thick. He knew it drove me crazy. “Well, for your information, the doctor said I have to stay off the ankle for three weeks. No running. No track meets. Best. Senior. Year. Ever.”

  The physical therapist had said that I would only need the crutches for a couple days, then a brace, and then I’d finally be back to normal. The range-of-motion exercises she had given me were already engrained in my brain. I was going to dominate those moves until my ankle was back in business.

  Jayden took a step closer to me, a line appearing between his eyebrows as he frowned at me. “I’m really sorry. That sucks.”

  His sudden display of sympathy caught me slightly off guard. It was so unlike him. I chewed on my bottom lip, feeling a surprise influx of emotion. “Yeah, it stinks. I didn’t think this was how my last track season would go.”

  “I couldn’t imagine being injured for my senior year of baseball.” He cleared his throat and stared down at his mitt. “I know you probably won’t believe this, but I actually am sorry. It kind of feels like this was my fault. If I hadn’t dared you to do the polar plunge, you wouldn’t have been on those rocks to begin with.”

  His words echoed the ugly thoughts I’d been having over the past forty-eight hours, but hearing them come from his lips made me realize how ridiculous it had been to put any of the blame on Jayden. Even if he liked to torture me, none of this was on him. I was the one de
termined to put him in his place. I was the one that hadn’t paid close enough attention to what I was doing.

  This was my fault and no one else’s.

  “Hey, that’s not true.” I plucked the baseball from his hand, causing him to raise his blue-eyed gaze back to mine. “I probably would’ve done that polar plunge even without a dare, just to say that I could. It’s definitely not your fault.”

  The smile I earned in response made my gut twinge with warmth. He sucked in his cheeks and chuckled softly. “Thanks for that.”

  “Sure. Anytime.”

  I wasn’t really sure why he was thanking me, but the longer I stood there staring into his eyes, the more my stomach was feeling like I’d swallowed a mouthful of bees. I squirmed slightly, handing him back his baseball.

  “Guess I’d better go before they start practice,” I said, grimacing. “Not that I get to do much today.”

  He sighed softly, his lips twisting to one side. “You know, it sounds like you’re going to have a lot of free time on your hands. If you’re interested, I think I have an idea on how to spend all that time.”

  I narrowed my eyes. This felt like a trap. “What’s that?”

  “It involves a closet, me, you, and several more rounds of seven minutes in heaven. We can pick up where we left off all those years ago.”

  I pulled my chin back and made a face. There he was. The real Jayden. It hadn’t taken him long to reappear. The bees buzzing in my stomach had effectively been exterminated. “Um, hard no.”

  The teasing grin was back. “Wow, not even a second to consider it? I’m hurt, Amanda.”

  “Don’t need it, thank you very much.” I calmly tucked my hair behind my ears and pursed my lips. “And if I ever say anything different, it’s because I’m sick, hallucinating, and need to be rushed to the hospital.”

  His laughter followed me down the hall as I went around him and made my way toward the locker rooms. He couldn’t even be serious for five whole minutes. Jayden had always taken particular joy in teasing me. I was pretty sure he got off on making me blush until I was tomato red.