Cinderella Steals Home

by Syms, Carly

  I shake my head. "I can't."

  "Well, that's too bad. You're going to have to find a way. It's up to you now."

  "I'm sorry I ruined it for you."

  "You didn't. The home run's on me."

  "But it would've just been one run if not for me."

  "Doesn't matter," he says. "I still threw the home run pitch after your mistake. It's still my fault. Don't think about it. Stop thinking about it."

  "I can't."

  "You have to."

  "I have to win this."

  "Don't think like that," he tells me. "You have to relax. Remember what I told you."

  I stare at him. He's looking back at me like he needs me to believe him, to listen to him, to trust him.

  "Do what I told you," he says. "Trust me."

  "Trust you," I repeat under my breath, and I think how crazy it is to hear these words coming from him and how it's even crazier that I do.

  After everything we've been through, after the very first day we met, here I am, hanging on his every word, believing his every word, and needing to hear from him that he thinks I can do this.

  "You've got this, Holls. And even if it doesn't work out, it's just the second game. We can't lose here. Not in this inning."

  I nod and grab my bat from its cubby.

  Doan reaches in and pulls out my helmet. He smiles, glances around once and quickly bends down and brushes a kiss across my lips. I smile despite the nerves fluttering around in my stomach. He places the batting helmet over my head and taps the brim once.

  "Go get 'em," he says to me.

  I'm batting second. Mike Neese stands at home plate while I take a few half-hearted swings in the on-deck circle.

  But I'm watching the pitcher as he gets ready to deal. Strike one. I shake my head, my fingers balling up into a nervous fist at my side.

  Come on, Mike, get this hit.

  The tense energy is palpable throughout the field, radiating off of both benches. I'm surprised how much I care about this summer league game.

  The next pitches come in.

  Strike two.

  I can't keep a frustrated sigh from slipping out between my lips.

  Mike holds up his hand to the umpire to call time out and steps out of the batter's box. He takes a few aggressive practice swings as if all he's thinking about is hitting a home run.

  He steps back in, squares up and waits.

  And that's when he does something that surprises everyone. The pitch comes in and he quickly switches up to a bunt.

  A perfect bunt.

  A strange time for it but it slowly, slowly, slowly trickles down the third baseline.

  Mike's a fast runner, and by the time the infielder scoops up the ball and fires it to the first baseman, he's already crossed the bag.

  He's safe.

  Unconventional, but it works. A small smile flickers at the corner of my lips.

  Until I realize it's my turn.

  My walk to the batter's box feels a little bit like a funeral procession. My legs barely want to move, like they're tied down with weights, but I force myself to home plate.

  This is what I want.

  I want to be a baseball player.

  This is the moment to take it.

  And maybe that's the difference between people who like something and people who love it. When you love something, you'll do anything to have it, and failing isn't an option.

  The pitcher looks in at the catcher's signals but I refuse to look anywhere other than his eyes until he throws the ball.

  And when he does, it's low and outside for ball one. I hear a few encouraging calls and claps behind me.

  "Alright, Holly, alright! Take that pitch."

  "Come on, Holls! You got it."

  I wait for the next one. It's going to be a strike but I think back to what Doan said. I don't like this pitch, I don't want this pitch, and it isn't mine. Strike one.

  But that's okay.

  I'm waiting for my pitch, the one I can hit, the one I want to hit, the one that comes sailing in at me whistling my name and only my name.

  I know it'll come.

  And there it is, on the very next throw.

  I swing my arms back, bring the bat around and watch the ball fly out and over the infield.

  It isn't a home run but it might be good enough. I take my eyes off the ball and run as hard as I can and I hope Mike is doing the same.

  When I round second base, I see the left fielder has just picked it up. I look for Mike. He's halfway between third and home.

  And with the left fielder just now throwing the ball in, he's going to make it. We're going to score. We're going to win!

  I don't bother to keep running. As Mike crosses home plate before the ball and the game ends, I stop where I am and smile.

  It's a strange smile. It's relief, and a little bit of sadness at having lost this game for so long, but mostly I'm just happy to have it back.

  My teammates stream onto the field to celebrate. Doan finds me immediately, like I knew he would.

  He wraps me up in a hug and kisses my cheek.

  "I told you," he whispers into my hair.

  I pull back from him and press my lips hard against his.

  "I don't know how you could think I'd do it," I murmur back.

  "Because I believed you could," he says. "And maybe it's time you start believing, too."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Two days later Justin decides he wants to have a pool party in Dad's backyard. Most of the guys from the team are coming. I know Doan will be here and I haven't seen him since the game.

  He mentioned grabbing beers and burgers but I wanted to spend last night working on my music and see if I could finish that one song I could never find the right ending to.

  But I still can't.

  I'm up in my bedroom staring out over the valley when the door bell rings. I drag myself out of bed, pull on my red bikini and cotton dress and head down to the pool.

  Justin and Allison are outside with Dave Durden and Mike Neese and a couple of girls I don't know. I say hello to everyone, glance around and realize Doan still isn't here.

  I head into the pool house to grab some towels, spread them out on a lawn chair and flop down on my back, letting my eyes close behind my sunglasses as I listen to the soothing sound of the waterfall hitting the pool.

  I'm not sure how long I doze off for, or even if I do, but when I come to it's because someone's talking to me.

  "Hope you've got your sunscreen on."

  I smile before I open my eyes. "I might need to re-apply." I let my eyes flutter open and grin at Doan who's standing in front of me with a bottle of sunscreen in his hands just like I knew he would be.

  "I think I can help out with that," he says. "Flip over."

  I turn onto my stomach and feel Doan's weight pressing down on the lawn chair as he gets on it with me.

  I listen for the pop of the sunscreen tube and hear him squirt the lotion into his hands. I realize I'm holding my breath in anticipation of feeling him putting it on me.

  Doan's warm, strong hands spread the sunscreen out across my back as he rubs it into my shoulders before working his way down lower and lower, making sure not to miss a spot, covering every inch with his rough pitcher hands.

  I try not to shiver when he reaches my lower back.

  He stops, puts more lotion in his hands and continues onto my legs. I feel his touch on every inch of my burning skin.

  He lingers for just a bit and then I hear the disappointing sound of the tube closing and the chair springs back up once his weight no longer pushes down on it.

  "Thanks," I say, turning back over. "Can I have that please?"

  I'm not about to ask him to lotion up my front with my brother and our teammates hanging around. He grins and wiggles his eyebrows at me as if he knows exactly what I'm thinking, then passes the bottle to me.

  He sits down on the lawn chair next to mine and watches as I cover the rest of me in sunblock.r />
  "Let it soak in," he says. "Then you and me have a date with the water slide."

  "Deal," I tell him.

  He smiles and leans back, propping himself up with his elbows. "Not such a bad set-up you've got here."

  I shrug. "Yeah, it's okay. But it's still my dad's."

  "Right," Doan says. "And he's still your dad."

  I look over at him sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  He shakes his head. "Nothing. Nothing."

  "No," I say, sitting up and pushing my sunglasses onto the top of my head. "It's definitely something."

  "Family is still family even when you don't want them to be."

  "I never said I don't want him to be my dad." I'm mad now; I don't like the direction he's taken this conversation. Not today. Not after what I told him at the lake the other day.

  "I guess that's true," Doan says. "But you don't seem to think of him like your dad."

  I stare at him. "This isn't your place."

  He seems to realize he's gone a little too far. "Hey, hey," he says, holding up his hands as if he's surrendering. "Sorry, you're right. I shouldn't have said anything. It's just hard for me sometimes. I don't think people really appreciate what it's like to have a family. And I don't necessarily mean you."

  Something clicks in my head; this isn't the first time he's said something like this to me.

  But I don't want to talk about this anymore.

  "Water slide?" I finally ask.

  He looks at me for a second or two with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

  "Okay," he says at last, his voice friendly and normal and happy once again. "Let's do it."

  I get up off my chair and walk over to the steps hidden behind the giant cluster of rocks.

  Doan follows. We get up to the top of the slide and I feel weird around him after what just happened but he smiles at me like nothing's the matter at all.

  So maybe it isn't.

  I stand at the top of the slide, my arms pressing down onto the sides as I rock back and forth to get some momentum.

  "What are you doing?" Doan says from behind me, and before I can turn to explain it to him, I feel two strong hands on my bare back and my feet shoot out from underneath me and I'm tumbling down the slide without even knowing what's happening.

  And then I'm flying off the edge of the slide and hit the water with a splash. I barely have time to plug my nose before my head goes under. I twist around for a second, orienting myself, before kicking my way to the surface and swimming over to the ledge.

  I wipe my eyes and blink twice.

  "What the heck was that?" I yell as Doan grins at me from the top of the slide.

  "Too slow!" he calls back before disappearing around a corner.

  Seconds later, he flies off the slide, then swims over to me.

  I whack his arm when he's within striking distance. "Not cool."

  He waves his hand dismissively. "Eh, it was funny."

  I slid off the edge and swim around in front of him. Before he can realize what's happening, I'm grabbing onto his legs and pulling him toward me. The weightlessness the water adds to his body makes it easy to yank him off the ledge and dunk him before he has a chance to react.

  I hold him down for just a few seconds before letting go and swimming toward the opposite end of the pool.

  By the time he splutters to the surface, I'm already far away.

  "Oh," he says in a low voice, shaking the water off his hair and letting his eyes linger on me. "It's on now."

  He springs forward and swims toward me and I shriek and stand up on the ledge. When he reaches me, I quickly jump out of the pool where he can't touch me.

  "Cheater!" he exclaims. "So lame."

  "All's fair in love and war," I tell him, and he doesn't respond for a few seconds.

  He just stares at me, and my heart's thumping inside my chest all funny and weird all of a sudden, and I'm sure I'm reading too much into it, but I can't help it.

  "You're right," he says at last. "Let's see what you got."

  I glance around and notice that Justin and several other people are watching us. My brother's got that twinkle in his eye, the one I'm so used to seeing from when we were kids and he was about to suggest we do something that'd eventually get us in trouble with Mom and Dad.

  "Water fight!" Justin shouts out before cannon-balling into the pool, soaking everyone he'd just been standing with.

  Some of the girls shriek but the others jump in and within a second, Justin and Dave and Allison and another girl are engaged in chicken fights.

  I realize with a start that I've taken my eyes off Doan for way too long. I scan the pool and don't see him anywhere.

  Damn.

  It's like he's the spider again.

  And right now, I feel like I've stumbled into his web.

  As I consider my next move, I realize that the answer is in the pool house and I hurry over to it, trying to sneak through the door unseen. There's no guarantee we'll have them but if I know my brother at all, they'll be here. I let it close quietly once I'm inside so I'll hear it if someone tries to get in behind me.

  I root around through several plastic storage boxes until I find exactly what I'd been looking for.

  I pick up the two mega-sized super-soaker water guns and smile. Doan'll be at my mercy in no time.

  As I head to the back of the pool house to fill them with water from the hose, I'm hit with memory after memory of summers in Arizona in our old house, with my old family, before all of this.

  We'd had a modest pool, definitely no pool house or rock-adorned water slide or mountain-side view, but it had been perfect for the four of us.

  And it probably still would be, if we still had those lives.

  They aren't the same water guns my dad had come home with that summer night one July almost 12 years ago, but they're close enough for me to remember it all.

  I can still see the excitement on Justin's face, can still feel the amused mock disapproval of my mom's stare, can still picture the unbeatable little-boy smile of my dad.

  We'd gone outside that night even though it was close to my bed time, filled those guns up and spent hours running through the yard, spraying each other. Mom and I had teamed up against Dad and Justin. Girls versus boys.

  We were a real family then.

  It's been so long since I could say that I almost forgot it was ever true at all.

  And for years, memories like that had done nothing but refuel my anger at my father. But now? Today? Holding these water guns in this new life I stumbled onto not by choice but out of necessity?

  I don't feel mad anymore.

  I don't even feel sad that it's no longer the way it used to be.

  No, for the first time, I just feel calm. At ease. There's nothing bad about these memories, and nothing bad about the way they make me feel.

  With the weight of this in my hands, I peek my head around the back door. There's no sign of anyone.

  I creep over to the hose, crank it on and quickly fill the water guns. When I'm done, I put one in each hand and slide over to the edge of the pool house, suddenly enjoying the feeling of being some kind of secret agent ready to take on the enemy.

  Ready to take on Doan.

  I stick my head around the corner and move forward. When I get to the edge of the pool house that faces the water, I try to casually walk away from the building even with the giant super soakers in my hands.

  I stand easily behind a lounge chair, using the back of it to hide the guns as best I can.

  And that's when I see him.

  Doan's sitting on the opposite side of the pool with his legs dangling in the water, watching the two separate games of chicken going on in the shallow end in front of him.

  I don't think he's seen me yet.

  Perfect.

  I walk over the long way, trying to keep out of his line of sight as best as possible, and when I'm almost directly behind him, I get the soakers prepared in my hands for ma
ximum impact.

  I walk up, practically on tiptoes, stop, aim and fire.

  Water spurts out the ends of both of them, soaking his hair, his back, his shorts.

  He turns around in surprise but that only ends with him getting a faceful of water and me getting the giggles.

  "What the -- ?" he gurgles, wiping frantically at his face.

  I'm smiling as I pull down on the trigger, launching another stream of water at him.

  I stand here grinning, watching him struggle, until I realize both the guns are out of water, and he's suddenly no longer being bombarded.

  He seems to realize it at the same time I do.

  I shriek and take off running and don't stick around long enough to see if he scrambles to his feet and comes after me.

  But when he grabs my ankles and tackles me into the grass a few seconds later, I have my answer.

  The water guns fly out of my hands with impact and I expect him to take off after them and use my own weapons against me, but instead he's almost sitting on my stomach and starts tickling me relentlessly.

  "Stop!" I shriek through my laughter. "Stop!"

  "Oh, you want me to stop?" he says. "After that? I don't think so."

  I'm struggling to find the air to talk. "You'll -- regret -- it," I manage to choke out between laughs. "Stop!"

  "Nope!" He gleefully continues to tickle me, so I do what any girl in my situation would -- I lift my leg and kick him.

  Not hard, of course, but enough to startle him and get him to just stop tickling already!

  And when he does, I wiggle out from under him, manage to get my hands on one of the water guns and take off running back to the hose to fill it again, cursing myself for leaving the second for him.

  It's quiet -- too quiet -- once I've re-filled mine, and I find myself creeping over to the edge of the pool house once again.

  I stick my head around the side of the building and BAM!

  That's when I get a face full of water.

  "Gotcha," Doan whispers.

  I cough, and before I can retaliate, he pulls the second gun out of my hands.

  "Truce?" he asks.

  I blink the water out of my eyes and glare at him. "Truce."

  He grins. "Not bad," he says. "For a rookie."

  "This isn't over," I tell him. "Not by a long shot. You know the whole thing about winning the battle but not the war. That's this."