Game On

by Michelle Smith

  “Thanks for that. I think.”

  She tosses up a wave before disappearing into her house. Oscar squawks again. I shoot him a glare. “You’re lucky I like you more than I like fried chicken.”

  ~

  I’ll never say this to the guy’s face, but I’ve learned a lot from my brother. He’s a year older, so I’ve admittedly spent half our lives stuck up his ass. He’s always been my best friend, though—the only guy who’s ever had my back 100 percent. And one thing he constantly told me, and reminded me of right before he left for college, was to never, ever let people see you sweat, even if you feel like you’ve been dropped into Hell itself.

  Or, you know, First Baptist Church in Lewis Creek, South Carolina.

  And I’m probably going to Hell for referring to church as a fiery abyss, but when you’re the kid of Lewis Creek’s most popular pastor, everybody and their momma loves to peek inside your glass house. Not only that, but the people in this town become nutjobs when it comes to baseball. Get ’em riled up and they put the demons to shame. Being both a pastor’s kid and a ball player gets you a double dose of craziness.

  Momma and Emma lead the way as we file into the jam-packed foyer, which is almost as hot as a lake of fire. Grace trudges ahead of me, her arms crossed. I shove my hands into the pockets of my khakis and plaster the practiced smile to my face. I can feel the glares boring into me; you’d think someone had wallpapered the sanctuary with this week’s paper. A bunch of them were probably at Joyner’s last night, too. They want a reaction. They want me to bitch and moan and sulk.

  My grin only grows.

  Momma and Emma head to the kids’ class as Grace and I make our way through the crowd and into the sanctuary, where Mrs. Clark is playing “Amazing Grace” on the piano. We make a beeline for our usual pew, second from the front. Being right up front sucks (hello, Pastor Dad), but it’s not nearly as bad as the gossip that starts when the pastor’s kid sits in the back row. I sat there once, and people expressed their “concern” to Momma for weeks.

  Grace shifts, looking over her shoulder. She scans the crowd for a moment before she finally grins. I follow her line of sight. Randy’s in the back with Matt and a couple other guys from the team, gawking at my sister. I lift an eyebrow. Randy rolls his eyes, but drops his gaze.

  Another lesson learned from the older brother: you can’t punch a guy for looking at your sister, even if you really, really want to. And that’s why you teach your sister to throw one heck of a right hook. Which we did.

  A hand attached to a wave of cheap perfume sneaks between us, landing on Grace’s shoulder. “Sweetheart,” Ms. Thelma says in a loud whisper. “You must be chilly! I’m having a hard time believing your momma let you out of the house in that dress. Do you need to borrow a sweater? I can hunt one down for you.”

  Grace flushes, likely from both embarrassment and holding back a “screw you.” I clear my throat, ready to jump in to the rescue.

  And now there’s a hand on my shoulder. I whip my head to the side, finding Mr. Joyner leaning over the back of my pew. He’s a good ol’ guy, owner of the best barbecue place in town. He’s also head of the booster club, which makes him think that he manages the team. But he did give me a job last summer when I was trying to pay Coach back for that whole posting-my-bail/saving-my-ass thing, so I can’t blow him off too much.

  “How you doin’ this morning, son?” he asks. “One heck of a write-up in today’s paper, don’t ya think?”

  If there’s one thing you learn around here, it’s how to spot backhanded bullshit. My jaw goes rigid, but I swallow my own “screw you” of the morning. Grin. Grin, damn it. “I’m doin’ fine, Mr. Joyner,” I manage to say. “No such thing as bad press, right?”

  His laugh booms, echoing above the low rumble of those piling into the sanctuary. “You got that right.” He slaps my shoulder again before turning to Mr. Bennett, who’s sliding into the open space beside him.

  I straighten in my seat. Is this what I have to look forward to for the rest of the year? Because it blows. I sprawl my legs and loosen my tie, trying to get some air circulating before I sweat to death.

  “Does it ever stop?” Grace asks.

  I look over. She’s staring straight ahead at the choir filing onto the stage. Judging from her folded arms, flushed cheeks, and glare that could slice steel, she’s fuming. She didn’t just get the Perry stubbornness—she got the temper, too. I say good for her, but a girl with an attitude is anything but good when you’re in our seats. You’re supposed to smile. Be “proper” and gentle. Speak when spoken to. She doesn’t play by those rules too well.

  “Does what stop? “ I ask.

  “The staring. The people who think they know everything about you, and don’t know sh—” She glances around, probably to make sure no one heard her. “Don’t know crap,” she finishes.

  I don’t have the heart to tell her that not only does it never stop, but it gets worse. And worse. And worse. That it doesn’t stop until you’re far, far away, because we were born and raised in this town, and half these people think they have some sick entitlement to our lives.

  Instead of telling her all that, I toss my arm across the back of the pew and go with something else Brett always told me: “Screw ’em.”

  ~

  For most families around here, Sunday dinners are spent with pot roast, potatoes, rolls, green beans, and dessert.

  Not at our house. Once we get home from church, I head to The Strike Zone and hit up the batting cages while everyone else sits around the house. Then, someone goes to pick up dinner from Joyner’s BBQ before that night’s church service. And that someone is always me.

  Last year, I spent every Sunday with my brother and his friends at the cages. But now they’re all gone, and the friends I do have left have lives of their own. Kellen is another pastor’s kid whose family is tighter than the Brady Bunch on Sunday afternoon, and Blake works at the tractor supply store in town. So I go to the cages alone. Smack balls on my own. Get lost in my head, which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

  Sundays are when I miss my brother the most. But I’ll never tell him I said that. Because now he’s got a life of his own, too.

  The sun’s nearly gone by the time I pull into the lot at Joyner’s. I hurry inside, since they’ll be closing soon. The dining area’s quiet, except for the low buzz of the fluorescents, with a handful of people scattered around—including Matt, Randy, and Bri, who are sitting in a booth. Bri’s got her chin in her hands and is staring out the window, looking like she’s lost in her own world. Which I’d imagine she has to do to suffer through a dinner with the guys sitting with her.

  Laura Decker’s working the register, in all her low-cut T-shirt, wavy blond hair glory. She smiles and leans onto the counter as I approach. “Hey, gorgeous,” I say, grinning.

  She laughs and rolls her eyes—she knows I’m full of crap. She’s my favorite girl around here; she plays the game just as well as I do, if not better. “Hey, yourself. Same order as always?” When I nod, she turns and calls my order out to the kitchen.

  I glance over my shoulder, sneaking a peek at Bri. She’s not in her own world anymore—Matt’s whispering something in her ear, which has her lips in a downright miserable frown. She nudges him, but he won’t budge. She nudges again, and finally pushes the asshole.

  “Move!” she shouts.

  Matt rolls his eyes, but finally stands and lets her scoot out of the booth. She storms to the door, letting it clamor closed behind her.

  The idiot probably called her “baby” again.

  “Eric,” Laura says.

  I whirl around. “Yeah. What’s up?” My bag of food has magically appeared on the counter, and Laura’s looking at me like I’m a nutcase. There’s a 99 percent chance I’ve missed something here. I hand her my dad’s debit card, which she takes slowly.

  “I was asking about that crappy article,” she says. “And whether or not you need some cheering up. Did you hear a word I said?�
��

  Sadly, no. No, I did not. I’m too busy spying on the neighbor girl. But cheering up sounds like a good idea.

  My mouth hangs open as I turn just enough to see out the front door. Bri and Matt are in the middle of the near-empty parking lot, with Bri gesturing all over the place, yelling about who-knows-what.

  I shouldn’t be a nosy-ass. I should mind my own business. I should let Laura cheer me up in the break room, like she’s done plenty of times before. But my gut’s twisting and turning, because I’ve never seen Bri lose her shit in public before. Something’s got to be wrong out there.

  Scratching my head, I grab Dad’s card and scoop up the bag. “I’ll text you, okay? Rain check.”

  I hurry to the door before she answers, peering outside before heading out there. Randy’s standing beneath the restaurant’s awning with his hands stuffed in his pockets, watching Bri and Matt go toe-to-toe in the lot like it’s just another night. Bri’s face is twisted in this weird sort of rage I didn’t know she was capable of, and I used to sneak rubber snakes into her house when we were kids; I would know her wrath.

  I lift my chin toward the golden couple. “What’s going on over there?” I ask Randy.

  He shrugs, chomping on his Godawful tobacco. “No clue, man. She’s been acting like a bitch since we got here, so—”

  I wince. The idiocy is actually painful. “Just stop there.”

  “Seriously?” Bri’s voice carries across the lot. “Whatever. I’ll walk home.”

  “Are you really that stupid?” Matt says. “You live, like, three miles away.”

  My face heats with a surge of rage. You can’t talk to a girl like that, dude.

  But Bri doesn’t flinch, she doesn’t scream, she doesn’t look surprised in the least—she just looks exhausted. Which means this probably isn’t the first time. And that only pisses me off more.

  She holds out her arms and lets them fall to her side. “Perfect. I run, like, five miles during every soccer game. I’m good to go.”

  Yeah, no. Harris may be okay with letting a girl walk three miles when it’s nearly dark, but not on my watch.

  Right as Bri starts toward the road, I call her name. She turns, her eyes widening as if she genuinely didn’t know I was out here. “You need a ride home?” I ask, striding across the lot.

  Matt’s shoulders drop as he says, “Mind your business, Perry. I’m handlin’ it.”

  I stop in front of him. “One, you don’t need to handle anyone but yourself, and two, maybe if you stopped callin’ girls ‘stupid,’ they’d be more willing to talk to you.” I smirk. “Just a guess.”

  He takes a step forward. “So you’re handing out advice?” Another step. Another, until he’s standing so close I could easily just shove him out of my face. But I don’t because, you know, low profile.

  Low profiles suck.

  I hold his glare with a solid one of my own. “Not advice,” I tell him. “More like common sense.”

  “Wait.” He flashes a grin. “I know what’s crawled up your ass: that article from this morning. What was it? ‘Mildly impressive’?” He shrugs. “Honestly, I thought they were being generous. Don’t know why you’re taking it out on me.”

  The bag in the crook of my arm crackles as I squeeze it instead of the guy in front of me. “How about I show you what a mildly impressive arm can do, you son of a—”

  Bri clears her throat from behind Matt. “You know what? I think I will take a ride.”

  Matt whirls around. “Like hell you are. We’re not done here.”

  My arm twitches. So easy. It’d be so freakin’ easy to make him swallow those words.

  Instead, I swallow my own and head to my truck. I open the passenger door, offering Bri my free hand to help her inside. But she stays put in the middle of the lot, facing Matt. “We are so, so done,” she finally says. “We’re done here, and we’re just—we’re done.” She shakes her head, backing toward me. “Leave me alone, Matt.”

  I’m slack-jawed when her hand does slide into mine, which is still outstretched. My pulse slows the slightest bit. It’s not perfect, but it’s better. Which feels really, really weird. Good. But weird.

  I climb into my own seat, my brain whirling with what I just saw. That’s not something I thought I’d get to witness. Hell, that’s like seeing Derek Jeter smack a home run up close. It’s a freakin’ privilege.

  Clearing my throat, I hold the bag out for Bri. “Could you—?”

  Sighing, she pulls it into her lap and fixes her eyes on the windshield.

  I mean, she is sitting where the bag’s supposed to go.

  I let the windows down, the cool evening air pouring into the cab. Bri closes her eyes and relaxes back against the headrest, which I take as my cue to get the heck out of here.

  Bri’s silent for the entire ride. It isn’t until I turn onto our road that she says, so quietly I can barely hear, “Thanks.”

  I pull into my driveway, parking behind Momma’s van. Bri still won’t look at me—she just stares out her window at her own driveway, which is empty except for her car. With her dad being a truck driver and on the road for half the year, her driveway is almost always empty.

  “Don’t mention it,” I say, repeating her words from this morning. “You okay?”

  Her face scrunches. She bites her lip, something my sister does when she’s trying not to cry. “No.” She looks at me out the corner of her eye. “I will be. But not right now.”

  Before I can second-guess myself, I tell her, “You did the right thing,” and it’s the truth. Because if I’d heard him call her stupid or anything like it one more time, she wouldn’t have had the chance to break up with him—I would’ve broken him myself.

  Never in my life have I heard someone talk to a girl like that. If I’d even tried, both my dad and brother would have smacked the hell out of me. But it’s not only that—this is Bri. This is the girl whose laugh is one of those that makes you grin and just watch—watch her eyes brighten and her smile widen and her cheeks flush. She gives everything all she’s got, even something as small as a laugh. Someone stealing that from her is downright criminal.

  “What happened?” I ask. “What started all that?”

  She looks away again, at her house. Silence hangs in the air, thick as a wool blanket. As seconds tick by, and those seconds turn into minutes, it’s clear my question’s not going to be answered.

  I’m not gonna lie: I used to have a thing for the neighbor girl. But when people talk about the girls who are way out of your league, they don’t always mean the rich girls, or the ones who act like their crap doesn’t stink. There really are girls out there who are too good for you, the ones you’d bring down if you got too close. The ones who’ve built themselves up so damn high that you can’t even imagine bringing them down, because if you do, it’d be like shattering the monuments at Yankee Stadium. Which is why I haven’t pushed that friend-neighbor-whatever thing we’ve got. It’s why I’ve stomped those feelings down every time they’ve crept up over the past few years, and there’ve been more than a few times.

  It’s also why Matt Harris is even more of a bastard for stealing her laugh.

  “He’ll call tonight,” she says, I think more to herself than to me. “I’m surprised he hasn’t yet. I just hope he doesn’t show up here. He’s not a good loser.”

  She doesn’t have to tell me twice; I’ve seen the guy throw plenty of batting helmets and bats on the field. Coach got all over him once last season for bailing on a post-game handshake. I unbuckle my seatbelt and shove my keys into my pocket. “Know what I think?” I ask. “If he does call you after that, you need to tell him to go fuck himself. And if he shows up, tell him to pay me a visit. I’ll straighten his ass out real quick.”

  “You really kiss girls with that mouth?”

  “I kiss girls very, very well with this mouth.”

  She sighs, shaking her head as she hops down from the truck. I do the same, the gravel crunching beneath my boots. The s
lamming of her door is like a shotgun piercing the Sunday evening silence. She passes me the paper bag, still not quite meeting my eyes.

  I nod toward her house. “When’s your dad coming back?”

  She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “A few days. No big deal.”

  No big deal. Practically living by yourself seems like a pretty big deal. “I know it’s been a while, but you’re still welcome at our house anytime. Momma loves feeding people. It might be mac and cheese three nights a week, but it’s food.” Ever since she went back to teaching last year, Momma’s favorite things are blue box mac and cheese and pre-packaged lasagna. These are also my favorite things.

  For the first time tonight, Bri smiles. It’s tiny, but it’s there. “I do love mac and cheese.”

  “I’ll even share with you.”

  “That’s so considerate.”

  “I’m a considerate guy. Mi casa es su casa.”

  And finally, finally, I get a laugh out of her, one with bright eyes and a full smile, and I can’t hold back my own. Thank you, Spanish class. “That’s the twangiest Spanish I’ve ever heard,” she says. “Señora Hernandez would be ashamed.”

  Don’t care. If it makes her laugh like that, I’ll embarrass myself every day of the week.

  She backs away, toward her yard. “Thanks for the ride.”

  I shrug. “It’s the least I could do. You rescued my chicken.”

  And add that to the list of things I never thought I’d say.

  Chapter Four

  Bri

  Every Sunday night for the past five months, Matt and I have eaten dinner at Joyner’s. He picks me up and we fly through town in his massive beast of a truck, as predictable as an old married couple. You know, the old married couples who drive lifted Chevys.

  Tonight, I went to Joyner’s to break up with him.

  Heck, Becca even took me there this afternoon to rehearse, for crying out loud. I was prepared. Psyched. Ready to cut the cord and move on with the rest of senior year in relative peace. I felt like I was on top of the world, which is essential when you break up with someone. Because for those few moments, those moments you’re taking back control of your life, you sort of do own the world. You own your world.