“Why couldn’t you?”
I sidestepped a folded treadmill and opened a box marked CDs. “Because there are more girls who want the same thing than there are team spots to go around.” I held up a CD. “Please tell me you’re the Cher fan.”
“My mom’s. But back to softball. You don’t think you’d make a team? Haven’t you been playing your whole life?”
“Do you know how many pro softball teams there are in this country? Six.” I let that number sink in. It was a far cry from the NFL. “Each team has a max of 23 players, which means that there are only 138 girls playing at a time. That’s it. And to really sweeten the pot, the average player makes between five and six thousand dollars a season. It’s not exactly a lucrative career.”
“That sucks.”
“It does, but there are still way more than 138 girls who want exactly what I want. They’ve been playing their whole lives too. I’m good, one of the better players on my team, but I’m not the best, not even in my own family. Sometimes I get too caught up in winning and what my dad is thinking—my dad, not my coach—and I don’t always play as smart as I need to.” I gave Chase a quick smile from over my shoulder so he wouldn’t ask any follow-up questions about my dad. “I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I need to focus on getting my team to state this year first.”
A flicker of resentment hit me when I turned back to the CDs. Selena had had interest from colleges long before she graduated, all wanting her to play for them. Dad hadn’t been the only one dumbfounded when she’d turned them all down. He’d been crushed by disappointment—I’d just been mad. She was so good, and she didn’t even want to play; it didn’t mean anything to her. I supposed she’d already been flirting with the idea of singing, even then, but I still had moments when I couldn’t help hating her a little—sometimes a lot—for caring so little about something I’d kill to be as good at.
“Hey, I’ve seen you hit,” Chase said. “I think you’re better than good.”
“Yeah, well, you should see my sister. She’s insane. She could’ve played anywhere and been one of the best, if not the best, players in the country.”
“Yeah?”
“Which is why it kills me that she wants to sing. It’s like...” I turned again and rested my forearms on the box of CDs I’d reclosed. “Remember when Michael Jordan decided he wanted to play baseball instead of basketball? He could have been a decent baseball player, but he was never going to be anything close to what he was on a basketball court.”
“So she’s the Michael Jordan of softball?”
“See, that’s just it—she could have been the Selena Fields of softball, and she didn’t want it. It pisses me off so much sometimes.”
“I can see that.” Chase shifted another box in front of him. “Have you heard her sing?”
“Not really. She’s sung in church before, but always with other people. If she’s really awful, the softball thing will just kill me all over again.”
“And if she’s good?”
I moved next to Chase, who was sorting through a box of fake flowers. “It’ll still kill me.” I smiled to let him know I wasn’t overly morose about the subject.
“Remind me again when you need to leave for your game?”
Without looking up from the newspaper-wrapped china I was going through, I said, “I have a few minutes.”
Chase laughed. “Home or away?”
“Home.”
“Cutting it pretty close, aren’t you?”
I was. More than close. But despite the speech I’d just given Chase about wanting to play softball, I felt only a little of the urgency that usually flooded me before a game. “I’ll make it.” And I would. I’d be there on time and not a second sooner. My coach could worry all he wanted.
Chapter 25
Having a roommate again for the first time since I was fourteen wasn’t as bad as I remembered. Selena didn’t leave her stuff everywhere or hog the covers, and thanks to her new job at Lava Java, my room perpetually smelled like coffee, which had its perks. It also helped that she was working most evenings or prepping for her next “gig.” That was the actual word she used.
“Why can’t you just say open mic at the coffee shop?” I asked as we were trying to make two people’s worth of clothing fit into my one-person-sized closet.
“Because I’m in denial. So are you coming to the next one or not?”
“Of course I’m coming.”
“You’re not going to show up at the last possible second?”
I ignored her dig about my last game. She’d already told me exactly what she thought of my “abominably disrespectful attitude and shameful disregard for my teammates and coach.” The teammate remark had stung, because they’d all been a little to a lot annoyed with me. Jessalyn and I were pretty much back to our pre-not-fight-but-still-mostly-a-fight dynamic after that day at her house, but even she’d been a little frosty for the first couple innings. If we’d lost, she’d have really laid into me.
“I said I’ll be there. On time. When is it?”
“Next week.”
“And will you be signing autographs afterward or do I have to stalk you in the parking lot?” I braced my back against a mass of hanging T-shirts, propped my foot on the opposite wall of the closet and pushed. Selena squeezed half a dozen more hangers into the newly revealed space.
“Don’t.”
“What? Push from the other side and you can fit a few more. We won’t be able to get anything out, but that’s a problem for future us.”
Selena’s arms stayed at her side. “Don’t make jokes. I’m trying to do something here. It’s important to me.”
“So you can make jokes about me but I can’t about you?”
“Just don’t. Not about this.”
“Okaaaayyy.”
“I’m nervous.”
“Me too.” I eyed the closet, half expecting the whole thing to explode the second I extricated myself from inside. I did it in a dash. The clothing swelled back together and the hanging rod bowed a little but held. Fears abated, I grinned at Selena, but she wasn’t even looking at the closet. “Wait, you’re nervous because of me?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s stupid.” I grabbed another armful of clothes from her open suitcase, took one look at the near-bursting closet and headed for the dresser instead. “I know you’ll be great.”
“My feelings aren’t stupid.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phil. You know what I mean. When have we ever not supported each other? You come to almost all my softball games, and I’ve been to every one of yours. This’ll just be the same minus the giant foam fingers and face paint.”
She smiled.
“I’ll start cheering when you walk up to the mic.” Laying the clothes atop my dresser, I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Come on, Selena! You got this, you got this. Just keep your eye on the—” I lowered my hands, unsure of the singing-related equivalent to ball in this case “—crowd?”
“Gavin says it’s good to pick one person and focus on singing just to them.”
“Okay.” I brought my hands back to my mouth. “Keep your eye on the randomly selected person. Wooo!”
The tightness around her mouth eased. “Now I’m nervous you’re actually going to do that.” She still did look uneasy, so I dropped the teasing altogether.
“I can slip in the back if you want. You won’t even have to see me until you’re done.”
“No, I want you there.”
“Then I’ll be there.”
“Thanks,” she said as I knelt and started emptying my bottom dresser drawer for her. “But not Mom and Dad. I’m not ready for them yet.”
“Just me and a coffee shop full of strangers.” I glanced at her over my shoulder. “And Gavin?”
“He’ll be there, but you’ll meet him before then. He’s coming to your next game.”
“Now I’m nervous.”
“You’ll like him. Trust me.”
“I can still be nervous. I usually hate your boyfriends, and you basically told me he’s going to be my brother-in-law.”
Selena’s cheeks flushed in a smile. “I kind of did, didn’t I?”
I sat on my heels, immobilized by the sheer joy in her expression. “You’re not nervous about that at all, are you?”
“Gavin? No. I’m more sure of him than I’ve ever been of anything. These two weeks he’s been home visiting his family have been the longest of my life.”
She looked so radiant, talking about him and the future she saw unfolding for them. It was hard not to get caught up along with her.
“I’m happy for you, Sel.”
“I’m happy too.” She joined me on the floor. “I’m a college dropout, sharing a room at home with my baby sister, working a minimum-wage job. My parents think I’m throwing away my future, and I’ve literally never been happier.”
“You’re living the dream.”
She grinned. “What about you? Anything new with Nick?”
I hung my head, wishing she hadn’t asked. “I kind of broke him.”
“Oh no, really? When?”
“About a week ago. It was awful. I’m a terrible person, and he’s way too sweet for me.” I’d seen Nick at school, and while he wasn’t hiding from me anymore, the quick looks away when our eyes met and awkward shared Biology classes made it feel like he was.
“That sucks,” Selena said. “I am sorry, but I could kind of tell you weren’t super into him.”
“I wanted to be.”
“I’ve been there.” She rubbed a circle on my back. “I can only tell you that trying to like a guy you don’t have the right kind of feelings for will only make you both miserable in the end.”
“You also end up miserable when you tell him the truth and he barely talks to you anymore.”
“Eek.” Her hand fell away. “But then, who have you been going out with so much recently—and don’t say Jessalyn, because you did not use up half my favorite lip gloss to look pretty for her.”
“That lip gloss looks way better on me.”
She gave me a look. “So who’s the guy?”
I inwardly winced. Bringing up Chase could be tricky. “Just someone I met. It’s not serious.”
“Does Mr. Not Serious have a name?”
My brain told me to shut up but my mouth said, “Chase.” I got to my feet and grabbed more of Selena’s clothes, but she followed me.
“You’re not getting out of telling me about him. Spill.”
“I kind of don’t...want to.”
“Oh, then in that case.” She shrugged in a way that made her look exactly like our mom before pinning me with a stare. “You still have to spill.”
I dropped onto the bed. If I was careful, I could tell her a little. I wanted to tell a little. Apart from everything with Dad and Brandon, thinking about Chase was becoming too easy.
“He’s a guy. I don’t know. I like him, but...”
“But what?”
“There’s just stuff.” I clasped my hands between my knees. “I don’t know if it’ll work out.”
Selena rose to her feet and resumed putting her clothes away. “But it might?” She was trying to offer casual encouragement without all the pesky facts getting in the way. It was a nice attempt, but that’s all it could be.
I gave her a bright smile. “Sure. Anyway, we’re just hanging out for now.” I didn’t want to field more questions about Chase. The few she’d already asked were way too depressing. “But hey, if it doesn’t work out, maybe Gavin has a younger friend he could set me up with?”
Selena pounced on that suggestion and immediately dropped the subject of Chase in favor of Gavin’s plethora of awesome single friends. I only half listened, hoping that somehow, in ways I couldn’t yet figure out, maybe Chase and I could work out.
Chapter 26
I closed my door harder than I needed to, wanting to draw Chase’s attention when I got out of my car. His back was toward me, muscles straining as he lifted down a cracked fish tank full of random tchotchkes that must have been as heavy as it was immense. He turned and smiled, and I felt a frisson of happiness skip across my sternum as I jogged up his driveway to help him.
My fingers abutted his as I took some of the weight from him—not a lot, since the discrepancy in our size and strength was pretty vast, but enough that he was able to lower the tank without the whole thing shattering.
The thing was huge, barely smaller than a bathtub.
“What did you keep in there, a shark?”
“An iguana.”
“Seriously?” It was hard to picture Chase as a little kid with a reptile obsession. He looked more the kind who went straight from walking to weight lifting, bypassing all the seminerdy stuff that thrilled the rest of us mere mortals.
“Lizard guys don’t do it for you, huh?” Chase asked, starting to unload the tank. I joined him.
“You say lizard guy and I immediately think of something like this.” I lifted an old comic book featuring a crocodile/human hybrid thing.
“I didn’t wear a lab coat.” He took the comic book from me, smiling openly as he flipped through it.
“Keep pile? Donate pile?”
He sighed. “I don’t need it, so donate.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw him glance back at the comic a few more times as we worked, so when his back was turned later, I snuck it into the keep pile. We didn’t always need the things we wanted, but some things were worth holding on to anyway.
I moved to another box that looked small enough for me to handle on my own, but when I lifted it, my knees nearly buckled. Hearing my grunt, Chase turned and grabbed the other side, and together we moved it to the space he’d cleared on the shelf.
The box shook the entire metal shelving unit when he slid his fingers out from beneath it.
“What’s in there?” My fingers pulsed hot from the brief pressure of holding the box.
Stepping aside, Chase let me read what was written in thick black marker on the box.
“Oh,” I said, letting sympathy draw the laughing word out. “You must have been the cutest little nerd.”
“A lot of kids collected rocks.”
“Sure they did. And I bet all of them still live with their moms too.”
I saw a glint in his eye as his mouth curled up. I tried to dart away when he lunged for me, but there was nowhere to go. His fingers dug into my rib cage, forcing an involuntary peal of laughter to burst from my lungs as he started tickling me. I twisted, but he caught me up against his chest. His fingers stilled, and he stopped the retaliatory tickle attack, but he kept his hands splayed on either side of my rib cage, where my heart was beating way too fast. We were both grinning, until we weren’t. And when he shifted his gaze from my eyes to my mouth, I stepped back, breaking his hold on me. Our eyes were locked together.
“What did you collect?”
I hadn’t really collected anything, except... “Baseball cards.”
“So when I was chasing lizards and polishing rocks—”
“Wait, polishing?”
“—you were collecting baseball cards?”
“Go back to polishing rocks. That’s like a whole other level of nerd-dom.”
Chase grinned. “You were the girl who ran around with perpetually scraped knees and always had a ball cap on.” Chase ran his finger over the bill of the one I wore.
I was, until puberty. Then I traded my scraped knees for lip gloss—usually Selena’s—but I still felt the most like myself with a baseball cap on.
“Yep, and you,” I said, smiling, “were...the boy who had his own rock polisher?”
He inclined his head, conceding without embarrassment.
I grinned. “Okay, I would have had to retaliate a tickle attack, but I’m guessing you had a rough go as a kid, so I’ll give you a pass this time.”
Chase lifted his arms from his sides. “Go ahead. I’m not ticklish.”
I raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t lower his arms even when I drew nearer. I was half expecting some sort of trick the second I touched him, and I wasn’t exactly put off by the idea. With one last glance at his face, I poked his ribs.
Nothing.
I poked again. Added a few wriggling fingers.
More nothing.
“Oh, come on!” I said, bringing my other hand into the mix and tickling him in a way that would have had me squealing like a pig. Chase barely moved. “Nothing?” I shifted my attack all over his torso.
“Nothing that makes me want to laugh, but keep trying, maybe—”
I pulled my hands back, feeling my cheeks flush. “You’re not ticklish anywhere? Not even the back of your knees?”
He eyed my legs. “Are you ticklish on the back of your knees?”
I stepped behind a box, hiding that part of my body from view. “I’m ticklish everywhere. When we were little, my sister used to sit on me and pin my arms down and then tickle me until I cried. Hey, that’s not funny!” But Chase was already laughing.
“And what did you do in response?”
“I used to pour warm water on her bed while she slept. She still thinks she was a bed wetter up through seventh grade.”
He laughed harder, supporting his weight on a box that was labeled Chase and Brandon’s Video Games. My laughter tapered off at the reminder of my brother. These were his things too. All around me were pieces of his childhood, memories only Chase could tell me about if I could ignore the wave of guilt that crested inside me each time I used him that way.
“You said you and Brandon grew up more like brothers than cousins. Didn’t you torment each other as kids?”
“I would put hot sauce in his pop, or there was this one time he wrote a note on the back of my math homework declaring my love for my fifty-five-year-old teacher.”
The First to Know Page 14
