by Sally Henson
15
“Looking good, Martin!” I whooped for Roan after he’d hit a continuous ten for ten. Again.
My brother was right. A storm came in and the trip to Sweet Water Falls didn’t happen. Cayla, Roan, and I decided to go to Home Run Park and have some fun in the batting cages.
She just left to go make some money since it rained. Her disappointment from not getting to watch “bare-chested baseball players frolicking through the waterfall” had her “depressed.” That was the word she used, anyway.
A few of the baseball guys had trickled in while Roan was in the batting cage and took residence in another cage not far away.
Batting practice was what we needed anyway. If we each got another win next week, both teams would go to playoffs.
Roan pulled his helmet off, wearing a huge grin, and opened the cage door. His hair stuck up on one side. I thought about fixing it but decided I liked the boyish look on him. “Man, that felt good. This is the best I’ve hit in weeks.”
I raised my hand to bump against his. “Your form was masterful,” I said.
His wide eyes danced as he leaned closer and said, “Masterful? I like it.” He gripped my waist, and warmth spidered around the contact. “Let’s see the replay.” He removed his grip, draping his arm on my shoulder instead.
I brought up the first video and pressed play. Watching yourself on video was a good way to see what you were doing right or wrong.
“Okay. My turn.” I slipped on my helmet and gripped my bat.
Roan put his helmet and bat in my bag. He readied his camera phone as I stepped up to the plate.
“Ready?” I asked.
He nodded, and I pressed the button to engage the pitching machine. After a couple of adjustments, it was at the right strike zone for my height.
I had two hits right off.
Roan moved a little closer with his phone, videotaping my swing. “What do you say we get some tutoring practice in tonight?” he asked right as the ball released from the machine.
I missed. Just him talking about kissing threw my swing off.
He laughed, but I ignored him, readying myself for the next ball. He mused about where our next lesson would be, and I fouled the pitch off.
“That counts as a miss,” he said.
“No way!” I laughed, waiting for the machine. “The bat hit the ball.”
I hit the next ball despite his chatter.
“Aw, you’re blushing,” he teased.
When my ten were up, I met Roan off to the side to watch the videos of my form. “Eight out of ten isn’t bad,” I said.
“I beat you,” he teased.
I elbowed him. We both hated to lose. I defended myself. “Only because you distracted me.”
He chuckled and teased me some more. “I never knew talking about lessons and tutoring would make you so nervous. I exposed your Kryptonite.”
“Shut up and play the next video,” I said but didn’t dare look him in the eye. My face was on fire, knowing that he knew kissing him made me nervous. His teasing seemed like flirting, but I failed in that department, so I had to wait and see what happened. If I didn’t restrain myself, tackling him and kissing him first.
“I think the rain stopped. Let’s go say hi to Logan and the guys,” he said, nodding to the players a few cages down from ours. “Then we can go get something to eat.”
I groaned inside. The guys wouldn’t say anything in front of Roan, but I still felt awkward around them. “You go ahead. I’m going to the bathroom and then we can go,” I said. I glanced at the guys. “I don’t really want to hang out over there, if you don’t mind.”
He worked his jaw to the side. “You can’t avoid them forever. They used to be your friends too,” he said.
I shrugged and turned away to slide my helmet and bat into my bag. I lifted the strap to my shoulder and said, “I’ll take my time.”
He pushed open the cage door and let me go through first, gripping my ponytail as I stepped by. He swung it over the top of my head, and it whacked me in the face. It was his way of easing any tension from what he had said.
“Hey,” I yelped. I turned and swatted at his arm.
He chuckled. “I’ll be ready as soon as you get back.”
I traveled down the path between the cages but tried not to be seen looking at anyone. Summer and Gabe stood at the plate in the last cage. His arms were around her, gripping the bat with his fingers on top of hers. It was so sweet, and fun, and flirty.
The thought of Roan snuggling up behind me pushed my heart off rhythm. Summer’s giggles filled the air as I passed by. Her super light blonde hair and bright blue eyes made her stand out—stunning. But she didn’t have curves. Her figure resembled a boy’s more than mine. Gabe obviously liked her shape though, or he would have put at least an inch of space between them.
I made a left into the bathroom and took my time. There was no way I could handle standing around with the baseball guys. Not anymore. Pre-prom, it wouldn’t have been an issue.
Roan was right. I couldn’t hide away forever. Maybe I could do it if he was beside me as my boyfriend.
After I used the bathroom and washed up, I sent Cayla a message.
Tommie: Great job in the cages today. We’re gonna kick the Panther’s butts!
Cayla: Thanks!
Tommie: We’re about to leave. Have fun at work.
Cayla: Mr. McHottie just walked in. Excuse me while I drool.
That girl was as bad as me. Except she was cute and petite compared to my fierceness. Guess that’s why she got her own date to prom and I had to beg my friends for help.
I shoved the phone in my pocket and looked in the mirror. At least I didn’t wear my “garbage bag” shorts. We were done batting. I didn’t need to be fierce now, so I pulled the rubber band out of my ponytail and combed my fingers through my dirty blonde strands.
Maybe I should start wearing eyeliner all the time. And carrying lip gloss with me. I shrugged at myself. It was as good as I got without help from my sister.
I hitched my bag over my shoulder and headed back out. Roan had enough time hanging with his teammates. Summer and Gabe were just as adorable as I strode back through. Instead of wishing I had something I didn’t, I focused ahead on Roan with his arms stretched high, gripping the wire cage with his fingers. A wide strip of bare skin between his shirt hem and his shorts drew my gaze. He made the other guys look like skinny weaklings.
I heard a bat crack and caught the end of Logan’s swing. James wasn’t anywhere around. Which was odd because when it came to baseball, he and Logan were inseparable.
Roan glanced over and saw me approaching. He dropped his arm, and one corner of his mouth tugged up, and then the other. It warmed my insides. He jogged to meet me and we exited the building without a word.
After the door closed behind us, thunder cracked. I searched the clouds above for lightning but saw nothing. “Thanks for not making a big deal about me talking to the guys.”
“Anything for you, Toms,” he joked. “It was good to leave on a ten for ten. Plus, I beat you, so…” He bumped my shoulder.
Thunder rolled through the clouds again. I shook my head and muttered, “Whatever.”
Rain pelted the edge of the parking lot, heading our direction. “We might get wet,” he said.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have parked in no-man's-land,” I teased. He always did that if it were possible. The truck was his baby. His grandparents gave it to him as a sixteenth birthday gift.
We picked up our pace. “Should we make a run for it?” he asked.
All of a sudden, the rain poured down on top of us. We sprinted to the last row of the parking lot. Laughter rolled out of me. Running was pointless. The downpour soaked us from our heads to our shoes.
I reached for Roan’s arm. “Your seats. They’ll be ruined,” I teased.
“That’s why I got leather,” he said, grinning.
It wasn’t funny, but laughter spilled out of me. I f
elt like a kid playing, running down the beach in the rain. I let go of his arm and jumped on his back, wrapping my arms around his wet shirt. I planted a giggly kiss on his cheek. My insides warmed.
He gripped my legs, putting us in motion, and said, “We should play in the rain more often.”
I pressed my cheek to his as water streamed down our faces. “We should,” I agreed.
We laughed and joked the entire trek. By the time we got to the truck, the rain had let up to a sprinkle. He opened the passenger back door for me to put my bag on the floorboard and shut it.
The matted mess of my hair clung to my cheeks. I was breathless from giggling and being that close to him. Even though I had jumped on his back a ton of times over the years, it was different—everything was different between us. I gathered my hair to the side and wrung the water out.
I caught a glimpse of Roan taking his shirt off. “Good idea,” he said, wringing the water from it before tossing it by my bag and closing the door.
My eyes scanned his arms, chest, abs. A smirk tugged at his lips as he watched me watching him.
Busted.
My heart whirled in my chest as I dropped my gaze to the wet pavement. I wrung my hair again just to pretend I was doing something. “Gah, I probably look like a total mess,” I said. I reached for the front handle, but his hand covered mine, tugging it away.
“I like it,” he said in a low voice. “You look like…fun.”
I peered up at him, trying to figure out exactly what he was doing, what he meant. Was he teasing? His eyes glowed like liquid gold. It was a smolder that made my insides hum. I couldn’t look away. Not that I wanted to.
He laced our fingers together and backed me against the truck.
My heart raced, warming my body while his other hand gripped my waist. Fizzy bubbles erupted and danced in my stomach. This boy was officially, definitely, more to me than a friend.
As he dipped his mouth to mine, my breath caught. When our lips met, heat sparked in my core. I untangled our fingers and slid my hands around his wet physique and up his back, melding our bodies together. Not that I knew what I was doing. I went with it, doing my best to be in the moment like he taught me.
His fingers grazed the bare skin of my neck, sliding under my hair. To look at Roan, it was obvious that he was strong, but the way he held and kissed me was a different kind of strong. The kind that says, I got you—you can trust me no matter what.
Could this be something real? Even if it wasn’t, I didn’t want to let go of the way my heartbeat pulsed through my veins or the weightlessness of being in his arms. When I was kissing him, I wasn’t one of the boys.
He pulled away enough to confess, “I wanted to do that since we got here.”
“Me too,” I breathed. I tilted my head so I could kiss his neck below his ear.
As soon as my lips touched the wetness on his skin, a gruff breath whooshed out of him. His cheek brushed mine, and his lips moved along my jawline. They were feather-light as they traced to my neck. Goosebumps from his warm breath spread across my skin, and I shivered.
He groaned. “We should get out of here.” His lips found mine for a hurried kiss. “Let’s go warm up in the hot tub.” The handle clicked as Roan twirled me around. I ended up standing in front of the open door, awaiting to climb in.
16
Best friends status meant I kept a swimsuit and extra clothes at Roan’s house. His grandma suggested it years ago since I was over there all the time. I slipped on the suit in the bathroom and combed the tangled mess on top of my head.
My hair did look as bad as I thought. Why Roan said otherwise was beyond me. But the whole quiet drive to his house, I wondered if he regretted everything from this morning, flirting in the cages, and that amazing make-out session by his truck. It probably wasn’t officially making-out, but it was the closest I had ever been.
Roan’s arms stretched along the back of the hot tub. His hair had grown shaggy, but I liked it. I opened the patio door and slid it closed behind me, crossing the concrete to join him. Act normal, Tommie. Everything is fine.
After I sat my phone by the towel and lifted myself onto the corner, I swiveled my body around. Being five-ten meant my legs were long enough to sit on the edge without using the steps. I dipped my toes under the surface until they rested on the seat. “Ah.” I sighed.
When we walked inside and the air conditioning met my chilled body, it got worse. I sank all the way into the steamy water until it covered my shoulders.
Music played from his outdoor speakers. I closed my eyes and tried to forget about the crazy mess swirling in my head. The jets did their job of kneading the muscles that had tensed from getting chilled.
“Toms?” Roan said in a soft tone. His fingers slid over my hand and laced with mine.
My body relaxed a bit more at his touch. I opened my eyes, rolling my head against the wall of the tub to meet his gaze. The emotional rollercoaster I’d been on for the last week had me wondering if I should end the contract with the kissing tutor.
“I messed up,” he said, searching my eyes. He had a tiny crease between his eyebrows.
I didn’t know what he was looking for. My stomach tightened as I waited for him to explain.
“It should have been me who took you to prom,” he said. “We both would have had a much better time.”
A flicker of warmth sparked in my chest. “I didn’t think you’d want to go with a friend your senior year. Did you want to ask me?”
He shrugged. “I think so. I mean,” he let out a growl, “I hated every minute of suggesting to James to ask you. And then the stupid video.” He shook his head. “We ended up together that night anyway, watching movies on your laptop.” He grinned, squeezing my hand.
Movies with Roan was sweet. He let me cry and snot on him, but most of all, he didn’t let me out of his arms all night. Dad gave the best hugs, and I missed that. Roan was always there to pick up the pieces.
Wait, he wanted to take me? “You wanted to go to prom with me? Like, as a date?” I asked.
He held his grin in place. “It was on my mind. I wasn’t sure what was happening between us, if anything. I wasn’t sure if you felt the same way because you wanted a ‘real date’ to your senior prom.”
My mouth dropped open. One decision could have changed my life. I would’ve never had to deal with all the humiliation if Roan would’ve asked me to prom. The question was, would I have gone?
We’d gone to pretty much every dance, but only as friends, buddies. He could have been my first kiss. Ugh, I wish it would have been him. I groaned. “Look where that got me.” My mind raced. Would I have wanted to be his date? “Honestly, I don’t know what I would have said then. But I’m glad I came to you with my crazy kissing tutor idea.”
“Me too,” he said, grinning. I loved those full lips.
“Are you going to hold my hand like this at school?” Talking about this, us, had my nerves tightening in my chest at first. Now that I knew he wanted to take me to prom as a date, I wanted to know everything.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t thought about it.”
“Do you think about anything other than baseball or food?” I teased. Knowing the connection between us was real, more than friends, had me floating.
He settled back against the tub and closed his eyes, keeping our hands together. “Sure. This song makes me think of you.”
I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. The signals weren’t mixed up. Instead of asking a ton of questions about him and me and us, I relaxed and listened to the lyrics. Any boy thinking about me when they heard this song would be a thrill. But Roan Martin, my friend, the only guy I could count on thinking of me that way, made it so much sweeter.
Song after song played while we held hands amid unspoken bliss. My favorite song filled the air and my body. I automatically moved with the rhythm. It wasn’t exactly slow but would be perfect dancing with a guy who was totally into me. I closed my eyes and i
magined dancing with Roan. I sighed. “I love this song.”
“I know,” he said in a warm voice that made me want to read his expression.
I opened my eyes and set my gaze on him. The sweet, dopey smile on his face stirred up the fizzy bubbles in my chest.
His fingers grazed my waist as he slid closer to me. “I want you to think of me every time you hear it.” He pressed his lips against mine.
That was the dreamiest thing he had ever said. I moved my mouth with his. A hint of mint lingered on his breath. I tasted his lips to see if the mint was there, and wow, my bold move was worth it.
The warmth of his tongue moving across my lips caused the tiny fizzy bubbles to explode one by one like popcorn in my chest. We explored this new way of kissing for the rest of the song.
When the song ended, I was on his lap. I didn’t know if I moved me or he moved me. All I knew was, “This feels good.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but it was out there, and I didn’t care. I didn’t worry about what he would say or think. Not at the moment anyway.
He buried his face in my shoulder and tightened his grip until we couldn’t get any closer. “Yeah.” His chest expanded against mine.
It was a good thing I used mouthwash while I was changing.
I cleared my throat and said exactly what I thought, “The taste of your lips will be the only thing I can think about when I hear that song now.”
His body shook with laughter. “That’s freaking awesome.” He pressed his forehead against mine, kissing the tip of my nose. “This could be so good, Toms. You know? You and me.”
“I think so too.” I’d been wasting my time all year trying to find a boy who liked me. And though I thought my connection to Roan was changing, I wanted a boyfriend, a close connection with a guy. As long as they saw me as a girl, preferably a girlfriend.
But this, with Roan, was so much better than I could have imagined.
“I’m starving.” He leaned back. “Who’s cooking at your house tonight?”
“Not me. Mom worked the day shift, so she might. You want me to check?” I asked.
