“I don’t know, Mom.” I echoed her stance: arms crossed, right hip jutted out, and too much attitude in the way we both drummed our fingers against our forearms. “It might have something to do with the fact that you invited my ex-boyfriend and my current boyfriend to the same dinner party. God, what were you thinking?”
“But I didn’t realize that you were –”
“Seeing Daniel? You said Grandma told you.” I threw my hands in the air. I’d seen her do this a million times when she was mad about something blatantly obvious to her.
“She told me you were dating a boy from the team,” she snapped. “I didn’t think that meant exclusively. I didn’t know you and Theo had –”
“Split up?”
She pooh-poohed that. “I thought you might still be friends. Children your age are rarely serious –”
I tossed my hand in her face to stop her. “He cheated on me, Mother. With my best friend. Why would you think we’d still be friends?”
“How was I supposed to know that? You don’t tell me anything anymore.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Can we finish this discussion later, please?”
She glanced into the dining room. “Yes, we will. But you are spending tonight here, young lady.”
I shook my head. “No, I can’t. I have an early day tomorrow and I have to drive everyone home.”
“You can drive back.” She smoothed her shirt then her hair for no real reason other than to comfort herself. “Now, let’s get back in there.”
The soft click of heels came from the kitchen and down the hall. “Ah, Meredith, Victoria.” Grandma smiled and clasped her hands together. “Sorry for being so late. I got held up.” She glanced between us, not missing a thing. “Shall we go in?”
Mom walked in with her fake smile beaming across the room.
“Do you want to tell me what that was all about?” Grandma whispered as she sat beside me.
“Later.”
Daniel and Adam still had their heads down in whatever deep conversation they were having opposite me. As casually as I could, I kicked Daniel under the table. He cringed when my foot connected with his shin harder than I had intended. Oops. Heather let out a loud laugh before covering her mouth.
Dinner went without further incidents. Lilly prepared gazpacho, a five-herb salad with dill vinaigrette, and grilled salmon with mango salsa. It was delicious. I hadn’t eaten this well since I moved in with Grandma. Dessert was fruit compote with homemade vanilla ice cream.
After dinner, everyone congregated in the music room. Mom and her friends talked, ignoring the rest of us. Andrea, Rachel, Shanna, and Eva headed back to the pool with Eva hiding a bottle of wine behind her back. Theo, Erik, and Logan followed them.
Daniel leaned down and asked, “We aren’t going back out there, are we?”
“Oh, hell no.” I grabbed his hand and tugged him into the hallway. Heather and Adam followed. “Come on.”
We went through the kitchen and up the back stairs to the second floor. Adam and Heather stopped at the guest room to grab the guys’ bags. Daniel followed me into my room.
“This place is unreal,” he said as he fingered the canopy lace above my bed.
“Not what you expected?” I took a couple of dresses from the closet and shoved them into a bag.
“The baseball posters, yes. The frilly girl crap, no.” He sat on the bed while I threw more clothes into a different bag. “What’re you doing?”
“Oh, I’m just getting some stuff. Why?” I looked at a light pink silk shirt before deciding against it and throwing it back into my closet.
“Looks like you’re moving out.” He bounced on the bed. “Soft.”
I shoved my jewelry box and three pairs of shoes into a third bag.
“What did your mom say, Vic?” He stared at the floor.
“She’s just mad at me. Nothing major.” I put the bags with Heather’s by the door. “What’d Theo say to you before dinner?”
He shook his head. I walked over to my bed and stood in front of him. When he looked up at me, the rage in his eyes told me it was as bad as I thought it was.
“Tell me. Please?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I ran the tip of my finger over his bottom lip.
“You’re driving me up the wall. You know that, right?” He put his hands on my hips.
“How so?” I stepped closer, forcing him to strain his neck.
“That dress for starters.” His traced the seam of my dress and stood up. “The bikini earlier.”
He dipped his head and brushed his lips against mine so fast there wasn’t time to react.
“Tease,” I said just as someone knocked on the door.
He laughed.
Adam opened the door. “We aren’t interrupting anything, are we?”
“Not that it would stop us,” Heather added as she walked in.
Daniel’s arms dropped, and he went to grab the bags.
“No, let’s get out of here,” I said.
I took us back down the servant’s stairs. Lilly stood in the kitchen, staring out the back window. The smell of coffee brewing filled the kitchen. Mom preferred French Roast which was stronger and smelled like a coffee shop. I rushed up to Lilly and kissed her on the cheek.
“Thanks, Lil. It was great as always.” Adam, Heather, and Daniel were already out the door when I turned to add, “Don’t tell Mom I left.”
After dropping off Heather and Adam outside her duplex, I drove us to the Habitat house. I didn’t know where else to go. Grandma could be home at any time. Daniel’s parents were home. There was no way we were going back to Mom’s. We sat in the car.
“What’re we doing here?” Daniel asked after a few moments of silence.
“Is there anywhere else you’d like to go?” I put my hand on his knee.
“Actually, yes. Move.” He reached for the door handle.
I pushed the driver’s seat back and climbed into the passenger side. Daniel occupied it so I sat on his lap and leaned back against him.
“Hi,” I said. His hands found their way around my waist. “I thought you wanted to drive.”
“Oh, yeah.” He kissed my neck. “I do.”
I reached down the side along the passenger door and pulled the handle that reclined the seat. Daniel fell back and I turned to face him. My lips found his and my fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt.
Then he pulled away. “Wait. You know I could do this all night, but we have to stop.”
I responded by kissing him harder.
“Vic…” he pleaded. “You have to be the one to stop. I don’t think I can,” he said as my teeth tugged on his ear.
“Why?” I whispered.
“I don’t have anything with me.”
I froze and stared down at him. “That just sucks.”
“You have no idea.”
I climbed back into the driver’s seat and put my hands on the wheel. Daniel tucked his shirt back in, but he didn’t set the seat upright. It took all my will power, which wasn’t much at that point, from climbing back into his lap. He opened the door and came around the front of the car.
“Let me drive, please,” he said opening the driver’s door.
Once we had switched sides, Daniel started the car and drove off.
“Where are we going?” I asked. Disappointment crowded out any enthusiasm in my voice.
“I told you, it’s a surprise.”
He drove in silence. I didn’t push it. Something was on his mind and I knew Daniel well enough that he’d tell me when he was ready. He made so many twists and turns that we ended up leaving the city without getting on a highway. I was totally lost.
My phone rang in the cubby between the seats. I ignored it.
Thirty minutes from the time we left the Habitat house, Daniel turned down a dirt path. The trees kept out the light of the moon. It was the middle of summer and the smell of pine floated through my cracked window. The headlights bounced
off the bumpy road for ten minutes. We drove into an open area along a river. It ended before a small cabin that sat completely dark. Daniel parked the car and we sat there.
The cabin was a simple log home. There was a concrete patio covered by a short tin roof over the front door.
“Where are we?” I asked.
Daniel smiled and his eyes took on that daydreamy quality. He shook it off. “This is my parents’. Dad bought the land when we were kids and built this house. We used to come to the river almost every weekend in the summers. Not so much anymore.”
We got out of the car and crossed the gravel driveway to the front door. Daniel unlocked the cabin, and I stepped into the single room. There was a full-sized bed along one wall with two cots folded beside it. Opposite the bed was a small kitchenette with a round wooden table and four chairs. Daniel lit a lamp that sat in the middle of the table.
“No electricity?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. Dad likes to ‘rough’ it. He thought that this would build character.”
I stood in the middle of the room. The sound of the river was clear through the thick log walls. Daniel watched me as I walked over to the kitchenette and turned on the water. Running water but no electric. I guess Mr. Cho didn’t mind a few conveniences. The window above the sink looked toward the river.
Daniel stood behind me. He rested his chin on my shoulder. “I love you, Victoria.”
No one had ever said that to me before. I tensed and he noticed. Daniel disappeared and the warmth he left behind grew cold. I stared out the window a moment longer, wondering if that had been real or my imagination.
“Vic –”
“Really?” I turned to face him. “Do you really mean that?”
He leaned against the bed post and nodded. “Just so you know, I’ve never brought anybody here before either.” He paused then said the one thing I needed to hear. “Not even Shelby.”
“Not once?” I asked, taking a cautious step toward him.
He did the same. “Never.”
We stood in front of each other. Everything had just changed. Daniel had said he loved me. Better yet, he meant it. The world felt right.
BOTTOM OF THE 6TH
“Daniel,” I began. He looked up at me, thoroughly exhausted. “I love you, too.”
“You’re just saying that because I rocked your world.” He kissed my nose.
“No.” He looked shocked so I added, “I mean, that’s totally true, but I’ve never had these kinds of feelings for a guy before.” He sat up on his elbow as I continued, “I think about you. All the time. Everything I wear, even if I’m not going to see you, I wonder what you’d think. I wonder where you are when we aren’t together. And the thought of you having an ex-girlfriend kills me with jealousy. And, when you touch me, even just holding my hand, I feel like exploding. I just –”
He put his hand over my mouth. “Point made.”
I licked his fingers.
“Stop,” he laughed. He grabbed my hands and pinned them to my sides when I tried to tickle him.
“When do you have to get back?” I asked. My phone glared on the floor next to the empty condom wrapper. I was glad he’d lied about not having anything with him. This place was perfect for our first time together.
“Midnight curfew. You?” He settled back into one of the fluffy pillows.
“Grandma and I never discussed it, but we need to get out of here. It’s almost midnight.” The time blinked on my cell.
“Oh, that’s awesome,” he said, throwing off the sheet and leaping out of the bed. “We’ve got to go.”
“You know,” I said as I stood up, “if you were a good girl like me, that wouldn’t be an issue.”
He smiled. “If you’re parents only knew what you had been doing up here …” He let the sentence hang.
That was enough to creep me out. “I’d prefer they didn’t.”
“Yeah, me too.”
I ran my fingers up his still bare chest.
He kissed me, biting my lower lip. “We need to go. Like five minutes ago.”
We left a few minutes later, but it was still too late. Daniel was going to miss his unforgiving curfew. He called to let his parents know about a mythical flat tire. By the sound of his dad’s voice on the other end, he didn’t really believe Daniel.
“That went well,” Daniel said when he hit end on my cell. He handed it back to me. “I bet this will cost me two weeks.”
“Two weeks?”
“Yep, grounded. Dad and Mom usually ground in two-week increments. Although, Becca did get a month once.” He glanced over at me. “She called one of her friends a bitch in front of Mom.”
“Two weeks?” How could I go two weeks without seeing him outside of baseball and the Habitat house?
“Don’t sweat it, Vic.” He put his hand on my knee. “There are ways out of these things. Plus, I wouldn’t change any of this if I could.”
“Me neither.”
Daniel drove at arrestable speeds to get back to his house, hoping this would stop his parents from grounding him. It was only twelve twenty-five when I got home.
“Where did you go after you snuck out of your mother’s house?” Grandma asked from the dark living room. She was waiting like a vulture circling prey. She clicked on a light. I felt like I was suddenly in some 50s detective movie. “And then you don’t answer your phone.”
I stood in the hallway, smelling of guilt.
“Your mother’s freaking out.” She stood up and walked by me into the kitchen. I followed her. “Fortunately for you, I convinced her you were just upset by the entire situation.”
She pointed to a chair and I sat down. The tea kettle whistled.
“She expected you to return after dropping off your friends.” Grandma sounded way too calm and slammed two mugs onto the counter. “And she thinks they’re a bad influence on you. Including Daniel.”
I leapt from my chair, ready for a fight. “She doesn’t even know Daniel!”
“Calm down. I told her that.” She put the mugs, along with tea bags, on the table. “She’s basing that opinion on Daniel’s reaction to Theo and on your hasty exit. Naturally, she thinks you are completely innocent. But we both know better, don’t we?”
I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks. “What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t born yesterday, dear. You and Daniel are head-over-heels for each other. And I know that you are probably the one who made the decision to sneak out of your mother’s. Daniel would’ve stayed. For you.”
Guilt weighed down and my anger weakened. “What was she thinking?”
“Honestly, I have no idea.” The tea kettle whistled. Grandma stood to get it. “But I think she feels so far outside your life these last few weeks that she wanted to get you back somehow. She reacted without thinking things through.” She turned off the stove and added, “And it’s my fault in a way.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked as she walked back to the table.
She poured water over the tea bags and put the kettle on a hot pad. “Because I mentioned that you were dating a boy on the team.” She paused and stared at me. “You used to tell your mother everything, Vicky. She heard about this from a third party and freaked out. She didn’t even know you and Theo had broken up.” She took a sip of tea. “She knows Theo and his family. She doesn’t know Daniel.”
I only had more questions now. “So why invite Theo if she knew we had broken up? And why invite Andrea?”
“She didn’t know why you and Theo broke up. I think she believes that it’s Daniel’s fault. Which it was –”
I started to protest, but she held up her hand.
“To a degree. You fell for him pretty quickly. But your mother didn’t know about Theo’s … extra activities. And she didn’t know that he started dating Andrea.”
The tea scalded my tongue. I sat the mug back on the table with a thud. “I didn’t cheat on Theo.”
“I know, but you were going to break up w
ith him regardless of the situation with Andrea.” She looked at the clock on the wall and yawned. “You should at least remember that the next time you see her.”
I nodded and stirred some fake sugar in the tea, watching white swirls form.
“And, as for Theo, he’s an idiot. You’re better off.”
I glanced up at her and smiled.
“Now, I know you’ve had the sex talk with your mother.”
The horror must have shown on my face. How in the world could she bring that up now? My embarrassment was twofold. The truth was that Mom and I never had any sex talk. I learned everything I needed to know in biology, plus what my friends and I discovered online, not that I was going to tell Grandma that.
She smiled in an effort to reassure me. “Just promise me that you’ll be careful. I know that you and Daniel are headed that way if you haven’t been there already.”
My eyes grew as wide as saucers.
She reached over and patted my arm. Her calm bugged me more than any anger would have. She gathered our mugs and walked over to the sink. As she flipped on the light, she said, “That’s what I thought.”
My entire body fell limp at the table. I stared at the yellow and white weaved placemat as Grandma rinsed out the mugs. I heard her put the mugs in the dishwasher. When she started to walk by me, I blurted, “I love him.”
She stopped and put her hand on my shoulder. “Yes, I believe you do. Just be careful. Love can sometimes be fleeting. Or it can last a lifetime.”
“Are you dating Charles?” The words flew out of my mouth before I even thought about saying them.
“Yes,” she said, squeezing my shoulder. “Is that okay?”
I stood up and hugged her, glad that the spotlight was off me and glad that she didn’t lie. “Yeah.”
Grandma laughed, relief clear in her tone. “Good. Now your father will be a challenge.”
“Isn’t he always?”
“No. He’s a good man, Vicky. I wish you’d see that. But he’ll be upset about Charles. Your father thinks I should live as a hermit. And Charles is a different kind of man than your grandfather.”
Extra Innings Page 13
