57. Till It’s Gone #3
His hand dives into his pocket.
The second phone slides out.
It hits the pavement before the door slams shut.
And his heel drives into the asphalt, shattering the glass and plastic with a crunch.
He rips off his hat, forcing a frantic, white-knuckled hand through his hair before shoving the cap back on. He paces, then stops. His hand hangs off his hip bone as he stands there, head bowed, staring down at the murdered phone.
I don’t know what that was—
a confession,
a tantrum,
a gesture?
Maybe he’s mad that I found out.
Maybe I accidentally made him to choose something he wasn’t ready for.
I don’t fucking know.
It’s the loudest Andrew has ever Andrewed.
The back door flies open, hinges groaning, and he grabs the bat bag, the duffle, the folding chair bag.
One by one, he slings them across his chest and over his shoulder.
He looks into the car. “You coming?”
The answer is obviously no.
So I open the door and follow.
Soon as we enter, I’m greeted by the roar of blower fans, the smell of stale sweat, and a long line snaking away from the sign-in table. Andrew stands next to me, but his attention splinters off into every direction.
Each time the door behind us opens, and a rush of winter chill blows through, his head twists back, expecting to see Hunter.
Except for this last time,
someone else makes him freeze.
“Fuckin’ kiddin’ me…” he mutters, gaze fixated, adjusting his grip on the bags strapped against his chest.
I turn to look over my shoulder, following the line of his gaze, when my eyes lock on a man standing a few heads back.
He has one hand buried in the pocket of his black puffer, the other dangling a blue Gatorade.
He’s late twenties, maybe.
A thick gold chain lying on his chest.
Baseball cap flipped backward.
He catches me looking,
then spots Andrew next to me,
a slow, dirty smirk fighting through.
He bites his lip, head tilting to see more of me, and he casually flicks two fingers up from the Gatorade bottle in a small wave.
I stare, trying to place him,
but come up empty.
Never seen this guy before in my life.
“Do me a favor while I handle this?” Andrew interrupts, hand plunging into his front pocket. He pulls out his wallet, slips out a folded ten, and holds it up between two fingers. “Grab me a Gatorade?”
I look past him to the concession stand, where Dunkin’ donut boxes stack high on the counter.
Then I look down at the crumbled bill.
Then straight up into his pretty eyes.
“I want a Boston Kreme.”
For the first time all morning, the storm clears from his face, and Andrew lets his grin loose—a warm, devastatingly handsome beam that melts the ice between us—and nudges his shoulder into mine. “Go wild, Pretty Woman. Get whatever you want.”
I snatch the ten from his fingers.
“What color?”
“C’mon.”
His gaze drifts to the back of the line.
“You know what color.”
I spin on my heel,
wait in line,
check out,
and by the time I fight my way back from concessions, I’m juggling a sweaty Riptide Rush under one arm and a grease-stained bag of donuts, while shoving the last bite of a Boston Kreme into my mouth.
Andrew’s at the registration desk, cap pulled low and bent over a clipboard.
He finds me through the crowd, drops the pen, and stalks over, sliding the Gatorade out from under my elbow.
“Gimme your wrist,” he says, then loops a neon wristband around it, chin tilting a fraction as he cuts a glance sideways back at the guy.
I want to ask who the hell that is.
But Andrew’s face already has a lock on the answer: No one. Don’t worry ‘bout it. Famous last words before fists start flying.
He lifts his chin to the paper bag.
“What’cha got in there?”
I open it and pull out a powdered donut for him. He plucks it from my fingers and takes a massive bite.
Powdered sugar explodes over his lips, his chin, snows down the front of his navy zip-up.
“She’s an angel,” he mumbles around the mouthful, looking down at me with a powdery grin.
The tunnel to the dome is narrow and rubber-floored.
As we move through it,
the sound of balls pinging against bats,
of balls snapping against netting,
of balls thudding into leather gloves
echoes louder—
ping, snap, thud.
Then the dome spits us out,
the turf fluorescent green.
Black netting hangs like cobwebs from the curved ceiling, trapping line drives that slam into the mesh and drop dead.
A group near the bench turns
when we step up to field three.
“About time, pretty boy.”
“Yo, whoa—who’s this?”
“What’s goin’ on, Harding?”
Andrew dusts his hands off at the back of his joggers as his team surrounds him—shoulder slaps, half-hugs, insults instead of feelings, someone calling him a motherfucker, someone else asking if he brought his bat this time.
Andrew rapid-fires a string of names,
introducing the crowd.
“This is Allison,” he finishes.
That’s it.
Which, technically he’s correct—
this is Allison.
But the introduction feels so unfinished.
Peter’s head pokes sideways around Marco’s shoulder. His eyes flare wide, a laugh jumping out. “Oh, no shit. Allison?”
He’s standing near a bat rack with a faded Brooklyn Brawlers sweatshirt stretched across his chest—colors maroon and khaki—with a matching cap, face flushed from warm-ups.
He looks at Andrew.
Then me again.
I lift my Dunkin’ bag in greeting.
“Peter.”
He walks over, smacks the back of his hand against Andrew’s chest. “Twice,” Peter mutters out of the corner of his mouth to him. “That’s Allison—twice, kid.”
Andrew coughs into his Gatorade, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Relax.”
Peter shakes his head, amused. “Nah. You brought her to the dome, bro. This is serious.” He jerks his chin toward the stands. “You gonna sit her in the girlfriend section, too?”
Wait.
The girlfriend section?
I spin on my heel until—
Fuck. The girlfriend section.
Two rows up on the bleachers.
Five, maybe six girls in North Face and matching black yoga pants, hands attached to Stanleys and iced coffee.
One of them’s peeling a clementine over a paper towel laid across her knees.
Another’s whispering under her lashes, their gazes turning predatory whenever a guy stops to stretch his hamstrings.
Girlfriends. Wives. The fan club.
My future flashes before my horrified eyes… ones that instantly sprint back to Andrew.
I feel the color drain from my face.
“You got life entirely fucked.”
Andrew side-steps into my line of sight, boxing everyone else out. “Stop, stop, stop,” he murmurs, cutting off my thoughts before they commit murder. “Before you start.”
I inch back. “I wasn’t gonna start.”
“You were born startin’.”
His hand lifts, reaching for my face,
to comfort,
to pull me closer,
to wipe Boston kreme from my lip,
but I’ll never know
‘cause his hand stalls halfway.
His focus dead-ends over my shoulder,
his mercy melting.
His hand falls to the strap around his chest, and he slides the folding chair bag off his shoulder, gaze pointed to the open space behind the makeshift dugout as he hands it off to me. “Sit there. Sit up there. Sit wherever you want, aight? Don’t gotta make it a whole thing.”
Before I can open my mouth to argue, he lunges forward, snagging Peter by the arm as he stalks past. “Hey, man—who we playin’?”
Peter pops gum into his mouth.
“Bronx.”
I turn, following the blade that is Andrew’s stare.
On the opposite side of the field stands the same guy from the sign-in line. He’s leaning against an equipment cage, a bat draped over his shoulder, throwing his head back as he laughs with a few of his friends.
“Okayyy…” my voice trails off, eyes still on the guy. “He your secret boyfriend I don’t know about?”
As if he heard me, the guy looks over. His laugh fades and he tosses an arrogant wink at us.
The bones in Andrew’s jaw lock up.
“He’s no one.”
I let out a defeated laugh that turns into a groan. “What’s goin’ on, Drew?”
“Nothin’,” we say at the same time,
my voice dressed up as Andrew.
His gaze skips back to me, a helpless smile breaking through his anger. “You’re so annoying,” he mutters dotingly, the other half of his trapped breath escaping. “Look—if he tries talkin’, don’t engage, alright?”
“Yeah.” I scoff. “‘Cause I do real well with men tellin’ me what to do.”
Andrew backs away, tracking the other guy’s movements across the white lines. “Right. My bad. Engage it up. Make a new friend.”
I find a spot off to the side of the dugout that’s not really a dugout. It’s a bench behind a wall of black netting, gym bags spilling everywhere, men talking shit back and forth.
Andrew drops onto the bench to switch shoes—sneakers off, cleats on, laces yanked tight with pissed-off fingers. He stands without throwing a single look my way, blindly tossing his Gatorade bottle into his bag before jogging out onto the turf, tugging the brim of his cap down over his eyes.
We’re in that ugly, grey zone.
The one between ‘fuck you’ and ‘fuck off.’
Where neither of you know what you are, but both of your bitch-ass feelings are hurt.
This is couple shit.
Way outside the agreed-upon terms.
From across the line,
Peter fires a ball at Andrew’s chest.
Andrew catches it—a lazy, effortless snag, as if the ball had simply chased after his palm—and the loud, leather pops.
He hurls it back, saying something to Peter, but the dome eats up all his words. Peter barks out a laugh, head falling back, gum flashing between his white teeth before he pitches the ball back twice as hard.
Andrew’s attention travels across the field, landing on that guy, and his next throw leaves his fingers with too much heat.
Over on the Bronx bench,
the guy’s eyes are digging right into me.
He wants my attention.
More than that,
he wants Andrew to watch him steal it.
I can’t take the pressure.
I stand up so abruptly
the chair almost tips back.
Andrew’s focus whips to me instantly, firing the ball back to Peter without looking.
I wander to the boundary line, my fingers curling through the black netting.
On the dugout bench, a guy who looks barely twenty is hunched over his cleats, his hoodie sleeves shoved up to his elbows. “Hey,” I call out quiet. “Danny, right?”