Chapter 6
SIX
JAYDEN
Sugar Land feels like home field advantage in so many ways.
I wonder if Colby feels the same. Probably not quite as much, as I played my high school regional championship games on this very field.
She wasn’t on the grass with us, but she was in the stands.
And for a few years, growing up, we both were.
That was back when Adriel was in high school, and Colby and I were the supportive siblings.
All of that was in the before.
I’m not sure whether it’s the fact life has thrust us together again, or that my brother is repeating family behavior that’s driving my thoughts to the past, but I’ve been stuck in nostalgia lately. And not the best kind.
“Jayden, you’re up,” Coach barks, pulling me from my thoughts and back to the present.
We’ve been hitting BP on the field for the last thirty minutes, and Colby hasn’t come out to watch a single swing.
I feel like a kid trying to make their dad proud, only I’m twenty-six, and my dad is rotting in hell.
I’m trying to make an angel proud. And Colby’s timing at showing back up in my life has been tearing away at the scars on my heart since I read the email announcement about her hire a month ago.
“Lock in, Jay. Come on.”
“Right,” I say, snapping my focus to Coach’s arm. He throws the ball in low and inside, and my hips go to work, my power leg driving my weight through my swing as I rock the ball down the third baseline and to left field corner.
“There he is. That’s what I’m talking about!” Jake howls as he watches me from behind the portable backstop.
“Extra work is paying off, Vargas. Carry this on to the game.” Coach tosses another ball, and I smack this one over the bullpen fence, about twenty feet higher than my last hit.
“Hot damn!” Jake whistles this time.
I smirk, but then catch a glimpse of Colby’s long brown hair pulled back in a braid, and I immediately force my expression into one that is focused. Serious.
I finish out my reps then rotate out of the cage before dropping my bat to the ground and pulling off my helmet.
I run my arm across my forehead, clearing away the most recent beads of sweat.
Somehow, it’s hotter in Sugar Land. Sweetwater is humid, but the fields closer to Houston carry an extra dose of dew-point love.
“You’re opening up too soon. Stay tight.”
I feel Colby’s presence before she speaks, and it takes everything in me not to grin like a fool when I know she is only a foot or two behind me.
“Okay,” I say. Clipped. Short. Professional, just like she asked for.
It’s not lost on me that she booked double lessons after my first workout with her. I’ve been paired with Jake and Brooks nearly every day, and I know damn well neither of them signed up for the spots on their own. She asked them to. Sold it as something expected of them, probably.
I push the helmet back on my head and pick up my bat before meeting her gaze.
She’s squinting from the sun’s reflection off the row of plexiglass covering the box seats in Sugar Land’s stadium.
The sun is brutal here, and somehow, cloudy days make it worse.
Like a sheet of tinfoil spanning the sky and beaming UV rays into my retinas.
Colby usually wears sunglasses out here, but it’s nice to see her eyes without any filter getting in the way.
Not that it makes her any easier to read—unless she actually is as pissed off at me as her squinted eyes and hard-jawed expression lead me to assume.
She’s not wrong about opening my stance, though.
I was cheating. I’ve learned Coach’s pitching habits for BP, and I knew the inside stuff was coming.
I got relaxed, knowing I could let it fly without as much effort.
I sold myself short and settled for good enough.
That’s the lesson I think Colby wants me to take away.
“All right, dig deep, Vargas,” Coach says as I step in once Jake is done with his round.
I nod, then glance over my shoulder to make sure Colby is watching.
She’s parked herself right behind the backstop, one foot propped on portable backstop while she folds her arms along the crossbar.
I dig my feet in, closing my stance off more when I hear her throat clear.
Of course she was right. The extra coil helps me send the first pitch into the grass seats beyond the bullpen.
Coach whistles through the gap in his teeth.
“Goddamn. This your work, Coach?”
“He’s the one swinging,” Colby says from behind me. A smile touches my lips, hidden under the shadow of my helmet. She sounds like her dad. He’d be so proud of her coaching style. Egoless.
I roll the bat around a few times then stretch it to the center of the plate as I set my feet again.
“She’s being humble, sir. She unlocked my power,” I grunt as I take another hack, this time burning the ball along the baseline chalk. It stays fair, though, and even though it wasn’t in the air, I put some good torque on it. I could stretch it into a double easy.
“She sure as hell unlocked something.” Coach chuckles.
He tosses me a dozen more pitches, and I punish the left side of the field, hitting each ball harder than the last. I’m panting when I step out of the cage, and Colby walks around the backstop to meet me near the visitor’s dugout as I pull off my helmet.
“Don’t force it. You get plenty of power naturally,” she says.
I roll my shoulders and toss the helmet into the turf before running my hands through my sweat-soaked hair.
“I’m not,” I protest. It comes out a little more defensive than I wanted, but before I can apologize for my tone, Colby runs her palm along my oblique.
I flinch from her touch despite the fact it’s not subtle.
Nothing about it is tender. Rather, it’s focused, almost medical. But it’s her hand. My body. So I react.
Her eyes snap to mine, and her mouth closes tight. Her nostrils flare with a sharp intake of air.
“You’re hurt.”
My chest deflates. I thought she felt . . . something. But no. She’s doing her job.
“I’m not hurt. You surprised me, is all,” I huff, blinking my focus to the ground, where my hat rests next to my glove. It’s the truth. I’m not hurt. Physically, at least. And her touch startled the hell out of me. It shouldn’t.
Coaches check on our muscles all the time.
My hitting coach last year spent a lot of time checking my obliques, especially since I tend to strain them.
Of course, last year, my hitting coach was a sixty-year-old Venezuelan man with a patchy beard.
His meaty palm with callused fingers was vastly different from Colby’s slender hand.
“You’re tight,” she says, reaching again toward my side.
She mocks me a bit, holding her hand a few inches away and raising a brow to make sure I’m ready for it.
I brace myself this time, and when her hand lands on my muscle, our eyes meet.
Her breath hitches this time. I would give anything to read beyond the facade I’m sure she’s putting up.
Her eyes dim as she squeezes and digs her thumb into the muscle, curving up toward my ribs.
It would be so easy to match her touch with my own, to run my palm along the curve of her body, thumb grazing her breast as I close the few inches between us.
I clear my throat and take a much needed step back when my thoughts get carried away. Baseball pants aren’t exactly discreet. I haven’t worn a cup since Little League, and right now, I have the self-control of an eighth-grade boy.
“You’re pushing too hard. BP isn’t showing off for anyone. It’s to get your head right for the game. It counts when the innings start,” she says, her eyes scanning down my torso, hovering around the spot where her hand left off.
“I swear I’m not overdoing it. I’m fine,” I lie.
Like a fucking kid. I fall right into old habits with her, because I’m embarrassed that she caught me feeling something—wanting something.
When we were young, I dismissed her critiques unfairly.
I did it because she was a girl, and it was embarrassing that she was better than me.
Smarter. Wiser. More technically sound. Talented.
And a part of me was jealous that her dad was there. Mine was . . . who the fuck knows.
She rolls her eyes, just enough for me to see it, then walks away. I drop my chin and pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Wait,” I utter.
She slows her steps but continues to move away from me as she glances over her shoulder.
“I’m trying to make you better, Jayden. And part of that is listening to your body when it tells you what your limits are.”
Her lip curls up after a moment, just a hint, and I breathe out a guilty laugh.
“Yeah, I know. It’s just hard to take orders from you.”
However tiny that smirk was, it disappears thanks to my fat mouth, and Colby turns her attention to the next batter stepping into the portable cage.
My gaze meets Jake’s. He didn’t hear our exchange, but his snickering tells me he caught enough of our body language to tease me about it.
“Shut your face. I don’t see you hitting the ball out today,” I scoff. Rather than hurt his feelings, my insult only makes him laugh harder. I flip him off before snagging my gear and hat from the ground and making my way to the back of the hitting cage.
I slide my hat on, then tuck my glove under my arm as I lean against the crossbar a few feet to Colby’s side. A group of rookies clears out the foul-tipped balls from the cage, and the moment they run the filled buckets back to the coach, I lean to my side a few extra inches and utter, “Sorry.”