Chapter 7
SEVEN
COLBY
Jayden and I are the same size. We should both have the same kind of jersey.
This is some bullshit!
“I’m not wearing this.” I toss the pink glitter-encrusted version of the Katy High School baseball jersey on the bench, next to my dad.
“I don’t blame you. Take it up with your mom when she gets here,” he says. My mom made me and Jayden our fan gear. She’ll just say it’s my fault for not telling her what I wanted. I feel as if she should know, though. I’m not a glitter girl.
My dad pinches the sleeve of my discarded shirt and tosses it back to me. Glitter sprinkles all over the dugout floor, leaving evidence behind on the bench as well as my black T-shirt.
“Ugh!” I try to wipe the fairy dust away with my palm, but it seems to only ingrain the pesky sparkles in deeper.
My dad laughs.
“I’ll trade you,” Jayden says when he pops out of the storage closet at the back of the dugout. He always helps my dad prep the field before games.
“You aren’t going to wear pink glitter,” I scoff.
“Try me.” Jayden smirks as he pulls the black and red normal-looking jersey over his head and holds out his open palm. I gawk like a fangirl at the glimpse of his bare chest.
Jayden’s starting to get muscles like his brother. I mean, he’s barely thirteen, so not exactly like Adriel, who’s seventeen. But I can tell he’ll be just as jacked soon. A lot of things are about to change for him.
My dad told me he’s going to let him play up a level this summer on the club team, so he’ll get to play with his brother for a year.
He’s tall for his age, which is the only reason I think my dad can sneak a junior high kid on a high school squad.
That, and Jayden’s already better than most of the high school players in the league.
If anything, the other coaches will protest that my dad is trying to stack his squad.
“Fine. Here.” I toss the speckled jersey to my friend as he tosses me his plain one.
I unbutton the front so I can slip it over my black T-shirt and wear it open, like a jacket.
Jayden simply crawls inside the pink jersey though, rolling the hem down to his waist before brushing speckles of glitter from his baseball pants.
“For Christ’s sake. Jayden, take that shit off,” my dad snaps, shaking his head as he passes behind us, a broom in one hand and his lineup card in the other.
“I like it, Coach! I think we should get them for the club team.” Jayden flexes his arms and puffs his chest, posing for me with a grin. He nearly busts the seams, but there’s something cute about his performance. Something cute about him.
“Ha! All right, well . . . talk to my wife when she gets here. She’s the one who made it.” My dad shakes his head on his way into the closet. The screech of his coaching stool scraping against the pitted concrete floor follows as he drags his seat into the corner of the dugout near the whiteboard.
“Adriel leading off?” Jayden asks, stepping up behind him to watch him write out the lineup.
“For now,” my dad grumbles.
Jayden flashes me a look, and we both grimace.
His brother got caught getting high in the school parking lot on Friday.
Because school was technically out for the day, the principal decided to look the other way.
One of the other team parents filed a complaint, though.
Probably because Adriel gets more time than anyone else on the team.
The regional tournament is this weekend, which is why the school board hasn’t had a chance to address it yet.
So, my dad has his lead-off stud in the lineup for at least one more game before an inevitable suspension is dealt.
“I’m sorry he’s like that,” Jayden says in a hushed tone. His shoulders hike up as he talks, and I can tell he’s embarrassed.
“It’s not your fault, kid,” my dad says.
Jayden cringes. He hates being called kid.
We talked about it while we shot hoops in my driveway last night—about how he wants to be seen as a leader, the way his brother is.
He didn’t believe me when I told him my dad likes him a thousand times more than he does Adriel.
His brother is older, and he’s getting a lot of attention for his talent.
But his antics are going to do him in if he keeps it up.
It’s a cold shadow for Jayden to live in, though. His father played pro for two years, and Adriel is likely going to get drafted. But when Jayden is Adriel’s age, he’ll bring more to the table. He’ll be all the things. Better. Bigger. Popular. Respected.
More.
“You do look good in the pink,” I say, brushing my ball glove against his arm. He nods at me, his lip curling up on one side.
“Thanks.” I like the raspiness in Jayden’s voice; I always have. But I’m starting to like it a little more than I used to. It somehow matches the hair that always falls over his left eye and the dimples on his cheeks. I like the little crinkles around his eyes, too.
“You wanna throw before they take infield?” He picks up a ball from the bucket and tosses it to me. I snag it with my glove.
“Sure.”
I jog out to the grass in left field behind Jayden, the sparkly pink 10 reflecting the late afternoon sun off his back.
I didn’t even look at the back of Jayden’s jersey when I put it on, so when I get to my throwing spot, I squeeze the ball and glove between my knees so I can tug the collar to the side.
I crane my neck to read the back without taking the jersey off.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jayden says through a chuckle. He flaps his glove with his hand, calling for the ball.
I give up trying to stretch the jersey and slip my glove on my left hand, then throw Jayden the ball.
“What number’s on yours?” I shout.
“Ten. Like yours,” he says, working the ball in his fingers to find the perfect two-seam grip. He’s always trying to convince my dad to let him pitch. Problem is, he throws perfect strikes. Perfectly hittable strikes.
“Why’d you pick ten?” I ask after the ball smacks into my leather pocket.
“Because it’s your number.” He shrugs, and I feel for the four-seam grip so I can try to throw it back to him harder and distract the both of us from the smile slowly pulling my lips higher into my cheeks.
Because it’s my number.
We throw for a while in silence, nothing but the rhythm of our arms and the slap of ball on leather. It’s soothing. Our safe space. Out here, I can even let go of the fact I had to switch to softball and don’t get to play with my friend anymore. He’ll always be my throwing partner.
Jayden snags a pop fly I throw for him, then drops his gaze across the field.
I figure the other team finally showed up, so I move to the baseline to make room for our guys to warm up again.
But when I realize Jayden’s gaze is still locked across the field, I follow the line of his focus to the parking.
A Harris County Sheriff’s SUV has pulled in crooked, the lights on top strobing blue and red.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of commotion, no students fighting or roaming around the sparse parking lot, and there isn’t another car parked close, so nobody got pulled over.
Adriel is hitting in the cages behind the outfield wall, so they can’t be here for him.
Besides, smoking a blunt on campus doesn’t seem to warrant flashing lights and a sheriff’s deputy, I would think.
My dad’s boss, Mr. Riordan, the school’s athletic director, is talking with one of the officers, and when the two of them gesture toward the field, my body buzzes with an uncomfortable energy.
I can’t tell whether I want to run away or throw up.
I’m frozen in place regardless of the electricity coursing through me.
Both officers take off their brown cowboy hats when they step onto the warning track dirt, and something about the way the taller one holds his hat against his chest as Mr. Riordan calls my father over to join them makes me uneasy.
“Jayden. Go tell the guys to start stretching and throwing,” my father shouts mid-stride.
“Yes, Coach.” Jayden responds with a nod, though he lingers next to me, his gaze holding mine for a few extra seconds before taking off in a sprint toward the hitting cages.
Jayden didn’t speak, but I imagine he has the same questions on his tongue that at do. Why are they here? Who’s in trouble? Are they here for Adriel? Did something happen to someone we know?
My dad’s hands are on his hips, and he’s nodding while listening to the tall sheriff with the hat over his heart. Within seconds, though, my dad’s strong posture crumbles, and his hands move to his face, cupping his mouth as he drops one knee to the ground. And then the wailing starts.
My feet are stuck where they are, as if I’m wearing long spikes dug so deeply into the dirt that I’m practically planted.
I jerk my head around to look for Jayden, and he’s paused just in front of the left field fence, his hand on the gate as the man he admires more than anyone falls apart over something that must be the worst news in the world.
Jayden meets my eyes across perfectly mowed lines on the grass outfield, and I feel it in my bones—things are about to change. Forever.
PRESENT
The déjà vu of being on a field with Jayden on Mother’s Day is fucking with my head. I half expected him to ask me to play catch when he clomped his way through the dugout during pre-game. Of course he didn’t. We have our roles now. And it’s a different Mother’s Day, years later.
We aren’t kids anymore.
And my mom is dead.
More than a decade has passed, and I think I’m getting better—until this day comes along.
My dad is the same. He’s why I show up. I missed last year, too busy coaching at the college.
He had to visit Mom’s grave alone. He said it was fine, but his voice can’t bluff the same way his face can. He wasn’t fine. I wasn’t fine.