Chapter Seven #2
“No. Sounds like something TJ would do though.” I picked at some dirt under my fingernail. “Besides, I was busy.”
“Ha. I’m sure you were.” He harrumphed.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Nothing.” He drew one of his knees up to his chest. “I just never would’ve guessed the Eliza I knew, who used to spend days reading in her room, would want to spend all of her time out shopping.”
“Who said I liked shopping?” I scoffed. I hated shopping. “And anyways, who are you to talk? At least I don’t spend every waking moment with all the other pathetic Diamond Boys.”
“What are Diamond Boys?”
Oh, please. Like he didn’t know. “Ballplayers like you who swoop into town hoping to get noticed by scouts. You guys waltz in here and act like you own the place, getting everyone all spun up, but it’s all an act. You don’t know Fairfield.”
He gawked. “I know Fairfield, Crowley. My family knows it a hell of a lot better than yours.”
“Being born here doesn’t make you an expert.” I spun to face him, crossing my legs. “You left, remember?”
“I didn’t want to leave. We had no choice.” He scooted closer to me, shaking the car as he moved. “Dad and Granddad’s deal with the stadium went under, thanks to your family—”
“My family bought it fair—”
“—and then Dad decided it would be easier if we lived closer to the base. You think I wanted to move? I moved three times before second grade, before we came here.”
I opened my mouth to say something, to argue, but I couldn’t.
I’d never moved, never dealt with being the new kid. And while part of me always wished I could be, wished to get away and start over, a much bigger part of me would be terrified to do so.
“So you’re here only to help your granddad? No other reason?” I pressed my hands against my bouncing knees.
Reed raised his eyebrows. “Should I have another reason?”
“Never mind.” Honestly, I wasn’t sure why I asked it.
Reed pulled off his hat, making his hair stick out in every direction. “My granddad’s farm is going under, so he agreed to a ridiculous bet and needed my help. Families help one another. That’s what they do.”
Once again, I couldn’t think of anything to say.
I didn’t know his family was having money trouble.
But I did know about families helping one another. Or at least I used to know what that was like. We didn’t help one another anymore though. Not really. Not like we used to when Grandma was still alive.
She was the thread that bound us all together.
Now we were all a bunch of knots too tangled up in ourselves to notice anyone else.
“So were you in on the prank against my team or not?” he asked, his voice sharp and low.
“Not.” How pathetic did he think I was? “What’d they do?”
“Your team—”
“They’re not my team.”
“Fine.” He tugged his hat back on, keeping it lower than before, which shadowed his eyes.
“Your father’s team dumped hay all over the damn dugouts at the sandlot.
Took us forever to clean that shit up.” He picked off a piece of hay I hadn’t seen on his shorts and flicked it at me. “But they’ll be sorry.”
Oh, give me a break. “Can’t you guys just, you know, play some baseball?”
He made a face. “If someone stuffed hay in your light booth, wouldn’t you want to get them back?”
Yes. I’d destroy anyone who went after my light booth with the power of a thousand PAR lights.
Laughter sounded from the tracks below. I whirled around and crouched low to the railcar, feeling Reed do the same behind me before I craned my neck over the edge to see the ground.
Trevon and Marcus, grandkids to the Browns, one of the oldest families in Fairfield and the ones who owned the thrift store, carried fishing poles on their shoulders and tackle boxes in their hands.
If they saw us, they’d definitely tell their grandparents.
And Mr. Brown would then tell my dad who would totally blow a fuse and ground me for life.
I’d have to quit the show. Ms. Sparrow would never let me work with her again or ever consider writing me a recommendation for college.
My life would be over, and all because I sat on a railcar with a frenemy.
This was not good. Nope.
My heart pounded so loudly I swore it echoed off the metal. Could they hear heartbeats from down there? Reed exhaled near my neck, making me shiver. Did he have to do that so loudly? And why was he so close to me? He had like twenty feet of open railcar to use.
Everything was still. Even the air didn’t make a sound, so naturally, in that moment, my phone alarm went off like a failed nuclear power plant.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I hissed, fumbling with the thing until I could turn it off.
“Should’ve given me twenty minutes, Crowley,” Reed whispered, chuckling.
“Shut up,” I whispered.
He army-crawled toward me and tried to touch my wrist. “Wait. Is that a tattoo? When in the hell did you—”
I elbowed him quickly, smiling when he grunted.
Trevon and Marcus stopped walking. I crouched lower.
Had they seen us?
If they did, would they tell someone?
The two boys below set down their tackle boxes and opened them, sifting through the lures and bobbers as they chatted.
I fought back a groan. As if it wasn’t bad enough being stuck here in the stifling heat with Reed Fulton, now I’d be here even longer with him and two kids who would pass the time debating crappies versus perches?
Thankfully, though, the two boys didn’t hover over their tackle boxes for too long, and after a few—painfully leg-cramping—minutes, they picked up their gear and edged down the bank on the other side of the tracks. The tall grass and wildflowers reached their waists as they plodded away.
“Must be heading toward Potter’s Creek,” Reed whispered in my ear.
I jumped and started sliding off the side before he grabbed me around my arms and pulled me backward.
We were now only inches from each other.
I had a ladder behind me and one on the other side behind Reed, but I couldn’t force my legs to move toward an escape.
My heart pounded the same way it did on the catwalk.
In the theater, we were surrounded by an entire cast and crew. But here, we were alone.
And definitely closer.
If he had let me fall, no one would have known but the two of us.
Yet he chose to save me.
Again.
“Jesus, Crowley. Do you make it a habit of falling off high places?” He smelled of sawdust, sunblock, and infield dirt, and it took me far too long to answer him.
“Only when you’re around, apparently.”
“You hurt?” One of his hands moved to my knee, where I had a new scrape. The pads of his fingers were rough, calloused—the way I always imagined fingers that were used to hard outside work felt. It was…nice.
Nice? Whoa, whoa, whoa, Eliza.
I scooted backward. “I’m…uh, fine.”
“You sure? You’re kinda pale.”
From my brief brush with mortality.
Obviously.
I huffed and stood. “You’re like a black hole, you know that? Sucking all the gravity and stable footing out from under me.”
He smiled, and there was that damned dimple again, glaring at me.
My pencil could’ve taken it down. I was sure of it.
His phone started chiming. He took it out of his pocket and waved it at me, grinning even wider. “Would you look at that? Twenty minutes on the dot.”