Chapter Nine
Eliza
“Theater is a mirror, a sharp reflection of society.”
—Yasmina Reza
After a normal game, Dad-the-Coach-Crowley was completely unbearable when the team lost.
But losing to the Fulton Hawks in our first home game brought out a whole new kind of fury. On the surface, Dad looked like the eye of a storm—eerily calm, quiet, calculating. But behind closed doors—or in our case, concessions—the verbal wrath surfaced. Our own personal hurricane.
A slew of creative curse words swirled around the sinks, and the ice machine received another dent on its face. When I was eight, I named it Miss Hannigan after one of the most horrible humans created for the stage. Not a good start of the season for her.
Dad kept muttering under his breath as he counted the money at the register. “I’m callin’ Ed in the morning about those umps. Lousy, no good, biased…”
“Save it for home, Will,” Mom warned, her gaze down as she mopped. “Too many people will hear—”
“I don’t give a damn about the people.”
“Well, maybe you should.” She plopped the mop in the sudsy bucket that smelled of lemons and bleach. “Because even if your team takes the title at the end of the season, it won’t matter. No one will want to work for our stadium and Cyclone Crowley.”
The tower of plastic cups I carried toppled to the ground.
Truth: Mom and I—and quite possibly the entire town—had been calling Dad that for years during any season he coached…behind his back. Obviously.
Dad stopped counting the money and faced me, cheeks blotchy.
Yikes. Definitely a Category Three now. Make a clear path for the inevitable pacing.
“Cyclone…Crowley?” The vein above his right eyebrow pulsed.
“Well, have you seen your face when you lose?” Mom continued mopping and shaking her head. “You make a volcanic explosion look like a hiccup.”
I held back my laughter.
“Hey, it could be worse.” I bent down to pick up the cups that fell. “What if you were…Cutesy Crowley? Then everyone would want hugs, and Lauryn would be out of the job as our mascot because they’d want it to be you.”
The popcorn machine stopped popping.
The back prep sink dripped three times.
And then Dad did something I hadn’t heard in forever. He laughed.
It bellowed around the kitchen, rich and full, while my feet stuck to the floor. I wanted to record this moment, take a picture, a video, something so I could visit it or play it back later, during another moment when he was caught in the eye of his own storm.
I’d forgotten how much I liked that sound, how much I’d missed it.
This was the same laugh from when he used to pitch to me at the ballpark, when he taught me to ride a bike and watched my dance recitals.
Mom used to say he only laughed that way with me.
But then I outgrew my bike and dance shoes and started enjoying being behind the scenes more than standing center stage.
Dad stopped asking me to play catch, and I stopped missing it.
Yet here he was, laughing like he used to, and I had no idea what to think or how to respond. I couldn’t open myself up to disappointment. I wouldn’t allow myself to believe he changed courses that quickly.
He was a cyclone, after all.
Mom tiptoed over to him and kissed his chin. She whispered something in his ear, and he cackled before smacking her butt.
Bleh. “Come on, guys.” I covered my eyes.
Mom shushed me and went back to her mopping. “I can’t help but wonder if maybe you wouldn’t be this tense if you hadn’t made such a foolish bet, Will.”
Oh boy.
“Maybe I did what I thought would be best for our family, Maggie,” Dad snapped.
“Without talking to your family first?”
Point: Mom.
“If you didn’t notice, we had a sold-out crowd tonight,” he added, his voice tense. “First time in years we had that on a season opener. Drama draws crowds.”
Point: Dad. Much as I hated to admit it.
“I noticed,” Mom mumbled. “But we also lost.”
Whoa. Mom with the game changer.
Dad slammed the register shut before storming out of the concession building, rattling the walls and making an old framed team picture clatter to the floor.
I picked it up and gently placed it back on the small peg.
Mom swished the mop near her feet. “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“You had every right to bring it up.” Last time I checked, our house wasn’t a dictatorship—or it didn’t used to be. I tied off the top of one of the trash bags and scooped it up, pausing at the door to grab my book bag. “I’ll see you later.”
“Text us when you’re on your way home. Remember you have a curfew,” Mom warned.
Did anyone else have a curfew in the summer? Doubtful.
My body immediately relaxed when I stepped into the fresh, humid air. On these kinds of nights, you could almost taste summer. Sweet and salty mixed with earth.
I tossed the bags into the dumpster before kicking it to make the lid drop. All I wanted after all this drama was a cold lemonade from the Brew and a slow drive home with the windows down, far from here, far from baseball and all the hell it had already brought us this season.
Unfortunately, baseball had other plans, in the form of an ace pitcher.
“Have you lost your mind?” I hurried across the parking lot, peering in every direction to make sure we were alone. We were.
For now.
“It’s a nice night.” Reed leaned against my Jeep, looking like he owned it.
If he scratched it, I’d kill him. “Do you have a death wish, Fulton?”
“Do you always have to be so dramatic, Crowley?” He crossed his arms. “Relax. We’re not surrounded by a cast and crew. No kids walking by with fishing poles this time. All the cars have left.”
Yeah, except Dad’s truck.
The concession door was closed, and I didn’t see any sign of him, but we were in a parking lot.
With no other cars nearby.
Dad would definitely turn into a Category Five if he caught me out here with the pitcher who just destroyed his team.
“I wasn’t ready to go home yet.” Reed stared across the lot at the darkened baseball field.
I almost asked him how that was my problem, but curiosity—or maybe heat exhaustion—got the best of me. “Why?” I propped my arm against the roll bar. “You won, remember?”
“I know,” he said.
I waved him on. “So…”
“So…going home means a lecture from Granddad. I’m not in the mood.” He turned his hat backward. “It wasn’t my best game.”
For a moment, all I could do was blink at him. He was a Fulton, and I was a Crowley, so why the hell would he be saying this to me, of all people? Regardless, I stepped up to the plate.
“No, it wasn’t,” I said.
His eyebrows shot up.
If you’re looking for sympathy, you’ve come to the wrong place.
“Your curveball needs some work.” I shrugged.
“Does it, now?”
I unzipped the front of my backpack and took out a bag of peanuts, but Reed made no motion to speak or move.
He just stared at me like I had grown two heads or something.
I hated that look. “What do you really want, Fulton? And don’t give me that crap excuse about not wanting to go home.
” I cracked open a shell. “You could’ve gone to Scoops or the Brew.
I’m sure your team is already out celebrating. ”
“Is it so hard to believe that maybe I just wanted to talk?” He picked at his fingernails.
To me? Um, yeah.
I tossed a shell at his shoulder, and the door to the concession building opened, my father standing in its frame.
I gulped. “Oh—”
“Shit,” Reed said.
“Eliza?” Dad raised a hand above his eyebrows and squinted under the bright light above the back door. “You still out there?”
“Quick! Get in!” I shoved Reed’s head down near the roll bar. Had TJ not taken out the back seats last year, there was no way Reed’s tall frame would’ve fit inside.
Without a word to Dad, I jumped into the driver’s seat, started the engine and gunned it out of the parking lot. Reed’s head popped up behind me, and I smacked it. “Get back down until we’re in the clear,” I yelled over the wind whipping around us. My mind raced a mile a minute.
Reed Fulton was in my Jeep.
I helped Reed Fulton escape from my father, and he was now in my Jeep.
With me.
In the dark.
Alone.
What the hell are you doing, Eliza?
By some miracle, I made it down Main Street without having to stop at any traffic light and without seeing anyone I knew on the road or on the sidewalks. Only when I passed the faded green sign that said “Leaving Fairfield: Come Again Soon!” did I ease up.
Reed’s head slowly came into focus in my rearview mirror. Hat off, his wavy hair fluttered in the wind. “Is it okay to sit up now?”
I nodded.
“Can I come up to the front seat?” he asked.
“No. Not after the last time and that stupid bet—”
“What bet?”
Sure, pretend like you don’t remember.
I must’ve inhaled some gas while manning the hot dog grill—the only explanation for my brief trip down Lunacy Lane.
“Where are we going, Crowley?”
“No idea.” I just had to keep driving. Maybe the longer I drove, the more this insane idea would start to make sense?
A THUMP sounded from the back, followed by a loud flapping noise.
Oh no. No, no, no…
Reed leaned out of the back on the passenger side. “I think you’ve got a flat.”
“Of course I do.” God had a seriously twisted sense of humor.
“Bet this wouldn’t have happened if you had just driven your shiny Beemer.”
“I told you already: I hate that car.”
Reed mumbled something close to “Must be nice to have a choice,” but I ignored it.
Yes, I knew I was lucky to have a choice with a lot of things in my life, but I never asked for it.
I didn’t want it. Maybe if he had been around over the last few years, he would’ve seen the charity events I helped with for our local scouts, or how I had convinced Dad to do a couple of benefit games for the Clairview Women’s Shelter the last two spring seasons.
But would it have mattered?
Probably not.
Because no matter what I did, Reed Fulton would always see me as a selfish princess.