Chapter Thirty-Eight #2
I checked the time on the scoreboard. Could I drive to Clairview right now and catch the curtain call? Convince her that maybe we—
“Reed.” Dad patted my shoulder and pointed toward the Crowley dugout.
—could still make it work?
Eliza Crowley crossed the field and came toward me. My stomach dropped more in that moment than it had in the house of mirrors.
She was here. And she was smiling.
Smiling?
Wait. She couldn’t be. She probably hated me right now.
Breathe, Reed. Chill.
Dad picked up my glove and backed away to leave the two of us alone.
Or as alone as you could be in the middle of a ballpark.
Under blindingly bright lights.
With a few hundred people surrounding you.
She pulled my hat from behind her and handed it to me. “Lost your crown twice and now your hat.” She shook her head. “What are we going to do with you?”
I tugged the hat onto my head and flicked the silver and gold crown on hers. “Maybe I’ll just take yours?”
She laughed, and everything in me ignited. God, I had missed that sound.
But it wouldn’t change what had happened here tonight. What would happen because of tonight. “Eliza, about the game. I’m—I’m so sorry—”
She held up her hand. “You came here to win back that stadium for your family, Reed. You made a promise to your granddad, to your nana, and you kept that promise.”
“But I wouldn’t have made that promise had I known it would make you uproot your whole life.”
“Yes, you would have.” She brushed something off my shoulder. “And so would I, had I been in your shoes. Because family is everything to us.”
I snuck a quick look at mine: My dad, who had his arm around my mom. Proud Granddad and Nana, who looked around the stadium with tears in their eyes.
Family was everything.
But so was she.
I took a step closer to her. “I…I must’ve typed out a dozen texts to you over the last week. I tried to convince myself that the reason I didn’t send any of them was because I wanted you to focus on your Tech Week and kick ass tonight, which I’m sure you did.”
She smiled.
“But that wasn’t why I stayed quiet.” I rubbed the back of my neck.
“So why did you?” She bit her lip as she looked up at me, and my heart squeezed.
“Because I wasn’t ready to admit the truth.” I sighed. “I lied, Eliza. Everything I said at the treehouse was a lie. What I said about the championship, about focusing…I used it all as an excuse.”
“An excuse for what?”
I reached out and took her hand, rubbing my finger over her small wrist tattoo. “For feeling like I wasn’t good enough for you. For thinking you deserved better.”
She took her free hand and cupped the side of my face. Warmth spread over every inch of me at her touch. “I don’t think there’s anyone better than you, Reed.”
I leaned into her hand.
“Then again, you did steal my toys when we were kids.” She raised an eyebrow.
“I returned them. Well, most of them.” I smiled. “Besides, you melted two of my best Transformers. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”
“How about a truce, then?” She took my baseball hat off and lifted her crown before placing it on my head.
I bent down and let my forehead press against hers. “Does this mean you won’t knock it off of me?”
“Not on purpose.” She smiled, and her eyes turned misty under the floodlights. “Reed, I’m sorry I thought for even a second that my family losing the stadium would be worse or even equal to the loss yours would face. Fairfield isn’t Fairfield unless the Fultons are here.”
“It isn’t Fairfield without the Crowleys either.”
“Reed—”
“Hold on. I’ve gotta get all this out.” I swallowed hard.
“You are the top of the lineup with a full count when the bases are loaded in the bottom of the ninth. I used to be afraid of that kind of game, of those kinds of risks, but I’m not anymore.
” My heart pounded so loudly, I thought my jersey might move with it.
“I love that you call me on my bullshit, that you know how to hit the hell out of my curveball and that you can throw some heat. I love that no matter where you end up, you’re going to shine brighter than anyone because you’re the one holding the light.
And I know long distance will be hard. But I don’t care.
” I paused and stepped back so I could see all of her.
“I want to be with you. I need to be with you. You’re what keeps me grounded when everything else tries to knock me down. ”
A tear fell onto her cheek, and I brushed it away. “There’s no crying in baseball, Crowley.”
“Are you going to kiss her or make us wait all night?” someone yelled from the stands. Both teams were near each other now. Most of them with their phones out and pointed at us. Of course.
“A Crowley and Fulton standoff.” She laughed and wiped her eyes. “How predictable of us.”
“I can think of something that would be unpredictable.” I took her hand.
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
I grinned. “Will you hit me if I kiss you?”
“No.” She dropped my hand and slid both of hers around my neck as she rose up on her toes. “But I will if you don’t.”
It didn’t matter that the entire town watched us or that neither of us knew what came next or that the ground tilted when she kissed me.
Eliza Crowley was my gravity. The constant that stayed with me when everything else blurred or faded into shadow.
She was the no-hitter. The two-seamer I so desperately needed but never thought I’d get. Never thought I deserved.
The game hadn’t been perfect between us, but, hey, baseball—love—was far from perfect.