Chapter 3
Max
OH THE things we do for love.
I throw a ball against the wall of my office and catch it again as it bounces back.
It’s a fitting activity for the way I’m feeling right now. The thought of this bucket list has been bouncing around my head all day. Because if I’m honest with myself, this is about so much more than the money and shares.
Sure, those things are a bonus, but I don’t need them.
I’m a network architect for the largest healthcare network in the country and earn a very comfortable six-figure income. I have a nice apartment, and outside of work, not many responsibilities. It’s a comfortable life. I’m not interested in running my uncle’s company.
The real reason is the athletic brunette that has plagued my dreams for far longer than I care to admit.
I’ve never met a more confident person. There’s not an insecure bone in her body. She’s kind, and loyal, and is good at everything she does. She’s…perfect.
And she’s been out of my league from the moment I met her.
I still remember that day as if it were yesterday. Our parents had died about six months earlier and we’d moved in with Uncle Reggie.
We spent most of the summer in the backyard, swimming in the pool, riding our bikes, or building forts in the woods that the property backed onto—trying to keep ourselves busy so we wouldn’t dwell on the death of our parents too much.
I should have known the day Maya Sinclair waltzed into my life with a backward baseball cap and a pocketful of bang snaps that my orderly life would never be the same.
20 years earlier
“Your turn, James.” Ethan hands the bat to James as they trade places.
It’s the middle of summer and we’re playing backyard baseball. Well, their version of it anyway, which mostly means they boss me around and tell me to fetch the ball when they hit it too far.
I’m okay with it, though. At least they still include me. I’m the youngest and the least athletic of the three of us.
Ethan warms up his arms and shoulders before he pitches.
The crack of the bat as the ball hits the sweet spot is quickly followed by the projectile whizzing past my head, over the hedge and into the neighbor’s yard.
“Yes! Did you see that? Good enough to go pro.” James even does a victory dance.
While James is congratulating himself, I make my way to the small hole we’ve created in the hedge for times like this.
The big house next door has been empty since we moved in with Uncle Reggie six months ago. Apparently the owners travel a lot.
Hopefully this time it didn’t land in the pool.
I get onto my hands and knees and crawl through the gap with my head down, feeling some of the twigs scratching my skin.
As I pop up on the other side, I’m surprised to see a girl standing a few feet away, holding the ball.
She’s wearing a backward baseball cap and from what I can see of the hair that’s sticking out, it looks like she hasn’t brushed it in a week.
She’s also chewing gum. Something Uncle Reggie strongly disapproves of.
“This your ball?” she asks.
I shuffle on my feet and push my glasses further up on my nose. Speaking to girls is awkward. “Yeah.”
A movement to the left catches my eye, and I turn to look at the side of the house where a man in coveralls is carrying a box.
The girl follows my gaze.
“We just got back from our other house,” she says. “I’m Maya.”
Their other house? They must be stinking rich if they can afford another one on top of this mansion.
Although looking at her, I’m not so sure. She looks a bit rough for this neighborhood.
When I don’t say anything, she sighs. “What’s your name?”
“Max. Can I…uh…can I have the ball back?”
Maya completely ignores my request.
“How old are you?”
She asks too many questions for my liking but she’s still holding the ball, and doesn’t look like she’s going to give it back any time soon. Girls are weird.
“Eight.” Although Mom always said I was born thirty-years-old and get more middle aged every year. I’m still not really sure what that means. I wish she was here to ask.
“I’m seven,” Maya says, even though I never asked.
“Hey! What’s taking so long?” Ethan’s head pops through the hole in the hedge. “Oh. A girl. Hey! I’m Ethan.”
He crawls the rest of the way out and Maya introduces herself.
“Can I play?”
Before Ethan or I even have a chance to respond, Maya gets on her hands and knees and crawls through the hedge, still holding onto our ball.
We quickly scramble after her, not quite sure what to make of this whole encounter.
When we get to the other side we see her marching purposefully toward James who’s holding the bat.
“Hey. I’m Maya. I’m playing with you.”
James laughs. “No way. Girls can’t play baseball.”
“Can too!” Maya says as she snatches the bat out of his hand and replaces it with the ball.
He looks Maya up and down. She’s pretty short.
“You’re just a baby. What are you? Like five or six?” Twelve-year-old James is not impressed.
“Seven,” Maya says as she steps up to our makeshift home plate, completely unbothered by James.
For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, I feel the need to protect Maya. I don’t like my brother being mean to her. Maybe it’s just because she looks scruffy and a little bit lonely. Or maybe it’s just because I know what it’s like to be the smallest.
“Just let her play, James. It’s not like she can be worse than me. Just make sure you don’t pitch too hard.”
“He’s the fun police,” James tells Maya as he rolls his eyes.
I’m not bothered by his jab because he still throws a gentle, underhanded ball…which Maya somehow smacks into oblivion.
All three of our mouths drop open.
Maya pops a bubble that she’s blown with her gum before looking smugly at James. “Told ya!”
James looks in the direction the ball went, his mouth still hanging open like a fish.
While he’s distracted, Maya walks up behind him, puts her hand in her pocket, and pulls out a little white object that looks like a scrap of paper from this distance.
Before I know what’s happening, Maya throws it forcefully to the pitcher’s mound and it lets off a loud pop, making James just about jump right out of his skin.
Ethan and I struggle to contain our laughter as James glares at Maya, who just smiles at him, chewing her gum.
“You got brothers or something?”
I don’t know if it’s the way she swung the bat and knocked the ball right out of the yard, or if it’s the fact that she keeps a pocketful of bang snaps that makes James ask the question.
Maybe he’s just really sour because a seven-year-old girl can bat better than him.
“Nope. No sisters either.”
She must be some kind of baseball prodigy. I’m in awe of her, and also a little scared of her.
“For a girl with no brothers, you sure know how to act like a tomboy.”
Maya just shrugs and twirls the bat like a pro. I’d probably knock myself out with that move.
“ Please tell me you’re not going to be hanging around us all summer?” James says.
I don’t know why he has a problem with it. If anybody should have an issue with a wild child like Maya it should be me, the one who’s allergic to chaos. The one who likes peace and quiet, and order.
But the thought of her joining in our games doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I have a feeling that life is about to get very interesting.
I can’t help but smile thinking back to that summer we first met Maya.
Initially, Ethan and James were reluctant to have her tagging along all the time. But they soon changed their tune when they found out that Maya’s dad was famous baseball player JP Sinclair.
That also explained the freakishly good baseball skills of seven-year-old Maya. Although, as we soon discovered, Maya could do just about any sport better than all three of us. Perhaps because not only was her dad a professional athlete, but her mom was a retired Olympic gymnast with more than one gold medal in her trophy case.
While Maya hit the athletic genes jackpot, I couldn’t and still can’t swing a bat to save my life. But that didn’t put Maya off at all.
We may have been like chalk and cheese, but by the end of summer we were as thick as thieves.
I laugh now, thinking back to how I felt the need to protect Maya. In fact, she was the one who ended up protecting me. She stood up to my brothers when they called me “nerd” and she forced them to include me in games where I was usually sidelined.
Maya was a force to be reckoned with. I think even James and Ethan were a little bit scared of this tiny hurricane.