Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Brayden
A couple hours before the game, Coach comes into the weight room. “Forsyth, Adler, you’re with me,” he says in a tone that brooks no argument.
Nearby, Adler goes through his post-workout stretches.
I catch him looking at me in the long mirror they have on one wall for checking our form.
What the fuck are you looking at? I don’t break his gaze, until he gets that stupid fucking smirk of his like he’s the one who caught me looking and not the other way around.
Finally, he goes into another cooldown—a full hamstring stretch, bent double, shorts pulled tight across his ass, the tendons of his legs prominent.
Showboat. What Brad would call him. Well, what Brad would call him if there were kids around and he couldn’t say what he was actually thinking. Mostly, I just think Adler is an asshole who needs to keep several hundred feet of distance between himself and Savannah.
And me, ideally, even if we’re being forced to practice together.
We make our way out to the field, Adler a little behind me, even as I can feel him looking—staring—at my back. He can keep on looking. I was on this team long before he was and I’ll be here after he leaves.
When we get out on the field, Coach is standing near a bucket of baseball and a wide fungo bat we use for drills.
Fielding practice is normally handled by our first-base coach, not the team manager, but there Coach is in his wrinkleless polo, as if we’re going to be taught about more than how to handle fly balls.
“Forsyth, Adler”—he nods to each of us—“we’re going to be making some changes in terms of fielding.”
Maybe that will mean Adler’s benched. Ideally, sent down to the minors. From the way we’re both out here, probably not.
Coach continues. “Given Adler’s athleticism, we’ve made the decision to move him to centerfield for the time being.”
So not a demotion. He’s going to be captain of the outfield in addition to having the best hitting stats on the team.
Fan-fucking-tastic. “Yes, sir,” I grit out, instead of what I want to say.
Which is, Why him and not me? I’ve been here longer.
No one has raised any questions about my athleticism, even if I’m still not hitting the way I’d like to yet.
Adler’s nodding as if the move isn’t a surprise. Of course they told him before they told me.
“Have you played center before?” I ask him.
He shrugs, fake casual. “Sure.”
Which could either mean he’s done it a lot or he’s faking it for a defensive promotion now.
I have other questions—what’s going to happen to Crawford, our current centerfielder, and who’ll be playing first base with Adler moved—but mostly I want to ask the one I can’t: what the fuck Adler wants with Savannah.
I grind my back teeth together and turn to Coach, who’s looking at both of us with an air of weary skepticism.
“It also seems like you two are having some communication issues,” Coach says.
No, I’m getting the message that Adler is sniffing around my girl, loud and clear. Only Savannah’s not really my girl, but Adler doesn’t know that. “Yes, sir.”
Adler doesn’t say anything. Just folds his arms across his chest, the muscles in his biceps prominent. Showboat.
“Well,” Coach says, “I find sometimes the only cure for a little communication issue is to do more of it. So let’s get into it.”
I jog out to right field, glove in hand, sunglasses shading me against the midday sun. Adler sets himself in center, drifting as if he’s not sure where to position himself on the grass. A lazy fielder. That’s what Brad would call him.
But he snaps to attention when Coach takes the ball and taps it upward, curving in a high arc toward the no-man’s-land area in shallow right field.
Fielding requires knowing where I am, where all the other players are, that I’m able to predict the path of the ball against the glare of the sun. I run in, yelling “I got it,” just as Adler sprints to do the same.
“I got it,” I say again, more forcefully, then focus up on the ball—white against a passing cloud—ready to make the catch.
Two things happen: the ball falls in my glove and Adler crashes into me. We go tumbling to the ground, ball dribbling from my glove, Adler landing heavily on top of me, leg between mine. He doesn’t move, even when I shove at him. “I fucking had it,” I say.
“I was calling you off.” He doesn’t budge from where he’s on top of me. “Listening isn’t your strong suit, huh?”
This close, I can feel every toned muscle and hard angle of him—he’s lean for a ballplayer, but that doesn’t mean he’s small. He presses more of his weight against me. For some reason, my face starts going warm. “Let me up.”
Adler rolls off me. I expect a chastisement from Coach that we’re fucking around instead of keeping our focus on the task at hand.
Instead, Coach just plucks another ball from the bucket. “Again.”
We do it again—fly ball, I run left, Adler runs right. Only this time, I don’t catch it and neither does he. The ball falls uselessly on the outfield grass.
Coach grabs another ball. “Again.”
We do it, again and again. Sometimes I catch the ball and sometimes Adler does. Sometimes neither of us does and Coach scrubs a hand over the back of his own neck in frustration. “Forsyth, you’re out of position,” he calls.
So is Adler. But I scramble back to where I’m supposed to be standing on the field. I can run a clean route to the ball in my sleep, if nothing else.
“All right, boys, last one.” Coach hits the ball again.
I race in; Adler runs diagonally. This time when I yell, “I got it,” he pulls off…too late for me to slow down. I catch the ball, and we go down again, me on top of him.
But the ball stays in my glove. Success, or some success, anyway.
Adler’s under me, laughing up from the grass. “If you wanted to tackle me, you could have just said so.”
“Mostly, I just want to rub your face in the dirt.”
Adler’s mouth does that infuriating smirk. “Kinky.”
“Fuck you.” I clamber off him as fast as I can.
I’m not— We weren’t— Denying something out loud only makes it worse, even if Adler is still lying in the grass, smirking up at me.
His T-shirt is rucked up, revealing a few bare inches of his torso.
Coach is clearly watching us. I need to prove to him I’m a team player, even if I want Adler off this team. So I extend a hand to help him up.
For a moment, Adler looks like he might knock my palm away. Then he takes it, pulling himself to standing. Only he doesn’t drop my hand once he’s there. He turns my wrist over, examining the back of my arm where I have a long, now-healing red scratch. “Lose a fight?” he asks.
“No.” I yank my hand back. It’s not like I’m going to tell him the truth—that the scratch came from Savannah’s demon cat, who clearly wanted nothing to do with me. Just like her mother.
“Get a new cat?” Adler says it knowingly.
The scratch on my arm starts to throb. “Yeah,” I admit. “Savannah wanted one.”
“You didn’t?”
“I pay for its food and upkeep.” Because if I did nothing else good this week, handing Sav my card and letting her run amok at the pet store at least…didn’t feel bad.
Adler raises a dark eyebrow at me. “And that makes the cat yours?”
I don’t like the way he says it, but I don’t like the way he does most things. “Generally, that’s what taking care of something means, yeah.”
For a moment, he just frowns at me as if I’ve said something weird. “Well, you be sure to take care of that cat.” And as he walks off, I swear I hear him say, Or someone else will.