Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
LOGAN
The house is dark when I get home.
There’s no porch light on and no noise. Just the soft creak of the screen door as I step inside, and the faint scent of citrus and vanilla that always seems to linger when Cassie’s been around.
We won. And I played pretty well despite my nerves. I didn’t bat well, but my fielding was on point.
I should be on a high, buzzing from the lights, the crowd, and the adrenaline. But instead, all I feel is a slight notion that something is off.
I head upstairs, toe off my sneakers, and glance down the hall. Her bedroom door is closed, a towel draped over the handle like a soft little barrier. A signal. I lift my hand, and I almost knock.
Almost.
Instead, I go downstairs, grab a beer from the fridge, crack it open, and step out onto the back porch.
It’s quiet out here. Crickets chirping, stars overhead. The field beyond the yard is lit faintly by the moon, and I sink into the old wooden bench like my body suddenly remembers it’s tired.
I take a sip and exhale slowly.
The game ran through me like muscle memory. Like my body knew what to do even when my brain was somewhere else entirely.
Like when someone in the locker room asked if I had a girl back home.
I hesitated too long. Not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I didn’t want to say no.
Because every day, every glance, every accidental touch with Cassie is pulling me deeper into something I swore I wouldn’t fall into again.
She’s not mine, and she shouldn’t be mine. She deserves calm, stability, and a guy who ideally stays in one place. Who really knows the trajectory of his life.
And what am I really but some traveling ballplayer? I’ll be here this summer. Unless I get called up to the majors. But after that? Who knows. And she’s trying to put down roots. If I really care about her, I should just let her down gently, stop all this nonsense.
But fuck…
I lean my head back and stare up at the sky. Try to breathe and convince myself to let it go.
But I can still see the way her fingers traced over my skin in the shower.
Still hear the echo of her voice in the steam.
Still taste the moment we didn’t kiss.
I finish my beer, but I don’t go back inside.
Because if I go back in, I’ll walk past her door.
And if I walk past her door, I might stop.
And if I stop…
I don’t know if I’ll keep walking.
The sun’s brutal the next day. Not the kind of heat you sweat out—more the kind that turns the infield into a frying pan and cooks your brain while you’re standing still.
I crouch at third, glove ready, squinting toward home. Coach yells something, but it barely registers. My head’s not here. Not really.
Ball cracks off the bat.
I react half a second too late.
The grounder skids past me, right between my legs.
“Damn it,” I mutter, whipping off my cap and dragging a hand through my hair.
Reset.
Same drill. Same batter.
Focus, I tell myself.
The pitch comes in. Contact. Hard line drive, same direction.
This time I field it clean. Step, fire to first, but the throw is too high.
Our first baseman has to leap to save it, and it still sails over his head.
“Jesus, Logan,” he mutters, tossing the ball back. “You sleep last night or what?”
Instead of answering, I just let out a little grunt.
Because if I did answer truthfully, I’d have to say I didn’t sleep, not really. Not with Cassie in my head. Not after that shower scene. That laugh. That look.
“Logan!” Coach’s voice rips through the field.
I jog toward the dugout, heart pounding in all the wrong ways.
He pulls off his sunglasses. Uh-oh.
“What the hell’s going on with you today?”
“Sorry, Coach,” I say. “Just feeling a little off.”
“No kidding.” He crosses his arms. “You’ve made more errors in one drill than you did all of last week.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“You got something going on?” he asks. “Off the field? A girl?”
I hesitate. How does he always know?
“No,” I say finally, shaking my head. “Nothing like that. No girl.”
He gives me a look like he doesn’t buy it, but he doesn’t push. “Well, whatever it is, leave it at home. You’re in the lineup tomorrow night, and if you play like this, it’s not gonna be for long. You’ll be back in Double-A so fast.”
He turns and walks back to the dugout, shouting for the next drill to start.
I linger for a second, my glove hanging loose in my hand.
No girl, I said. Not anymore.
So why the hell does it feel like she’s all I can think about? This is reaching a boiling point.