Chapter 36
Miller
I think I’ve started almost every game of this season asleep.
It’s easy to do, when you’ve spent months drifting under the surface of water because the most important person in the world to you sunk down to the bottom and you’ll never, ever get them back.
Easy when you’ve been doing the same thing before each game for the better part of fifteen years. Easy when you’ve been trying to avoid looking up at a memorial banner that feels anything but friendly, and even easier when you can use the convenient excuse about needing to focus on your job.
Not as easy when someone reached down and whispered kind words to you and told your heart to please, please wake up and showed you so many good things waiting for you on the surface.
Good thing the whole warmup is mechanical because she’s the only thing I’m thinking about.
All the plans I still want to have with her, this woman who leaves messes wherever she goes, and how badly I need to talk to her, because last night, we both made a mess of the house she built in my chest, and I need her help cleaning it up.
I’m halfway through when Joel jogs over from the bullpen and grins down at me, curving the brim of his hat. “Heard a rumour this morning.”
“Yeah?” I lean deeper into my lunge. “What’s that?”
“Something about your NTC. Apparently, you were in Olson’s office all morning.” He rolls out the shoulder of his throwing arm.
“Not sure who leaked that. My agent and publicist will be pissed,” I say dryly. And they will be. Second time I went in there without telling them. “But yeah. I was in there. Those rumours are true.”
“Be a shame, if you went and waived it.” He shrugs.
“Why’s that?” I shift my legs, digging a fist into the palm of my glove.
“You’re the best in the league. Would suck, to replace you.
But the obvious aside—” He cocks his head.
“Gave my seats away today to someone who’s a really big fan of yours.
Needed two tickets for her and a friend.
She’d probably be disappointed if you went and disappeared mid-season without so much as a word. ”
I dig my elbow into my thigh before walking my feet together to stand. “Don’t think I have that many fans.”
He snorts, clapping my shoulder before he tips his chin towards the stands. “Voters in Sports Illustrated’s hottest athlete contests and the girl from the game say otherwise.”
I don’t have to look to know who he’s pointing to. Sun’s brighter over there.
My chest constricts, but not in that life-threatening way it used to when it tried to choke me with the ever-growing absence of Matt. And not even in that way when she was growing—blooming—in there.
In this way that, I think, feels a bit like hope.
“Déjà vu, right?” Joel smiles before he flashes his palms. “Don’t worry, I know her name isn’t girl from the game. Was just trying to get your attention.”
“Uh, yeah—thanks,” I mumble, rubbing a hand absentmindedly over my chest. I glance towards the banner for the first time in months and notice the ends lifting in the breeze, in permission, maybe.
Swallowing, I grip my chin and turn back to Joel.
“I’ve, uh, liked playing with you. Would be a shame to leave early before we see what happens. ”
He nods before he starts jogging backwards towards the pitch, arms wide. “Agreed. Would be a real shame not to see this whole thing play out, too.”
I don’t have to look to know they’ve switched from whatever advertisements they were playing on the screen to me, either.
But I don’t look up there, and I don’t look towards her right away, either.
I look back at what’s left of him here in this stadium.
The bottom of the banner flutters again, and I know what he’d do right now. It’s probably a figment of my imagination, but I feel his hands on my shoulders, and I can hear him pretty clearly. “Never thought I’d see the day. Proud of you.”
The corner of my mouth kicks up, the backs of my eyes burn, and I lift my glove before I jog towards the brightest spot in the entire stadium.
Entire world, probably.
“Hi.” She digs her teeth into her bottom lip, nervous, and raises her palm. She stands, adjusting the hem of her denim shorts, knees I think I’ll spend the rest of my life kissing better knocking together when she does.
“What are you—uh, what are you doing here?” I run a hand along the back of my neck.
“I need to talk to you.” Ren flashes me a watery smile, pointing towards my cleats, digging into the field. “You’re off base.”
I cock my head. “Game hasn’t started yet.”
“I told you that line didn’t make sense.” Imani crosses her arms, slumping down in her seat.
Ren throws Imani a flat look before she wrinkles her nose at me. “Should I start over, then?”
“Nah, you can keep going.” I crack a grin, dropping my forearms down on the infield wall, and my chest cracks open too, for an entirely different reason than it did last night.
She pulls a neatly folded piece of paper from the back of her denim shorts. “I made you this.”
“Oh yeah? What is it?” I lean across the wall, but she jerks it back towards her chest.
She frowns at me, but her eyes shine. “Ren’s List of Things She Wants to Try with Miller.”
“Let’s hear them.” I lift my glove, and pretend my heart isn’t about to beat through my rib cage.
She clears her throat, making a big show of straightening the paper in her hands. “Go on a real date. No pretending and no practicing.”
First thing on the list and she’s already taking a hammer and nail to all the cracked framing in my chest. “Agreed. We’ve done enough pretending and practicing.”
She sniffs. “Stay in an overwater hut in Palau and snorkel in Jellyfish Lake every day until we discover a new species.”
“Seems dangerous,” I offer.
“Those particular jellyfish have evolved not to sting,” Imani mutters.
Ren’s eyes flick up to mine, a small wet laugh in her throat, and there’s something like hope, too, written in all that blue.
“Cool.” I nod. “I’m there. What’s next?”
Tears pool and she drops her head, voice shaking.
“Be herself, even if, sometimes, she forgets who that is. And she’s so, so very sorry, by the way.
” She worries at the inside of her cheek.
“She doesn’t—I don’t—I never want to forget who I am for a single second again.
Not when this version of me is so lucky to know you. ”
“All good. I know who you are. Big fan.”
Her lips part, soft, when she looks up at me. “Figure out how to fall in love the right way.”
“Seems easy enough.” I shrug. “Already got that one figured out, I think. Heard I’m a great teacher, too, so, you’re in good hands.”
“I like your good hands,” she whispers, before her teeth come down on her bottom lip and her eyes find the bottom of the page.
“And she’d like to stay off base with Miller Colson-Burke for the rest of her life.
I know off base means to be wrong, or to be mistaken.
But I think there’s another definition.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes.” Her fingers tremble against the paper. “See also, off base: to be wherever it is that Ren Jacobs and Miller Colson-Burke go when they’re together. Where she’ll always choose him. Where she always, always wants to stay, because he’s worth staying for.”
I push off the wall, tugging off my glove and tossing it to the ground. “Yeah, alright.”
“Alright?” she repeats, angling her shoulder so she can wipe a stray tear off her cheek. “It’s that easy?”
“With you?” My mouth tugs sideways when I nod. “Yeah. Can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be, actually.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want you to stay here if you can’t be here anymore, and you waived your clause so if you—”
“No. I didn’t.” I shake my head.
Ren whips towards Imani. “You said he waived his clause! You said I needed to act fast because the league’s sexiest shortstop was bound to get snatched up right away, you made me sprint down the street so we could get here faster!”
“I said that was the rumour!” Imani hisses, shoving her glasses up the bridge of her nose before she sinks lower in her seat, shielding her face so she’s hidden on the giant stadium screen.
“That’s the thing about rumours,” I start, gripping the infield wall before I vault myself over. My cleats hit the cement on the other side, and Ren takes a sharp inhale when I straighten, angling my head down towards her. “They aren’t always true.”
She blinks up at me. “What about the rumour that you like pretty girls?”
“One.” I wrap my hand around the back of her neck. “I like one pretty girl.”
“She likes you too,” she murmurs, shining tears falling over the pillow of her cheek.
“Great.” I drag a thumb across her cheek, sweeping away the tears, and I catch sight of the ink stretching across the back of my hand. “Can I kiss you?”
Ren nods softly. “That feels like the adult thing to do.”
My mouth crashes against hers, my lungs fill with her the way they do with air when your head finally breaks through the surface of water, sunshine paints all those walls in my chest, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more awake in my entire life.