Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Lucas
Scottie insists on driving, and because Logan drove us today and I was planning to jog home, I don’t fight her.
Much.
“Wow, Little Miss Exit Strategy wants to drive? Color me shocked.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asks, turning her head fully to look at me as she pulls out of the stadium parking lot.
I don’t answer. I’m not sure what I meant, to be honest. All I know is I would have pitched till my arm fell off if she hadn’t shown up. “Eyes on the road, Quinn.”
“Mouth shut, Fischer,” she mutters. The heater in her car is blasting, and I’m not too Midwest to appreciate that.
I took a cold shower—for therapeutic purposes—but my hair’s still damp, and my performance hoodie is the thin, breathable kind designed to wick sweat, not retain heat. I’m currently a walking ice pack.
The drive is quiet—tight in a way that has nothing to do with the cold. By the time she pulls into the diner parking lot, I’m not sure if I’m warmer or just numb.
The Night Crawler is an homage to the town’s name, with its cracked vinyl booths, driftwood accents, and enough taxidermied fish to fill a Bass Pro Shop.
Sometimes I wonder if the older townsfolk feel duty bound to remind the younger generation that Mullet Ridge was named after the fish, not the hairstyle.
We sit across from each other in a booth, Scottie ramrod straight, me with my elbows on the table. I scan the menu, ignoring the way her posture makes her look like the dictator of a small country who took a wrong turn into a truck stop.
“What’s good?” I ask.
“The milkshake.”
“Yeah, but what flavors?”
“I’m not telling you what to order.”
“I’m not asking you to tell me what to order,” I say, my eyes scanning classic flavors like chocolate and strawberry and local favorites like apple pie, black cherry, and peach. An asterisk tells me all the fruit is locally sourced from the famous Sugar Maple Farms. “I’m asking what’s good.”
“I don’t know what you like.”
I’m not an overly heroic kind of guy, but not staring at the gorgeous woman across from me with DUH flashing on my forehead feels pretty friggin heroic.
I close the menu, sling my arm across the back of the booth, and sprawl out, propping my ankle over my opposite knee. I watch her eyes track the movement, but I can’t imagine why they do.
“Do you know what you want?” she asks.
I shrug. “Do you?”
Her brow tugs together for only a moment, and I find I’m too tired to hold myself together the way I should.
The server comes over with waters. She’s a lean woman in her seventies who looks like she’s probably worked here since the ’70s. “What can I get you, hon?” she asks Scottie in an accent thicker than any shake.
She gestures to me. “I’ll let him order first.”
I laugh, waving my hands in front of my face. “No, ma’am,” I say. “Ladies first.”
Scottie doesn’t even blink. “No, I insist.”
I tsk and open the menu back up. “Actually, I can’t remember my order. You go.” I look at the server and pile on the charm. “Sorry.”
She pats my shoulder. “Take your time, sugar.” Then she says to Scottie. “Your turn, hon.”
I can almost feel the shade being thrown in my direction.
Scottie doesn’t say anything. I close my menu and look up.
“You ready?” Scottie asks.
I put my elbows on the table, my face in my hands, and bat my eyes at her. “Ready when you are.”
She makes a noise like a cat drowning.
“I’ll have what she’s having,” I say with a wink at the server, who smirks back.
Scottie purses her lips together, breathes, and says, “Two black cherry milkshakes, please. Extra whipped cream. Hold the cherries.”
The server’s already gone before I can protest. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We’re getting a black cherry milkshake and holding the cherries?”
Scottie doesn’t give me the satisfaction of glaring. “You don’t like the order, next time order for yourself.”
“No, that’s not good enough. You’ve got to explain.”
She stirs the ice in her water around. “The shake is made with real cherries, which are delicious. The cherry toppings are maraschino cherries, which are candied abominations.”
“Can’t argue with that logic. But the whipped cream—are we talking fresh or that canned crap?”
She looks deeply offended. “Who do you think I am?”
I look at her for a fraction of a second too long. “My bad.”
I watch her throat tense as she swallows. She jabs her straw at ice cubes like she’s trying to sink them. “Why didn’t you just order your own shake?”
“Because I haven’t ordered a milkshake since I was twelve. I figured if you’re craving one this late at night, it must be pretty good.”
“Really? It wasn’t just to mess with me?”
My lungs still burn from the cold air in the tunnel, and my shoulder is humming with that dull, deep ache that comes from overextending. It’s late, I’m worn out, the woman I’ve had feelings for for a year is asking me questions I don’t know how to answer, and I’m too tired to do this.
I fold my arms on the table and rest my head on them. My face is angled in Scottie’s general direction, but I close my eyes.
“You’re on my half of the table,” she says.
I’m six-two and a half—pretty average for a pitcher—and right now, I wish I were six inches taller to get in her space even more. Or six inches shorter.
“You’ll live,” I say.
She sniffs, and I peek with one eye and then with the other.
The light from the flickering neon sign outside catches in her pale blonde hair, making it glow pink.
She looks almost like a tea kettle ready to boil, and for some reason I like that.
I like seeing that pressure rising in her.
It’s like her body’s way of acknowledging our push and pull when she’s trying so hard not to.
A sign that I was right to think I meant something to her.
Proof that we were on the verge of more.
Until her stupid brother’s stupid best friend had to swoop in and steal her.
The server saves me from my thoughts just in time.
“Two black cherry shakes, extra whipped cream, no cherries,” she says as I sit up straight.
They’re in heavy fluted glasses frosted from the freezer with extra-long spoons sticking out from the whipped cream.
She places them in front of us and drops a couple of long straws on the table.
Her eyes jump between us for only a second, and then she gives me a smile. “Enjoy.”
“We will,” I say after her. “Thank you!”
Scottie rolls her eyes at me.
“Oh, are we not being polite to waitstaff?” I ask, ripping the paper off the straw.
“No, we’re not indulging in the Setup Man fan club tonight.”
I chuckle, jam the straw in, and suck—or try to, at any rate.
The shake is so thick, nothing comes out.
So I pull the straw out like it’s a spoon and stick it in my mouth.
The flavor explodes on my tongue. It’s not just sweet; it’s got that deep, slightly tart bite of real fruit, and the malt makes it creamy enough to coat my tongue.
Scottie was right, no surprise there—it’s delicious.
She stirs hers with the spoon, like she’s softening it enough to drink.
Normal enough. But what strikes me is how with every bite I take, she looks at the level in my cup.
Huh.
A hunch forms, so I lean back from the shake and drink some water, giving her time to finally start drinking.
Time for her to catch up.
Baseball players are all about reading signs and looking for subconscious tells, and I’m having a hard time not doing that now. I watch her take a slow sip of her shake. Look at my cup.
Could just be coincidence.
But if it’s a coincidence, why are her shoulders dropping from around her ears with every sip she takes?
Oh, screw it.
She wants me to wait for her to catch up! I can see it in her body language. This is the first time all night she’s looked like she could take a full breath.
I was right when I told Logan she’s trying to kill me.
“So,” I say, tapping the side of my glass. “What’s your plan for me?”
Why does her neck redden above the collar of her white button-up? “For player coordinating? This week, filming you and the kids in camp for socials and reducing risk.”
“What risk?”
“You’ve got kids crossing behind the bullpen when your groups rotate.”
“For thirty seconds.”
“Behind a live lane with early-report guys throwing upper nineties.”
I chuckle. “But they’re not touching a hundred.” I clear my throat. “Okay, I get your point. The problem is if we start rerouting kids around the dugout in pieces, we lose five minutes every rotation. They get restless, stop listening, and that’s when little risks turn into bigger ones.”
“Okay,” she says slowly, staring at her milkshake. “But if a kid gets hit by a pitch, you’re in massive trouble.”
“They’re walking behind the pitchers.”
“They’re walking through active bullpens,” she counters, sharper now. “That’s not nothing.”
I roll the straw between my fingers, thinking. “What if we don’t split them up at all?”
She looks up. “What do you mean?”
“What if the whole camp moves together?” I say. “Once, like a field trip. No crossing traffic. No staggered rotations.”
Her brows knit as she processes it. “To where?”
“The practice facility,” I say. “Not the main field—the turf’s getting replaced tomorrow, anyway. But the bullpen lanes and throwing tunnels are operational. Same mound specs. Same shadow angle. Covered space.”
She leans back, chewing on it. “We don’t usually run camps out there. Parents like the stadium.” She pauses, and her eyes flick back to mine. “But if you frame it right …”
“ … it’s not a downgrade,” I finish. “It’s an insider look. Behind the scenes. How baseball actually works when fans aren’t watching.”
Something shifts in her expression—like a lock clicking open.
She sits up straighter. “Yeah. We could sell it as exclusive access. The kids never get to see the pros-only spaces or training tunnels.”
“And we keep the flow,” I add. “Same rotations, same timing, just in a safer space.”
She nods slowly. “No crossing traffic. No dead time.”
“And no kids wandering into a live bullpen,” I say.
Her lips press together, then curve faintly—not quite a smile, but close. “That’s actually good.”
“High praise,” I say.
She ignores me, already thinking ahead. “We’d need facilities approval. A staffer to walk the group over. Parent comms.”
“I can handle the kids,” I say. “They’ll think it’s cool.”
She snorts. “They’ll lose their minds.”
“Exactly.”
She takes a long sip of her milkshake, then another. “Okay,” she says decisively. “That works.”
“Great,” I say. “Problem solved.”
“One down,” she says with a pointed look.
“Whatever. I’m an angel.”
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Ask the church ladies at the potluck Sunday.”
She cocks both eyebrows but returns to her shake. She’s just about caught up to me, so I sip slowly, waiting for her to finally get ahead.
“What did you mean in the car?” she asks, her lips hovering slightly above the straw. “When you called me ‘Little Miss Exit Strategy,’ what was that about?”
I’m not sure how much to say, so I pick the easier truth. “I don’t know. It sounded funny at the time.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Or not,” I say.
“Don’t do that,” she says.
“What?”
“Agree with me when you don’t agree with me. I hate it.”
“Why?”
Her forehead doesn’t screw up, her eyes don’t tense—maybe it’s that pink neon flashing from outside our window, but I get the feeling this tea kettle’s about to blow. “Fine. Agree with me all you want. It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re not very convincing,” I say. She looks at me, dead-eyed. “What? You told me not to agree with you!”
She closes her eyes and laughs under her breath, like she’s in pain. “You are … impossible.”
“No, this is impossible,” I say, gesturing between us with the straw and immediately wishing I hadn’t, both because milkshake dribbles between us and because I gave away too much of my hand.
Unfortunately for me, she nods like she agrees.
Like she’s run the numbers and knows this is a mathematical impossibility when all I was trying to say is the math is out of my league.
She drinks her shake down until there’s maybe an inch left, right before the straw starts making that hollow, desperate sucking sound.
“I’m not Little Miss Exit Strategy,” she says, staring at her nearly empty glass.
“I’m the one who stays to make sure everyone else has a way out. ”
The sincerity in her words hits like a line drive straight to my chest. I’m sure there’s truth there, but it’s not the whole truth.
I wish I could reach across the table and grab her hand.
Wish I could peer into her eyes and force the rest of the story out of her.
I’ve known since our third conversation that she doesn’t need glasses—staring in her eyes made it obvious there was no magnification.
The glasses are for show. A wall quietly separating her from the rest of the world.
“It was a bad joke. I’m sorry I said it.”
She nods, but whatever pressure I stirred up hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s just gone quiet. I finish my shake. She pushes hers away, leaving the rest unfinished.
We take the bill to the front, where I ignore Scottie trying to take out her wallet. She drives me home in a silence more fragile than thin ice—one wrong step, and we’re going under.
When she pulls up to my curb, the engine idles softly.
“See you at 0800, Quinn,” I say, trying to bring back a flicker of light. “I’ll bring you a whistle.”
She exhales a laugh that makes my chest ache with how much more I want. “Go to sleep, Fischer.”
I watch from my front door until her taillights turn out of sight. Then I go inside, where the house smells like our leather couch and Logan’s rotisserie chicken … and the scent of black cherry milkshake that’s somehow caught a ride home on my hoodie.
I got a C in my college lit class, so take this for what it’s worth:
This whole night has felt like a study in symbolism: the cold tunnel, the dark road, the milkshake that was as tart as it was sweet.
Tonight I was too tired to be charming. Too wrung out to deflect or joke my way around the edges of things. I just... said stuff. Real stuff. And she stayed for all of it.
I don’t let myself think too hard about what that means.
Instead I think about her wanting me to slow down. Me waiting for her to catch up.
And her leaving the remains of the shake, refusing to take those last desperate sips.
She said she’s the girl who stays. But if that’s the case, I need to figure out why she could stay for a jerk like Jake Rodgers when she slipped away from me.