Rounding Third - Michelle Lynn Page 0,87

one drop of saliva to coat my dry throat as we circle around the garage and out to the garden that Mrs. Ford maintains each day. I still remember when Noah and I helped her put in the water fountain that is surrounded by two benches and two chairs with flowers all around.

I cough, remembering Noah telling me that this would be the spot where he’d propose to Kedsey after they graduated from college. I swear, he was always a planner. Knew each step of his life. I didn’t have any plans, just two goals—Ella and baseball. I was scared shitless of what was going to happen to Ella and me after we separated for college. Little did I know the future would separate us for much longer.

Now that I have her, I have no intention of letting her go.

“Park me.” Coach Weathers pulls me from the memories. The recollections have the ability to suck me down into a sinkhole.

I stop the wheelchair and walk around.

“Sit.” He nods his head to the bench in front of him.

I do.

“Talk.”

I don’t.

“Talk, Lynch.”

I look up at his determined eyes. They look similar to the time Noah, Brax, and I let go of four pigs in our rival school. He was pissed and benched us for two games each.

I clear my throat, begging for some sort of saliva to come. “It’s good to see you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Okay.”

“Lynch, look at me.”

My eyes move from the array of different colored flowers to his set of hazel eyes.

“Sir?”

“If I wasn’t caught up in my shit, I’d have stopped your family from moving away from Beltline. I blame myself for that.”

“But—”

He shakes his head. “You had your time to talk, and you chose not to. Don’t interrupt me.”

I sulk down into the bench.

“This accident wasn’t your fault. It isn’t your fault that I’m in this damn chair. Two years, you’ve wasted your life.” He shakes his head, a look of disgust on his lips. “Did you think I pushed you hard, made you join those travel tournament teams, for you to throw away your future?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you think I enjoyed being away from my family to be on a field with you, fielding balls and pitching to you?”

“No, sir.”

“I hear you’re at Ridgemont now. Don’t blow it.”

“I won’t, sir.”

“Good.”

I move to stand. Coach was never one to get wordy or have a heart-to-heart like Coach Fritz at Millcreek.

“Sit.”

I practically fall into the bench from his voice.

“This bullshit charity game,” he says.

There goes that weight in my gut, heavier and heavier with every day the game grows closer.

“I’ll be there.”

“I knew you’d come, but, Crosby, the Bishops are still not good with you. I came out here because, when we drove by the Fords’ house last week and I saw the new paint, I knew you had been here. You don’t need to do it. If coming back to this town is going to send you back in that tailspin, don’t do it. You’re a ballplayer, boy. Move on if you need to.”

My mouth opens for a second but closes.

“I guess, since the accident, I’ve had a few new emotions surface.” He smiles. “Wife seems to like it.”

He shrugs, and I can’t stop the smile that pulls at the corners of my lips.

“I mean it, Crosby. I’d love for you to come out to that field. Hell, the baseball program is coming back after my disappearance. I’ve been able to secure some coaches, and hopefully, we’ll have a team back up and running by next year.”

“You know, my appearance will bring more people because they’ll want to torment me.”

“Truth. I can guarantee, it won’t be easy. Carrie Bishop is no easy woman, and she’ll make it hard on you.”

“Your family…the medical bills, true?”

Once Coach Lipton told me about the charity, I searched some things, finding Coach Weathers and his family struggling financially. This whole town has been dead since after the accident.

“Don’t you worry about any of that shit.”

How could I not?

“Okay.”

Coach always had a give-a-shit attitude, even with his newfound emotions. “I’m here to give you an out.”

My forearms rest on my knees, and I stare down at the cement pathway.

“Now, push me,” he says.

I quickly stand up.

“I can’t waste any more time on you. This whole scenario is an example of how quick time goes in this life. Sometimes, you have to be selfish.”

I move behind him and start pushing the wheelchair back to the front of the house.

The question burning in my mind is, Did he purposely add