Behind the Plate (The Boys of Baseball #2) - J. Sterling Page 0,17
who are girls?”
“No,” he answered without even taking a breath.
I was curious about what made a guy like Chance Carter tick. I wasn’t sure that I’d ever met anyone who didn’t have at least one friend of the opposite sex. It was possible to be just friends, no matter what people said.
“Have you ever?”
He cocked his head to the side and studied me before responding, “I have a hard time finding girls who just want to be friends with me.”
Ten seconds ago, I would have launched another grenade in our verbal war, but I suddenly didn’t want to anymore. I believed that Chance wasn’t trying to sound arrogant or come off like a typical jock. Somewhere deep inside me, I knew that he was telling the truth. I remembered seeing it on campus—the way girls followed him around or watched him while he ate in the commissary. And even though I didn’t follow Chance on any social media platforms, I had come across his pictures before and had gotten lost in the sea of flirtatious and downright scandalous comments that had been left for him.
Without thinking further, I extended my hand toward him. He stared at it a beat before gripping it, his palm pressing against my own. A multitude of fireworks exploded inside my body with that single touch, but I fought them back, pretending that I felt nothing.
“Then, I’ll be your first,” I said with a grin, and he cocked an eyebrow.
“My first what?”
“Girl who’s a friend.” I gave his hand one hard shake before dropping it, breaking our contact and hoping like hell I wasn’t sweating. I felt hot and flushed all over.
“Now, you want to be friends? You just told me a minute ago that we were here to work.”
He started to jump into whatever else he was going to say next, but I interrupted him, “I know, but I think you need one. You can’t just have guy friends your whole life. You need at least one girl who won’t lie to you. Who can give you a female perspective on stuff.”
“I have a sister for that.”
“I’m sure you have a mom too. Neither one of them can ever be impartial. Oh my gosh, why are you making this so hard?”
He laughed. “I don’t know. You’re like an emotional tornado, whipping things up, changing them all around, and then expecting me to like the chaos.”
A tornado, huh? I’d never been called that before. At least, not to my face. “You do like it.” The verbal jousting was back on.
“Is this what being friends with a girl is like? I’m exhausted already, and I need a nap.”
It was my turn to laugh. “I think it’s what being friends with me is like. So, are you in or what?”
He shifted in his seat and ended up leaning closer to mine. “What’s expected of me in this ‘friendship’?” He used air quotes around the word.
“I-I don’t know,” I stuttered because I hadn’t thought that far ahead, and I didn’t usually have to plan out requirements for people I wanted to be friends with. You just decided to be friends, and then you were. “Normal stuff, I guess?”
“Like what? Braiding hair and shit?”
I jerked my head back and gave him a look. “Chance Carter, do you know how to braid?”
His cheeks started to color, and all I wanted to do was tease him more about it, but I stopped myself when he answered, “I told you, I have a sister.”
“That’s actually kind of adorable.” I felt myself softening. All of this internal melting was happening too quickly; it was too unexpected and far too unlike me. I cleared my throat and sat up straighter. “I think being friends for us means that we can talk about things other than math.”
“Like baseball?” he asked, and I wasn’t sure if he was being a smart-ass or being serious.
I shrugged. “I mean, sure. Yeah. If you want to talk about baseball, we can. Or girls. Or guys on the team pissing you off. Whatever.”
“And in return, you’ll talk to me about what? Your boyfriend and how romantic he is?” He sounded unhappy at the mention of Jared.
And that shouldn’t have excited me. It shouldn’t have made me feel any type of way, but here I was, sitting in this small tutor cubicle, next to Fullton State’s living god, feeling all kinds of ways.
“I guess sometimes. But just for the record”—I held up a single finger—“girls usually talk about their relationships when they’re