Behind the Plate (The Boys of Baseball #2) - J. Sterling Page 0,33
for coming with me tonight,” I said before putting the car in gear and pulling away.
She never responded, and I turned the radio up.
More than ten minutes passed before Danika reached for the volume control on my stereo and turned it down. Normally, I would slap anyone’s hand who dared to touch my shit but not her. Never her. She could do whatever she wanted, and it didn’t even bother me.
Why did this girl affect me so much? And why couldn’t I control the way I felt when it came to her?
“Is there anything I should know?” she asked, her attention completely focused on me.
“About?” I gave her a quick glance before I refocused on the freeway.
“Your family. Like a heads-up about anything? Are they going to try to embarrass you or me? And who all is going to be there?”
“It’s just my mom, dad, and little sister, Jacey. I’ve never brought anyone home, so I have no idea how they’ll act, but they aren’t the embarrassing type,” I said and prayed to God that it was true.
My dad had given me a lot of crap the other day, but that was the first time that had happened.
“You’ve never brought a girl home before?”
“I mean, once in high school, but I’d known her since I was five, so she wasn’t a stranger.”
“Were you dating?”
“Yeah,” I answered, and Danika looked away. She stared out the passenger window for a little too long. “Did I say something wrong?” It felt like she was upset.
She turned back toward me. “No. How old is Jacey?”
“Fifteen, going on twenty. Her sole mission in life is to give me a heart attack, so if anyone is going to be embarrassing, it’ll be her.”
Danika laughed. “That’s funny. I wish I had a sister.”
“You can have mine.”
“She might like me better than you, and then you’ll be sorry,” Danika said with a smile, and I could tell she was starting to relax, maybe even looking forward to tonight.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, knowing I was about to ruin the mood as I pulled off the freeway and took the exit.
“You know you can.”
“Did you tell Jared you were coming home with me?”
Her relaxed demeanor instantly changed, and I watched as she swallowed hard. “No.”
My hands gripped the steering wheel even tighter as I asked, “You didn’t?”
“I didn’t.”
“So then, what happens if he texts or calls?” I started to get concerned because even though this wasn’t a date, I wanted Danika peacefully to myself tonight, and the fact that Jared had no idea where she was could potentially cause a lot of drama. “Won’t he want to see you? If I were your boyfriend, I’d want to see you,” I added in a matter-of-fact tone.
“I’ll just tell him that I had an extra session with you because you have your first test tomorrow. Which isn’t a lie.”
“Danika,” I started to say.
“I know, okay?” She sounded flustered and upset with herself as she turned toward the passenger window again. “I know.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” I asked, realizing that I had no idea what their relationship was like. I had always assumed she was happy. I’d refused to let myself think otherwise.
“Because he would have told me I couldn’t come. We would have gotten into a huge fight, and it seemed easier not to tell him,” she admitted before adding, “I know it’s wrong. I know I should have let him know, but I didn’t want to.”
Even though I had very little experience with relationships, I knew that this was a slippery slope of sorts. Part of me loved the fact that she hadn’t told him because if she had, he would have guilted her into not coming home with me, and I wanted her here. I was glad she had come. But the rest of me knew that this was dangerous ground we were on, and if we weren’t careful, it could all come crashing down around us.
We pulled up to the privacy gates in my neighborhood, and I rolled down my window to punch in the code. The gates swung open, and Danika’s eyes lit up.
“This is a beautiful neighborhood,” she said, her head swiveling to each side of the street to look around. “Oh, I love the style and the landscaping. It’s so green here.”
“Yeah, it’s really beautiful,” I agreed because it was.
Growing up on the Newport Coast had been a dream.
I turned right, then left, and made another right before pulling into our driveway