The Ninth Inning (The Boys of Baseball #1) - J. Sterling Page 0,12
the main door to unlatch. Once you stepped inside, our apartment complex looked very much like a hotel with long hallways and multiple doors with faux porch lights attached. It always reminded me of an Embassy Suites of sorts, but at least it was safe. And when Lauren and I had moved out of the dorms and into a place of our own, safety was her top concern. Obviously.
Like I’d said, kidnapping and disappearing without a trace. The girl was obsessed.
Once she unlocked our front door and we stepped inside, she locked the door again and made her way into the kitchen. “I didn’t even drink anything tonight,” she said, pulling out two cold beers from the fridge, and I remembered that I hadn’t even come close to finishing off the one beer I had gotten. It wasn’t like we had been at the party for very long.
Taking one of the cold cans from her hand, I hopped up onto the counter and opened it with a loud fizz and pop before taking a gulp. She hopped up on the adjacent counter, opening her own and taking a long drink. It seemed funny, two girls drinking beer when all the other girls seemed to drink straight alcohol or mixed drinks.
Cole had always said he liked that I drank beer. It made me different, not typical or basic. I’d considered it a compliment at the time. Now, I didn’t give a shit what he’d meant by it.
“So,” Lauren started as she wrapped her blonde hair up in a twisted knot on top of her head. It stayed there, nothing holding it, except other hair, and it had always fascinated me that she could pull that off.
Whenever I tried to tie my long hair in a knot, it would undo itself right away, the dark pieces unraveling and falling slowly until it hung straight across my back once more.
Stupid hair.
“Stop cursing my hair.” She shot me a look, and I laughed, hating the fact that she could read my mind so well sometimes.
I’d told her on more than one occasion how unfair it was that her hair followed directions when mine always laughed in my face. It was so fine, the strands so ridiculously soft, that I found myself filling it with dry shampoo daily just to give it some volume and texture.
“I wasn’t,” I lied with a smirk, and she shook her head, waving me off.
“Whatever. How are you feeling? What are you thinking?”
I offered a one-shouldered shrug because, really, what more could be said at this point? Hadn’t I talked myself to death over the topic that was Cole Anders for the past three years? What could I possibly say that I hadn’t already said a hundred times before?
“I don’t know what to say. I’m pissed. I’m hurt. But mostly, I’m just sick of it. I promised myself I’d never give him the time of day after what happened in August. I shouldn’t have gone tonight. I knew it was a mistake.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed you.” She sounded truly apologetic. “I really did think that you’d see him and not feel anything. Or at least, I hoped. But honestly, I should have known better. You two are …” She stopped, clearly searching for a word before not finding it and giving up. “Anyway, it wasn’t my place or my call to make you do that.”
I had been pissed at Lauren for all of two seconds before placing blame where it was due.
“You don’t control me. I have free will. I could have said no. You suggested it, and obviously, a part of me wanted to go. And I know it’s because I wanted you to be right. I wanted to feel nothing when I looked at him,” I admitted before taking another sip. “But mostly, I wanted him to feel something when he looked at me.”
“He did,” she said with determination as her eyes locked on to mine. “I saw the way he was looking at you tonight. He wants you.”
“He’s wanted me since freshman year,” I said.
Cole physically wanting me wasn’t the issue. The issue was all the rest of it—the relationship parts he refused to give, all the things I wanted beyond us constantly making out and sometimes having sex. I needed to stop giving my body to a guy who refused to give me anything more than his. And I definitely needed to stop giving my heart to a guy who didn’t deserve it.