The Ninth Inning (The Boys of Baseball #1) - J. Sterling Page 0,7
to do was follow her inside the house and make up for the last seven months, but I stopped myself. I had to.
“Why haven’t you guys ever gotten together?” he asked.
“We have,” I argued, sounding like an angry lunatic.
Seven months without seeing her face had been seven months too long. I’d always known that I missed her, but I never realized just how much until I saw her. It was like a damn sledgehammer to the chest. Seeing her had knocked the wind out of me.
“I just meant”—Chance shook his head before laughing—“why isn’t she your girlfriend? It’s obvious you like her. She clearly likes you. What’s the deal there?”
Is it really obvious that I like her? And vice versa, I wondered but didn’t dare ask out loud.
I glanced up at the mini white lights in the yard before shaking my head. “It’s not that simple.”
“Look, man, I get it. When it comes to baseball and girls, it’s hard to maintain balance and focus. They both require a lot of attention, but only one of them talks back and gives us shit over it.”
Nodding my head, I looked directly at Chance. “I won’t do girlfriends until I’m drafted. And I’ve always tried to keep her at arm’s length, but we keep sharing these moments,” I admitted, knowing that I sounded like a total pussy, but I wasn’t sure how else to word it.
“Sharing moments? What kind of moments?” Chance questioned, knowing better than to make fun of me, as he kept his tone serious and inquisitive.
“You know, the kind of moments where you stay up, talking, and before you know it, it’s six o’clock in the morning and you’re watching the sun rise together and you don’t realize how tired you are because talking to this girl is way better than sleeping could ever be.”
I hadn’t meant to say all that, but it’d spilled out.
Christina had gotten to me like no other girl ever had. She’d been doing it since freshman year. We circled around each other, always gravitating back, and I never understood why. Or more honestly, I never tried to figure out why. It was a puzzle I had carefully avoided putting together, hoping some of the pieces would simply get lost along the way so I’d never have to. I drowned myself in other girls, in baseball, working out, and anything else to convince myself that I didn’t need her.
“Can’t relate,” Chance offered with a shrug. “But it sounds nice.”
I laughed. “Yeah, in theory, it does sound nice. But it’s my last chance at the draft. Who knows if I’ll get signed or not? If I don’t and she’s my girlfriend, I’ll blame her for it, you know? Make her the reason why it didn’t work out for me. Maybe we’d fought too much. Or spent too much time together. Or maybe she’d wanted to spend time with me when I should have been working on my hitting. That kind of shit.”
He stared at me for a beat before nodding. “You know, I get it. Of all people, I get it. But what if she’s the right girl and you let her go? You know how hard it is to find a chick who understands this lifestyle?”
It wasn’t like I hadn’t considered it before. The thought had entered my head on more than one occasion, but I usually filed it away for later. Much later. Baseball and the draft now. Christina and relationships later.
“I can’t think about that right now. I have to focus one hundred percent on the game. If she’s the one girl in the world I’m supposed to be with, then we’ll end up together, right?” It was some hokey, fate-like bullshit, but it was what I had to tell myself to move on and let go.
You always thought you had more chances with the sport you loved, more time to get better or to have a great season to prove them all wrong, but you didn’t. Time ran out for each one of us, and my time was currently sprinting toward the finish line.
“I want to argue with you, but look at me”—he waved an arm around us in a circle—“no girls in sight.”
That was why I had chosen to talk to Chance about this topic—because he not only understood it, but he also lived it. By choice.
“You plan on avoiding girls your whole life?”
He gave me a one-armed shrug. “You try growing up with Jack and Cassie Carter and tell me how