Out of My League - Sarah Sutton Page 0,32

trouble articulating my thoughts?

Ridiculous.

My cell phone started to ring, effectively cutting off my thought process. I almost ignored it, knowing that I needed to force my mind to focus, but found myself grabbing it up. “Hello?”

“What’s the score? Are we close?” Edith greeted from the other line, words coming quick, barely giving me any time to catch them. “Gosh, we’d better be kicking their butts or else I owe Zach five bucks.”

I massaged the spot between my eyebrows as if that would help me process her words better. “The score? What are you talking about?”

“It’s Friday. Hello. Baseball-game-Friday?”

‘Cause that’s a popular term, I thought to myself. Besides, don’t they have games other than on Fridays? “I wasn’t invited.”

“Sophia, you’re dating the team captain. If you don’t want people to suspect anything, you should probably go to his games, personal invite or not.” She let out a harsh breath that morphed into a groan. “I can’t be there because I’m stuck babysitting my dweeb of a brother—who, by the way, has done nothing but play his stupid video games for the last two hours. Why he needs a babysitter is beyond me.”

“Uh, because he’s nine?”

“He’s boring. And zombie-killing obsessed. Anyway—baseball. Whatever you’re doing, it can wait until you get back from the game.”

Combing my fingers through my ponytail, I really, really tried to take her words seriously. I even tried to envision myself getting up from my chair, pushing away my papers, and going out to watch a baseball game. Sitting amongst other people, cheering on the players as they swung their bats and ran around. It was a horrible image. “Edith, you know this is fake. Whatever Walsh and I have, I mean. I’m not obligated to go to his games.”

She adopted a sing-song-like voice. “Zach said you were cuddled up real close at Ryan’s party the other night. And don’t worry, I didn’t blab. He just said you two were super adorable.”

I blocked out almost everything in that sentence but one thing. Zach. Zach, allowing Celia to lean up against him. Zach, who looked at me guiltily.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said slowly, debating my words. “Has Zach ever mentioned…cheating?”

“Cheating? What do you mean?”

I traced my pen along my page. “The team, I mean. Whether or not the baseball team cheats. At the party, Ryan asked another player for cash so he could give it to Hampton.”

“Hampton,” Edith repeated, voice sounding strange. I strained to listen closer. “You’re sure that’s what he said?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“That’s the team they’re playing today.”

My grip on the phone loosened a little as I stared at my sheet of paper. They were playing Hampton High today, and Ryan asked for money to pay them. And that wasn’t all of it, either. Ryan said they were missing Taylor’s chunk, meaning other people—other players—had pitched in.

“They are paying them off,” I murmured, more to myself than to her.

Quickly, I started drawing arrows onto the sheet of paper, reorganizing the bullet points in their new order.

I found myself standing from my desk chair before I even realized it, reaching for my purse. “I think I might go catch the end of that game after all,” I told Edith, snatching up the notebook from my desk and shoving it into my bag. “I’ll let you know the score.”

* * *

For the second time in my life, I pedaled my bike to the baseball diamond, but this time I did it like my life depended on it. I needed to catch the tail end of the baseball game. I had to at least see how people were playing. Batting. Running. See if any of the players sucked more than normal.

But then again, what was normal, anyway? I had no idea how Hampton played, or even Bayview for that matter. So maybe my thinking was flawed. Come on, though. It’s going to be obvious if someone was trying to throw the game, right? Maybe?

My bike barely stopped rolling forward before I hopped off it, shoving it into a bike rack. I quickly looped my lock through the spokes and clicked it into place. A bead of sweat slipped between my shoulder blades, the sun not being kind to me as it glared down.

I was so late to the game that there wasn’t anyone selling tickets anymore—I walked right through the entrance without having to fish a five out of my pocket. Which was super helpful because the idea of contributing to the madness that was Bayview High Baseball made