his getting drafted wasn’t a guarantee the way I was acting like it was.
“I know. I’m sorry.” I shot him a look. “I’m just freaking out and feeling bad for myself.”
“I get it. Trust me, I do.” He looked around the room like he was seeing it for the first time. “But you’re a good player, Mac. And you keep getting better every season.”
I perked up a little, gripping his words and holding on to them like a life preserver. “You really think so?”
“Yes! Every year, you get stronger, faster, and more confident on the field, and it shows.”
He hadn’t mentioned my batting. And if we were being honest, the plate was where I tended to struggle the most—and not because I wasn’t a great hitter. I just wasn’t the guy who was going to slap out ten home runs a season. Or any home runs, honestly. I got on base a lot, rarely struck out, walked often, but if you needed me to hit for power, it wasn’t going to happen. And that wasn’t necessarily a good thing even though my stats looked great on paper.
Swallowing hard, I gave him a smile. “Thanks, Dayton. I needed that.”
Waving his fingers toward himself, he closed his eyes and grinned. “Now, give me some.”
“You’re going to be our Friday night starter this year. You don’t need shit. You’re gonna kill it,” I said, and I meant it.
Dayton had been working with Coach Carter to hit his spots and be as accurate as possible with his pitches. He was hard as hell to hit when he was on, and I knew that once he got drafted, he would just keep getting better.
“Thanks. Now, get out here and eat dinner with your boys. Matt made some mac-and-cheese thing that’s actually pretty good.” He gave his stomach a pat. “Kinda nice that he can cook.”
My stomach growled in response. “No shit? I’ll be right out.” Dayton turned to leave but not before I stopped him. “Thanks for coming in and checking on me.”
“You’d do the same for me,” he said.
And I knew that; of course I would. Always. We were teammates, brothers, two seniors fighting for our last chance to get it right, knowing that all we could continue doing was give baseball our hearts and hope like hell she didn’t break them.
*
I woke up the next morning, feeling a hundred times better. Sometimes, a good sleep was all I needed to get out of a shit mood. As I stretched, I reached for my phone, realizing that Sunny had never texted or called me last night and I’d completely forgotten to call her, like I’d promised. I’d been too busy wallowing in my own self-induced misery to think about anything other than myself. She was probably pissed. I planned on finding her today, hearing exactly what had happened between her and Hayley, and then apologizing to her … again. I had a feeling that I was going to find myself fluent in groveling whenever it came to this girl.
After a hearty breakfast, the guys and I all piled into one car and drove toward campus. I hustled toward my building up in the distance. I still had ten minutes before class started, but I knew that wasn’t always enough time when you were a baseball player at Fullton. We got pulled in all different directions, and what should be a quick walk across campus never was. It could turn into a fifteen-minute flirting and picture-taking session without warning.
With my head down, I yanked open the door to the four-story building and walked inside. Taking the stairs two at a time, I ignored the girls grabbing my arms and calling my name as I walked toward the right classroom number on the third floor. Spotting it up ahead, I slowed my pace and waltzed through the open double doors. Fullton didn’t have a lot of theater-type lecture classes, but this was one of them. There were about two hundred seats that framed a small curved stage up front. An actual real-life stage. I’d never been in a classroom like this in all my years here.
As I looked around, I noticed a few girls staring in my direction, smiling and smacking their lips together; some were even pointing their phones at me. Not wanting to give anyone the wrong idea by sitting next to them, listening to them flirt the entire time, I’d been changing my seat each time I came to class. I breathed out