“You call it beginner’s luck; I call it having a good eye,” he said, grabbing for the chips. “You’re up.”
On his next turn, Ned managed to hit another foul ball that shot straight up in the air above them. He had to scramble out of the way when it came back down. “I knew you had it in you, Nedzo. Next Coke’s on me.”
They went back and forth like that for a while, getting into a comfortable rhythm with the machine-thrown pitches and the weight of the bat in their hands. When he made contact, the wooden crack of the bat was the sweetest sound there was; it cut through the all the noise going on in his brain. The questions, the anxiety—they softened, faded somewhere into the background until he was ready to handle them again.
JD started to feel a little better. A little back-to-normal. He allowed himself to revel in the simplicity of it. The tiny routines he developed every time he approached the plate—brushing the bat against the floor before hoisting it over his shoulder, squinching his face, and adjusting his glasses.
“We should have gone out for baseball,” Ned said after his first decent hit of the day.
“Yeah, we would have fit right in with that crowd,” JD answered, rolling his eyes. But it got him thinking again. “Hey, dude, you ever hear anything about Chase Singer?”
“What do you mean? That he’s dead?” Ned took a swig from his soda bottle.
JD winced. Ned didn’t mean to be a dick, he just had all the subtlety of a Mack truck. “Obviously,” JD said, tapping the bat mindlessly against the metal cage. “I meant about his death. About when they found him.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ned said. “Impossible to ignore that stuff. Like how people thought he was gay because he had that flower in his mouth or whatever? Come on. People in this town are so freaking homophobic. They see a dude and a red flower and all they think is . . . ”
But JD didn’t hear the rest. Red flower. His pulse quickened. All the mystery-girl stuff, and Ty’s red flower, and the detail about Chase’s body, and everything. His suspicion that Ty was somehow connected to Chase’s death was getting stronger by the minute.
Beep-beep-beep. His text alert sounded, and JD went to grab his phone from the pocket of his blazer. As he did, something fell to the Astroturf with a thud. He looked down to see a silver Zippo, engraved with pine trees on one side and To WF, with love on the other. It belonged to Drea’s dad, and it looked nice, expensive. He must have accidentally pocketed it after lighting Mr. Feiffer’s cigarette at Drea’s funeral.
What are you up to today?
Ty. Of course.
He should have been psyched that she was into him—she was definitely the hottest girl who’d ever even looked at him—but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something about her was off.
She wasn’t Em. How similar they looked only made it more obvious how different they really were.
JD pocketed his phone without responding, then turned the lighter over in his hand, flicking it open and lighting the flame once, twice. He recalled Mr. Feiffer and how distraught he’d been at the memorial service. How alone he must feel. He shoved it back into his pocket.
To return the lighter would mean going to Drea’s house—potentially walking into an emotional minefield. Not to mention standing face-to-face with an unhinged, grieving man. But it would also mean doing something kind for the father of his dead friend.
He decided he’d pay a visit to Walt Feiffer after Ned dropped him off.
“You giving up?” Ned jabbed JD with the bat, looking at him expectantly.
“Sorry, got distracted for a sec,” JD said, grabbing the bat and moving toward the fake home plate.
“Does your distraction have a name?” Ned asked.
JD raised his eyebrows. “I, ah, I . . . yeah,” he said, lifting the bat into the air.
“You and Em talking again?”
“Ha, not quite,” JD said. “It’s a different distraction.”
“Oh, yeah?” Ned said, perking up. “Do I know her?”
“Nothing to get all worked up about,” JD laughed. “I barely know her myself. In fact, I’m not sure I want to be distracted by her anymore.” Did he like Ty? Part of him knew he only liked her because in certain lights, when she tilted her head a certain way, he could pretend she was Em.
But another part of him suspected he was just trying to find excuses to keep hanging on to hope: that someday Em, the real Em, would realize they belonged together.
“Well, then cut her loose, Fount,” Ned said with mock-seriousness. “You’re the one who’s always talking about honesty being the best policy.”