“I’m sorry.”
Ryan sticks the key into the ignition and starts the engine. “You owe me. I’ll pick you up at seven on Friday. No games this time. A simple night. We go to the party. We hang for an hour. I win my dare, then I take you home.
You go back to ignoring me. I’ll ignore you.”
“Fine.” I should be happy, but I’m not. This is what I thought I wanted. Behind the numbness is an ache waiting to torture me. I open the door to the Jeep and close it without looking back.
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Ryan
STATE LAW KEEPS ME from pitching more than fifteen innings a week. I’m only brought in on Thursday games if our other two pitchers dig us a hole. Three innings ago, when Coach put me in, we were so far deep we couldn’t see daylight. Not that the rain helps.
It’s rained for two weeks. Two weeks’ worth of games have been called. Two weeks’ worth of parties have been canceled. Two weeks of me and Beth ignoring each other.
Everyone is anticipating that the rain will end tonight and the field party will finally take place tomorrow. I’m ready too—eager to win the dare and have Beth officially out of my life.
Bottom of the seventh with the score tied, I need to hold this last batter to send the game into extra innings. Light rain cools the heat on HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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the back of my neck. Pooled droplets drip from the brim of my hat. The ball’s slick. So is my hand. I hate playing in the rain, but guys in the majors do it all the time.
The intensity of the rain increases. I can barely read Logan’s signal. Out of habit, I peek at the runner on first, but I can’t see a damn thing. I wind back and the game-changing sound of nature intervenes: thunder and
lightning.
“Off the field!” the umpire shouts.
My cleats sink in the mud as I walk to the dugout. This is the third rain delay of the game.
There won’t be another. The game is done.
“Great job, guys.” Coach claps each one of us on our soggy backs as we enter. “Drive home safely. Severe weather is moving through.”
Rain beats against the roof. I don’t see the point of a roof if everything underneath it is wet. The seats. The equipment. Our bags. I quickly change shoes, tying my Nikes harder and faster than normal.
Knowing me better than anyone else, Chris wedges his large body onto the bench beside me. “We didn’t lose.”
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Rain cancellations don’t count. “We
didn’t win either.”
“You would have pulled us out.”
“Maybe.” I stand and sling my bag over my shoulder. “But I’ll never know.”
The rest of the team chatters, changes shoes, and waits in the dugout for the worst of the rain to end. I’m not in the mood for company and I’m already wet. The rain hammers my back as I head to the parking lot.
“Hey!” Chris runs to catch me. “What’s your deal, dawg?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that shit,” he yells over the rain. “You’ve been a walking mood for two weeks.”
I open the door to my Jeep and toss my bag into the back. Beth. That’s what happened, but I can’t tell Chris that. I’m ending my losing streak tomorrow when the rain moves out and Beth comes with me to the party.
“Maybe he’ll tell me.” Standing next to
Chris, Lacy looks like a drowned rat with her hair plastered to her face. When the rain began an hour ago, she sought shelter in Chris’s car.
“Take me home, Ryan.”
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The last thing I want is to be trapped in a car with her. “I’m not your boyfriend.”
“No,” she yells as another clap of thunder vibrates in the sky. “You’re my friend.”
Lacy kisses Chris’s cheek and runs to the passenger side. I glance at Chris and he nods.
“She doesn’t want to be mad at you anymore.”
I hop into the Jeep and start it up. In Lacy-like style, she goes to work turning on the heat and switching the radio to her favorite country station before lowering the sound. “Did you and Beth have a fight?”
The windshield wipers whine at a fast rate as I pull out of the parking lot. I wonder what Lacy knows. I didn’t tell anyone that Beth and I went into Louisville. “Is that what she said?”
“No. I finally scored her home number the other week and her uncle told me you guys were out.”
I calculate how this affects the dare. “Did you tell Chris?”
“It’s not my business to tell. Did you take her into Louisville because of the dare?”
“Yes.”
“So the dare’s done. That’s why you’ve been ignoring her?”
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Silence. Why is Lacy making me feel
like a dick? Beth’s the one that screwed me over. She owes me this. “She treats you like crap, Lace. Why do you care?”
Lacy doesn’t live far from the community
ballpark. I ease into her drive and watch the hanging ferns on the front porch blowing in the wind.
“She was my friend.”