Game On (26 page)

I take it gratefully. With raised eyebrows. But gratefully. “What about your fog?”

She holds up her own cup. “Normal chocolate. I told you: that boy can play me all night long, if he wants.” She takes a sip, smiling around the straw as she skips—literally skips—down the sidewalk.

She's nuts. And I love her.

The cool evening air hits my legs as our cleats click against the pavement on our way to the waterfront. Mariner's Wharf is one of my favorite places in Lewis Creek, a huge open field right beside the river. Lights line the railing that stretches alongside the walkway, twinkling against the darkness. They do all sorts of things here, from Friday night movie nights to the
farmers'
market during spring and summer. It's also lined with boat docks, which is where we head.

The other girls scatter across the field, plopping into the grass in their own groups while Becca and I settle at the edge of one of the docks. I yank off my cleats and socks and dangle my legs over the ledge, my feet skimming the top of water still chilled by early spring. If the entire town had the feeling of feet in the water with cool night air brushing my skin, maybe it wouldn't be so bad here.

Maybe.

“So,” Becca says, shifting beside me. “Where do you think that boat came from?” She nods to the only boat docked out here, a couple spaces down. It's a game we used to play when we first started coming out here last year: guess where the boat's been, and where it's going to go. There are only so many options. Which is kind of fitting for Lewis Creek, in general.

“I'm gonna say North Carolina,” I tell her.

Pursing her lips, she nods. “So why the hell would it come down here?”

I shrug and sip my milkshake. My eyes widen. Sweet heavenly molasses, she was not joking about the sugar shock. “We're probably just a stop on its way to wherever.”

“Isn't that so weird?” she says. “Like, it could be on its way to somewhere phenomenal, but to get there, it has to pass through a podunk place like this.”

It is weird. And true. “Maybe sometimes we have to go through the crappy places to get to the good ones.”

She nudges me with her elbow, and I glance over. She smiles. Holds out her cup. “Here's to surviving the crappy places.”

I tap her cup with mine. “And here's to the phenomenal ones.”

Even
if these past few months have gone completely and totally against every plan I could've made for myself, maybe it's all been for a reason. Maybe it's like, some kind of stepping stone on the way to my next stop. Despite all the crap that's happened, none of it can take away from what's coming. It can't take away the fact that I'm getting out of this place, and that
I
made that happen. I worked hard as hell for it.

“What do you think Florida's gonna be like?” Becca says, looking back to the water. “Tanning, swimming, partying, beaching? All of the above?”

I smile. “Something like that.” As excited as I am about USC, I'm going to miss her like crazy when she goes to Florida State. Our friend Hannah went there after graduating last year and we've barely heard from her since. She hasn't stepped foot back in Lewis Creek since leaving. It sucks. But I can't say that I blame her.

Eric's words from a while back creep into my head, about how his brother said this is a tough place to shake. I believe every word.

Trucks roar past the waterfront. Becca and I turn, catching the tail end of a line of pickups tearing down the road. She shakes her head, laughing. “The sounds of Lewis Creek. You've got to admit you'll miss that.”

Maybe a little.

“Those guys run this town,” I say. “Always have, always will. Blows their heads up even more than normal.”

“Some of them take it better than others.” She leans over, knocking me with her shoulder. “So, what're you gonna do with baseball boy? Anything? Or just keep up the whole will-they, won't-they game until both of y'all are out of here?”

It'd
be stupid to try to say that I don't like Eric—that's pretty obvious by now. But what comes after that, after actually taking that step and opening yourself up to what could be a world of hurt, is what's scary.

Unknowns are terrifying.

“I don't want to get hurt,” is all I say.

She snorts. I snap my head to the side as she laughs loudly, the sound carrying with the wind. “You really think that guy would hurt you? Dude, I saw the way he looked at you. He'd fight a freaking grizzly for you and consider it a privilege.” She tilts her head toward the road. “You're right: tons of guys here have egos the size of the
Titanic
. But there are some good ones. He's one of them.”

I look back to the river, to the water that stretches on for miles and miles. It really is weird, how a place like this can be a stop on the journey to something bigger. Better.

If these last few months were my stop, maybe it's time to start moving again.

~

It's nearly midnight when I pull into my driveway, parking behind Dad's truck cab. All the lights are off, so he's definitely asleep, but the fact that he showed up to tonight's game means more than the world. However, considering I still have an extra-large double-decker chocolate milkshake running through my veins, sleep isn't coming for me anytime soon.

After closing my car door as quietly as possible, I head to the shed in my backyard. Place the ladder against the side. Climb the rusted steps until I reach the roof and make myself comfortable.

And I breathe.

A
chicken squawks next door. I lurch. Thank goodness the roof isn't steep, or I'd be a goner. A voice carries across the yard and I tilt my head, trying to tune in. A guy's voice—definitely Eric's. I stare at his yard, allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness, until I make out his figure on the ground, beside the chicken run.

My eyebrows scrunch. Is—is he talking to his chicken?

“I don't know, Oscar.”

He is definitely talking to his chicken.

He keeps on, quieter this time, and no matter how hard I try, I can't make out what he's saying. Finally, I call out, “You do know he can't talk back, right?”

He jumps up. “Christ. How long have you been up there?”

“Long enough to hear you talking to a chicken.”

He crosses the yard until he reaches mine, stopping at the base of the ladder. “Can I come up?”

Now it's my heart's turn to lurch. If I'm trying to stay away, then no, he shouldn't. If I'm allowing myself to move, if I'm giving myself permission to leave this pit stop I've hit, then yes, he can.

“Sure,” I catch myself saying.

He climbs the ladder, the steps creaking beneath his weight. He hoists himself onto the roof and sits at my side, resting his elbows on his knees. He's wearing gym shorts and a Bulldogs hoodie, with that ratty old cap shielding his eyes. Maybe he can't sleep tonight, either.

“What do you do up here?” he asks, looking at the sky. The moon hangs in front of us, full and bright. “I see you up here all the time.”

“So why haven't you asked before now?”

He
smiles sheepishly. “I didn't want you to think I was creeping on you. It's your space, you know? But it's hard not to notice some things when you're literally right
here
.”

I nod toward the moon. “I come up here because it's quiet. It clears my head. And I'm closer to the stars.”

His smile grows. “You've always loved stars. Remember my dad's deer stand?”

With the way my cheeks flush, I'm incredibly thankful for the darkness. I remember that stand very, very well. We were just kids back then, kids who kissed each other and burst out laughing after. But even kids know when something shifts. When you can't go back to the way things were before.

You never forget the night that you fell head over feet for your neighbor. I'm not sure you ever really recover from that fall.

He nudges my knee with his. Points to the sky. “Big Dipper.”

My lips curve into a slow smile of my own. My turn to point. “Which makes that the Little Dipper.”

“Cheater.”

I laugh right along with him. “I totally would've found it without your help.”

“I know. You're the smart one.” I glance over. His smile's firmly in place, his eyes trained on me, and me alone. “Always have been. That, and more.”

My breath catches, and I hope to all that's holy that he doesn't notice he didn't just take my breath away—he's completely stolen it.

Without breaking his gaze, not that I'm sure I'd be able to, I ask, “What were you and Oscar talking about tonight?”

He
blows out a breath, looking back to the sky. “Beaufort game tomorrow. And how I'll be Public Enemy Number One after it.”

Beaufort is a touchy subject around here. Our baseball team hasn't beaten theirs in at least ten years, if not more. “Don't freak out about it. Just play.”

He raises an eyebrow. “‘Just play'? I'll have a bounty out for me if I lose.”

He's not entirely wrong. “You can hide out in our house.”

He gives me an
oh please
look. “Your dad would turn me in.”

I grin. “I could shove you in my closet, like I did when you put the rubber snake on my pillow. No one would ever find you.”

He bursts out laughing, loud and genuine and it's so
Eric
that my grin stretches so far, it hurts. And it feels amazing.

“Dude,” he says through his laughter, “you locked me in there for, like, an hour. That freakin' traumatized me.”

I roll my eyes, but I'm pretty sure the grin is glued to my face. “Please. It was, like, five minutes.”

His laughter dies slowly, his eyes meeting mine again. “What happened to us?” he asks.

I'm not sure if the question was meant to make my heart drop, but it does. Either way, my answer is immediate: “Life.”

He holds my gaze, his own unwavering. “What's happening to us now?” he asks, more quietly.

Chills scatter across my skin, but it has nothing to do with the breeze blowing around us. It has everything to do with this guy, this person who's sat beside me over the past few weeks while I've been piecing my poor heart back together. And the pieces are ragged, and the
glue
is messy, but it must work again, because right now? It won't stop pounding. Not for a second.

“Life,” I finally answer.

He lets out a tiny, breathless laugh. “Life is really freakin' weird.”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “You're tellin' me.”

The urge to kiss him hits so badly that it hurts. But God, now that we've gotten back to this friends thing, the thought of screwing it all up is paralyzing. Plus, we had an agreement: Safe hearts. No falling.

That'd be a lot easier to accept if I hadn't already fallen.

In all the stories I've read, people say that falling for someone is like fireworks. That's how it was with Matt: the fall was hard and fast, and we crashed and burned. But maybe it's not always that. Maybe it comes slowly sometimes. Maybe it's more like a constellation: One star connects to another, and then another, and then another. And then suddenly, hundreds of little things have connected to form a really big thing. And those big things?

They become everything.

You never forget the night that you fell head over feet for your neighbor. And you definitely don't forget the night that it happens all over again.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

Eric

Road trips to Beaufort are bullshit.

Okay, maybe that's a little far. But seriously, every year, we take a two-hour bus trip to play on their turf. And every year, we lose and have to ride back to Lewis Creek with our tails between our legs. It's humiliating. Not to mention that the ride is bumpy as hell on the backroads we hit after exiting the highway.

AWOLNATION blares through my earbuds as my eyes focus on my phone. If I'm going to be stuck on a bus for two hours, I might as well do something with it. And with my college acceptance deadlines coming up in less than a month, it's probably a good idea to actually make a decision that I should've made a long time ago.

Bri's words from our first night at the church repeat in my head, about finding what I'm passionate about and going from there. I figure that if I can get an idea about that, then maybe it can lead to wherever I end up going to school in the first place. But as I scroll through the list of majors on Clemson's website, there's nothing that sounds remotely “heart explosion”-worthy.

On to Winthrop's site.

While the next page loads, a text from Brett flashes across the top of the screen:
Kick some ass today.

Oh, I intend to.

Kellen,
who's sitting beside me, nudges me. I yank out one of my earbuds, the bus's low murmur of voices and music slicing through my bubble. He nods toward the window, where Beaufort High's coming into view. “What've you been staring at?” he asks.

I shrug a shoulder, looking back to the screen. “School crap. Trying to figure out where I'm goin' next year.”

He looks at the screen. “Winthrop? Go with that one.”

“Pretty sure it's not named after you.”

“There's no proof of that whatsoever.” He scrolls down the screen, and I read along with him.

Music Performance? No.

Philosophy and Religious Studies? Hell no.

Physical Education.

Hold up.

Kellen must see it at the same time I do because he slaps my arm. “They've got PE as a major. What's that mean? You get to hang out in gym class all day?”

“I'm trying to figure out what the hell it means.” I click on it, waiting freakin' forever for the page to load thanks to the non-existent connection out here. Finally, the words “children” and “coaching” jump off the screen, practically smacking me in the face. And there's a coaching minor that can go along with it.