“Kellan will be there, right?” Ricky asked. Kellan always sought Ricky out and talked to him for way longer than he had to, and I’d be eternally grateful for that.
“As far as I know.” He was present at every home game and a lot of away games too, even though he wasn’t required to be. But it was obvious Coach depended on him a lot, for stuff that went above and beyond organizing the equipment. “I’m sure he’ll say hello if he sees you in the stands.”
Ricky fist-bumped the air. “Awesome.”
“Somebody has a crush on the coach’s son,” Mom said, and my head whipped up, my cheeks instantly heating like I’d stepped inside a sauna. Had I said my thoughts aloud?
“I don’t have crushes on boys, Ma. Only girls,” Ricky said in his matter-of-fact tone, and I breathed out because who knew how close to my truth they would get? I’d always wondered what my parents would think about my crush on Kellan Crawford.
“I only meant that you like Kellan’s personality—and who wouldn’t?” Mom playfully rolled her eyes. “Or maybe his brain. Speaking of brains…” Mom zeroed in on me. “How are your grades?”
She worried I’d fall behind as baseball season ramped up, but I was finally getting into my core classes in Exercise Physiology and enjoying them way more. The schedule afforded players time to keep up with the course load during the week, and most guys studied on the bus if they had any pressing tests or assignments.
Not that my dream didn’t include tryouts for a minor-league team, and then shooting for the big time under the lights. But I had to be smart and get a degree in something that interested me, in case that idea fell through. I wasn’t the only player with stars in his eyes, and there were only so many slots.
“My grades are fine, Mom.” It was true I’d struggled sophomore year with calculus and nearly failed the class. If I’d known a certain someone a bit better back then, I might’ve asked him to tutor me.
Stop thinking about Kellan Crawford. That would surely not go over well with Coach… But the truth was, it was Kellan who’d made me realize that I was very much into guys. I’d dated a handful of girls over the years, and never understood why I wasn’t as excited about sex as my friends were. Not that I was never turned on, just never felt that intense need—or whatever it was—to be around someone all the time.
Until Kellan Crawford walked onto the field as Coach’s new bat boy. The last guy in that position had gone off to college after assisting the team through his senior year of high school. Coach likely thought his son was the perfect choice since he lived near campus, knew all his dad’s habits, and was amazing with sports stats—was even going for a Statistics degree. He helped his dad with a little of everything, including unofficially analyzing the numbers from our data recorders and giving his opinion on the roster.
God, Kellan hated the bat-boy label. I could tell by how he ground his teeth every time our pitcher, Maclain, snapped his fingers at him like some jackass. And maybe also because most bat boys were younger, though there were some semi-famous older ones on major-league teams. Besides, what sports fanatic would turn down that job? Kellan was definitely much more than what some of the guys reduced him to—in fact, he was more like a clubhouse manager—but their attitude was one of the reasons I sometimes felt protective of him.
First time I saw him up close was during a fall practice, and it felt like I’d been struck by lightning—okay, cheesy, I know.
He kept adjusting his baseball cap as his chocolate-brown hair fell messily into his eyes, and when he’d bend over to retrieve a foul ball near the first base line, my eyes sometimes got stuck on his lean body and tight ass—and holy hell, that had never happened before. Never in the context of a guy. At least, I didn’t think it had.
“Brady?” Dad said, and I could tell it wasn’t the first time.
I shook my head to snap out of it. Jesus.
“Sorry, what’d you say?”
Mom stared at me, her brows furrowed. “I asked if you wanted to bring leftovers home to your roommates.”
“Is that even a real question?” I said with a laugh. We lived off takeout and leftovers.
After helping Mom clear the table, I went outside to play catch with Ricky, and he gushed about the grand slam he and Dad watched on TV last night.
By the time I drove back to my apartment, it was early evening. Hollister and I had decided to rent a place close to the university. At first it was just the two of us, and then he’d suggested Maclain could live there too, even if he were a pain in the ass some of the time. Okay, most of the time. But having him occupy the third bedroom helped pay the rent and groceries.