Bat Boy (Easton U Pirates 1)

He laughed but then quickly sobered because everything felt heavy. Even when I tried keeping it light, my stomach throbbed and my heart ached with longing.

“I’ll miss you,” he said plainly.

“We’ll still see each other all summer,” I countered. “And we’re still friends.”

“Friends who have to hide.” He sighed. “Kel, you know this wasn’t just me experimenting, right? You know that my time with you meant—”

“I know,” I rushed out because I didn’t want to hear anything that would make my heart ache worse. “Me too.”

And then we were silent a long minute, just listening to each other breathe.

“Hey, A League of Their Own is on,” I said, lifting the remote. “Want to watch it together?”

“Definitely.”

And that was what we did, with running commentary on a younger Tom Hanks, and anything else that came to mind about everything and nothing at all. It was perfect. The only thing missing was him being right beside me, feeling the press of his body and the whisper of his breath on my skin. I don’t remember at what point I fell asleep, but in the morning, I woke up with my phone still in my hand.

19

Brady

It was the night of the fundraiser, and everyone would be at the bowling alley owned by the Girards. It had been a hard week of final exams, and even though I’d aced my nutrition and kinesiology exams, I’d only squeaked by on my other courses. Kellan, no doubt, had aced all of his.

We also had practices, which involved watching game tapes and strategizing for regionals, so by Saturday night, everyone was ready to blow off some steam, this time in the form of rolling a heavy ball toward pins and hoping to knock some down.

As soon as my eyes landed on Kellan, my stomach dipped. He had a clipboard in his hand and was directing people to certain lanes to start bowling. We’d kept our distance since the final game, outside of text messages, but it was hard not to want to reach out and touch him. Drag him behind closed doors to kiss him as much as I wanted.

But therein lay the crux of the problem—I wanted to be able to kiss him whenever or wherever I wanted, even in public. And hold his hand too, tell him his hair looked amazing when he styled it that way…and that other thing niggling in the back of my brain. I want him to be my first.

Knowing Kellan, he’d totally freak if I put it in those terms. But deep down, I wondered if he felt the same way. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be completely sure, and even if I were certain of his true feelings for me, it wasn’t like anything could change.

And yet…those smaller moments between us solidified my impression that I wasn’t in this alone, making my heart beat wildly. Like when we’d purposefully brush by each other in the clubhouse, or that one afternoon when he’d brought in a box of snacks to share during a long planning meeting with Coach. Somehow, he’d found an entire bag of my favorite gummy flavor—blue raspberry—and nonchalantly handed them to me without making it obvious. Thankfully nobody else noticed either, but my pulse was erratic the rest of the session—it felt so good to know he’d gone out of his way to please me.

How did you know those were my favorite? I’d texted him later.

Duh. The blue ones are always missing from the bag first.

It was hard to wipe the smile off my face that whole night.

As I looked around the bowling alley, I noticed the food-and-refreshments table, where Hollister and Dawn were standing alongside Maclain and Jasmine, so at least that asshat would have somebody in his corner tonight since so many families and kids were in attendance. I’d given him the cold shoulder all week after his stupid blunder in front of Coach, and he must’ve known not to mess with me because he didn’t even comment on me being so quiet.

I approached Kellan, and as he directed me to my lane, his shoulder pressed against mine. I made sure to ask an additional question just so I could stand close for another minute. As soon as I noted Coach glancing in our direction, I broke away and walked over to greet him and Kellan’s mom, as well as some other teammates, before my own family showed up to bowl with us.

Kellan had set us up in the lane next to him and Jasmine, which I didn’t think was a coincidence, and then Girard and Hollister joined them as well with their girlfriends, and Maclain followed suit a bit later. It was a fun couple of hours where we bowled, ate, and socialized with teammates and their families. I quickly realized that Ricky and I bowled better than Kellan and Maclain combined, and I could’ve poked fun, but Girard was already doing it enough for the both of us.