Home Plate (Easton U Pirates 2)

“Thank God,” Coach said. “You’re a good friend.”

“Is this where I say I told you so?” Kellan interjected in a playful, relieved tone.

“Don’t you dare,” Maclain replied in a groggy voice, which meant he was almost himself again. Suddenly he looked onto the field, his eyes wide and searching, and you’d have to be clueless not to figure out who he was searching for.

“I, um…tried to look for your dad when I was calling 911,” Kellan said close to his ear. “But they’d already left.”

“Story of my life,” he said with a sigh, and I patted his knee in sympathy. What a jackass his dad was.

I tried to keep my expression neutral as I walked with him and the paramedics to their truck in the parking lot while the last inning was played. Coach somehow knew I needed to be there for him, so he’d put someone else behind the plate. Maclain declined going to the hospital, so I loaded him in my car and drove him home.

Of course, he objected the whole way there, as well as when I opened his passenger door to walk him inside his apartment.

“You know I’m gonna survive, right?” he teased as he stepped gingerly onto the sidewalk. He was still a little woozy but wasn’t about to admit it.

“I wasn’t so sure about that an hour ago,” I confessed.

“Dominic.” When our eyes met, his softened, and I knew it was his version of a thank-you. “I also have roommates who can watch over me,” he added, but there was no bite in the statement.

“Don’t care, let’s go.” I got him through the door and up to his room, then got him some water, which he drank gratefully.

I nudged him on the mattress. “Now move over.”

“You can go, Dom. You don’t have to baby me.”

“Or I can stay and keep you company,” I countered. “Besides, it’s fun to be babied sometimes.”

He sighed dramatically, but I saw the trace of a small smile.

“Ooh, one more thing,” I said, glancing at his dresser.

“What are you doing?” he asked as I rolled off the bed.

“Duh, getting the bee.”

“Are you insane?”

I slid back onto the bed and placed the bee between us on the comforter. “Nope, Ms. Bee helped me save you.”

“Oh, so you’re my savior now?”

“It does have a nice ring to it.”

“Oh boy, we may have created a monster.”

When he leaned his head against my shoulder, I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest.

“So what’s the bee’s name anyway?” I asked, stroking his arm.

He cringed.

“What?”

“You’re gonna make fun.”

“I told you, not about stuff like this.”

“Okay, it’s…” He looked away, his cheeks darkening.

“Holy shit, it’s Honey, isn’t it?”

“I hate you,” he muttered.

I playfully knocked his shoulder. “No, you don’t.”

He sighed. “Guess I don’t. Unfortunately.”

“Mason?” I said as he got comfortable against his pillow.

“Hmm?” he asked in a sleepy voice.

“Tell me more about your mom.”

And he did. He told me how they would bake cookies together, and read books, and she would be in the stands at all his Little League games, and how his memory of her was fading a bit, but he still remembered her light-auburn hair and green eyes, just like his.

I understood now why he hung in there so hard with his stepdad. He didn’t want to lose the few pieces of his mom he had left.

His eyes grew heavier by the minute until he fell asleep in the middle of a sentence, and it was the most adorable thing.

And that was the moment, right there—the moment I knew I was already a goner for Mason Maclain.

21

Maclain

Ever since the bee sting incident, things had felt strange, to say the least. Whereas I was nervous the team would think there was something going on between me and Girard because of how well he’d taken care of me, instead they were treating me like I was made of glass.

“Okay, knock it off, jackasses,” I said after the following team practice. “I’m allergic to bees. It’s why I carry an EpiPen. End of story.”

“Well, you didn’t have to stare at yourself practically turning blue like that girl in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie,” Fischer said, and I could feel my cheeks heating.

Christ, what I must’ve looked like while my tongue and throat and skin got all tight. I’d been fucking worried, especially since I didn’t even have the wherewithal to make it to my bag to save myself. It had taken me off guard as much as it did everyone around me.

“True. If Girard hadn’t been so dang nosy, he wouldn’t have known any of that about me, so I want to say thank you—to Donovan too—for stepping up for me,” I said as they all stared back in shock, Donovan included. I could see the smirk on Girard’s face even from across the room, so I averted my eyes. “But I swear to God, if you keep treating me like I’m gonna break, I will kick your asses one by one.”