Stealing Home: A Reverse Grumpy-Sunshine College Sports Romance

SINCE CAMPBELL GOT HURT, WE’VE WORKED OUT A PRETTY GOOD routine. I’ve dropped him off at the stadium gym the last two days and then knocked out a couple of hours of work on my covert projects—phone calls with potential sponsors and tweaking the details of each brochure so that they’re specific to individual companies. Once Campbell finishes annihilating some muscle group, we meet my dad for lunch and spend the afternoon tackling projects that never get finished when the team is in town. Campbell is willing to do all the tasks I hate—like updating stats on the website and filling our online orders—but I think it’s the only thing stopping him from going crazy.

The Beavers have lost three straight games, and even though Campbell couldn’t do anything about it, he acts like he’s personally responsible.

In the evenings, we either go to Mia’s house and work on stuff we can’t get done at the stadium, or go home and hang out with my dad and do mundane things. Like laundry. Or just … talk. About baseball and family. And how Campbell worries whether or not Sterling will go away to college and about how his little sisters work so hard on the farm. He loves them all so fiercely and is never embarrassed to let it show.

“You guys are on your own for dinner tonight,” Dad says as he flicks off his office light. “I’m meeting with the mayor about the Fall Fun Run.”

“Are we hosting again?” I hurry to close the window on my screen. I don’t want him to see the brochure I’ve designed for Chestnut Oil Products. After our lunch with Jim at Advanced Machining, I decided I needed something more substantial, more impressive to convince Mr. Chestnut that sponsoring an expansion of Perry Park is a smart move for his company. I have a mental clock in my head, ticking away the minutes before the visitors from the conglomerate come.

Campbell is sitting on the couch between the copy machine and the watercooler, injured leg resting on the coffee table, a stack of contracts spread out in front of him.

“Yep. Same route. Different start times,” Dad says, reaching for his wallet, and pulls out two twenties. “Why don’t you try that new pho place near the Kroger?”

Campbell grimaces, but my dad doesn’t notice.

I hold back a snort and accept the cash. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll figure something out.”

“Don’t stay too long,” Dad says, from the doorway. “Everything will still be here tomorrow.”

I groan and Campbell gives a half laugh. Then my dad leaves. The A/C kicks on, highlighting how quiet it is. How empty. How very alone we are. Again.

“So,” I say only because the silence makes me feel all jumpy. “You’re not a big fan of pho?”

“Pho is good. I’m just—” He stacks the papers, squaring them off before putting them into a folder. “Do you ever get tired of eating out?”

“Sure, but I don’t have a lot of other options. It’s not like someone is going to fix a big home-cooked meal for me, you know?” I shut down my computer and push my chair under the desk.

“You don’t cook?”

“Sexist much?” I have to choke back a laugh at the horror on his face.

“That’s not what I meant! I wasn’t asking you to cook for me. It was an honest question.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I …” He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “How about I cook for you?”

I know he’s only talking about making food that we both will eat. But something about a guy offering to cook for me feels—to use Mia’s favorite word—intimate. Way more than going somewhere and splitting the bill. We’ll be alone. In my house. Eating together.

If anyone walked in, what would they think?

Does it even matter? If it’s not anything, don’t make it into anything. Campbell has barely flirted with me since he saw how Jim Stein acted, and I’ve barely flirted back.

It doesn’t change the fact that sometimes when we’re sitting on the couch together, everything is too still. I try not to look over at him, and I feel like he’s doing the same. In those moments when I get caught staring, or he does, our gazes sort of clash. Those moments feel so real, like he’s dragged his finger down my arm or touched the small of my back.

I’d call Mia to come over and hang out with us as a tension-reliever. But she’s a very unwilling chaperone on the best days. Tonight she’s at her littlest cousin’s princess birthday party. Although she might appreciate the rescue.

“What will you cook?” I ask as I grab the keys to the Beavermobile.

He shrugs. “Nothing fancy.” He pulls his crutches close. “I’ll be doing it all on one foot.”

CAMPBELL INSISTS ON RIDING ONE OF THE GROCERY STORE’S STUPID motorized carts. “I’ve always wanted to drive one of these things.”

“Why? They go like three miles per hour.” I don’t mention that he’ll look ridiculous sitting on it—this giant, super-fit guy riding a grandma cart. Okay, maybe it will be worth it to confirm the hysterical visual in my head.

“Have you ever driven one?”

I roll my eyes. “No.”

“Exactly. It’s the novelty of doing it.” He pushes the lever down and the cart suddenly jerks, and then stops, making his head whip forward.

A laugh explodes from me before I can contain it. “A little more powerful than you thought?”

“Way more powerful,” he says, a laugh in his voice. “It can go at least eight miles per hour.”

We pick up the most random things: a can of cranberry sauce, a bag of grapes, a box of spaghetti. When we get to the cereal aisle where there are no other shoppers, Campbell pushes the cart as fast as it will go. Which is still ridiculously slow.

He stops in front of the bags of dry cereal and starts to stand up from the chair.

“Stop.” I put my hand on his shoulder, pushing him down. “If you’re going to be injured, be injured. What do you want?”

“The Tutti Fruttis.”

The bag is enormous. I haul it down and put it in his basket. “Are you seriously going to eat this much?”

“Maybe. Plus, it’s a much better price.”

“Are you going to buy five gallons of milk, too?”

His face scrunches in disgust. “Milk on cereal is gross.”

“Wait. What?”

“Why would you make perfectly good cereal soggy?” He looks like I’ve suggested that he kick a puppy.

My mouth hangs open. I’m baffled. “Milk and cereal are like butter and toast. They belong together.”

“No.” He starts his cart, leaving me behind.

“Now I’m terrified to eat whatever you’re going to make.”

When we get back to the house—and after Campbell has insisted on carrying in all the groceries by himself on the crutches—he makes the most repulsive-looking sauce I’ve ever seen. Jelled cranberry sauce, chili sauce, brown sugar, and lemon juice all go into the blender. I preheat the oven and dump the frozen meatballs into an old pie tin. Mom took most of the good pans with her when she left. I didn’t miss them until now.

Campbell pours his concoction over the meatballs and throws them in the oven, then starts the noodles.

I sit on the corner of the counter, legs folded so that I’m out of the way, and steal a handful of dry Tutti Fruttis from the bag. “This isn’t food. It’s candy.”

“Are you complaining? Toss me one.” He tips his head back and opens his mouth. He catches six in a row before I throw one way off the mark and it lands in the noodles.

“Oh no!” I bounce off the counter and grab a ladle, trying to fish it out before it dissolves completely. But the stupid piece of cereal sinks deeper into the pot.

“Well,” Campbell says as we watch little chunks of pink loop float to the surface. “If it’s good, I’ll tell my mom it’s a new ingredient.”

Setting down the spoon, I turn so my back is against the cabinet, the stove separating us. This is okay. We’re two people making some dinner. It’s actually kind of fun. “This is your mom’s recipe?”

“Yep. She’s a good cook.” He looks at the timer on the oven. Four minutes left. “We don’t eat out very often.”

I’ve always known other families, like Mia’s, eat home-cooked food, but I’ve never felt embarrassed about the fact that we don’t. Until now. “I’m sorry. You must think that staying with us is awful.”

“No! This has been great. You have been … great.” Campbell tightens the loose knob on the drawer pull. “There’s a lot of us to feed, so eating out is really expensive.”

“You do kind of eat a lot.” I wipe my hands on my pants. I don’t know why they’re suddenly so sweaty. “But with your signing bonus and everything, they could probably afford to eat out more often.”

Campbell looks away, moving to the next drawer to tighten that knob too. “My family—well, my dad—won’t accept any money from me.”

It’s like he’s sucked the air out of the room. “Oh.”

“I paid off the farm’s mortgages behind his back. He’s so angry that he still hasn’t spoken to me.”

“But—”

“It’s fine.”

“Except that I can tell that it’s not.”

Campbell sighs, gaze focused off to the side, somewhere between me and the window. “What if I’m one of those players who is prospected to be amazing but is always injured? What if this is the beginning of the end of my career?”

My mouth hangs open for a minute, as I try to find the perfect thing to say. “You’re only seventeen. You can’t possibly believe that this one crazy accident will stop you from doing something amazing.”

When he finally looks at me, his blue eyes don’t hide any of the frustration he’s harboring. “I didn’t leave the farm so that I wouldn’t have to help. I left so that I could help more, in a different way. You know?”

I do know. Our situations are different, but they’re not really. We both have so much at stake.

The oven buzzes, breaking the moment. Campbell shakes off his emotions and crutches toward the oven. “You ready to try my mom’s famous meatballs?”

Despite the scary-seeming ingredients, they’re actually delicious.

I don’t know what is taking Dad so long with the mayor. Actually, that’s not true. Dad can talk to anyone about anything for any length of time. But as Campbell and I clean the kitchen, the light outside wanes. Our conversation fades with it, and there’s no ignoring that we’re alone.

“I’ll get that.” I reach to take the container of leftover meatballs from Campbell, and our hands skim. It’s the merest contact of skin on skin, but it sends a tingle all the way to my toes.

“I’ve got it,” he says as he crutches forward.

I have to back up so he can swing open the fridge door. He rests his crutches against the cabinets next to me and tucks the food on the empty shelf, illuminating the room, then flashing it back into darkness as the door glides shut.

I flip on the light near the sink. It’s a single bulb, dim and dusty, and when I turn back Campbell is right behind me, closing the bag of rolls.

The dim light doesn’t hide his expression—the same one from the morning when I caught him in the towel.

My pulse races in my throat. My hand buzzes from the place we touched. “Do you want some ice cream?” The words sound gravelly, rough with the awareness of how little distance is between us.

We both reach for the freezer at the same time, and then laugh at our near collision, but it’s strained. Breathy.

I look up at him and it’s a mistake. Because he’s looking down at me. And I’m frozen. I can’t move away, and I don’t want to.

His hand is on my waist. My palm is on his chest.

“Ryan.” He says just my name, but I hear the request. Is this okay? Tell me this is okay. His fingers slide up my spine, easing me closer.

Yes, this is more than okay.

No one is here, I tell myself as I lean in. No one will ever know.

What’s the worst that could happen?

My mind supplies plenty of answers: No one will take you seriously. No one will believe you’re in this business for the business. If anyone finds out, you’ll be another fraternization casualty.

And he didn’t want any distractions.

“Campbell, we can’t,” I say, swallowing down my want with a swig of bitter reality. I use the hand on his chest to push myself back a step. He lets me go easily, but I see the disappointment on his face. “There are rules.”

“I know.” He grabs the ice cream and shoves it back in the freezer. “Sorry.”

“It’s getting late.” It’s not that late. It’s the earliest we’ve been home since we’ve met, but I need the excuse. And I am tired. Tired enough to make mistakes that I’ll regret later. “I’m going to bed.”

He doesn’t call me on it, gathering up his crutches. “We’ll leave for the stadium about nine tomorrow?”

“Yep.” The same time as every other day this week.

“Sounds good. Sleep well.”

Yeah, right.