FULL NOVELXO Stealing Home: Chapter 7
UNLIKE WITH MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAMS, OUR POSTGAME press conferences don’t take place in the locker room. Parts of the stadium have been refurbished in the ten years that Dad has owned the team, but the locker room is almost as gross as my high school’s and smells only marginally better. That might be why the Rangers want it upgraded.
There’s no cell reception under the stadium, and while our clubhouse manager carries a radio, he never answers it. Dad elected me to ferry the players from the locker room to the press box a few years ago, and the routine stuck.
I pound on the heavy steel door before cracking it open a bit, instantly suffocated by the combination of sweat and body spray. “I need Campbell!”
“I bet you do!” One of the guys—probably Pearson—responds from inside.
Sigh. Minor league baseball is its own ridiculous fraternity, and most of the guys don’t outgrow their stupid jokes in the year or two they play at Perry Park. “Send him out. Please.”
There’s a crack of a towel and some laughter. I let the door drift shut without any guarantee Campbell will get the message.
But he comes out a few minutes later, hat in his hand, hair a mess.
My hands in his hair. His arms tight around me as I press him against the elevator’s glass wall. Anyone outside could see us, rising above the stadium, but—
Mia! She’s fired as my best friend. I gulp away any thoughts of kissing Campbell and push the elevator button a half a dozen times. The engine is one of the other things that hasn’t been updated.
“Did Meredith give you talking points?” I ask him without making eye contact. Push the button. Don’t look at Campbell. “Keep your language clean. Spread your compliments around. Stay positive.”
“Does pushing the button over and over make it move faster?” His eyebrows are up, mouth quirked.
“Maybe.” I hold the lighted button down, hearing the elevator creak closer. Not that I want to get into this tight space with you any sooner. Yes, I do. No, I don’t. “It always looks better when you talk more about your team than yourself.”
“I have done this before.” He sounds a little … put out, maybe?
“Great.” I give him a closed-lip smirk that doesn’t come anywhere near sweet. “But it never hurts to be reminded.”
“Right.” He nods as the doors slide open, so I can enter first. “Thanks.”
“Of course. It’s my job.” My job. Which does not involve imagining your hair in my hands—what is wrong with me?
If my team-approved polo showed any more of my skin, Campbell would be able to see that my chest is as red as it was the time I went to the Schlitterbahn water park and only put on sunblock once.
The doors creep closed, and I push myself against the wall, as far from Campbell as possible. He keeps sneaking looks at me as we rise, leaning back against the handrail, hands spread wide. “Did I do something wrong?” he asks.
“What?” The word pops out of my mouth with a little emphasis on the t.
“I mean besides throwing up on you. Like, did I break some rule I don’t know about? Did I say something that offended you?”
“No.” But even to my ears it’s sharp. I sound offended.
He shifts off the handrail. “Don’t take this wrong, but I get along with almost everybody.” His big shoulders curl forward, a little self-conscious and kind of adorable. “If I said or did something wrong, you’d tell me. Right?”
Campbell says it like we’re friends. Like we know each other. I try to take the fact that I’ve worn his clothes and he’s seen me in my pajamas out of the equation. Focus on the professional. “If you screwed up, I’d let you know.”
A little laugh pops out of his mouth. “I believe that.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
“Because you act like I did something to you personally.”
I swallow hard, hoping the heat in my chest hasn’t crept all the way to my cheeks. “Of course not. Sorry. Sometimes I get wrapped up in work.”
He nods, chin pushed out. “Sure.” He’s mulling this over, but I can see he doesn’t really believe it. “I get it.”
“It’s just …” I hesitate, trying to figure out the right way to phrase what I’m thinking. “When I’m too friendly with the players, it looks bad.”
“Like with Ollie?”
“Like Ollie the catcher, Ollie?”
Whatever I’m doing with my face—all scrunched and a little horrified—makes Campbell laugh. “Yes, Ollie the catcher. Before warm-ups, I heard you guys making plans for Saturday.”
I wipe the air in front of me, like it’s something I’m trying to clean. Ollie is, to use my mother’s word, darling. He has one of those really circular faces that will never look grown-up, and dimples so deep you could lose a finger in them. He’s not bad-looking. He’s just … stocky. Solid. Ollie. “I take him to the library to read to the kids because he’s fluent in both Spanish and English. He’s actually really funny and the kids love him.”
“But you don’t?”
“No! We’re friends.”
Campbell raises his eyebrows at my response, waiting for me to explain further.
How long is this elevator going to take? Doors. Open. Now. “Ollie is my coworker. Our relationship will always be platonic.”
“And ours won’t be?” There’s a laugh in Campbell’s words.
That’s when the doors choose to pop open, revealing all the reporters waiting in the foyer beyond. “I—”
He steps out of the elevator, but the look he sends me over his shoulder turns my insides to lava. “See you later, Ryan.”
And before I can say anything else, the elevator doors slide closed.
I DIVE INTO MIA’S POOL, STAYING UNDER UNTIL MY LUNGS BURN. Oxygen deprivation doesn’t make my worries about the stadium disappear. I surface to a pulsing merengue beat. Mia’s parents don’t care how loud we play our music in the Grotto—that’s what Mia and I nicknamed her pool because it has stone privacy walls and a faux waterfall slide—as long as half of the songs are in Spanish.
“Hey!”
Swiping a strand of hair out of my eyes, I turn toward the voice.
“You okay?” Lucas Chestnut treads water beside me, real concern pulling between his eyebrows. “I thought maybe you hit your head or something.”
Only the tops of his shoulders clear the water. Broad, muscular, typical high school athlete shoulders. “I’m fine. Just seeing how long I could hold my breath.”
Water droplets have collected in Lucas’s eyelashes, making them look ridiculously long around his dark brown eyes. He’s cute. That’s why I let Mia convince me to date him for a few months last fall, hoping he’d grow a personality. He didn’t.
“I thought I might have to rescue you.” He sweeps an arm around my waist and tows me close. My bare belly is pressed against his side, and our legs tangle under the water. “I wouldn’t mind resuscitating you.”
For one heartbeat, I’m tempted. He’s a nice-enough guy, a good student, a great kisser. But I know resuming things with Lucas would be a mistake. For both of us. “I’m good. Thanks for the offer.” I shove against him, but he doesn’t budge.
He grins, like this is all part of the game. “Offer stands even if you are breathing.”
“Not interested.”
“Come on, Ry—” His words cut off when a Nerf football blasts into the side of his head. He spins, looking for his assailant, and lets me go.
Mia’s standing on the side of the pool, hands on her bikini-clad hips, feet spread wide like she’s a statue of some Greek goddess. “Game’s starting.” She motions for him to get the ball. “You’re on my team.”
He snags the football and swims away without a backwards glance, and I remember exactly why we broke up. His phone, his friends, whatever sounded fun at the moment was more interesting than me. We couldn’t have a conversation without him checking his Snapchat or texts every few seconds. He documented everything we did together: our food, our shoes—one time he even tried to take a selfie while he was kissing me good night. It was like he cared more about what other people thought about our relationship than what I thought.
“You playing?” Mia yells, still looking all avenging goddess, and I know she started this game of two-hand touch to save me from Lucas. Or my own stupidity.
I did not want to come tonight. She would have forgiven me if I stayed home and pored over every sports business journal I could scrounge up, but I owe it to her to be a better friend. For this rescue and so many others. “Sure.”
The teams are pretty even. Mia and I are the only girls who play. The other softball players either keep to the waterslide or hang out in the pool house where the A/C is blasting and there are plenty of drinks to go around. Even though I don’t play team sports anymore, I inherited enough of my dad’s athleticism to stay competitive, catching passes that earn some cheers and juking out of reach.
The night has turned steamy, but my muscles feel looser than they have in months. Even better than after one of my too-few training runs.
Lucas lines up across from me, shirt still off. He does look good, and he knows it. “Are you running cross-country again in the fall?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I’m not in shape to win races, but my participation is important for college applications, though I’m only going to apply to A M. It’s the only school close enough that I can come home for April and September games. “I haven’t been running with the team.”
“If you want someone to train with …” He leaves the offer hanging.
“You can’t keep up with me.” And when Mia hikes the ball, I prove it.
Mia’s team destroys mine, but we’re laughing and breathless as the game wraps up. I’ve missed this. I’ve missed being with her, eating her mom’s chivito sandwiches, and singing off-key to the songs on her playlist.
“Thanks for making me come.” I slide into the water, and though it isn’t that cool, it still feels better than the humidity. “It was fun.”
Mia drops onto the side, waving to the last of the partygoers as they leave. She kicks water at me. “That’s because I know how to have a good time.”
“Speaking of that, what time is it?”
She leans back, stretching for my bag and pulling out my phone. The light makes a blue rectangle on her face, and I watch her eyes widen in shock. “You’ve got eleven missed calls in the last five minutes, and three text messages. All from your dad.”
“What?” I splash out of the water. “He knows where I am.”
Dad’s not a worrier so …
“Need you at the stadium, ASAP,” I read the message aloud. “Call me. It’s an emergency.”