Crystal was trying to eat her lunch when a fraternity guy showed up.
“Hey, Babe. I hear you’re back on the market.”
Instantly, Andres’s douchebag radar was going off.
“Matt and I had a little disagreement,” Crystal conceded.
“While you guys are having your disagreement, why don’t you and I hook up?”
Andres was about to get up and karate-chop the frat boy in the liver when his thought was interrupted.
“Thanks for grabbing us a table.”
The douchebag, Andres, and Crystal all turned to see who’d said that when David Dawson sat down with her. He looked at the frat boy and nodded.
“Sup.”
Andres held in a chuckle when Skippy saw his competition.
“Call me,” was the frat boy’s parting shot as he scurried off with his tail between his legs.
David winked at Andres before Crystal turned back.
“This isn’t a good idea. Matt won’t be happy if he hears we had lunch together,” Crystal said.
David laughed. It was apparent he wasn’t worried about Matt.
“You have it all wrong. Having lunch with me will help you get Matt in line quicker than anything else. If he thinks I’m making a play for you, he’ll deliver his balls in a velvet bag to win you back. Then you can call off this faux breakup and stop the drama you’re causing.”
“You seem to think you have me figured out,” Crystal fired back.
Andres could tell by her tone that she was starting to get mad. But David just shrugged it off.
“I would never venture to guess what’s going on in any female’s head. They constantly confuse me,” he said. Then he contemplated what to say next before adding, “For example, you had a perfectly good man in my boy Andres, yet you dumped him for Matt. Why was that?”
“It’s complicated,” Crystal said, trying to evade his question.
“I’m smart enough to keep up.”
Andres sat forward, eager to hear her response.
“You’re on the baseball team. You know how bad they are. While I like Andres, I just don’t see him going anywhere. I don’t want to end up married with four kids to some guy who’s the assistant manager at a local auto parts store.”
That hit a little too close to home for Andres. His uncle owned an auto parts store, and he’d told Crystal that he worked there during summers to make extra cash.
“And you think Matt is the better catch?” David asked with a knowing look that made her hesitate before answering.
“Why wouldn’t he be? Matt will be the starting quarterback next year. In a couple of years, he’ll be in the NFL.”
“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” David said, leaning in close to Crystal. “Our baseball team had a bad outing, I’ll admit. Some internal team issues will get ironed out. When that’s done, we will win, and Andres will play professional ball.”
“That may be, but Matt looks like the safe bet right now,” Crystal said.
“Looks can be deceiving,” David said with a raised eyebrow, which earned him a hard look from Crystal.
“Are you telling me that you plan to try to unseat Matt at quarterback?”
That brought a glint to David’s eyes. Andres knew the guy was competitive. If nothing else, David had to know she would go tell Matt.
“I didn’t say any such thing. All I said was that I thought you would be better off chasing Andres than Matt,” David said. He finished his lunch and left.
’Nice,’ Andres thought. David had sidestepped her accusation with ease and had put in a good word for him. Andres mentally noted that he owed David now. It might be a big one if he started dating Crystal again.
David had left Crystal deep in thought, so Andres decided he’d better go before she saw that he’d been listening to their conversation. When he got outside, he saw David leaning against the wall, looking at something on his phone, obviously waiting for him.
“Thanks, man,” Andres said when he caught up with David.
“I personally think that Crystal is a mistake you got lucky to dodge, but I get the whole ‘the heart wants what the heart wants’ thing. Besides, you would never listen to me.”
“I look at it as ‘Crystal knows what she wants and is brave enough to go for it,’” Andres said.
“Okay.” With just that one word, David made it clear that he thought Andres was crazy. “I have to get going. My personal trainer gets mean if I’m late, and I want to be able to walk tomorrow.”
“I’m headed in the other direction. I’m going to talk to the coaches and then get in some batting practice. I’ll see you later.”
David nodded as he left.
Andres was torn as to what he would tell the coaches today. In a lot of ways, Mason was his best friend. They’d both come in as freshmen and managed to work their way into the starting lineup.
Mason was the fun one who left Andres to be the responsible one. Their collaboration had turned out well. Andres had been named team captain his junior year when Mason had wielded his magic behind the scenes to help make it happen.
Senior year was supposed to be the ultimate rush. They’d set up the Baseball House, and there were plenty of women who wanted to have some no-strings-attached fun with baseball players. They’d talked about going out as legends at USC. Andres was wondering what exactly their legacy would be.
His dad had a saying: ‘There are two kinds of people in the world: One kind changes the world and makes things happen. The other is simply along for the ride.’ He was starting to think he might be along for the ride.
Andres knew that if it hadn’t been for Dawson, he might not be having doubts right now. The kid had quietly set an example in practice. He went all out in practice, like it was a real game. Andres was surprised that David hadn’t used his celebrity when he first met the team. He wasn’t sure he could’ve resisted the temptation.
David wasn’t the ‘Boy Scout’ that Mason had labeled him. Andres had witnessed David spending time with a road bunny. Still, he wasn’t willing to get drunk.
Andres saw how the other players looked at David, so he’d soon included him in leading warm-ups. David had responded by stepping up and acting like he was meant to take charge. No one questioned that a walk-on freshman was in that role. There was something about him that made others want to follow.
It wasn’t like David was a typical walk-on. He’d won three state championships in football and one in baseball during high school. Hearing that the Twins had drafted him only reinforced Andres’s belief that if David wasn’t so good at football, the baseball team would have given him a full ride. He had no doubt that David was one of those who would someday change the world.
Andres’s dilemma was starting to solve itself. If he let Mason slide, he had no doubt the guy would pull the team down to mediocrity. Andres had to start looking toward the future. What he had to do was simple, but not easy, if that made any sense. He knew that Mason wouldn’t take it well if Andres came down on the side of changing the culture to one of winning baseball. If David hadn’t given him a glimpse of what was possible, Andres wouldn’t have even known to do it, let alone have the guts.
Andres marched into Coach Deneau’s office before he lost his nerve.
“Mason needs to go,” he announced.
At first, the coaching staff was hesitant, but they started to come around as Andres filled them in on what was going on behind the scenes. He understood their reluctance because Mason had a lot of talent. When he wasn’t hungover and actually focused on playing, he was their best player.
But then there was the partying. It hadn’t been so bad their sophomore year, but starting with their junior year, Mason got his party on more and more. Now, Andres realized, it was almost irretrievably out of control.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it were just Mason. Their trip to Wake Forest had included all of the team, minus David. That had been when Mason had given David the nickname ‘Boy Scout.’ The players had gone out both Thursday and Saturday nights. It was apparent that when that happened, they didn’t play well the next day, and they’d lost those two games badly.