My stomach twisted at his words. Crap. I hadn’t thought of that. She did like her jocks, and she wasn’t choosy.
Avery gave Bennett a pointed look that he seemed to understand. I wish Joel and I had a secret language we connected on. We didn’t connect on much of anything lately. Maybe we never really had. I’d clung to Joel like he was my next breath, especially after I found out he’d known my brother. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that so blindly.
Bennett mouthed Sorry and then turned to me. “You know who would know? Nate. Ask him.”
Nate was Bennett’s friend. And he spent lots of time at frat house parties. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to go around asking people about Quinn, like I had some lovesick crush or something. I had a relationship to worry about. To work out, if I could.
“No thanks. I am not on some mission to find out more about Quinn, for God’s sake.” I headed to my bedroom to jump in the shower.
I realized Joel probably didn’t know a whole lot about Quinn, either, despite living with him. Which made him all the more mysterious.
Chapter Six
Quinn
The bleachers were beginning to fill. I slid on my catcher’s mask and headed to the batter’s box to take more practice pitches from McGreevy. He was a damn good pitcher, had a killer curveball. But it was supposed to be Sebastian up there.
Bastian and I would practice for hours at Miller Park in our neighborhood after high school ball games. His fastball had probably been the best in the state, had even earned him a scholarship. I’d had to work a bit harder to earn my position on the team. I never had the kind of heart and natural talent for the game that he did.
Truth be told, there was a time that I would’ve rather been under the hood of a car than on a dusty field. It’s not like baseball wasn’t in my blood. It definitely was. The sound of the bat cracking, the murmur of the crowd as the ball hung midair over the outfield. You had to like baseball to play it so damn much.
I just didn’t have a constant hard-on for it like my other teammates. I didn’t want to make it my career. But I was good at it, and I could stand being on a team from season to season.
Working solo on an engine or a custom paint job had been my passion. My dream. My lifeline. Until the summer after high school.
“McGreevy, let Smithy take a few rounds of practice,” Coach yelled from the dugout. Then he trained his eyes on me. “You good, Quinn?”
I stood to give my knees a break and nodded. Coach had complimented me privately on my dedication to the game. Said he admired my drive. If only he knew I was carrying the load of two players. Me, and one who should have been a star pitcher on his team.
I looked up at the stands just as my parents were headed to their seats. They came to a home game every few weeks. Not to actually see their only child pay, but to keep up appearances. My father wanted it to look like he actually cared about his family while he tried to renew his seat in the House of Representatives. He was gunning for senator next and had some scary pipe dream to make it all the way to the presidency.
Mom loved being a politician’s wife, so sometimes my only escape from that cold and empty home had been to go to Sebastian’s house. His family was in politics, too. My father had helped Bastian’s father win his seat in a landslide. The difference was: They were warm, open, real.
As Smithy took the mound, I gave the bleachers one last glance. Sebastian’s mom waved at me and I tipped my head in her direction. The grief was still apparent in her eyes and the lines of her face almost three years later. She was hanging in there, trying to make it day-to-day, and that killed me.
When I saw Amber was with them today, my throat closed up. I struggled to swallow.
I hoped she wouldn’t try to corner me again. I had no desire to talk to her, to have a powwow about what had happened that night. She insisted she needed to talk and I kept saying no. I knew she was only trying to alleviate her own guilt.
She was a pretty girl with her red hair and tight body. I may have had feelings for her a couple of years ago, but there was no way that I did now.
But she was still trying to keep up appearances with Bastian’s parents. Showing up here, pretending like she and Sebastian hadn’t been about to break up, that that one night hadn’t changed everything.
Every single fucking thing.
Could I blame her, though? I was pretending, too.
Still, I wanted nothing to do with her.
I noticed my frat brothers on the other side of the stands as well. They attended the home games to show school spirit with our sister sorority. But this time I zeroed in on Ella, sitting next to Brian’s girlfriend, Tracey. That was nothing new. She’d spent a few Saturdays at this ball field with Joel and his friends.
Her long hair was pulled up in a ponytail, showcasing her cheekbones, and she wore a red Titans T-shirt. I pictured her dressed in that top with nothing else on, except maybe those same pink panties. Shit, since when did I start fantasizing about Joel’s sweet and innocent girlfriend?
I had always thought Ella was nice to look at, but something had changed the night in that bathroom. I needed to stop thinking about how she’d felt in my arms or the throaty noises she’d made when I’d placed the wet rag on her neck. I was being stupid. I knew she was off-limits. And if there was any bigger reminder of how unavailable she was, I had Amber here as a recap. She should have been a crude prompt to keep my thoughts and hands to myself.
Maybe Ella couldn’t ignore how the air had become charged between us that night, either. She’d sneaked glances at me out of the corner of her eye, not wanting to appear too obvious. And she’d followed my gaze to Sebastian’s parents, sitting with Amber. Maybe she was trying to figure it all out, and maybe she wondered if Amber was my girlfriend. She would be so wrong.
Ella was not Amber. And Joel and I were definitely not best friends.
But why the hell did I care when she was still dating that asshole? Besides, eventually she would realize she was worth more than that. And I certainly was not more. That thought was like an ice bucket being thrown at me.
Soon enough the first inning began, along with the music from the speakers. The lead batter was winding up in front of me, and I got lost in my job, gesturing to McGreevy which pitch to throw, based on Coach’s signals and the batter’s weaknesses.
But by the third batter, and no outs, I realized that McGreevy was being inflexible as shit tonight, calling off most of my suggestions. But I could be stubborn, too. I signaled for a time-out and jogged to the mound.
I placed my glove over my face so the other team couldn’t read my lips. “What the fuck, McGreevy?”
“You want to know what the fuck’s up? . . . You’re calling shitty signals tonight.”
“Yeah, then why are there runners on first and second?”
He toed the dirt on the mound in an angry pattern. “Because of your terrible calls?”
“My calls?” Man, he could be full of himself sometimes. “You’re doing whatever the hell you want up there. Get your head out of your ass.”
After a few seconds of our glaring at each other, Coach joined us at the mound.
“You two better work it out or I’m changing pitchers,” he said. “McGreevy, trust Quinn’s calls. He’s good at his job.”
That got McGreevy fired up. He hated how much confidence Coach had in me. To be honest, so did I. I was a nobody, lower than the earth under my feet. And someday he’d realize it. But for now I could pretend. I could forget how unworthy I really was.
After the game, which we won by two runs, my parents put on a show by waiting for me next to Bastian’s mom and dad. I waved to a couple of my frat buddies and then walked over to the fence.