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Oh noooo
I meant King texted me abt it
Sorry abt that
She did that shit on purpose. I toss my phone aside, annoyance trumping confusion. Rain keeps on, indifferent to the way truth and lies get tangled up in my dorm, one as slippery as the other.
The door opens. Callie walks in, shower caddy banging her hip, curls in a Huskies-purple towel. Steam follows her in, smelling like coconut shampoo. She takes one look at me and sighs.
“What’s wrong, babes?”
I grunt into my pillow. “Brynn lied about Jax texting her.”
“She did?” Callie’s bed creaks as she sits. “Why would she lie about that?”
I roll over. “I don’t know, but he never texted her. She said, ‘Oh, no, King texted me,’ but she was weird at brunch.”
“Yeah, she was weird.” Callie’s voice is steady, like always. “Look, I know you’re in your head, but Jax isn’t trying to hurt you. He’s probably… processing.”
“Processing what? His nose or me?”
“Both, maybe?” She works leave-in conditioner through her curls. “Think about it. Remember the World Series? How upset you were when your shoulder was hurting?”
I flinch. The World Series. She thinks it was my shoulder, but it was the miscarriage. “Yeah?”
“You didn’t talk to anyone for three days.”
“That was different,” I mumble, but even as I say it, I know she’s not wrong, even if she doesn’t know the whole story.
Callie raises an eyebrow. “Postseason’s weeks away. He’s probably freaking out about letting his team down and his face. You know how Jaxon gets. He carries the weight of the whole damn infield.”
I hug my knees. She’s not wrong. The relationship between a pitcher and catcher is sacred in baseball, built on trust and silent signals. One missed sign, everything falls apart. Maybe that’s why this hurts—because Jax and I have that kind of connection. Different fields, different teams, same language.
“Plus,” Callie grins, “he’s a boy. Boys are shit at feelings.”
I throw my pillow at her, laughing. “Says the girl who cried when she was benched for one quarter.”
“Hey! That was Oregon! You know how I feel about their ball handlers. And it was bullshit that he didn’t put me back in!”
I stare. “It was a scrimmage.”
“Details.” She tosses my pillow back. “Maybe cut him some slack. Not everyone overthinks like you do, Miss I-Watch-My-Pitching-Motion-A-Hundred-Times.”
“I do not—” I start, but my open laptop with the paused game footage betrays me.
“Uh-huh.” Callie’s voice is knowing but kind. “Look, I’m not saying Brynn isn’t shady—girl’s got more stories than the library. But Jax? He’s a dude with a broken nose, trying to figure out if he can still play. Sound familiar?”
It does. God, it does. I know what it’s like to see your season, your future, flash before your eyes. To worry that one injury could ruin everything you worked for. That fear weighs more than any trophy.
I look at his last message again. Maybe ‘Thanks’ isn’t a dismissal. Maybe it’s all he can manage, stuck in a hotel room with a broken nose and broken dreams, watching his own highlight reel on repeat.
“You’re right,” I admit.
“I know.” Callie grins, tossing her towel into the hamper. “Now can we watch something else? If I see one more foul tip, I’m gonna lose it.”
I close my laptop. Rain fills the quiet. Outside, it keeps pouring—steady and relentless, like hope, like trust.
My thumb hovers over my messages, landing on one from Nathan. I never replied after Jaxon pocketed my phone at that party. Now guilt and anxiety mix in my gut like a bad pitch combo.