Page 2

TWO

KIT

“This doesn’t look like studying.” Derek’s voice startled me, and I smacked the back of my head off the hood of my dad’s car.

“Geez,” I swore, rubbing the rapidly forming knot before checking my fingers for blood. “You’re back early.”

I’d turned down an after-practice drink for some peace and quiet. I’d gotten quiet, but peace had been a little more elusive. An hour of barely studying blood bank theory and I’d retreated to the garage.

“It’s almost eleven.”

I glanced down at my wrist, confirming the time. Hadn’t it just been eight a minute ago? “Have fun with your new bestie?”

“You should have come out,” Derek lightly chided as he stepped up to the car, craning his neck in. “What are you working on?”

I shrugged. “Just messing around. I think the mice are gone, so I was checking if they’d chewed up any of the wiring.”

“How would you be able to tell?”

Derek’s automotive knowledge rivaled my own: none.

The 1979 Mercury Cougar was in rough shape when my dad died. Then it sat in his garage for a few years before my mom decided it was time to get rid of the house. Through an assortment of tutorial videos and a mechanic willing to take monthly payments for repairs, I’d gotten the hunk of rust drivable, but hadn’t eradicated all the critters that had made the car a home.

I brushed away a collection of leaves stuffed between the hood and the windshield and shrugged. “Exposed wires, I guess. Sparks? Fire?”

“Just close your eyes and let the automotive knowledge of your ancestors flow through you?” Derek joked.

“That’s my next plan. Or pick up a few more shifts.” I sighed, not knowing when I’d find the time. Between work and school and kickball, I barely had time to sleep. To think. To study. I pushed myself away from the car and sighed. “I should have quit the team this year.”

“Don’t say that.” He flung an arm around my shoulder, sweeping me into a hug. I leaned my head against Derek’s chest, inhaling the familiar smell of flour and sugar that clung to him even when he had a day off from the bakery. A familiar scent that eased the tension in my chest. “We need you on the team. Who else is going to make snarky comments from the outfield?”

“You put me at second base,” I whined. “You know I hate second base.”

“I wanted you to keep an eye on Trent. Help him out.”

“And you know I hate helping even more than I hate second base.”

“But you’re so good at it.” Derek let me go and walked across the garage. He opened the small mini fridge that had followed us around since college. When the barely-running car ended up with me, I’d rented out a garage spot and the fridge joined the car. He rifled through the cans and pulled out a sparkling water for me and soda for him.

I shut the hood of the car with a resigned sigh.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Derek dragged out two folding chairs stacked against the wall, opening one for me.

I shook my head as I sat down. “Nope. I studied for a few hours, laid on the couch trying to get sleepy, and when you didn’t come home, I wandered out here.”

The post-practice ritual was normally short: juice and orange slices in the dugout and then a single drink at a nearby bar. Dom had two toddlers at home and Steff and Mark started their workday at 2 A.M. Bakers weren’t exactly a “stay up late” crowd. On a normal week, Derek and I would be curled up on the couch, eating snacks and watching TV by eight.

Not that I minded the few times Derek stayed out late. I just didn’t care for his newest best friend.

“Sorry about that.” He rubbed his neck, eyes slanting toward the open door. “We ended up grabbing a couple of drinks.”

“You and…” I prompted, already knowing the answer. When Derek found out Norwalk Breakers bad boy wide receiver wanted to play kickball, he’d swooped at the chance to have him on our team.

“Gavin hung around for two drinks. Marcus, too.” He flitted around the name, his smile growing each time he avoided Trent’s name.

“And that Texas asshole.”

“He’s not an asshole,” Derek corrected gently.

“He sounds like an asshole.” I huffed. “Treats people like an asshole.”

Derek screwed up his lips, eyes flitting around the cement floor. “He seems like he’s in a bad place.”

I huffed out a laugh. Of course. A project. Derek loved a project. It explained at least a decade of our friendship. I liked my projects slightly more concrete: a bachelor’s degree, an oil change, a kickball game. Not a person.

“I don’t think he’s fixable.”

The words tumbled out as if I had anything more than a terse conversation with the guy.

“You don’t?” He laughed, raising an eyebrow as his eyes shot toward mine. “You barely talked to him.”

“I know enough about him.” Or at least guys like him.

“You know not every charming rich guy is a complete douche, right?”

“Just most of them?” I sucked down the rest of my water and stood up with a wave. “It doesn’t matter. He probably didn’t even clock me as a real person.”

“He asked if you were my girlfriend.”

I bit back a laugh. “See, that just proves my point. He’s self-absorbed.”

“That’s a leap.”

I cringed at him protecting a literal stranger. Derek was my best friend. “According to some articles, he’s a ‘once in a lifetime’ talent who might lose his spot on the team because he drinks and parties too much. Which is why I didn’t expect you back until the morning.”

“Oh, you’ve read articles now?” Derek grinned. “Well, I can’t speak to his press reports, but he seems like a decent guy. A little immature, sure, but at least he’s trying to stay out of trouble. Besides, you’re no fun now, anyway.”

The stack of textbooks in my bedroom and flash cards all over the house confirmed that I’d been zero fun for two years now. And with my credentialing exam only two months away, I’d be even less fun. Negative fun. A fun suck.

“Just don’t replace me.” I scrubbed my face, eyes heavy and body achy.

I needed a good night's sleep, a reset, a vacation. My natural pessimism, usually a nice counterbalance to Derek’s friendliness, had been thrown out of whack by a full-time job and sixteen credit hours of coursework. My best friend starting a bromance with an infamous sports star hadn’t helped help.

“You? With him? Never. Unless he starts splashing money around, and then you might be in the market for a new roommate.”

I rolled my eyes and playfully punched his arm. “You wish.”

If Trent had bailed after that first practice, I wouldn’t have been surprised. A leading NFL receiver joining a losing kickball team during off-season? Practically an impossibility.

And the opposing teams seethed with jealousy. From my spot on the bench, the co-captains of the Upper Deckers shared a dumbfounded look immediately followed by flat-out jealousy as Trent confidently strode to the pitching mound next to Derek. They’d missed out.

Between the two of us, Derek was the social butterfly. When we moved to Norwalk, he’d embraced the challenge of finding new friends in a city big enough to swallow us whole when I would have been happy to fade into obscurity. But he ingratiated himself with everyone we passed: the local bodega owner, the loud couple in the apartment above ours, the homeless guy who hung out in the alley behind our apartment complex.

Kickball had been his idea.

At his core, Derek was a frat bro. It wasn’t just the wardrobe, though he loved a tailored button down and a pair of Sperry’s. He liked the camaraderie. He enjoyed being part of a group. He needed a team.

But Norwalk’s kickball league wasn’t for the faint of heart. It wasn’t some social event with beers instead of base coaches and player umpires. No, the young professionals of Norwalk took their recreational league sports as seriously as they did their NFL team. After a season spent begging another team to take him on, Derek formed his own.

Or, rather, I got sick of listening to him complain and I signed us up, assuming that he’d browbeat his coworkers at the bakery into joining us if I pulled the trigger. An assumption he brought to life.

And Derek had kept our roster full by taking in any free agents looking for a kickball home. Some stayed, others left after the season or only hung around for a few practices. Trent’s name hadn’t differed from the others: immediate rejection by the other teams in the league while Derek insisted we could fit “one more player.”

A perfect opportunity for me to take a season off, but I hadn’t. As much as I grumbled, I liked kickball. I enjoyed being halfway decent at a sport, as lame as that sport was. And while school and work hadn’t kept me away, something about Trent’s presence made me want to duck out. Years of grade school teasing and bullying came roaring back to me, personified by a single cocky athlete.

On the field, an umpire laid out the rules. A familiar pep talk about good sportsmanship and clean play. Derek and Trent listened intently, faces trained on the umpire, and I couldn’t help but compare them.

Despite being a hair shorter than Derek, Trent took up an amazing amount of space. Like a gravitational field surrounded him, drawing everyone else into it. He was the type of person people noticed. Really noticed. Wanted to be noticed by.

But unlike my best friend, Trent had a layer of calculation running under that pull. A weighing and assessing of worth. Subtle, sure, buffered by a gentle southern twang and a handsome face, but noticeable. To me, anyway.

Trent wasn’t bad looking. Sure, he wasn’t movie star hot. No square jaw and piercing eyes with smoldering looks. His blond hair almost turned to red under the sun and he had an interesting face: a smattering of freckles across his cheeks, a slightly lopsided smile that pulled up higher on one side than the other, and expressive green eyes. A charming youthful face completely at odds with the rest of his body.

He looked like he should have been tall and lanky. Maybe if he didn’t play football for a living, he would have been. Instead, layers of muscle filled in any lankiness. His arms strained at his Foul Boules t-shirt, shoulders broad and legs defined. The type of body salivated over at a beach.

Despite his natural charisma and attractiveness, my bullshit detector went wild whenever he stood near me.

“We’re kicking first,” Derek yelled to the team after the umpire dismissed the captains.

Trent’s eyes locked on mine, a faint, confused smile forming on his face before I turned away. My cheeks burned, and I busied myself with searching for a water bottle.

“Hey,” Trent swept in beside me, unearthing his duffle bag from under a discarded sweater.

I snatched my water bottle from the bench. “Texas.”

“Texas? We have nicknames now?” He laughed, low and rumbly. “Okay. How do you feel about Kitten?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Absolutely not.”

“Hey, Kit!” Gavin interrupted, his attention fixed on the notebook in his hand. “You’re up first.”

I took the excuse to escape Trent, shooting him a tight, warning smile.

“Good luck out there, Kitten.”