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TUCKER

C amp looked exactly how I remembered it. Everyone filed off the cramped bus, stretching out their stiff muscles and inhaling the spring air that flooded our noses. There was still a bit of snow on the ground, but for the most part, the camp was patches of green grass and budding trees.

There were twenty cabins, but we usually only used about half of them. The owners rented the place out to us every spring. It had lake access, a dining hall, a regulation soccer field, a baseball diamond, hiking trails, canoes, an archery range, and a high-ropes obstacle course.

We were assigned cabins each year, usually shuffled around to spend time with teammates we didn’t see often. Van tossed my duffle bag at my feet and stared at me for a moment as I fixed my hoodie over my hips and straightened my hair out under my hat.

“What?” I asked him when he didn’t look away.

“Captain assigns the bunks,” Van murmured beside me, nodding at the guys waiting for direction. “Did you not make the list?”

“He made the list,” Silas said, pulling it from his binder. “He just forgot it on my desk.” His gray eyes bore into me with parental judgment, and I snatched the paper away from him with an eye roll.

I looked down at the list and looked back at Silas with a growl. It bubbled up from my toes into my throat before I could stop it.

“Staff are in cabin one. Everyone else goes in fours until no one is left. If you have an issue with your bunkmates, we can see about—”

Arlo slammed his duffle to the ground, interrupting what I was going to say about changing bunks, and shook his head. ‘First of all, you need to learn how to be tough. You can’t let these guys push you around. Spring Camp is a test for you too.’

Arlo’s careful guidance echoed around in the space between my frantic thoughts. I needed to be their captain, not their best friend.

“You know the rules about bunk changes. It’s two weeks and we’re here to bond, so get comfy.” I looked down at the list and inhaled slowly at cabin two’s names. “Get yourselves settled, unpacked, and meet back here in two hours for dinner.”

Staff would help with dinner the first night, but we would keep our typical dinner schedule the rest of the time at camp.

“Cody, Logan, Baker, and myself.” I ground my teeth together but kept a smile on my face. I could do this. I could be an unbiased captain. One of my own making; not a copy of Arlo, but an extension of what he taught me.

“Mitchell, Livvy, Rogers, and Todd,” I said next.

“How come you didn’t call my last name,” Todd groaned loudly.

“I don’t even know your last name.” I scowled with a shrug and kept reading.

Todd stared at me like I had four heads then wandered away with his bunkmates. One after another, they grouped up and disappeared.

“You’re an asshole.” I whirled on Silas, who stood with his bag slung over his shoulder with his hands in his pockets.

His expression remained pensive as I got in his face.

“I didn’t make this list!” I shoved it at him, but he continued to stare at me. “There’s no way I’m spending two weeks in a bunk with Josh.” “You know the rules, Tucker,” Silas said simply and without emotion. “Where else did you want to put him? You’re the tamest of all the wolves he’s about to face. Keep him close. Take these two weeks to figure out who he is and where he fits in on the team.”

“He doesn’t. That’s the problem.” I sighed. Frustration itched beneath my skin, and the cool spring wind snaked its way through my sweatshirt, sending a chill down my spine.

“Everyone who comes to Harbor has a place,” Silas said, stepping forward and touching my shoulder. “We were all Josh at one point, just looking for someone to extend a hand to us.”

“He’s an entitled egomaniac,” I retorted.

Silas’s eyebrow rose. “You know what people see when they look at you?”

“An idiot all-star first baseman with a heart of gold and great hair,” I said without skipping a beat, and Silas nodded in agreement.

“Exactly,” he said, “but who are you really?”

I stared at him, unable to answer because it was the one question I had never been able to answer. Without those assumptions, I didn’t know who I was. I was who my parents wanted me to be, who the team wanted me to be, but…I had never stopped to think about who I wanted to be.

“Some people put on a show to protect themselves,” Silas explained. “You should know that better than anyone, golden boy.” His fingers dug into my muscles as he used the name the fans called me. I could hear them chanting it in the wind. “Everyone else here is allowed to hate him. As the captain, you can’t afford to. You need to figure out what makes him tick. Dig deeper and find out where he fits on the Hornets.”

Not a single player wanted him here.

Not even me.

But Silas was right, and I hated it.

“Yeah, you’re right…” I admitted with a small nod and slapped a hand to his side with a good tap. “Thanks, Doc.”

“What am I good for if not some unsolicited wisdom, Tucker?” Silas stepped back and tapped two fingers to his chest softly. “I’ll collect some hands to help with dinner,” he called out as he approached one of the cabins.

I looked around at the camp. On one side, cabins lined the path back into the densely forested area, and on the other side, the dining hall faced the lake. It was a massive building lined with windows and decorated with camp history. Despite the stress ball knotted between my shoulder blades, this was my favorite place to be.

It smelled like evergreen trees and lake water.

I closed my eyes and listened to the soft squawking of ducks in the distance as they floated on the undisturbed lake. Every single part of me was ready to start the season. It was the only other place I felt comfortable in my own skin. It was the opposite of being on the diamond—buzzing lights, roaring crowds, pressure to win.

The camp was quiet, without a single eye on us.

We could be a team here, a family.

I looked to my cabin, where Cael stood on the steps talking to Silas. Josh’s frame occupied the doorway as he wandered inside and threw his bag on the closest bed. He looked different when no one was watching—like the hardened, egotistical parts melted away and left nothing more than just another guy looking to find his footing.

After a few minutes of calm conversation, Cael and Silas wandered off toward the dining hall, leaving Josh in the cabin alone, giving me the perfect chance to try to smooth things over.

I grabbed my bag with a deep sigh and headed to the cabin.

“Cael rolls in his sleep,” I said, pointing to the bottom bunk where he was unloading his blanket from his duffle. “You’re better off under Liam,” I said.

“And Baker smells like cigarettes,” Josh said, not looking up from what he was doing. Dark, messy curls licked at his neck as he stretched out.

Liam Baker was a second-string outfielder with a smoking problem.

“Whatever. Don’t complain when Cael is in your lap at three am.” I shook my head and threw my bag on the opposite bunk.

“You sound jealous, Tuck.” Josh tugged out his sweater, his shirt riding up and showing the scar-stained tan skin on his back. Between the smooth, untouched portions of freckled skin was horrible scarring… hundreds of minuscule white lines, some long and deep, where others were round and looked like healed burns. He fixed the shirt quickly with his free hand.

I swallowed the shock that threatened to out me for staring.

“And you look like you're going to puke,” Josh snapped as he crossed his arms over his chest.

I cleared my throat and sighed as a few guys passed by outside, laughing until their eyes darted inside our cabin.

“You’re going to need a friend out there, Logan.”

“I don’t need anything.” He stared at me with cold, dark eyes. “I’ll follow the rules, play the game, and be a team player. But I’m not falling for this ‘ we’re a family’ bullshit you all have going on.”

He was gone before I could say anything else, leaving me in the cabin alone to stew on his attitude. I tilted my head back and leaned against the bunk with a huff of air. I could do this, I could be the nice guy and the captain of the team.

My way .

I just needed to figure out how to do that without starting a war between Josh and the rest of the team.

“Fuck.”

“Smells good in here.” I pushed through the kitchen's back door to find Arlo, Ella, Cael, and Van wandering around cooking dinner.

“Where have you been?” Cael asked, tossing a roll at me as he filled baskets.

“I went for a run and checked to make sure everything was ready to go for tomorrow's activities.” I shrugged. In reality, I had jogged down past the range and diamond to the brush far away from camp and screamed until my throat was raw.

The frustration, confusion, anxiety—it all suffocated me. I had to let it out. Screaming made me feel better. Though it felt stupid, it was the most convenient way to release it all in one go. My chest felt instantly lighter as I jogged back up to the main part of camp.

“We made your favorite.” Ella smiled sweetly at me. Her hair was getting longer and she had it braided down over her shoulder as she stirred whatever was in the pot. I was grateful that she had decided to come out with us.

Most years, only Silas came. We didn’t really have a reason to have more than one medical personnel on site, but she’d offered to help run exercises and yoga in the mornings to keep the guys moving in the cold.

“I still don’t understand why Coach didn’t warn us,” Van said, his eyes focused out one of the smaller kitchen windows to where Josh was throwing a ball against one of the cabin walls and catching it on the bounce.

“Because he wanted us trapped out here with him for two weeks,” I said, tearing off a piece of bun and throwing it into my mouth. “Nowhere to go, no cell service.”

“That sounds like the beginning of a horror movie.” Ella laughed.

“It is,” I said.

“I get you guys are rivals but isn’t that mostly for show?” She asked, lifting a spoonful of chili from the pot and walking over to me.

“Says the woman who punched him last season,” Arlo huffed.

“Taste.” She ignored Arlo and cradled her hand beneath the spoon, blowing on it before lifting it to me.

The spicy sauce hit my lips and I nodded. “Really good.”

“He deserved to be punched for his comment,” she said.

“Talk shit, get hit,” Van and Cael echoed in unison.

“They're still making remixes of that right hook.” Arlo scowled.

“He’s not all bad,” Cael was the first to say after a beat of silence with us all staring out the window at Logan.

“And he’s a damn good pitcher,” Arlo noted. “He out-threw me more than once. He’s just never had an infield to back him up.”

Arlo crossed his arms over his chest and stood beside Cael and Van, who leaned on the long metal kitchen island to watch Logan. He was still throwing the ball but had stepped back and was getting faster.

“If you can get the team to work with him, you’ll be the first captain to win a back-to-back in his first season,” Arlo said.

“That’s just absolutely jinxed us.” Cael chewed on his lip.

“It’s not about getting the team to work with him , ” Ella interjected. “You guys act tough, but you’re a bunch of softies, and you, ” her eyes rolled over Arlo before she finished, “love strays more than a crazy cat lady.”

Arlo grumbled something under his breath as she nudged him with her arm.

“It’s about figuring out what he needs,” she said and looked over at me. “Oddly enough, for a group of emotionally chaotic men,” she softened her voice, “and luckily for Josh, you’re good at that.”

“So what, we pull out the baby gloves?” I asked.

“No.” Cael shook his head and grasped his chest dramatically. “Those won’t work—they’re for fragile, volatile angels.”

Arlo snorted. “You’re no angel.”

“Rude,” Cael huffed and threw a piece of bread at him.

“I extended my hand to him earlier, and he tried to bite it,” I said. “He insulted our team and told me he doesn’t need anything from us. How do we give him something he doesn’t want?”

“First, you figure out what he does want,” Ella explained, looking over at Josh. “Go from there. And everyone should stop staring at him like he's a zoo animal.”

“Whatever.” Van shrugged.

“He can see you.” Ella pointed to where Josh had stopped throwing the ball and was staring back at us with a nasty smirk on his face.