Page 12 of The Best Friend and the Shortstop

“Because I have a date with a lacrosse player,” he brags.

I can’t help the tight-lipped smile that starts to dimple my cheeks. My mission may have been a failure, but Omar had great success.

“And does this man have a name?” I quirk my brow as I sling my bag over my arms and tug it tight against my back.

“Brian. And he’s pre-law. So, you know . . . we could be quite the power couple.” He waggles his brows.

I point to the coffee stain in the center of his T-shirt.

“Well, you’re gonna have to learn how to use a sippy first. Not a lot of power couples walking around with dribble shirt,” I laugh out.

He rolls his eyes at me and grabs the napkin that he’s clearly already used once this morning in an attempt to blot the stain.

“It’s the damn travel cup lid. I don’t get why people are so obsessed with these things.” He motions to the handled cup to his right, then tucks his chin as he blots his otherwise perfect, crisp white T-shirt.

“Fair point,” I say.

While he rubs the stain, which is really only making it worse, I pull my hair out of its tie and run my fingers along my scalp, straightening out the wave that always gets left behind. I pull my Chapstick from my back pocket and run it over my lips, then pull out my phone to check my face in the reverse camera.

“Yeah, not today,” I say with a heavy sigh.

“You look gorgeous,” my friend says. I flutter my eyes to him and purse my lips.

“I look like I haven’t washed my hair in two days and got up early to hit the rec center because I wanted to avoid running into my fake boyfriend who I secretly wish was my real boyfriend.” I shake my head and laugh at my ridiculous situation.

“Well, you’re gorgeous enough for Alex to be willing to play along. So that’s something,” Omar reassures.

I shrug, taking the tiny win. I guess it’s something that he finds me attractive enough to be into flirting. It’s just that I’m not sure how to act around him. Which is simply nuts because Alex is the one person I have never felt self-conscious around. But now I am going to overthink everything. Like the stupid lump in my hair from a ponytail. I relent and put my hair back in the tie, then tell Omar to wish me luck before I take off toward the study hall room attached to the library.

Alex and I never miss a session. As an athlete, he has to log hours every week, and I’ve always gone with him to take advantage of the tutors and to force myself to stay on top of the homework assignments I don’t love. I have an accounting project to work through today, and I’m not looking forward to it. Maybe it will distract me enough to not break down into a fit of girl giggles around my best friend.

Per usual, Alex is the only one in the room when I arrive. He’s always the first to check in. It’s one of his best character traits—the man is always early, and he never does anything halfway. He commits with his entire being, even to his academics. I’m not sure he’s going to need his business degree once he gets drafted, but I have no doubt he’ll graduate with honors. Me, however? I’ll graduate with an incredibly lopsided set of transcripts. On the sound engineering side—straight As. General studies? Sometimes a C gets the job done.

Alex has his headphones on as I enter the room, his back to me. I find myself suddenly wondering how to sit with him. How do I start this interaction? What would I normally do?

How do I not remember?

I pause just inside the door and take a deep breath, letting the weight of my backpack sink into my shoulders. Shaking off the weird tingles prickling along my neck, I resolve to act as though nothing has changed at all. It’s not like I told him how I feel. That . . . that would have made things weird. Maybe this was a blessing.

Moving in behind him, I poke his sides with my fingers, right where he’s ticklish. He yelps and stands from his chair as he drops his headphones to his neck.

“Why? Every damn time!” His laugh fills the space and soothes my nerves. This is how we act. Who we are.

I shrug.

“Because I can.” I toss my bag on the table and take the seat across from him.

He glares at me as he sinks back into his chair, then pulls his headphones from his neck to tuck them into his bag.

“You are the only person in the world who is not ticklish. At all. And it isn’t fair.” He points at me and dims his eyes. It’s one of my favorite expressions he makes. I call this the playful challenge look. It’s something he does for me and his mom. And I’ve never seen him make this face for anyone else.

“You can hit a fastball. I can withstand hours of tickle torture. I mean, it’s an even trade,” I say.

He chuckles and shakes his head before slinking down to get back to reading his text. He’s resting his head on his fist, his eyes flickering as they scan the page, and I let myself spy on him for a few seconds before pulling out my homework. I mimic his position, the toes of our shoes touching under the table. Alex’s foot has always been my doorstop. His legs are longer than mine, and without ever discussing it, we’ve fallen into a natural state anytime we sit across from one another where I get to rest my foot on or against his. It keeps me from sliding completely off the chair when I slump down. It’s a trick I worked out in junior high in a booth at the local Denny’s, and we’ve been doing it ever since.

We work like this in silence for about fifteen minutes before the quiet is broken by the hard laughter of the rest of the team filing into the room. Some of the football players come in here for the morning sessions too, which means it’s always fairly crowded, and it doesn’t take long for the other seats at our table to fill up.

“Hey, Nik. What’s up?” Cole reaches a fist across the table to me and I sit up tall to tap my knuckles into his. He’s my favorite of Alex’s teammates. They’ve shared a small house together across the street from campus for the last two years. They’re a good match—both more serious than others on the team. And I like that sometimes when Alex and I don’t want to be the lives of a party, we can retreat to their place away from the rowdy baseball house where six of the other guys live.

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