Page 48 of The Best Friend and the Shortstop

“You okay?” I tilt my head, calculating where Alex’s gaze is landing, pretty sure it’s on Cole’s forehead.

“I’m good. Yeah. Just something I have to do.” Alex shifts in his seat, leaning his opposite elbow on the console so he can look Cole in the eyes.

“I thought we talked about . . . this,” Alex says, waving his finger between me and him.

“Wait, Cole knows?” I shift to join the conversation, but the inside of a sedan is a really tight place to hash things out with three people.

Cole chuckles.

“I knew enough. But I wanted him to say it out loud in front of me. Mostly because?—”

“Fine. You were right. Are you happy?” Alex’s grumpiness seems to only make Cole laugh more, and he claps his hands together once and makes this really dorky swoony face.

“I’ve never been happier, my sweet Alex,” he teases.

My face sours, and I push Alex out of the way to point a finger at Cole.

“Don’t ever use that phrase again. I don’t say that. Nobody says that. That’s . . . weird. So stop.” I shake my head, then move to meet Alex’s gaze. “Am I right?”

“Oh, you’re right. Very weird,” Alex says.

We both nod and I lean over the console the remaining few inches to give him a quick peck before buckling up. Cole remains silent for a few seconds.

“Gee,” he finally breaks through. “I see what you like so much about her.”

The dead silence that follows lasts only a few seconds, but soon the three of us erupt in laughter. It feels good. And for the short ride to the stadium, I don’t think about anything besides the many ways I plan to torture Alex with my sweet Alex in the coming days.

I kiss him one more time before he heads toward the fieldhouse with Cole, and I catch him telling Cole to shut up as they walk away. I hover by the main gates, trying new searches on my phone while I wait for Omar and Brian to meet me. I finally find one article about a professor in Indiana who works in the sound engineering department and he’s nearly deaf. It’s more of a human interest piece, but for me the takeaway is the power of the visuals in the technology. It seems the professor was a roadie with a pretty famous band for years in the seventies and eighties. Lax safety precautions destroyed his hearing, but he found that working with the same musicians for so long gave him a certain feel for when things were right.

“It’s those unteachable instincts,” he said in the story. “I can rest my palms on the board and feel when something is off. And now, thanks to technology, I can see it.”

“What’s so engrossing?” Omar says, startling me as he pops up behind me.

I jump and fumble my phone.

“Was just reading, waiting on your late ass,” I tease, not ready to talk to him about my news. I will, however, share the more exciting news with him.

“So, how was your weekend? Anything . . . new?” My voice lifts up at the end, a character trait definitely weird for me, and Omar notes it as we walk.

“Why are you smiling like that?” His eyes dim while Brian looks at me, amused.

“Oh, she had sex,” Brian says, and I was not quite prepared for his bluntness. Neither, it seems, was Omar, as we both cup our mouths with our hands and stare at each other with wide eyes.

Omar points at me across his boyfriend’s body while Brian chuckles, proud of himself for solving the riddle so fast.

“You’re not denying it!” Omar’s shouting is barely muffled by his other hand, which still covers his mouth.

I drop my hands, sure my face is beet red, and shake my head slightly.

“I am not denying it.”

Omar’s hand drops long enough to glimpse the large O formed by his lips. My face does the same, and soon we’re both back to hiding behind hands.

“You two are schoolchildren,” Brian teases. I’m getting a Coke. Save my seat.

As soon as Brian leaves us, Omar pulls me to him as we walk toward our seats.

“It’s happened,” he says.

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