Page 18 of The Trouble with Players

The information played through my head. So did visions of people on campus. Had we met? Was that why he was so cold toward me? Had we hooked up and I’d forgotten?

“Peyton?” Gina asked again.

“There’re almost forty thousand students. I don’t know everyone.”

“I bet he knows you,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t he say anything?”

“Have you given him the chance?” she asked.

“We don’t have long conversations,” I said, feeling a little guilty that I hadn’t mentioned our precarious sleeping arrangement to her. But it was only because I knew what she’d say. What any rational person would say. Why?

On the field, Crew settled into his stance in the batter’s box. The pitcher released a wicked curve ball. Crew watched it without swinging, and the ump called it a strike. Crew stepped out of the batter’s box, readjusted his batting gloves, and stepped back in. The pitcher wound up and released another pitch. This one was a fast ball right over the plate. Crew swung, connecting with the ball and sending it flying high and far. The fans around me leaped to their feet just in time to see it sail over the left field fence. Crew didn’t celebrate like his teammates did outside the dugout. He just trotted around the bases with his head down, showing no excitement. He was all business. Once he reached home and his teammates slapped his hand one by one, I glimpsed the slightest smile on his face before he disappeared into the dugout.

“He’s so hot.”

I glanced to a girl around my age seated with a friend nearby.

“I heard he hooked up with Val the other night,” her friend said.

“I thought he was hooking up with Steph?” she asked.

Her friend shrugged. “These guys get around.”

They sure did.

When the Sharks ran out onto the field for the top of the second inning, the girls beside us cheered, and I could tell their attention was directed at Crew.

I rolled my eyes and scrolled through the feed on my phone.

“Welcome back,” Janie, a girl Gina and I had grown up with at the beach, stopped beside us.

“Thanks,” I said, knowing we were in for an earful.

Her eyes moved to the field. “How’s Crew doing?”

“Let me guess. Another Crew fan?” I said.

“Who isn’t?” she said, the awe in her voice impossible to ignore.

“The guy might be good at baseball, but he’s a player,” I said.

“Yeah. He’s definitely not looking for anything serious,” Janie agreed. “But I think the girls around here see that as a challenge. Like, who will be the one to make him commit.”

“Good luck with that,” Gina said, without tearing her eyes away from Cody.

“From what I hear,” Janie continued, “he doesn’t even do a lot of talking behind closed doors.”

“Just wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am?” I said.

“Exactly,” she explained. “And, he takes their phones away.”

“What?” Gina asked, finally tearing her eyes off of Cody.

Janie nodded. “Weird, right?”

“Actually, it’s pretty smart,” I said.

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