Page 26 of Trip Through Your Wires

She shakes her head and when I see the hint of a smile tugging at her lips, I flash her one of my own. “Come on, Sparky. What’s going on?”

She opens her mouth to answer, but when the music stops, she snaps it shut and takes another step back, widening the space between us.

“We finish this later,” I say quickly as the door upstairs opens, followed by Cruz coming down the stairs, with Ellery on his heels.

“Ready?” she asks cheerfully. Her cheeks are flushed and not a hair is out of place. Her lipstick on the other hand…

“Ready,” Jenica straightens and shoots her friend a dazzling smile. “Let’s get this blood bath underway, shall we?”

***

“You know,” Cruz says with a bob of his head as he lifts his red plastic cup, “grunge isn’t so bad.”

I laugh and lift my own cup, taking a sip of my own drink. “Could this change of heart have anything to do with your little fuck fest earlier?”

He looks at Ellery, who’s bumping and grinding with Jenica on the makeshift dance floor in the center of the fraternity house living room. “Could be, brother.”

He’s remarkably cool for a guy whose girlfriend is wearing a costume that leaves zero to the imagination. Then again, everyone knows Ellery is off-limits. Her hot as hell best friend on the other hand is not and has turned more than a few heads tonight.

She’s not the only one. Cruz and I have also garnered our share of looks. We’re used to the attention. When you’re a star athlete, everyone wants to know you and pretend to be your friend. But tonight it’s because of the costumes.

Sure, we’re baseball players, but we’re players that have been chewed up and spit out by the undead, and I can’t help but find a dark irony in that.

Being a professional athlete was big business. An engine not unlike that of Corporate America. It worked you to the bone when you were valuable, then spit you out when you no longer were. If you were lucky, you left behind a legacy. Otherwise, you were simply another name on a roster, one of many in history.

I knew this and was prepared because I loved the game and have wanted nothing more since I was six. But lately, as that dream inches closer, I find myself wondering if it might be time to find one person to share it with and balance out the grind.

I loved my family and I wanted to make sure they were taken care of, but I see how happy Ellery makes Cruz and the way she fills his life with something baseball can’t. I want that. I want someone to be waiting for me when I get home, just as she will be waiting for him.

The song rolls from “Good Vibrations” to “Groove Is In The Heart” and knowing how much Jenica loves this song, I look at her and sure enough, she’s thrown both hands in the air and wiggling those hips like she’s a dancer in a club. I can’t help but smile. I love seeing her happy and carefree in a way that I know she isn’t back home.

I never expected that Jenica and I would become as close as we were. I may have been there for her last summer, but she was there for me in a way no one else had been. Cruz was like my brother and we’d shared a lot, but just as there had been things he hadn’t shared with me, there were things that I hadn’t shared with him.

Jenica wasn’t the only one with demons. I had them, too. But I didn’t give them breath. Doing so would only release parts of my past that could destroy my present and I couldn’t have that. Not when I’d worked so hard to get to where I was. But I wanted to tell her. I wanted her to know me, in all the way she’d given me the chance to know her. Maybe one day.

After downing the rest of my drink, I push up from the wall Cruz and I are leaning against and start for the bar. “You good?”

He downs the rest of his drink and sets the cup on the windowsill next to him. “I’m good, brother. Gonna go dance with my girl for a bit.”

I tap the top of his shoulder with my fist. “Keep it PG, huh?”

“Shiiiittt,” he replies with a grin, and makes his way over to Ellery.

I head to the bar, lifting my chin in acknowledgement as I pass. I don’t have to wait in line. None of the guys on the team do. We’re the ones that brought back the College World Series trophy. Everyone wants to do us a favor.

Once I have a fresh drink in hand, I spin around and find a petite redhead looking up at me. “Hey, there, Iceman.”

“Hey, Mallory. You being good tonight?”

“Depends,” she takes a sip of her drink. “What are you doing later?”

We hooked up last year in the stairwell of her sorority house. She wanted to blow me, then chickened out when she pulled my pants down and saw what I was packing. I went down on her instead. Made her come, kissed her goodnight, and that was that.

I don’t plan to repeat that performance. It’s not my thing. I don’t drink from the same well twice. “Early night,” I lift my drink. “Coach’s orders.”

She gives me a little pout and takes a sip of her own drink. As she does, a guy behind her hits her arm. She juts forward and grabs my shirt, drink sloshing over the side of the cup and onto my jersey.

“Hey!” I call out, helping steady her with my free hand. “Watch it, huh?”

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