Page 58 of The Third Baseman

“If we’re going to work together…” I began, but stopped. My head was a minefield of confusion and I was doing my best to step carefully through it, yet every time I was near him, hell, every time I caught his eye I lost focus, and had to start all over again. At this rate I was going to tread somewhere I shouldn’t, and I didn’t relish an explosion. Another one. “I’ve been given a job I’m trying to do well, and it doesn’t help when you say stuff like that. I can’t concentrate. You need to let me breathe… please.”

Even the freckles on his face seemed to stand still as he held my gaze, and for the first time, I couldn’t tell what Jupiter was thinking.

He broke away from where our eyes were locked, to check his watch.

I desperately wanted to ignore the tiny plummet which gave out in my belly when he stood.

“Okay, as much as I don’t want to, I have to shoot. I have stretches with my PT.”

He bent down to kiss me and I let him, this time taking the opportunity to inhale every drop of him I could; commit to memory the sensation of his lips pressing softly against my cheek, and savor the tickle of his beard.

“Thank you for my coffee.”

“You’re welcome. Same time, same place tomorrow, Star.” Then he was gone, only to reappear with his head round the door a second later. “Actually, I’ll see you at the game later. Make sure you cheer for me.” He winked and left for good, and me feeling like a freshly rung bell; the vibrations still echoing in its drum.

I went back to work. I stared at the white wall for a good hour before I decided it would be more productive to write up what Jupiter and I had discussed – or what I’d told him while he nodded and asked ‘what else’, but I did add in his tape suggestion and his bat pouch request, omitting the velvet and walnut box.

I allowed myself to have a little chuckle and it felt good, like maybe I could do this, maybe it would be okay.

I sent a memo to Penn Shepherd and Scott Fishman.

But as the day progressed, I became more and more jittery. Every atom in my body was bing-bonging in confusion.

My mind couldn’t concentrate, and my body didn’t want to.

Both knew Jupiter was somewhere close; somewhere in the building.

By the time I got home that night, I’d realized some surprisingly hard truths.

The wall built around my heart was slowly being knocked down, brick by brick, by the boy who’d put it there in the first place.

And that was not something I’d planned for.

9

JUPITER

Fourteen years ago – February

“Hey, did you guys know Jupiter’s gotten himself a girlfriend?”

I nearly spat my Dr. Pepper across the table, but managed to hold it together when the heads of my mom and dad both whipped around in surprise to where I was sitting. From the confusion on their faces, it was quite possible they hadn’t even realized I was there, though that was just wishful thinking when my mom’s expression turned to one of undiluted glee.

“Oh, Jupey, is this true? You haven’t said a word.”

I shot Emerson a homicidal glare before she contributed anything else to this unsolicited conversation, because now I was in a bind.

A dilemma.

I’d never had a girlfriend before, just girls who came and went.

I’d never planned to have a girlfriend; they were too much distraction.

But in the month since Marnie and I had kissed on her rooftop, I’d seen her almost every day... and kissed her almost every day.

The days I hadn’t seen her or kissed her were down to me traveling for games, or because she was studying late in the science department, or I had to be in school for sunrise training. Plus the one time she went on a field trip to northern California to look at some shooting stars or something.

The days I had seen her were usually down to the rides to and from school. The ones which didn’t include Emerson and Mallory were my favorite, because on those journeys, I got to hold her hand in my lap, while she asked me questions about baseball in between explaining to me how the stars changed like the seasons, switching from the northern to the southern hemisphere as the earth spun on its axis. And I’d quickly take my eyes off the road to glance over at her, and wonder if perhapsIwas currently spinning offmyaxis.

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