Page 63 of The Third Baseman

“Shut up,” I shoved him back. “It’s not that bad.”

He stopped dead. “Oh, dude. It really,reallyis. There’s going to be mutiny.”

I shook my head and laughed, trying to ignore the unease making itself known. It never occurred to me anyone would care; I just assumed it would be accepted as fact. I now came with a girlfriend, and given I rarely thought about The Laurens or any of the girls, I also hadn’t thought that they might have an issue with it.

“All I’m saying,” he went on and I wished he wouldn’t, “is the past few years it’s been widely acknowledged that you don’t date, therefore coming out of the blue with an unknown girlfriend is going to cause a stir.”

I groaned which was all I could muster, before pushing it as far as I could to the back of my mind so I didn’t have to think about it.

We nodded to Reggie as we walked through the doors and headed down to the locker room. I tipped my chin to a couple of the guys from the football team who looked like they were about to head out, and save for them, the place was empty.

And I suddenly couldn’t be fucked for the eight miles we’d planned.

“Hey, let’s skip the run today and hit the batting cages instead. I feel like smashing something.”

Jenson threw his backpack into his locker. “Fuck, yeah!”

I threw on my shorts, grabbed my gloves, and followed him out to the bullpen where we spent the next two hours.

Maybe it was the change of plans for the morning, or the three buckets of balls I’d knocked out, but my body was coursing with electricity; like unstruck lightning. My muscles should have been tired, but I felt like I could go another twelve rounds. Not only that, Mrs. Philips, my English teacher, had graded my paper on the spot and given me a B.

Not sure who was in charge of making today, but I wanted to shake their hand because I was winning – especially when I rounded the corner to find the most beautiful girl in school sitting at the picnic bench outside the cafeteria where we’d arranged to meet. I’d picked up two pastrami sandwiches, water bottles, and a share bag of chips ready for our lunch together, but first…

My lips found hers; my free hand wrapped around the back of her neck and held her to me until I was ready to let her go… though it suddenly occurred to me I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready.

“Hi, how was your morning?” I peered down at her flushed face.

“It was good!” she replied and her eyes lit up. “Professor Foster has a new particle accelerator, and we got to use it this morning to make our own lightning. It was so cool.”

I laughed, warmed by her enthusiasm, even though I had no clue what she was talking about. “You made your own lightning? I gotta see that.”

“I’ll show you, it was seriously amazing,” she beamed up at me.

I held up the paper bags with our lunch. “I also have something amazing; I hope you’re hungry.”

“I sure am.”

“Good.” I held my hand out to her. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

I laced my fingers through hers. “You’ll see. It’s one of my favorite places.”

I led her across the picnic area, ignoring the turning heads, the whispering, and the looks I hoped Marnie hadn’t noticed. Maybe Jenson was right.

Good job I didn’t give a single fuck.

Passing the hockey building, the silver cylinders which pumped cool air into the rink caught the sunshine and spotlighted the path we were heading down, in the direction of the playing fields. All the teams – football, lacrosse, baseball, soccer – played in the same area of school. It had been purposely built like this so the school’s supporters could cheer for any team if there happened to be games played on the same day. And when we turned the corner, all the fields were laid out like a patchwork quilt below us; the bigger ones with bleacher seating situated in the middle – the smaller fields all spread around the outside of them.

“Wow, this looks amazing. I’ve never been down here before.”

My eyes shot wide. “Seriously? You’ve never watched a game? How’s that possible? I thought all students had to support the teams.”

“Not if you have an early acceptance pass which means you have to study.” She shrugged.

“Well, shit.” I stopped us walking and pointed out to the far left. “Over there are the football fields. There’s one for the senior team and one for the junior team.” My arm moved a little further to the left, “And there are the baseball fields… you can see the diamond. Best place on earth.”

She squeezed her hand in mine, and she may as well have stroked my balls for the effect it had on me.

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