Page 20 of The Shake Off

Out of my periphery he paused for a second, drumming his fingers along the steering wheel as he thought about it.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

“Yes,” he answered finally.

I sunk a little further into my seat. Of course he did.

“Yeah, well…” I huffed, “so did I. But then Payton said she didn’t come the other night, and she also didn’t fake it. And it’s making me question everything. Like, if someone’s always faked it, how do you know what’s real?”

To give him credit, he didn’t laugh when I probably would have, and looking at him now, he seemed to be taking my predicament as seriously as I was.

Because that’s exactly what it was. A predicament.

“Fuck man, I dunno. Shit.”

“What if there are girls going around the city talking shit about us?”

This time he laughed. “They’re not.”

I spun my whole body in the seat, and nearly strangled myself with my seatbelt in the process. “Parker, they could be. You don’t know that.”

“Ace…”

“All I’m saying is that everything I thought I knew about women has turned out to be a lie, and something I thought I was really good at now isn’t the case.”

“You’re so dramatic.” He rolled his eyes and began laughing way harder than necessary. Hard enough that it was clear he wasn’t taking me seriously, so I stared at him in the hopes it was enough to convince him I wasn’t kidding. It didn’t work. “Dude, please don’t tell me this is why you’re in a mood.”

“Well…”

“Oh, man. Seriously, Ace? Has she really gotten to you that much?”

“Hey!” I protested. “You don’t know that it’s not the same for you.”

He was silent as we drove through the next block, and I glanced out of the window. We’d almost reached Riverside Park. The leaves were thickening on the trees lining the paths surrounding it, and the blossoms were starting to make an appearance. In the distance, boats were sailing up the Hudson toward the George Washington Bridge on the way to who knows where.

“I do know,” he said eventually.

“Yeah? How?”

“Because…” he stopped and thought again. “I just know.”

“Yeah,” I scoffed, turning back to the window, “so did I.”

He tutted loudly and muttered something under his breath, though it sounded a lot like ‘fuck’s sake’, “Why d’you care what one girl thinks?”

“I dunno,” I shrugged, adjusting my cap again. “Maybe because… what if I’m not that good? What if I’m not the best?”

He shot me a quick side eye before focusing back on the road, with a frown. “Are we still talking about sex?”

“Yes. No. Generally, in general, everything. What if I’m not as good as I thought I was at anything? What if I’m not good at pitching?”

“Jesus Christ. How did we get from sex to pitching? How are you questioning your pitching? The stats speak for themselves. You had a 2.98 ERA over thirty-two starts last year.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled. Normally hearing my stats made me feel all warm inside, but not today. Not today. “I guess.”

“Ace, dude, I’m telling you, you’re one of the best pitchers, and the pair of us together will be unstoppable this season. Don’t let some girl get in your head because she didn’t have a good time. Plus, you forget that my bedroom is next to yours. I’ve heard them. They’re having a good time.” From his tone, I could tell Parker was beginning to lose his patience, and he was no longer finding me amusing – but I hadn’t found this amusing, period. “Fucking Tanner, this is his fault. He should never have put this in your head. You would never have asked her if it hadn’t been for him.”

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