Page 91 of Our Hearts Knew Better

When I lean back with him, he circles a finger around the area as he asks, “How thankful do you think they are?”

My eyes dart between the batters as I consider therightresponse to the question. Adam’s starting a different, more dangerous game, and I’m making myself a player to keep him away from everyone else he’s now targeting a glare toward.

“I’d wager some are,” I answer low, knowing I have to reach him with honesty. He’d see through my shit otherwise. “Some probably don’t think about it.”

“I didn’t think about it,” he says low back, then laughs, a split in the air so sharp, my hands shift over my lap, ready to pull him back from—

“Now which one do you think will lose it?”

From that. That destruction.

“Come on.” He backhands my leg like this is still a game, but I’m taking both of us out. “Make a guess.”

“You,” I say as I shift toward him, a snap of fear for the road he’s going down and what else he might say, or even do, before I can get him out of here. “You’re the one who’s gonna lose everything you still have.”

“Am I gonna lose you?”

“No,” I answer as fast as he asked, which he wanted, and which he already knows.

“And I’m not gonna lose Summer,” he says, shrugging off the conversation. “That’s everything I still have. We talked about this,” he adds, and I hear,we’re not talking about it again.

“You can see the doctor who’s really been helping my mom,” I push anyway, because I’m going to hound him as often as he shows me he needs it. “I can call for you—”

“Summer gave me the shrink crap too,” he cuts in, with a frustrated tone, and my jaw tenses at hearing it linked with Summer. “Doctors can’t help me. The first one couldn’t even get me back on the field. But I told you,” he pushes back. “Don’t worry.”

That doesn’t relieve me. I’m deaf to those two words as long as we’re still in these cages.

Adam circles his finger around again. “I don’t recognize one person here,” he says, like this is some relief for himself. “Except him.” He points at the kid, and my eyes point on him. “He looks like him. The guy who did this to me.” His gesture to himself—benched—is a flop of his arms on his lap, as he watches the kid like a cornered animal that would swipe at him if he got close.

Which now I’m sliding even closer as the corners of his eyes cast those dark clouds, glazed onto the kid, now like he himself is the target, and if he keeps still, the snake won’t bite him. Again.

The sight grinds at me and my hand finds his back. I feel a shudder through his shirt, his body stiffening for a strike—

He lunges off the bench and I’m right there at him, bounding in front with both hands on his chest, stopping him halfway to the net.

He tries to shove me off, but I’m physically stronger than him now.

“What are you doing?” he throws at me with a heaving breath, finally just swiping my hands away until I drop them, but I remain his shield against this negatively life-altering choice.

“Walk away,” I implore him with more hustle to get the hell out of here. “That’s not him. He’s just a kid.”

Adam stares at me likeI’mthe one losing it, but it’s me who had the grip on him. “Seriously? I’m not gonna hurt him. I just wanna talk to him.” The hike in his voice and the stressed defense in his explanation tells me that’s notjustwhat he was going to do, even if—fuck—he doesn’t realize it.

“And tell him what? Say he looks like the asshole who made sure you can’t play ball? Confuse him? Or live through him and compare stats to keep reminding yourself how good you had it, too, and then maybe convince him he’ll be you in six years?”

He realizes now, a slow progression that relaxes him to back down, and I’m soothed by my first wave of relief as he glances to the kid, no more like he’s a target.

“Hey, everything all right?”

We look toward a man in a ball cap approaching us with caution, and I note other eyes on us, too, lesscracks of bats.

“Yep, we’re good,” I assure the man, offering up a smile in his hesitancy to step back, then turning a sigh to Adam when he finally does.

I put a stabilizing hand on his shoulder as he rocks in place, focusing his attention back on me. “Let’s get some sea. Or just some air. Or something else, whatever you want—”

“I got you,” he cuts into my renewed hustle to exit this place with a laugh that’s another wave of relief.

We’re almost at the door when he stops me with the back of his hand against my chest. “Don’t tell Summer I was here.”

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