Page 4 of False Start

Derek straightened, shooting Kit an amused smile. “Yeah, but I can’t have the pitcher take off into the field. Besides, you’re so fast, I won’t need two people in the outfield. Sorry, but you’re outfield for sure.”

His assessment made sense, but just like the time my junior coach told me I was too fast to just play quarterback, I griped. “I’m fast enough for both positions.”

Derek clapped my shoulder, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me back toward the benches to our teammates and a white cooler filled with juice boxes and a container of orangeslices. “Yeah, I bet you could. Good first practice. We’re glad to have you on the team.”

“Thanks, that was fun.”

I hadn’t spent any time with someone under fifty since Frankie Vigil, my best friend, left last weekend. I’d abandoned my normal off-season jet-setting for a quiet few months at home: weekday restorative yoga and weekend pottery classes. No clubs, no bars, no fun. I was bored out of my mind.

“We get together for a drink at a bar down the street, if you want to join us.” Derek swiped a slice of orange.

I dug around in the cooler until I found a water bottle and considered the offer. My knee-jerk response was a “hell yes.” Company and booze? Absolutely. I’d emptied my house of anything harder than a light beer and purged the phone numbers of every person I’d ever met while out past midnight in a bid to get my drinking under control and my reputation back from the brink of infamy.

One drink wouldn’t hurt, though. Especially not with a bunch of bakers.

“I can’t stay long.”

“Hey, I’ve gotta get out of here. See you at home?” Kit interrupted us, clinging to a backpack in one hand and pushing back a lock of light brown hair with the other.

“You can’t stay for one drink?” Derek asked, his eyebrows raising and eyes flitting toward me and back.

She shook her head, jaw set. “Nope. Have fun. Trent.”

Not a “good to have you on the team.” Not a “nice to meet you.” Just “Trent.”

“I think your girlfriend hates me,” I said with a nonchalant shrug once Kit was out of earshot.

Derek laughed. “Not my girlfriend. Best friend since grade school. I’m gay. And don’t let her bother you. She’s got a lot onher plate. It makes her a little more prickly than usual. But that’s just how she acts. It’s not directed at you.”

I let out a breath. “That’s good to know. I was sort of afraid I’d slept with one of her friends or something.”

Derek raised an eyebrow, body language shifting slightly. “Oh. That’s…telling.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah, I’m trying to clean up my act. Be on my best behavior. All that shit.”

“And you started with kickball?”

“I started with yoga and not boarding a plane to Mykonos.”

“Yeah.” Derek nodded. “You definitely need a beer.”

TWO

KIT

“This doesn’t look like studying.”Derek’s voice startled me, and I smacked the back of my head off the hood of my dad’s car.

“Geez,” I swore, rubbing the rapidly forming knot before checking my fingers for blood. “You’re back early.”

I’d turned down an after-practice drink for some peace and quiet. I’d gotten quiet, but peace had been a little more elusive. An hour of barely studying blood bank theory and I’d retreated to the garage.

“It’s almost eleven.”

I glanced down at my wrist, confirming the time. Hadn’t it just been eight a minute ago? “Have fun with your new bestie?”

“You should have come out,” Derek lightly chided as he stepped up to the car, craning his neck in. “What are you working on?”

I shrugged. “Just messing around. I think the mice are gone, so I was checking if they’d chewed up any of the wiring.”

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