Page 44 of Pitcher

But then he came, his bow tie unknotted, his hair disheveled, and a frown on his face. He had asked what I was doing on the field. I remember telling him I liked the way the grass felt between my toes.

He didn’t laugh.

Instead, he took off his own shoes and asked me to dance.

My voice in the video interrupts the memory.

“Okay,” I say hesitantly.

The camera switches to selfie-mode and Theo’s dimple fills the screen. He’s smiling, taking my hand, and twirling me around before handing me the camera. I fumble, but I find a hold with my hands around his neck and his around my waist.

“Say you’re gonna miss me, McCallister,” he says softly.

I remember panicking, wondering what the right thing to say was. Funny. Nothing has changed four years later. I’m still the same girl who wants more from him but is too scared to say it. Too scared to lose the only person I have left. The only person who’s looked out for me. In high school the fear came from rejection. Now, as an adult, the fear is being alone. Without someone to have dinner with. To watch games with. I wish someone would have sent me to charm school where I could have learned to be more social with girls.

I could have had more friends and then losing Theo wouldn’t be so detrimental.

But that wasn’t the case.

I stuffed every memory and every dream in his pocket. I kept him close. I loved him in secret, and in a couple weeks, I’ll have nothing. All of it will be a distant memory.

“I might miss you a little,” teases the younger girl in the video.

She’s lying. She’s going to miss him a whole hell of a lot. But back then he meant when he went away to college, before we knew we would end up living together.

“I’m gonna miss you a little too,” he returns softly.

Gah, we were so stupid back then.

Okay, fine. We’re still stupid. We’ve made no headway whatsoever since then.

I stare at the screen, watching the girl smile and twirl in the arms of the boy she dreamt of marrying. As their bodies sway, the crickets chirping in the background, I find my hand inching down my sleep shirt until I reach the hem. Carefully, I slip it up my hips, so as not to wake Theo sleeping next to me.

Theo’s laugh in the video makes me smile, and my hand works underneath my panties. Chills break out over my stomach, and I close my eyes, listening to his eighteen-year-old voice on the video.

“I won’t bite, McCallister. You can come closer.”

The pads of my fingers find the sensitive nub at my center and apply pressure, causing a groan to slip from my lips.

“I am close,” I argue on camera, the audio of the video playing the background noise to my fantasy. Delicately, I massage the bundle of nerves until my panties are damp against my skin. Shivers take over as my skin turns from chilled to blazing hot.

“Oh, God,” I murmur, biting the sheet at my chin, my back arching as my knees bend, allowing my hand better access.

“Not close enough,” he says, and I nearly come from his statement alone. Faster, my fingers work, dipping lower and smearing the wetness around. I’m lost in his voice when suddenly the video stops playing.

What the hel—

I can’t see shit, but what I can see has me swallowing harshly. A hand—not mine—hovers over the pause button.

Fuck.

He can sleep through an earthquake and this wakes him? You have got to be shitting me.

Theo pulls the earbuds from my ears, and I let him.

I’m not about to do it myself and let him see where my hand was. Although, he probably already knows, but let me have this hope.

Clearing his throat, his unplugs the headphones and tosses them on the floor.

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