Page 24 of Honeysuckle
Routine became my only saving grace. Get out of bed and shower before anyone else, take a run, eat breakfast with the psychotic Brady Bunch, practice, lunch, practice, dinner. Run. I would run until the sky got too dark to see the ground I was stepping on and the flames from their nightly fires raged in the sky and I would slink into bed unnoticed. And then do it all again the next day.
I stood at the edge of the path and watched the flames dance in the night air.
All I wanted was a moment of peace, but the calm silence was harshly sawed in half by the sound of laughter and happiness. It made me sick to my stomach. I started to walk the shadowed trail against the cabins back to my own when Dean came out of nowhere and stopped me.
“Tonight you sit with us.” He pointed to the fire.
“Just let me go to bed, Tuck,” I grumbled. “Today was long, and listening to you guys sing makes my ears bleed.”
“They aren’t singing tonight, listen,” he instructed, and I reluctantly turned my head toward the bonfire.
Their voices softly floated through the air; they were talking about baseball.
“For once don’t argue with me just… go sit,” Dean said again. “Please.”
It was the gentle tone in thepleasethat got me, because despite the constant beatings that Dean was taking in the form of angry kickback from the team, he was still trying. And he wasn’t angry or frustrated, he was just that infuriatingly positive teddy bear he always was.
It was driving me insane.
“Fine.” I turned away from him and wandered over to the fire, looking around for a place to sit, but there was none until Van nodded to the space beside him, moving over on the log.
A peace offering.
One I didn’t want.
I sank down on the log, resting on my elbows with my hat pulled down over my eyes, and listened. The second baseman, Louis, was telling a story in broken English about a botched play Arlo had made two seasons before. He was from Montreal, from what I could remember about his sheet, a young kid with so much potential. If he wasn’t pulled up to the MLB next year it would be a surprise. He had been playing with the Hornets since he turned eighteen.
He recounted the play in so much detail I would have sworn he had been the one to catch the ball and make the out, but he hadn’t been drafted to the team yet, he wouldn’t have been until six months later.
Van cleared his throat quietly. “Lou spent the entirety of last season with headphones in between practices, hell, between plays, learning English so he couldcommunicatewith the guys better.”
I wanted to snarl at the way he emphasizedcommunicatewith his judgemental tone. I wasn’t an idiot, I understood the importance of communication with the team. On the field it was easy to do call outs, emotion didn’t matter out there. What they were doing off the field was a different story; it was emotional connection and it was bullshit. It didn’t make them better players, it just wasted time between practices and games.
It had screwed them out of winning when Arlo took over.
He was too emotional, they all were, and it had fucked them over.
“Arlo was an asshole for a week after that game.” Dean sank down against the log at Cael’s feet and looked up at him with an endearing look on his face.
“That wasn’t even the worst day.” Cael shook his head with a smile that was highlighted by the warm tones of the fire. “Do you remember when Arlo found out Nicholas was taking over the pitching coach position?”
“Nuclear,” Van huffed, and looked at Arlo in his beanie and hoodie. “You made us run sprints the next day until Todd projectile vomited in the dugout.”
“And then made us clean the dugout until our hands were raw,” Todd added, tipping a beer back into his throat. He crushed the can and threw it into the fire, causing it to spark up in little embers.
“In my defense, it was the anniversary of Mom dying and Nick didn’t actually tell anyone he was coming back, so I walked into the stadium to his ugly face,” Arlo grumbled, and his brother sighed across the fire from him. Fire danced in Ella’s eyes as she watched my every move from her spot behind Arlo, her hands wrapped around his neck and her body curled into his back where he sat in the grass between her legs.
“I’m surprised you didn’t hit me that day,” Nicholas confessed, taking a swig of beer.
“I should have, but there was a lot of press around and Coach… It wasn’t worth it.” Arlo shrugged.
A nauseous feeling overwhelmed me at the sight of them. How easily they were able to dance around each other even in turmoil so thick they might as well have been wading through corn syrup. If it had been me, and I had a brother that so blatantly disregarded me and disrespected me, I wouldn’t be anywhere near him. But I didn’t have a brother; I barely had a mother to be angry about at the best of times.
It’s not that I even wanted those things, it was just that I didn’t want them shoved down my throat by the Hornets. It was like being water boarded with family affection that I never fucking asked for.
“None of it mattered. We still beat the shit out of the Lorettes.” Arlo grinned at me.
“I was pitching with an injury.” I arched my eyebrow at him.
