Page 25 of Honeysuckle
“You came back too soon against the advice of your medical staff and blew it for your team,” Jensen added, and I turned my sour look on him.
Dean put his hand up to stop Jensen from saying anything else.
“I could out-pitch Arlo with my eyes closed, Jensen. Which is more than you can say. Any drunk idiot can play back catcher.” I looked away from him to Arlo, who was scowling.
Jensen lunged but Dean was faster, shooting from the ground and forcing him back to his seat. “Enough,” he barked. This isn’t a trial,” he added.
“The malice, Logan,shit…” Van laughed. “Man, you hate this team more than Ella hates Miles Teller.”
Arlo barked a loud, unbridled laugh, and everyone joined in. “Now you’ve done it,” he said, when he finally settled down. I had never seen Arlo King so animated.
“That’s a lot of hatred,” Ella said, so seriously that her brown eyes unfocused with discontent.
“What?” I asked, confused. “Like theTop Gunguy?”
“Don’t…” Cael tried to stop what was coming with a quick word, but Ella was already raring to go.
“Tom Cruise? Are you talking about Tom becausehe’sthe Top Gunguy!” She threw up her hands. It was like a switch had been flipped; her cheeks were flushed and she was ready to go to war. “Miles Teller isnotthe guy. He should never be the guy! He looks like he smells moldy!”
Everyone laughed at her as she rambled on about it and Cael stared at me with a shake of his head.
“You see what you started? This will last hours.” He smiled.
“She’ll be muttering insults in her sleep,” Arlo said with a grin, and it only made her talk louder, arguing with no one but herself.
I smiled back at Cael, and for a split second I wasn’t angry at the world, I wasn’t angry at the Hornets for being effortlessly welcoming, I justwas.A calm passed over me as Ella’s voice finally died out and Dean cleared his throat.
“My favorite memory from the last few years was the Thanksgiving game two years ago. My brother refused to play because Cael was taunting him and then sat in the bleachers harassing him.”
Cael snorted preemptively before the story was over, and Dean nodded down at him with a smile as he went back to where he was sitting.
“Cael caught a rogue liner from Silas’s bat.” He laughed and did the motions with his hands, turning his body to look at Van. “Pocketed it, pulled off his glove, and hurled both the glove and the ball at Harvey’s face. He didn’t know what to stop and ended up getting hit by both in succession.”
“He had a bruise the size of an apple and his eye was practically swollen shut,” Silas said. I hadn’t even noticed him join the fire, but he was standing behind Arlo with his arms crossed staring into the flames.
“And had to skip his office photos the next week because he looked like a criminal.” Dean leaned back against the log in a fit of laughter, gripping his chest as Cael followed suit.
“I can up that,” Van interrupted the laughter with a loud voice and leaned forward. “Bailing Arlo, Cael,andCosy out of campus lock up for smashing her ex-boyfriend’s car with baseball bats.”
”They couldn’t prove it was us,” Arlo said.
“The paint on his car had residue of Harbor blue and yellow from the logos on the bats…” Van reminded them.
“He earned it, and we weren’t going to let her do it alone,” Cael said loudly.
They had helped Van’s sister destroy her ex’s car out of sheer loyalty to Van? I swallowed the bile that rose.Did they always protect each other so fiercely…with such reckless abandon for the rules?
“Besides, Cosy loves community service.” Cael shrugged. “She felt better and we got to destroy some asshole’s lifted truck.”
“I’m sure the truck is fine, Cody swings like a girl,” I added in a gruff teasing tone that made the entire fire go quiet.
“Do I swing like a girl?” Ella's voice cut through the silence like a knife.
I wiggled my nose, it was as if the healed break stung as a reminder of how much weight she’d put behind her punch that day. A faded memory of how much I had deserved it and how little that sentiment mattered to me.
My eyes found her, and for a moment I thought she might be upset, but she was smiling at me with all her teeth and light in her eyes. I didn’t know why, but the sheer fact that she wasn’t angry at the joke just infuriated me.
“Apparently, Logancantake a joke like the rest of us.” Van laughed and nudged me with his knee.
