Page 23 of Honeysuckle
“I’m your captain, I’m not going to let you freeze to death.” I closed my eyes, just trying to block out his dumb face.
“So be my captain and give me some space,” he mumbled, forcing me to open my eyes again.
“There’s no space to give, Logan. Shut up.” I pulled the blankets tighter. “Besides, it’s a body heat thing, the proximity will keep us warmer…” I tried to explain.
“You wanna snuggle?” He snarled.
“No,” I blurted quickly. “We’re close enough. Besides, I’m pretty sure you’d gnaw my arm off if I touched you again.”
“I will.” His tone went frigid.
“It was a joke,” I said, and sighed. “You’re a jumpy guy,” I added.
“I am not,” Josh said, following my actions by pulling his blankets tighter around his jaw.
“You are,” I argued with my eyes closed.
“How the hell are you so cold? Aren’t grizzly bears supposed to be furnaces?” Josh asked in a whisper, avoiding my prodding about his aversion to touch.
“Are you asking because you want to know, or because you want to make fun of me?” I asked.
“Can it be both?” He asked, after a moment of silence.
“I’ve always run cold and the guys have always made fun of me for it. I—” I stopped.
“Run cold? Like a lizard?” Josh laughed. It was the most genuine thing I’d heard from him all day.
“Yeah, like a lizard,” I scoffed. “I was born early and it messed up my body or something. I don’t know the science… or whatever.”
Josh smiled at me, the sharp points of his teeth showing as his lips parted.
“What?” I snapped.
“Nothing. You just have a really easy time talking about everybody's lives and when you talk about your own you get tongue tied and shut down,” he said, curling around himself a little more to pack the heat in.
“Coming from the guy who refuses to get to know any of his teammates, that really isn’t an insult.” I rolled my eyes.
“It wasn’t meant to be one,” Josh said.
“Oh?” I said, opening my eyes to look at him. He was staring at me in the darkness and I could feel the tension in the air. “Are you warmer now?” I asked him.
“Nope, still cold, just more annoyed,” Josh grumbled, and I sighed.
He was infuriating, exhausting, impossible to pin down.
But he had laughed, and that was something.
LOGAN
We’dbeenthroughthreedays of brutal practice since the torturous canoe trip, and every one of them had ended up in fights. There was no stopping them once they started. One wrong move and they were on me like moths to a flame. It wasn’t fair, the way they were treating me.
I was doing my best—trying to be the pitcher I knew I could be.
And every step of the way was blocked by one of them asking for more from me.
Asking me questions about my past, my friends, my family.
I didn’t have the time or the patience to entertain their constant need for connection. I’d come to camp under the impression that it was early training for the season, but was shell-shocked to find out it was more team building exercises and campfire sing-alongs. If I had to listen to Cael sing any moreDua Lipa,I would find a cliff to throw him off. There had to be one around here.
