Page 89 of Wild Pitch
Lucky greets me with a handshake and a smack to my back. Pulling away, he says, “Bruh, I missed you so much that I got you a present.”
“It’s not a whoopee cushion, is it?”
“No, it’s just socks.” He pulls a roll of socks from his back pocket and places it on my hand. Already by the color I can tell that they’re not normal.
Keeping my face straight, I unfurl them—and unfurl them some more. The things have to be knee high, if not higher. And… A few guys from the team burst out laughing.
“Remind me how old you are again?” I ask him.
He jams his hands in his pockets and gives me an innocent look. “Thirty, why?”
“Shouldn’t you act a bit more serious for someone who claims to be my older brother?”
He waves a hand. “Nah, that’d be boring. Anyway, put them on.”
“There’s a punch line coming, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but not until you’re wearing them.”
My eye twitches, but I know Lucky. He’s as relentless at robbing bases—and he has the team’s record to prove it—as he is with his practical jokes that belong to middle school. They’re usually in the form of a challenge, always benign, sometimes annoying, often funny. I wonder which of the two it’ll be this time, so I sit by my locker, remove my normal socks and push up the legs of my black joggers to the knees so that his absurd socks can be on full display.
“Pffff.” He presses a hand against his mouth once I’m done with the first one, and completely loses it when I’m done with the second one. “See, Cade? That’s what you get for skipping leg day!”
I groan as he guffaws, and some of the other guys join in. “Seriously?”
The only way my legs can look like as chicken’s is by wearing these white socks that have a cartoon chicken’s legs drawn at the front and at the back. I make a mental note of finding an even worse pair for him.
“Wait, wait, wait. Let me take a picture.” He produces his phone and I let him. “Guaranteed these pics will make chicks lose their minds far more than yourSPORTYarticle.”
“What?”
“Chicks?” He grins. “That’s where I got the idea from.”
“No, theSPORTYthing. You know about it?”
“The whole team knows. Audrey Winters from PR came looking for you a few minutes ago. She’s waiting for you in Beau’s office.”
This annoys me even more than I already was at the constant distractions.
“Great,” I mumble, getting up.
O’Brian stops me with a hand on my chest. “Dude, are you going in with those socks?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna wear them until they have holes on their toes,” I grouch, never backing from a prank war with Lucky. If I remove these socks right now, I won’t have a right to retaliate.
“There goes your heartthrob reputation.”
Lucky hooks an arm around my neck and whispers into my ears, “The socks are also a reminder to not chicken out about other things.”
“What things?” I frown at him.
“Going after the girl you like.”
Every blink progressively sours my expression even more, especially when his shit eating grin widens more and more. He pats my chest and lets me go. No one else seems to have heard that, and if I don’t dignify it with an answer, I can pretend like I also never heard his words.
Of course, the moment I walk into Beau’s office and Audrey Winters looks up at me, the greeting sticks in her throat upon the sight of my brand new socks.
“They’re funnier without the sneakers,” I say in a deadpan.
