Page 42 of Home Sweet Home

Kayla looked toward Kenny with a wry grin on her face, plopping Ryleigh down onto the stool next to Kenny. “I think we have a future entrepreneur on our hands. That girl never misses an opportunity.”

Kayla moved to help Evie with filling the rest of the ketchup bottles, the last thing they needed to do before their shift was over, but Evie stopped her. “Just go home. I’ve got it. Seriously.”

“You sure?” Kayla asked.

Evie nodded, and as Kayla untied her apron, a loose thread from their conversation before pulled at Evie. “Wait. Why am I a turtle?”

Kayla rapped her knuckle against the counter. “Hard shell. Soft squishy underbelly.”

“Gross. And if you thought I hated you, why did you keep asking me?”

“I thought you might be all right,” Kayla said. “I was wrong about that—”

Evie elbowed her.

“—but then, one magical day, you let me come over. We drank wine and talked shit. You gave me a slice of the best lemon pie I’ve ever tasted. And my life has never been the same.” Kayla grabbed Ryleigh’s hand. “Maybe don’t make him wait so long for the armor to come down.”

* * *

The odorthat wafted toward Evie made her reach for the metal latches on the window, desperate for fresh air, her stomach churning. The bus was rolling along the highway, so when Evie slid the window open, cool air streamed in, circulating out the smell.

“No windows,” Arlene hollered with a look so withering in the rearview mirror that Evie snapped the window shut immediately. She shifted back in her seat, wrinkling her nose, and beside her, West laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Evie said.

“Freddy shotgunned a burrito from the Marathon,” West said, barely containing his snickering. “Right before we got on. Those things are deadly.”

“You are such a child sometimes.” Evie tried to hide her smile behind her hand.

The bus had way more seats than the team needed, but West had plopped himself next to her. He could have used his own seat because his body took up most of the space. His thigh brushed against hers every time Arlene hit a pothole, which was frequently, because there were so many of them on the poorly maintained highways and because she wasn’t very good at avoiding them. Not that Evie minded.

The boys had settled in the back of the bus. Freddy was cackling at something. If she had only one guess, she would have picked the sound of his fart, if she knew teenage boys, which after a month surrounded by a dozen of them, she did. Oliver sat by himself, his head buried in a book with Japanese characters and cartoon drawings on the front, and Josh sat alone, too, earbuds plugged in, staring out the window at the cornfields.

“What do you think our chances are?” Evie asked.

After the conversation with Kayla, Evie had woken up with the feeling that she was on a roller coaster, safety bar tightened over her lap, waiting for it to lurch forward, nauseous but excited. Along with the excitement, something like nervousness was gnawing at her. She was strangely invested in how the game would turn out.

“Bend’s pitcher is tough,” West said. “That kid has definitely been eating his spinach. But they’ve been working hard. They’ll figure it out.”

“Where’s Rich?” Evie had held her breath in the parking lot as all the boys arrived and got on the bus, but he’d never showed up.

“He’s driving there,” West said.

Evie held back a laugh.Of course he is.She could hardly imagine Rich on a school bus. It seemed too far from his natural habitat.

The bus turned sharply, and West’s body smashed up against Evie’s, pressing her against the window. The tires screeched as Arlene pulled off the highway, which meant they were just a few short miles from the Bend baseball field.

“You okay?” West asked, his brows knitting together in the center of his forehead, his hand hovering in the air like he wanted to touch her but wasn’t sure if he should. She found herself wishing he would let himself do it, but he put it back down in his lap. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head, the skin of her bare arm still warm where the full length of his arm had pressed up against it. “No.”

“You sure?”

“I’m a big girl, West.” Evie rolled her eyes, but his concern warmed her through and softened every part of her.

West’s eyes flicked from her face down the length of her body and back to meet her gaze so quickly, Evie wondered if she might have hallucinated. But no, he’d definitely been checking her out. The slow grin that followed was enough evidence. “I might have noticed that.”

A baseball glove flew through the air above Evie’s head, then landed in the seat in front of hers with a thud. Evie whipped back in her seat to see Freddy snickering, eyes bright as he tried his best to avoid looking at her.

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