Beckett Harris had somehow gotten under my skin over the last several months, and now I felt itchy and uncomfortable like I had a rash.
And a skin disease.
And an alien invasion.
How had I let this happen?
And even more importantly…how did I stop it when that was the last thing I wanted to do?
Chapter Fifteen
Beckett
“Do you understand what’s expected of you this season, son?” Coach leaned in so Anton Migas knew his full attention was needed.
I held my breath and willed my mind to stay focused on the meeting Coach had asked me to sit in on. Anton had been second pitcher for the last two seasons. As a junior this year, and with talent that you would not believe, he should have been more than ready to step up to the plate.
But he was a partier. And a womanizer. And he had been enjoying his second place spot because he was talented enough that he didn’t have to work hard for it.
First pitcher was different. You had to work your ass off for that spot, and once you got it, you had to work even harder to keep it. It wasn’t guaranteed that you would get to pitch every game and injury and fatigue could derail your career faster than anything.
If he didn’t start taking care of himself and his position on the team, Coach was going to look for someone else to fill his spot.
It was almost fun to be on this side of the conversation. I’d always been on the receiving end, worried about my spot and my position and what would happen if I didn’t recover from whatever minor injury I’d face or pull my act together.
When I’d had to sit where Anton was sitting now, I’d usually felt mildly feverish with a strong urge to puke.
On this side of the locker room, I got to watch Anton’s reaction, his reception to Benson’s words and his mood. I got to examine him like a bug under a microscope.
And I didn’t like what I saw.
To me, he seemed overly arrogant and cocky for a kid that had done okay, but hadn’t thrown any game-winning pitches yet. Sure, he was young and still in school, and we could forgive him for a certain amount of ego.
But this was over the top to me.
Still, even with all of this going on, I found it hard to concentrate.
My mind kept wandering back to Britte and the last time I’d seen her. I could mentally conjure her body beneath mine in an instant. I could still feel her in my hands, pressed against my body, her legs wrapped around mine.
I could still smell her. And taste her.
And damn, all I wanted was more of her.
We’d texted since then, and she’d remained open and flirty, but she hadn’t been receptive to getting together again. She had legitimate excuses, and I understood them. For the most part.
I mean, I had legitimate excuses too. We were both busy. I got that.
But hell, I wanted to see this girl. I wanted to spend whatever extra time I had with her. I wanted to push commitments and responsibilities and find a way to get to her.
Like I said, she texted like nothing was wrong. But I didn’t feel that same drive from her.
And I didn’t know how to feel about that.
Part of me figured that I was reading way too far into this. I needed to man-up and stop letting my girly emotions poison my logic. The girl was busy.
She had a lot going on right now.
Another part of me felt a little desperate and pathetic. I had tried to go at her pace. I had tried not to over text or push too much when it came to seeing each other again. And all of this momentum inside me that demanded we see each other again and pick up where we left off…that was just hormones. I needed to chill out and give the girl some breathing room.
But the last part of me. The smallest part. The part that lived somewhere in my gut and operated on instinct and intuition whispered that there was something bigger going on here. Britte was a complicated woman, and she had been through a lot in her life. And everything she’d been through, all the hurt and pain and abandonment issues were being brought up and shoved in her face all over again.
That couldn’t be easy.
I couldn’t even imagine going through what she had. It wasn’t something I had ever had to deal with or would ever have to deal with. So I was trying to be sensitive to her process, all the while wondering what she was thinking.
That part of me warned that something was wrong… that she might not be as okay as she wanted me to believe she was.
Plus, Britte was a classic over thinker. How many times had I had to talk her out of her own head?
I could only imagine the lies and deception she whispered to herself. About her mom. About her childhood. About me and what I wanted and what I was going to do to her.
Ellie had told me to go slowly with her. My sister had warned that Britte had trust issues and that it was going to take a while for her to be open with me and trust me.
But I felt like we’d made a ton of progress over the last few weeks. I felt like maybe she had started to trust me. Or at least she wanted to.
She was as into the other night as I was and if my phone hadn’t started chirping, there was no telling how far we would have gone.
Now I just needed to get her alone again. Maybe that was the key. Maybe I had to show her that she trusted me…that she liked me…that she wanted to be with me.
Who knew what her head told her. But she wouldn’t be able to deny it if I could prove it to her.
And holy shit did I want to prove it to her. I hadn’t imagined this deep, heavy thing with Britte…but here we were. She’d gotten under my skin and crawled into my life. She had managed to be the one thing I thought about all the time, the one person I couldn’t wait to be with again.
I wanted to text her and call her and spend time with her. I wanted this to be more than a dare to spend time with me. I wanted this to be more than hot make outs and this animal urge to rip each other’s clothes off.
I wanted to take her home to meet my parents and show her where I grew up. I wanted to talk about our futures and make this permanent.
I wanted to make this permanent…
Those words shocked even me.
“Thoughts, Harris?”
I blinked at Anton, realizing I had been staring at him for the better part of twenty minutes and hadn’t heard a word he or Coach Benson had said.
I cleared my throat and rubbed my palms on my hand. “I think you pretty much summed it up.”
Benson gave me the side eye. “Advice then?”
“Stay away from the parties and the women,” I answered immediately. “You need to focus on the game.”
My words surprised me, but they really surprised Anton. He scooted back in his chair while his eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.
“That’s amazing, coming from you, Harris.”
“Coach Harris,” Benson corrected.
A surge of pride zinged across my chest. Coach Harris. I liked the sound of that.
I mean, I really liked the sound of that.
Anton did not. “Coach Harris,” he sneered.
I scooted forward in my chair and made my posture as intimidating and authoritative as possible. “The difference is, Migas, when I partied and womanized, my game didn’t suffer. Yours does. You are not the all-star athlete you claim to be when you’re not taking care of yourself. So the solution is simple. Take care of yourself so you can take care of this team. Or choose not to put the team and the game first and lose you first place spot.”
His eyes flashed with frustration, but he didn’t talk back again.
Benson stood up and opened the door. “I think you get our point, Anton. Improve your conditioning in the next week or find yourself back in this office on less than favorable circumstances.”
Anton stood up and nodded to both Coach and me before he silently left the room. Coach closed the door behind him and turned to me.
“Impressive, Harris. I wasn’t sure you had it in you.”
I stood up t
oo and folded my arms over my chest. “To be a coach?”
He shook his head, his thin white hair barely moving. “No, to separate yourself from the kids you played ball with last year.”
I looked out the window at Anton’s retreating back. “It’s just frustrating, you know? He has so much potential…so much natural talent. And he’s wasting it. I just want to smack some sense into him and make him see what he could be if he’d take his life seriously.”
Benson’s big smile caught my attention. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him smile that big. It was slightly alarming.
I was a little worried he was about to have a stroke.
Or go into cardiac arrest or something.
“There it is.” His smile stretched wider, and his eyes danced with humor. “You’re officially a coach. It took you what? Three weeks? Four weeks? But you got the hang of it in no time. Just like I knew you would.”
I had never been more confused. “Got the hang of what? What are you talking about, Coach?”
“What you just said. You know, about wanting him to see his full potential and needing to smack some sense into him. That is my entire career wrapped up into a few sentences. That’s your new life. Every damn day. So many kids are going to come through this locker room and maybe a handful of them are really going to know who they are. The rest are going to be floaters, filling their time with stupid pursuits and wasting their youth on drugs and booze. It’s our job to make them play good ball. But more than that, we gotta teach them to be men. Teach them how to take life by the balls and do something with it. That’s our real job. Baseball is just a small part of it.”
I swallowed at the huge responsibility he’d just laid down. I’d gotten fed up with Anton, not motivated to change him. My outrage stemmed from dormant talent, not concern for his wellbeing. But at the same time, I didn’t shy away from those words either. This made sense to me. This was something worth pursuing…worth going after.
I wasn’t just chasing baseball. I was chasing after kids who needed extra motivation to fill their potential. Not just on the field, but in the real world too.
Talk about a fulfilling career.
The marketing internship paled in comparison.
The only difference I would be making there was the depth of my bank account. But was that really what I thought life was all about?
Nope.
Not even close.
And I had no idea when I’d decided that.
It might have been right this second.
“Is that what you did to me, coach? Forced me to see the bigger picture?”
He shook his head again, but this time he was more serious. “Nah. Beckett, you’re one of the few kids that came through my locker room that had his shit together. Yeah, maybe you had to grow up some. Mature into adulthood. But you didn’t need me to tell you to get your head out of your ass. You worked that one out on your very own.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I wanted to offer a thank you, but my mouth wouldn’t move. I seemed to be stunned in place by Coach’s high praise.
I could count on two hands the number of times this man had been excessively complimentary. And by that I mean, offered more than one compliment. But never had he delivered a speech like this one.
It stunned me.
It filled me with pride and humility all at once. I wanted to make him say it again so I could record it and play it for my family over and over and over. And at the same time, I never wanted to mention it again because I was embarrassed by his faith in me.
I still didn’t think I deserved this job, but if Coach thought that of me, I was going to try my damnedest to be worthy of this job.
I would deserve it.
I would work as hard as I could until I deserved it, then I would keep working that hard to keep my spot.
Just like I did with little leagues. And high school ball. And college ball.
Just like I was doing with Britte.
While I stood there and tried to form words, Coach offered one last smile and said, “See you tomorrow, Harris. Come back with more of that coaching know how and I’ll stop considering you a mistake.”
Then he walked out of the room.
He was kidding, right?
He’d just complimented me.
That was a joke.
It had to be. Right?
See, this was why I had a complex.
I gathered my things for the evening, zipped up my fleece and headed to the parking lot. It was dark out by now. The days were getting shorter, and the wind was getting colder.
I hustled to my car and thought about dinner. I hadn’t eaten since the protein bar I’d had on the way from the internship. I was starving. And exhausted. And all I wanted to do was crawl into bed with Britte and forget about the day.
She was in the middle of midterms this week, so I’d given her space so she could study.
But as I got in my Charger, I remembered how grateful she’d been for the pizza. So grateful, she’d let me get to second base.
Which was no small feat.
I could use a little second base tonight.
And she could use some sustenance.
Choosing deli sandwiches over pizza again, I swung by a local favorite, grabbed some massive sandwiches, chips and some cheesecake they made in house and drove to her apartment without calling.
I’d texted the last time I stopped by, but she hadn’t gotten it.
This time I didn’t even think about it. We were beyond that, right?
I started to get nervous though as I pulled into the parking lot. What if she wasn’t even home? More accurately, could I eat all of the food I’d bought if she wasn’t around to eat half of it?
Yes.
Yes, I could.
So I decided to knock on the door and just see. If she wasn’t here, no big deal, I’d go home, and she wouldn’t know what she missed.
But if she were here…
I grabbed the food and jogged up their apartment steps. After I’d knocked three times, Ellie flung the door open and immediately started eyeing the food.
“Is that Frank’s?”
I hugged the bags against my chest. “It’s not for you.”
She sniffed the air. “Some of it’s for me.”
“I didn’t think about you, sorry E.”
Her offended look made me feel like a shitty brother. “I’m in here, starving on Ramen noodles, and you didn’t even think of me? Your sister? Your starving sister?”
“You like Ramen noodles,” I pointed out.
“But I also like Frank’s. A lot. Everybody likes Frank’s. Now I want Frank’s.”
“If I promise to stop by tomorrow with a special order, will you let me inside?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I want three sandwiches, three bags of chips, three giant pickles and three cheesecakes.”
“Who am I feeding? Your entire apartment complex?”
“Obviously, they’re all for me. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Duh.”
I had nothing to say to that. I was honestly impressed. My little sister, master manipulator and champion of deli sandwiches.
“Done,” I agreed. “Text me what you want tomorrow.”
She nodded, stepped back and waved her arm toward the kitchen. “You should know she’s not here, though. She’s studying at the library. She says I’m too distracting.”
The way she admitted the last part made me think they’d had that discussion more than once. “Do you bug her?”
“Of course not! She’d just rather talk to me, and binge watch Gilmore Girls than study. I can’t help that. I can’t help that I’m awesome. I can’t help that I’m so interesting and fun to talk to and hilarious. If anyone’s to blame here, it’s Britte. She should have a better attention span.”
I faced the refrigerator and rolled my eyes. She reminded me of Lennox and Grayson when she flaunted her ego. They were all obnoxious.
Good thing I was nothing like them. Good thing
I got all the humble genes.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“An hour, maybe? You could wait for her.”
That was a good idea. “You don’t think she’ll be irritated I’m here?”
It was Ellie’s turn to roll her eyes. “You brought Frank’s. Obviously, she’ll forgive you.”
I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I decided to hang out for an hour and if Britte hadn’t shown up by then, I’d take off and leave the food.
I put it in the refrigerator and sat down with Ellie on the couch for a little while. We hung out and made fun of all the people we mutually knew. I gave her a hard time about Fin and she tried to pull all the juicy details about Britte out of me.
I was a locked box.
Beckett Harris did not kiss and tell.
Most of the time.
Er, some of the time.
Starting now.
Eventually, Ellie handed over the TV remote, showed me how to use their Roku so I could get Netflix, and ambled off to her room to study for her midterms.
Not having anything else to do and feeling the length of the day catch up to me, I stretched out on their couch and wished it was mine.
Mine was so much better.
Their couch was probably from some thrift store and came preinstalled with fleas.
That’s how tired I was. I couldn’t even get up at the prospect of getting fleas.
Probably twenty minutes later, I toed off my shoes and found a rock climbing documentary to watch. Normally I would have stayed riveted on the information and history of rock climbing, but had I mentioned that it had been a long day yet?
Last thing I knew, I had been making plans for Grayson and Lennox and me to take a weekend at Devil’s Lake. We could rock climb the shit out of that place.
And then. I fell asleep.
Chapter Sixteen
Britte
It had been a long day. And a longer freaking night. All I wanted to do was fall face first on my bed and not move for twenty-four hours.
At least.
But I had another midterm first thing in the morning, and I felt like I’d stopped retaining any useful information about three hours ago.