Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
I was watching the next guy at the plate when the crowd roared. I squinted at the field. A guy in a Langley uniform was running from first base to second. “Is that Kyle?”
“Yep,” Jayden said. “He leads the team in stolen bases.”
I had a vague idea of what that meant. Sports in general weren’t my thing, but I’d grown up not that far from Atlanta, which was a big baseball town.
“He’s really good, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he’s great. He was good in high school, but he’s even better now.”
“Do you think he’ll go pro after college?”
Jayden shook his head. “Most of those guys get snapped up after high school. But he’s very good for the college level. That’s why he got a full ride.”
“He did? He has a scholarship, too?”
“Yep.”
I hadn’t known that. There was a sinking feeling in my gut. Could he lose that, too, if he didn’t pass the composition class?
I looked for him on the field, surprised to see that he was now at third base, not second. One of his teammates was on first base. “Why does the pitcher keep looking over at him?”
“Because he keeps stealing bases.”
Every time the pitcher whipped his head to the right, Kyle would smirk at him. I couldn’t even properly see his face from here, but something about his posture let me know that. Plus, the guy on the mound was getting pissed off. And Kyle was an expert at getting under people’s skin. “Can you steal home base?”
“Under certain circumstances, yes.”
That was exciting. I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Go, Kyle!”
His head whipped around, and he found me in the stands. He tipped his cap with a grin. I ducked my head, embarrassed. I hadn’t thought he’d know that was me.
Jayden sputtered next to me.
“What?” I asked him, not looking at the field.
“I just got a mouthful of hair.”
Oops… my ponytail must’ve whipped around when I ducked my head.
He brushed the strands away from his face. “I’m going to start calling you Rapunzel.”
I laughed. “She had blonde hair.”
“Yes, but it was long, like yours, and if you were trapped in a tower, I’d do my best to climb up it to rescue you.”
“Thank you.” I giggled again. “And if you were about to be slain by a dragon, I would—well, honestly, I’d probably take a picture. It could be worth a lot of money.”
He shoved me playfully, and we both laughed. But the next moment, everyone around us was on their feet, shouting.
Kyle was running top speed toward home plate while his teammates ran the bases. He landed on the plate with both feet, and then he sprung into the air, doing a forward flip. The crowd loved it, and the other players came out to high five him, but I just stared. How on Earth had he done that?
Another one of Kyle’s teammates scored, and the volume of the crowd increased. “Did they win?”
“Yep!” Jayden had to shout to be heard.
It was hard to see with the people in front of me standing, but I watched Kyle celebrating with his teammates and I was happy for him.
Jayden took my hand as we walked down the stadium steps. His eyes were on the now-empty field. “I always forget, when I haven’t seen him play in a while, how good he actually is.” Jayden steered us around a sticky mess that looked like nachos someone had dropped. “The way he acts sometimes… it makes it easy to forget that he’s so talented.”
I agreed wholeheartedly. But there was something else I was curious about. “This game didn’t count, right?”
“Not toward the regular season, but it’s still awesome that they won the last game of the year.”
“Yeah, it is.” I couldn’t quite get the images out of my head. Of Kyle batting. Stealing bases. Taunting the pitcher. And playing to the crowd, who obviously loved him. “So… those things he did during the game, were they just because this game didn’t count?”
We reached the base of the stadium, and Jayden cocked his head to the side as we walked along. “What do you mean?”
“Well… it kind of looked like he was hamming it up a bit. Not that he wasn’t very good, but it seemed like he was kind of showing off for the crowd.”
Jayden smirked. “He wasn’t showing off for the crowd.”
“Really? Because—”
“He was showing off for you, Tori.”
I stopped dead in the middle of the walkway. “Me?”
“Yep. Come on, let’s head home.”
The next day, I had some time to kill between my morning and afternoon class. Since I wasn’t far from the Social Sciences building, I went back to the coffee shop Jayden had shown me.
Mia was behind the counter, and she greeted me kindly. I ordered a muffin and some hot tea and took it to a table in the corner. The place was as empty as it had been when Jayden brought me here.