18. CODY

CODY

" M ary is nice.” Ella walked her fingers along the expanse of my bicep with a steady, painful pressure.

I sat on the floor as she hovered above me. With our height difference, most of the time I did my therapy cross-legged while she moved around me making sure that my shoulder was healing properly.

“Am I going to be able to practice soon?” I asked her, avoiding the conversation of Clementine.

I could still taste her on my fingers and smell her on my skin. I fucking hated every second of it. She was sitting in the kitchen in tiny satin shorts and a sweatshirt when I crawled from my bed the morning after the party. The shorts did nothing to conceal the soft skin of her thighs. My thoughts wandered to my hand between them and how wet she had been for me before even touching her. Her bright brown eyes engaged in an email on her laptop, and her perfect long fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee.

I wanted to bury my face in the space between her shoulder and neck, but I left her alone, sneaking out the front door without breakfast.

The conundrum of why she didn’t want me to kiss her still wracked my every waking thought. At the time, I couldn’t tell if she was just playing hard to get but the more I laid awake staring at the ceiling thinking about it. It was the second time she had denied me. I realized that she wasn’t playing a game. She was protecting herself.

She was scared of me, of us, of whatever was coming.

A collision of stars .

“When you stop,” she tugged on my arm, and I winced as the sharp pain vibrated up through my neck into my jaw, “doing that when I move your arm. Sure.”

“Everyone is getting antsy, Peach,” I said.

“They’re always antsy. I’ve never seen Coach relaxed. Not once.”

Strands of blonde hair tickled my cheek as she leaned in to work out a knotted muscle.

“I just wanna get into the batting cages,” I groaned as she found a cluster of tense muscles. “I’m antsy, too.”

“It must be hereditary then.” She nudged my head with her elbow. She hummed and moved around me to sit across with her knees up against me. “But it's not the schedule bugging you, so what is eating at you?”

Her brown eyes stared at me, urging me to spill my guts, but it was too hard. There was too much to explain.

“Oh, we aren’t playing this game, Cael Cody,” Ella warned. “You’re worse than a tongue-tied cat sitting in a bathtub of cold water.”

“We’re spending too much time together. That made no sense but was somehow the most southern thing you’ve ever said.” I laughed, but my mood was still tight and sour. “What if I never play ball again?”

“That’s dramatic.”

“What if my happy came back, and now I don’t know how to hang on to it?”

“Ooh, a callback.” Ella narrowed her eyes at me. “Spill.”

“She’s here, my happy. ” Clementine.

Her face changed, “Are you talking about Mary?” I flinched at the name.

I don’t answer for a long moment, trying to figure out how much of my heart I want to expose here in the gym. But it’s Ella, and I could tell her anything. So I did. I told her everything.

“So her name is Clementine?” Ella sunk back on the mat with a soft expression. “That’s tragic.” She chewed on her lip. “The story, not her name.”

I offered her a pity laugh.

“Fingering her in the bathroom at Hilly’s probably wasn’t the best idea,” she scolded, the golden flecks in her eyes catching the light as her brows came together.

“You’re just jealous, Peach.” I rolled my eyes at her.

“I know whose fingers I like, and he wouldn’t dare do it in a shabby sports memorabilia bar.” Her smile was bright and made her scar scrunch up around her nose.

I shrugged. “Pretty specific. Where have you been fingerbanged then, Ella?”

“There’s a list, Cael ,” she responded with a sneer. “It's extensive, you want it?”

“Kind of.” I sighed, relaxing a little under the ease of our banter. I sighed again and closed my eyes. “She ignored me in the kitchen this morning, but we have an interview this afternoon, and I don’t know how to act.”

“It’s cheesy, but you could try just being you,” Ella suggested.

“Hah,” I huffed. “She has this preconceived image of who I am, but it’s stitched together with memories of who I was. I’m not seventeen anymore.”

“You aren’t?” Ella’s head cocked sideways. “That’s the most shocking statement to leave your mouth today.”

“I’m not that kid from Texas,” I rephrased. “Any trace of that kid she clings to is gone.”

“Are you sure?” Ella sat up and scooted forward to take my face between her hands. “When I first arrived at Harbor things were volatile, my life had zero stability. Zoey did her best to help, and Van was there when he could be there, but do you know who made a difference?”

The gold ring, Arlo’s mother’s ring, dangled from her neck in a soft rhythm.

“Arlo,” I said, knowing it was the answer. He had become her diffuser, the one person who could step through her combustible thoughts like he was fireproof.

She scoffed. “The egg came before the chicken.”

“Did you just refer to us in a biblical fashion?”

“No, can you open one book this semester, just one…” Ella groaned and looked at me like I was insane. “It was you.”

“Well, now you're just lying to make me feel better.”

“We don’t do that, remember?” She shook her head, “You were so kind to me even when I was shoving back. I fought you every step of the way. If you asked me what I thought of the Cael Cody I met at the party, I would have told you he was cocky, rude, a show-off with a need for validation. Nothing but a pretty smile. But you didn’t care how everyone else perceived you. You don’t now. So why do you care so much how this girl sees you?”

“It’s going to complicate things.” I swallowed tightly, scared of what would come if I continued being me.

“It’s already complicated. How much worse could it get?”

“Cael.” When I didn’t answer, she pressed our foreheads together. "If she doesn’t love you for who you are now, after everything you’ve been through, how hard you’ve fought to be here, then maybe she’s not your happy. ”

“Easy enough for you to say,” I grumbled, and she pinched my cheek.

Ella scowled.

“Right.” I pulled back from her grasp, thoughts whirling around at a top speed.

I scratched the top of my head and rolled back onto the mat into the pile of sweat that formed from working out as we talked. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“You do what you do best, Misery.” Ella cupped my cheek in her hand. “You grovel.”

The door to the rehab gym popped open, and Silas wandered in. “I warned you two!” He shook his head. "You can’t be goofing around in here.”

“Yeah, Silas, because that’s what we’re doing,” Ella rolled her head to the side to look at him, “ goofing around.”

Silas huffed in response and handed her a clipboard full of papers.

“It’s always what you’re doing,” he slapped me across the back of the head softly and sunk into a squat beside me. “How does it feel?”

“Like I crashed a car and ripped a bunch of fancy muscles in it then had surgery and am now recovering with no pain medication.” I looked up at him and met his icy gray stare. “It’s better.” I changed my answer when he found little amusement in the first response.

“What do you think?” He asked Ella, who hadn’t looked up from the papers she was scowling at.

“He’s getting better, I’ll have him ready by spring training.”

“Spring training!” I growled. That was months away.

Ella’s brown eyes lifted from the papers and stared a hole through my outburst.

“To play, I didn’t say anything about batting cages,” she added.

“What she says, goes. You chose her, which means that you’re stuck with her authority.” Silas offered me his hand. “Come on, we have interviews to do.”

“Have fun, boys,” Ella called out to us and went back to flipping through her papers.