Chapter 5

5

Grady

Watching Annika warm up is almost more distracting than the bake sale.

The bake sale .

What the hell is up with Sarcasm taunting me with baked goods this week?

"Oh, shit, that's hardcore," Georgia says beside me, pointing to the sign.

I ignore the jab at the pirate coins and take in the rest of the message on the poster board taped to the table, and my heart stops.

Full stop to the point of pain.

Maria Williams went blind ?

I swing my attention back to Annika, who's stretching on the field, bending over to touch the ground, her ass high in the air, her ponytail dangling in the dirt, lean legs outlined in black stretchy fabric. She straightens and takes a spare Sarcasm GOATs T-shirt from somebody on the team, and when she starts shimmying her way into it, I have to wrench my gaze to her mom on the sidelines before I start having a pirate ship mast problem.

Ms. Williams's sunglasses aren't normal sunglasses. They're bigger. Darker. Wrapped around the sides of her eyes. And she's trying to sweep a long white cane in front of her as she makes her way to the stands, escorted by her younger daughter and the plumber I saw at Duh-Nuts yesterday.

Fuck.

No wonder Annika's home.

And I don't want to talk about the swirl of emotions choking my lungs and making me want to strangle something and go hug the entire Williams family at the same time.

Not that they'd take it from me after yesterday.

When I was a complete and total idiot.

Tillie Jean jogs over from home plate. "We won the coin toss," she tells us. "Take the field, and let's kick some GOAT ass."

That , I can control, so I swallow back the questions and worry and, yes, the guilt, and turn into the team huddle.

I shout louder than anyone for the team cheer— Scallywags to Victory! —and then head out to play some softball.

"Fire in the hole! Fire in the fucking hole!" Long Beak Silver calls from his perch on Pop's shoulder in the stands.

"That parrot isn't fit for family gatherings," Georgia says while she accompanies me to the pitcher's mound. She's catching, and don't even think of stealing second on her watch.

"Until you can convince it that Go, team, go is a cuss word, we're doomed."

"So long as you pitch good and don't let these GOATs score, I don't really care."

She jogs back behind home plate, and we start the game.

I might not play pro ball like Cooper, but I can toss a mean curveball, and I like to set the mood for the game in the first inning. I'm also fucking pissed at Annika for more reasons than I can articulate—for leaving, for coming home, for not telling me her mom went blind —and I channel it all into the game.

Which is why I strike out Sarcasm's first three batters.

Yep.

Totally did it on purpose.

On my way back to the dugout, I catch sight of Pop sharing a cookie with Long Beak Silver.

I can't glare at him for buying cookies off the Sarcasm booster club's fundraiser, because I'd have to be heartless to fault anyone for supporting a fundraiser, and doubly so because it's for Annika and her mom.

But I want to.

And then I feel like a total shithead for wanting to be mad.

And pissed that I feel like a shithead.

Fuck the feelings. I'm playing softball. And I'm going to strike out the next three batters too.

That'll help.

We don't score in the bottom of the first, but I keep my promise to myself to pick off Sarcasm's line-up one by one in the top of the second.

Unfortunately, I also strike out when it's my turn to bat.

That pisses me off all over again.

"We'll get ‘em next time," Tillie Jean says to me as we grab our gloves and head back to the field.

Most of the team's drinking buried treasure ale from Shipwreck's brewery, but not me.

Because I have three more batters to strike out.

Unfortunately for me, the first batter at the top of the third is Annika.

She strolls to the plate like she owns not just the baseball field, but also the stands, the parking lot, the high school, and the mountains surrounding us. Her hair lifts in the breeze, her hips swing, her chest lifts under that Sarcasm GOATs shirt, and I hate pitching with a woody, but it looks like I don't get a choice.

I'm still grateful for the cup that's trying to hold my dick in check.

Fuck, this is uncomfortable.

I wonder how it feels, knowing her mama can't see her play, being home, dealing with what has to be a crisis in the middle of opening a fucking bakery, and if I let myself go there, I'm not going to be able to pitch this ball.

So instead, I remind myself that she didn't call.

She doesn't want my help.

We're two strangers. I can feel bad for the situation, but it's not personal.

Right.

She digs in at the plate, shifting her hips and swinging the bat while she gets into her stance, and fuck , was she this hot in high school, or is it the pursed lips and the dark gaze boring straight into mine while I toss the ball into my glove and pretend I'm not breaking out in a sweat for the first time all night?

"Go, Annika!" a young voice calls from the Sarcasm cheering section, and Maria Williams joins in the cheering, as does the rest of the crowd, who are all drinking wine, probably from Sarcasm Cellars.

But not the teenagers. That's good.

"You gonna pitch, or you just gonna stare?" Annika asks.

"Gonna stare," I call back. "Got something stuck in your teeth. It's distracting."

She doesn't take the bait.

Instead, she smirks. "Afraid to pitch to a girl?"

"Pitched to the rest of your team, didn't I?"

A murmur goes up in their dugout, and I know I'm asking for it, but fuck .

For four years, all I wanted was one chance to kiss her. To tell her she was more to me than a friend, more than some girl I randomly got paired with in biology the first week of high school, that I knew she didn't want to date, didn't want to end up a single mother at sixteen like her mom. But didn't she know I wouldn't abandon her no matter what? That we'd be careful, because she was worth it, and if the unthinkable happened, we'd handle it together .

And now here I am, ten years after I got my chance to kiss her and utterly blew it, letting my pride and ego do all my talking.

"Just pitch the ball," she says.

Not frustrated.

Nope.

She's smiling . Like the only thing she did in the Army the last ten years was hit softballs out of the park every single fucking day, and I'm the moron who thinks he can get one past her.

I'm so fucking doomed.