Chapter 11

Emilia

It's the first Monday of the semester meaning it's the first day of one of the classes I have to take this semester, Sports Psychology. This specific class isn't required but I need a few more credits for my major and this one sounded interesting enough, plus it fit in well with my schedule. Since it's a Monday only class it is about three hours long, going from noon until three, but hopefully we'll get out early a lot. A girl can dream.

I finally make it to the athletic building from where my previous class was in the library. It"s going to be a hike to get here on time every Monday but I think it'll be fine.

"Emi!" A familiar voice calls my name right as I'm about to open the door to the building.

"Liam, hi." He jogs over to me, reaching around me he opens the door, gesturing for me to enter.

"What are you doing here? Doesn't look like you're going to work out." He eyes my outfit. The weather is amazing out today, being the end of summer the humidity is low but the warm sun still hangs in the sky so I opted for a light purple skirt today with a white short sleeve shirt.

"No, I have a class here." I check my phone to see the room number. "On the second floor. I've never been in here though, can you show me where the heck to go?" I laugh, despite being here for three years I have yet to be in this building. I've been in the hockey arena that lays a few buildings away but I've never had a reason to go into the academic part of the athletic building.

"Of course, I have one on the second floor too." He leads me down the hall and up a set of stairs that lead directly to my classroom.

"Which room number?"

"It's this one right here actually."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Looks like we have a class together."

"You'll be working on a project in a group of two this semester." Professor Jones explains after going over his syllabus, class expectations and starting a brief lesson on how a healthy brain is essential for athletes. "Everyone will cover a different topic that I assign to you, presentations will follow along with the weekly learnings so we will have one presentation a week from midterms to the week before finals. Everyone please take a few minutes to pick your partners."

"Hey," Liam turns his body to face me, when we entered the class I picked a random seat on an end row and Liam put himself to the right of me. "Want to be partners?"

"Sure." I smile at him. I spotted a few familiar faces in this class but no one I've worked with before.

"Great." He smiles back at me, his dimples popping out.

"Okay, class. Everyone have their partners?" There's a chorus of yes's to confirm that everyone is paired off. "Alright I will call out names and you can come up with your partners to get your topics, then you will be dismissed for the day." He calls off a list of names, starting alphabetically by last name.

"Liam Mills." Liam rises from his seat, I follow closely behind him to the front of the room.

"Your name?" He flicks his eyes to me.

"Emilia Scott." Professor Jones highlights our names in green, I notice he has a different color for every pair.

"Okay, your topic will be about motivation and the connection that has to do with performance." He hands us each a paper outlining the topic and the project requirements. You will be week six of presentations so that will be the beginning of December. Please email me with any questions."

"Thank you." He calls up the next name, effectively dismissing us.

"So why are you taking this class?" Liam asks as we head out the door. When we arrived in class there wasn't much time for discussion as we got there one minute before class started.

"I'm a psych major and needed another major elective, this one just happened to fit best with my schedule. You?

"Same. Well not the psych major part but the same concept just for athletic training."

"Athletic training," I look him up and down, "that fits."

"What does that mean?" He laughs, letting me go ahead of him on the stairs.

I laugh along with him answering when he's back at my side after we get to the first floor. "Well, you're a baseball player so I don't know it just makes sense to me that your major would be somewhat related. So, do you want to work with baseball players when you graduate?"

"Um," he clears his throat, "kind of. I'm actually planning on playing in the major leagues. Well, hopefully, anyway." My jaw drops, I didn't expect that. I mean he's fit as hell and I didn't doubt he was good but that's next level.

"Wow. That's… wow." We've made it back outside now, the sun still warm in the sky.

"Yeah, we'll see what happens." He runs his hands through his hair. "So, when do you want to start this project?"

"I usually work at Nico's Wednesdays, sometimes Fridays but Mondays and Tuesdays are good for me after classes

"How about we do Tuesdays. Baseball practices have been starting up and right now one of our practice days is Monday."

"Perfect. Just text me and we can figure it out, yeah?"

"Will do." An alarm blares, Liam looks down at his phone.

"Fuck. Sorry I gotta run to practice. I'll text you." He flashes his beautiful smile and a small wave before turning away and jogging around the building to where the fields are.

∞∞∞

Liam

Emilia and I ending up in the same class is not something I saw coming but man oh man I'm glad it happened. I've been thinking a lot about what Ryan said, deciding if the risk is worth telling her I may have a huge crush on her. I was honestly fifty-fifty on it, then when I saw her earlier I was more one hundred percent on telling her, especially with that outfit she had on? I mean that girl is gorgeous in anything but the outfit really did something for me.

However, after realizing we're going to spend more than half the semester working on a project together I decided it wasn't worth the risk, yet anyways. Having to work on a project if she rejected me would be incredibly awkward for the both of us. It's better this way, we can focus on school, our friendship and I can focus on baseball.

Baseball is what I need to focus on. When she asked if I was going to be a trainer for players my brain started to spiral. A spiral I quickly got myself out of just like I have been for the past year. Whenever someone mentions my future career or I start to think too much about it my mind goes down a rabbit hole, panic entering my body. Every time I stomp it out, I refocus myself and remember my goal. I chose this major to help myself and maybe my future teammates, to give me a leg up when it comes to playing baseball professionally.

I need a good training session today and as captain, Coach has let me dictate this week"s practice. When we get to the field I lead the team in a group stretch before we start conditioning. Today we start with base running drills. Part of the sport is needing to be fast, so we need to work on our sprints and in my opinion the best way to practice is between the bases since that's how far you'll need to go.

We run this drill for a while, everyone taking turns sprinting to first, walking to second and then sprinting to home plate. After everyone's had three sprints around we change it up and work on our throwing and team communication. Throwing the ball to second, who throws to right field and back to me. I get lost in the repetition of it all, trying to focus my mind on the ball and the feel of it hitting my glove, but after twenty minutes of running different throwing drills I need a change.

"Alright team. Let's head into the cages and then we'll be done for the day." Luckily for us our school has a small set of batting cages for us to use. There's ten different cages so today everyone's getting twenty minutes of hitting in.

Two groups of guys go in the cages before it's my turn. Trying to be a good captain and all I let the other players go first so they can go home when they're done. I'm getting antsy on the bench, ready to shake off this panic that hangs over me.

Finally, the pitching machines turn off after the designated twenty minutes, leaving the last group of us to hit. Focusing in, I start up the machine, taking my spot on the other end. The crack of the bat against the ball used to soothe me. It felt right, but today it feels off, again.