Moonshot(15)

I hovered, my candy in hand, and weighed my options.

I knew what I should do. Trot back down the hall and to my room. Lock the door, crawl into bed, and order a movie.

Instead, I stepped toward him, his eyes on mine as he twisted off the Gatorade lid and lifted it to his lips. “A short walk,” I countered, stopping before him.

“Fine.” He shrugged.

I smiled despite myself, and there, in the quiet hallway of the twenty-seventh floor, he smiled back.





28



The hotel towered over the marina, both of them stuck on the edge of the Tampa Bay. We said little in the elevator, the silence uncomfortable, and I relaxed a bit when we stepped out the back doors and into the night air. It was late, the restaurant closed, few lights on, and our walk to the dock went unnoticed. My dad was probably sleeping, our goodnights said an hour before, his room quiet when I’d slipped out to get a snack. Still, I felt nervous. With every person we passed, I held my breath, worried about another teammate, or a coach, a media hound, or even a fan.

A breeze broke up the balmy night, and the tension in my shoulders relaxed a bit with each step farther into the dark, away from the hotel. When we reached one end, a mammoth yacht beside us, he crouched down, swinging his feet out and sitting down on the edge, looking up at me. “Sit down.”

I did, leaving enough space between that we didn’t touch. Before us, a gap between the boats, a twinkle of city lights lined the top of dark water.

He was a quiet guy. He sat there and said nothing, his Gatorade occasionally lifting to his lips, his strong profile lit gently by the yacht’s lights. I didn’t speak. Ten years with my father had gotten me accustomed to stretches of silence. I opened my Starburst package and pulled out a yellow cube. Unwrapping it carefully, I sucked the gummy candy into my mouth and leaned back on my palms. Against my bare legs, the night breeze tickled.

“You normally do this? Come on the road with the team?”

I rolled the candy in my mouth. “Yep.”

“Must make a social life hard.”

I turned and looked at him. “It’s the same schedule you’ve been on for three years. Doesn’t look like it’s cramped your style any.”

“I’m not a teenage girl. Don’t you guys have sleepovers and—”

“—pillow fights?” I cut him off. “No.” I reconsidered the question. “At least I don’t. Friends aren’t something I have a lot of.” Any of.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Lack of options?” I didn’t look at him. “No one else travels with the team except a few wives. And I’m home schooled so…” I lifted a shoulder. “My dad and I are close. And the guys on the team keep me company.”

“No boyfriend?”

I risked a look at him. The darkness shielded most of his face, dim hints of his beauty peeking out at me. But I could see him looking back at me, the eye contact I was so scared of right there, his face expectant, his question hanging in the dark.

“I don’t think you can ask me that.”

“Why?”

I stuffed another Starburst in my mouth. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” I rushed out the words, the response barely audible through the candy, my cheeks burning.

If I expected a response, I was disappointed. He tilted back his Gatorade and took a long sip. I tried to think of something, a change in subject, but couldn’t find a single question that didn’t border on inappropriate.

He broke the silence. “I hate traveling.” He screwed the lid on the bottle and flipped it into the air, catching it with one hand. “Why don’t you stay home? Be a normal teenager?”

I set down my candy and tucked my hands under my thighs, swinging out my feet. “Dad tries every year to keep me home. He doesn’t succeed.”

“Most wouldn’t give their daughter a choice.”

“I think he just wants to make sure that I really want to be here. He argues, I fight back…” I shrugged. “Then the next season starts, and I’m back on the bus.”

“But this is your last season, right?”

I turned to him, one eyebrow raised.

“Someone said you were seventeen,” he explained. “I figured you were a senior.”

I nodded slowly. “I am.”

“So … what will you do after you graduate?”

I turned my head and met his eyes. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“None of the ones I want.” His reply was so quick that it caught us both off guard, his eyes moving away, head dropping, his teeth catching his bottom lip and holding it in place.

“So ask.” I suddenly felt bold, his hand near mine, gripping the edge of the dock, those strong fingers, that home-run-hitting arm tight as he rested his weight on it.

“Nah. Not now.” He smiled, as if in apology, and lifted his chin at me. “Ask me something.”

“Why did you sleep with Davis’s wife?”

It was a wildly inappropriate question—one I almost took back, the words hanging uncomfortably between us.

“Wow.” He rubbed his cheek. “You really dove in there.”

“You don’t have to answer it.” But I wanted him to. I wanted to know how someone could be so incredibly stupid.