Bright Before Sunrise(65)

Of all the stupid things, to be imagining a kiss from a guy who’ll never imagine kissing me. I get out of the car.

When his door doesn’t immediately open, I walk around and tap on the window. “Come on—I dared you.”

The athletic fields are up on top of a hill behind the school. I bypass the paved paths, hoping the pain of climbing a grassy slope with battered toes will be enough to clear my head of the ridiculous and repair my Teflon coating.

His door opens when I’m halfway up the hill, but he’s beside me before I reach the top.

“Really?” he asks in a voice as soft as when we’d discussed my father. My pulse has been steady through the climb, but it spikes at his question.

“Really. I hear you’re a stud player and I want to see you in your full jock glory.”

When he laughs and hands me the glove and ball I wonder—again—when in the night I switched from calculating the niceness quotient of every word to comfort to flirtation.

“Here, you wear this. You won’t be throwing hard enough that I’ll need it.”

“Oh, you watch out, I bet I can throw pretty hard.” But I accept the glove and march across the field to home plate. “I can’t crouch. It makes my toes hurt.”

“That’s okay.” Jonah steps onto the pitcher’s mound and twists himself all sorts of ways. When he straightens, he looks taller. More confident. Happier. He grins and I grin back. He’s given me the smile I want; now the rest of this night is for him.

“What are you waiting for?” I ask.

“You’ve still got the ball.”

“Oh. Yeah.” I chuck it with all my strength, and it bounces somewhat near first base. “I should probably warn you, I never played baseball or softball.”

“Never would have guessed. Now put the glove on.”

I slide my fingers in and squeeze the sides together. The leather irritates my palm, and my hand feels awkward: unbalanced and heavy. “It’s a little big.”

“Imagine that.” Jonah laughs; the sound floats on the night air, painting my cheeks in a flush and my lips in a smile.

“Ready?”

I nod, but I’m not. The first throw sails past me. The second, third, and fourth through tenth do too. I wait for him to become impatient with my incompetence, but Jonah’s laughter grows louder with each missed catch.

“I might have exaggerated my skills a little,” I confess while hunting down the ball—again—and wishing the parking lot lights were just a teeny bit brighter, or that the baseball glowed in the dark. “I’m a diver for good reason. I’m hopeless with any sport that involves a stick or a ball or a racquet … Pretty much, if it requires any equipment, I’m a lost cause. Even my dad gave up trying to teach me to golf and just let me drive the cart.”

“I’m not giving up on you yet,” he says. And even though I can’t see his face that well in the dark, I can hear the smile in his voice and it warms me.

But maybe he should, because his belief in me doesn’t prevent me from missing the next dozen throws. Yet he only offers encouragement or jokes as I search for the ball, throw it towardish him so he can make impossible catches or hunt it down himself.

“Try keeping your eyes open. Watch the ball all the way into the glove.”

I do. And it does go all the way into my hand.

“You caught it! You did!” Jonah’s laughing as he runs to home plate and scoops me into a hug. “Good job!”

“Ow! Ow!” I say in response to each of his whoops, but my nongloved hand clutches the back of his shirt and my cheek is nestling into his collarbone—a safe place to view the smear of school and fields and sky as he spins me around.

“Wimp. I guess I should’ve warned you it stings a bit,” he says, setting me back on my feet. “Your hand might be a little red. It’s an occupational hazard for pro catchers like yourself. Let’s check it out.”

He grips the tip of the glove, and I pull my hand out. It’s a lot red. Bloody red. The impact of the ball stressed my tortured palm beyond its endurance; two crescent-shaped cuts bleed down toward my wrist.

The celebration fades from his eyes, causing my smile to dim to artificial. “I’m fine.”

“Fine? You’re like a walking Band-Aid commercial, Bright … ton. A night with you should earn me a merit badge or something.”

“It’s not so bad.” This isn’t the first time I’ve created cuts on my palm, but it’s the first time I’ve done it in years.

“My mom makes me keep a first-aid kit in the car. Let’s clean you up.”

I pause to find the ball—it had flown from the glove mid-Jonah spin—then follow him down the hill. It’s hard to read the emotions in his posture. Is he hunched forward from the pitch of the hill, or because I ruined another part of his night? I want to see his face, and see it filled with the pride and triumph of a few minutes ago. More than that, I want to be in his arms again for another moment.

I arrive at the car blushing and wishing I could bury my tangle of embarrassment and infatuation within clenched fists.

“Hop up here.”

I clumsily climb on the hood; it’s not really possible to “hop up” without two hands.

Jonah holds a white plastic first-aid kit and pulls out an alcohol swab and some Band-Aids.