She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not(10)

“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s second date behavior.”

She can’t control the smile this time, and—finally—she laughs, adding one more thing to my list of motivations: make Kenny laugh. A lot.

“You’re a real nut, Christensen.”

I wink and start the engine. “Please, Kenny, I’m just getting started.”

I take her to the batting cages, even though I have a cage and pitching machine at my house. As skittish as she is, public seems safer.

“This is what you consider getting to know one another? Swinging at some stupid ball?”

I spear her with a look. “Are you a baseball hater, Kenny?”

“Kennedy. Not hater—I just don’t really see the point, or the skill. You smack a ball and run.”

Instead of the familiar buzz of irritation I can quickly tamp down when faced with statements like that, I feel an explosion of testosterone surge through me, pushing me not only to prove Kenny wrong, but to show her that I’m the best at what I do. More than that, I want her to understand that what I do is damn hard, and still, I never quit.

Like I won’t quit on her.

Stepping over to her, I take a little pleasure in the fact that she has to look up at me.

“Care to make a wager?”

I see her swallow, but other than that she’s rock steady. “On what?”

“Just how much talent my sport requires. I’ll set it to the lowest setting. If you can hit even half the balls I hit when it’s set at the hardest setting, I’ll let you decide how we finish the next four weeks of the project.”

“And, if I don’t?”

I smile because that’s what I’m counting on. “You have to come to eight of my practices, and two games, in the next four weeks—and you have to wear my name on your back when you do.”

She hesitates—Kenny knows what’s at stake here—and I wonder if she’s going to reject me. Twenty seconds go by, and then she holds out her hand. “Deal.”

I smile and shake her hand, holding on a second longer. “Good luck,” I say. Twenty minutes later, I’ve got Kenny just where I want her, literally and metaphorically. She’s in front of me, my hands on her hips while I adjust her stance that has been killing me for the past five swings. The only reason she’s not taking a swing at me is because she knows just how close she is to losing, and she needs all the help she can get.

If I milk it a little, skim my hands over her waist, press my chest into her back, lean down to speak into her ear and accidentally brush my nose across it, well, who can blame me?

Shivers break out on her legs, and I try not to fist pump. “I think I got it now,” she says, voice low and little breathless.

“Sure.” I drag my fingers across hers on the bat before stepping back a safe distance. Kenny gulps audibly, and settles into the stance I taught her. I’ll give it to her; the girl can follow instructions. When the ball comes—at a crawl—she swings full force, nicking it in time to send it into the fence.

“Yesss!” She turns and smiles, giving me the real wattage that almost blows me away. “Get ready, Christensen. I’m on fire now.”

She hits three more, not enough to make me sweat, but enough to enjoy watching her victory dance each time. When my turn comes up, I adjust the setting on the machine, and then I beat her in the first six pitches. And maybe hit six more just to show off. Swinging my arm around her shoulders when we walk out, I imagine which of my old baseball shirts she’ll look best in.





Chapter 9


Week 2: Hobbies


Kennedy

I’m an idiot.

I knew betting with Gage was a risk, but something about his smug look made me want to prove him wrong. Which also makes me realize that in no way does my 4.0 GPA reflect my common sense. Otherwise, I would have deduced his smug look was a clue to abort my mission.

How could I have misjudged the level of difficulty hitting from a pitching machine entailed? And how, with everything I’ve heard, could I have doubted that Gage Christensen was really as good as everyone said?

Mother-trucker.

I know now. Not that hindsight is any help, since I’ve forfeited my right to make dictator-type decisions for our project. Even worse, I’m wearing his name and number while I walk the slow mile through the hallways, cringing with each stare I get. It’s after school—he compromised enough to let me wait until the end of the day to put his old jersey on. When we sat down in Life Science today, his smile was bigger than normal. Then, he placed a coffee and his jersey in front of me without a word.

The horror on my face as I glanced around to see people watching us might have clued him in to my discomfort. Without looking anywhere but at me—something he seems to be doing a lot lately—he nodded to the jersey, keeping his voice low. “You can keep that one. Put it on for the practices and friendlies you’ll be attending in the next four weeks.”

“Won’t you miss it?”

“Nah, it’s from middle school, Babe-Ruth ball. When I was smaller.”

The jersey still hangs nearly to mid-thigh on me, but, then, I’m not what one would consider giant—or even average in height. I keep my head down while I wind through the parking lot toward the baseball field. I hate that I feel like people are staring—worse, I hate wondering what’s going through their heads. Nothing is worse than being the topic of conversation, especially when that conversation is about your drunken mother who killed herself, and a few other people, when she went on a bender and took the Oldsmobile out.