Page 1 of Playing Dirty
Prologue
Theo
May — Junior Year
It’s the top of the ninth, and we’re down by one with one out when I step up to the plate for my at-bat.
The energy in the stadium is electric as I take my sign from my third-base coach, and it intensifies the adrenaline already burning through me like wildfire. It’s palpable, the way each person here is hanging on my every move. My teammates. The fans.
Our enemies.
Because everyone knows this is the pinnacle of our season; the biggest game of the year, despite it having nothing to do with the playoffs or championships happening in a few short weeks.
The City Rivals game is so much more than that.
It’s a legacy, a tradition.
A rivalry running far and deep, fueling generations ofathletes passing through the hallowed halls of Leighton University. Because, while everyone knows of the hatred between the Capulets and the Montagues, the Hatfields and the McCoys, the Yankees and the Red Sox…nothing compares to the animosity between the Leighton Timberwolves and the Blackmore Falcons.
And there is no greater evidence of it than between our baseball programs.
But there’s another rivalry here today; a hatred still fresh and raw in my mind.
The one I have with Madden Hastings. Who, as of last week, is my stepbrother.
“Try not to choke like you did in the fourth, Greyson.”
I ignore the taunt coming from behind the plate, where that very same bane of my existence resides, and focus on the task at hand.
Just get on base.
Fortunately, I’m up in the count early, sitting pretty with two balls and one strike. But my luck runs out when their pitcher winds up and lets a fastball loose, only for it to peg me in the outer thigh, just above my knee.
I let out a soft string of expletives, dropping to a squat as a burning pain radiates from the spot where the nearly ninety-mile-an-hour pitch nailed me. The muscle aches as I try to move and stretch it out, my teeth sinking into my lower lip as I breathe through the pain.
“You gonna sit here and cry about it or you gonna walk it off on your way to first like everyone else?” comes another taunt from behind the plate.
Every ounce of blood in my veins is lit on fire the second I turn to look at the source.
Madden’s hazel eyes glitter with amusement as he shoots me a saccharine smile, showcasing those perfect, white teeth.
From that look alone, I’m tempted to think he called for an insidepitch on purpose. It wouldn’t surprise me, coming from a Falcon. They’ve always been dirty players and cheats—their footballteam getting busted for steroids earlier this year being the perfect example of it.
There isn’t agoodathlete at their school.
Talented? Absolutely. Madden Hastings is the definition of a top-tier collegiate athlete—having the skill to back up all the shit-talking he does behind the plate.
But as for who they are at their core? There’s only bad and worse.
And as for the one I’m currently glaring at?
Well, he’s on a level all his own.
I fight the urge to flip him off or feed into the taunts, and instead, toss my bat back toward my dugout and jog to first. The muscle in my thigh still aches as I stretch it on the bag, and I know I’ll be sporting one helluva bruise for a few weeks, but I harness the pain. Channel it, just like I have all the anger and frustration built up inside me since Christmas. Because the past few months have been complicated as hell—my family deconstructed and reshaped quicker than I can blink—and there’s not a fucking thing I can do about it.
So I put it into this game. This moment.
I use all of it as fuel to fight for something I actually have a chance at winning. Handing over a loss to Blackmore on their home turf is everything I need right now, and if I can cross home plate, we’re one step closer to making it happen.
