Page 56 of Changing the Playbook
“Do you ever actually do homework?” I ask.
He winks. “This technically counts as research.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how research works.”
“It is when you’re creatively interpreting assignment requirements, and nobodyreallycares if you graduate.” He extends his hand, palm up. “What do you say, Pearson? Wanna help me collect some extremely questionable data?”
Every rational part of my brain screams that this is a bad idea. I’m emotionally raw, confused about everything, and spending time with Mike will only complicate the mess in my head.
But I take his hand anyway.
sixteen
MIKE
Sophie attackseach pitch with the focused intensity of someone working through demons.
I lean against the chain-link fence of the adjacent cage, my own bat forgotten as another fastball meets aluminum with a crack that echoes across the field. Her form is surprisingly good—no, scratch that, it’s excellent—and I stare, transfixed, at the rotation of her hips, the follow-through, the way she plants her feet.
Whack. A grunt of effort, her gray eyes filled with fierce concentration.
Whack. Another grunt, jaw set.
The rhythm pulls me in, and I find myself breathing in time with her swings. There’s something raw and honest about watching her channel whatever’s eating at her into pure physical release, knowing that without it she might spontaneously combust.
God knows I understand the urge.
During my recovery, I’d pushed my body past every reasonable limit, convinced that if I just worked hard enough, I could outrun the injury and the fear that I’d never play again. Mytherapist had other ideas about healthy coping mechanisms, but this—what Sophie’s doing—this looks different.
Cathartic instead of punishing.
A strand of sandy blonde hair has escaped her ponytail, plastered to her flushed cheek with sweat. She doesn’t brush it away, too focused on the next pitch. The wet fabric of her T-shirt clings to her, outlining the curve of her chest, and those jeans…
Christ, I need to look somewhere else before she catches me staring.
But I can’t.
The poetry night floods back—the way her walls had come down as she’d shared those fragments of herself. Her face had been so open afterward, eyes wide and vulnerable in the dim light. Every instinct had screamed at me to kiss her, to close that small distance between us, but I’d forced myself to step back.
To press my lips to her cheek instead, and ask her to choose.
If she wanted.
After what we’d shared months ago at her apartment—after I’d watched her discover what she wanted when given the freedom to choose—I needed her to know this was different. That whatever happened next would be her decision, not based on my pushing.
Walking away that night might have been one of the hardest things I’ve done. My whole body had protested, skin still humming from our dance, from the way she’d felt pressed against me. But I wanted her to choose us, if therewasan us, and whatever the hell it might become.
Finally, the machine sputters and dies, out of ammunition. Sophie lowers the bat slowly, shoulders rising and falling with deep breaths. She pulls off the helmet, and her ponytail tumbles free, damp strands framing her face. That’s when she notices me watching, her eyes widening slightly.
The flush on her cheeks deepens, though whether from exertion or embarrassment, I can’t tell. “Run out of balls of your own?” she says.
“Watching you is more entertaining than hitting my own balls—baseballs.” Jesus, Altman. Real smooth. “Where did you learn to hit like that?”
A hint of a smile plays at the corner of her mouth. “High school softball. I was on the travel team.”
“Well, now I feel like an ass for thinking I was introducing you to something new.”
The smile grows a fraction wider. “It’s been years. And I had some… energy to burn off.”
