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It’s game five of the league championship series and the officials are holding out as long as they can on calling the game a complete wash, because the deeper we get into October, the colder it’s going to get, and the later the World Championship will need to be played. And Detroit doesn’t have a roof on their stadium like we do in Seattle, which makes it hard to play scheduled games in the spring and at the end of the season as well.
The rest of the team has gone into the clubhouse, but I love rainstorms. There’s tension in the air, and not just with the team, but in the atmosphere. The kind of tension that brings a storm with it. At some point something has to give and that tension has to release, like the snapping of a rubber band.
“Davis!” Max Harrison’s familiar rumbling voice calls from the tunnel entrance. “They’ve called it.”
“I think I’ll stay out here a little longer. Thanks.” My tone is clipped. Short. In hopes that he’ll catch a hint and leave me alone, but my hopes are dashed when I hear his spikes on the concrete floor of the dugout and he stands close enough that I could reach out and touch him.
“Come inside, where it’s warm.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Maxwell Harrison.”
“Woah, hey,” he holds his hands up as if warding off a hex, and if I could I would. Perpetually wet socks is a pretty good hex right about now. “Did I…do something?”
“You know what Max, ever since Mandy left you’ve acted like I’m some kind of pity project. An obligation. Something left behind in lost and found that you just have to hold onto, and I know you’venever really liked me all that much, so why don’t we just amicably split. End whatever this situation was between us and call it a day.”
“Sutton,” his eyebrows pinch together in confusion, lips turning down in a frown. “Where is this coming from?”
“You’ve hardly said two words to me since Mandy left, and I don’t know if you know this, but not a lot of players befriend their coaches. It comes with the territory, and I accept that. When Mandy was here, at least I had her. And you. Because you were her friend first, and I kind of latched on like a parasite. But now she’s gone and you’re stuck with me and you’re clearly back to hating me.”
“Hating you?”
“For six years you’ve wanted me gone, Max.” I raise my voice so he can hear me over the now pounding rain, standing toe to toe with him. “For six years you’ve acted like my being here is some kind of inconvenience to you, personally.” I jab my finger in his chest for good measure but all it does is hurt my finger. “For six years you’ve hated me. I’m not inclined to believe that somehow that has changed overnight!”
“I never hated you,” his words are a heated whisper as he steps closer to me, crowding me against the railing. Rain dripping off of our ball caps, uniforms soaking wet and clinging to our bodies. “I never hated you. I didn’t think you’d last your first year. I thought you’d hate the atmosphere of the clubhouse, I thought the guys wouldn’t take you seriously, but never once, not for one second, did I hate you, Sutton Davis.”
Max brackets his arms around me, lowering his head and bumping the brim of my cap with his before ripping his cap off and tossing it behind him and then turning mine backwards. His hand settles at the nape of my neck, sending a shiver through my body. I don’t know if it's from the cold, the rain, Maxwell's touch, or some heady combination of all three, and then his lips are on mine.
“I’ve been trying to look out for you, Sutt. That’s all.” His voice draws me back to the present, his warm hand cuppingmy cheek as he wipes raindrops – or tears, I really can’t tell – from my cheeks. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“Why?” I whisper, tears mingling with the raindrops now. “Why me?”
“Because...I love you, Sutton.”
“No you don’t, Max. You have reverse Stockholm Syndrome.”
“That’s not a thing,” he grumbles, “and don’t invalidate my feelings. Idolove you.”
“After what, six weeks?
“Try six years.”
“What?” His words are a linedrive to the chest. His eyes bore into mine, his hands gently framing my face. “You…what?”
“I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t think you’d make it here.” He echoes his words from that cold October night. “But Mandy liked you and she was the only friend –truefriend – that I had in Seattle, so I liked you, too. Even if I didn’t exactly act like it.”
“I thought you hated me.”
“Yeah,” he chuckles, “You told me as much. But I was only trying to protect myself.”
“From what?”
“Getting hurt by you. I knew that if I got too close, if I risked my heart, I risked getting it broken, and I knew I couldn’t take that. Not from you.”
“Six years, Maxwell? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?
“Because, you said it yourself during spring training, we’re the rottweiler and the duckling. Your friendship meant too much to me for me to ruin it.”
“When did you know?”
