Beats me.
“Oh,” Luke added a second later. “Baseball.”
He couldn’t see me roll my eyes, so I was free to indulge in America’s favorite pastime, which was totally eye rolling and not baseball.
“How could I forget?” he continued. “I’ve already been planning with coach.” School had only just started. His tone turned fond as he said, “You’re the only person who can make me forget about baseball.”
“That’s the highest honor in the world and I gladly accepted the title,” I replied nobly. Did I make my speech now? I had so many people to thank. Mostly myself.
“I like myactualtitle just fine. I’m going to be captain!”
Okay, I didn’t love baseball, but Luke did, so I paid as much attention as I could at any given moment, and I did pick up on a few things. Like how, “You were captain last year,” I reminded him. Maybe falling in love with me last year was so momentous that he forgot everything else.
“I wasn’t a senior last year!” The excitement in his voice would be more adorable if I could see him, so I tried twisting my head to look at his face. “And yeah, of course I wanted to take the team all the way—”
Baseball was one of the few subjects where Luke could out-talk me, but I had to interrupt.
“Just to be clear, not in a sexual way?” Sports were weird and homoerotic, but everyone pretended like they weren’t, so I don’t know, I just wanted to make sure. “Don’t think I’d be comfortable with you going all the way with so many guys.” Might be fun to imagine, but I didn’t want it to become a reality. “Or any guys, other them me. No going all the way with your baseball team sexually.”
Unless I could be included.
My neck started to hurt, but I kept watching my boo. Luke’s face as he thought my words through was so horrified, like it couldn’t even believe what it was thinking. Adorbs.
“Don’t think they’d be comfortable with it either,” he settled on saying eventually. He mentally and physically shook himself out of that train of thought. “This year, I have experience as captain and it’s my final year, so I really wanna commit. I’m ready to work hard and help the guys, so we can win it all.”
Luke being hopeful and determined and excited was an attractive picture to end on, so I stopped craning my neck and looked back up at the stars. The stars were nice, but they didn’t have dimples. Luke did.
“Oh, and you can help me keep my grades up,” Luke added, because juggling sports and school wasn’t always easy for him.
“I’ve already done that.” Last year.
“But doing that means we get to spend time together while studying, which is better than not spending time together while studying.” He did make a persuasive argument.
“And I get to distract you from studying.” I’m in.
His voice was smiling again as he said, “Might have been better to keep that thought inside your head.”
“I stand by it.” Distracting Luke was the hill I would, not die on, but distracting Luke was the hill I would distract Luke on.
We were silent for a moment.
Okay, so Luke wasn’t going to join in on all my crazy adventures, which meant someone might really die, but hopefully that someone wouldn’t be me because I had a Luke to return home to.
“I don’t know,” Luke said, making a contemplative noise as he likely looked up at the stars and pondered important things. “I don’t want this year to be different. I mean, there’s some stuff from the previous years that weren’t great, but I want to focus on my favorite parts. That’s what I want. Moments with the team, with friends, with you.”
A nice, sentimental statement that warmed my heart. I’d just gone so long without the ruining the moment. I couldn’t resist anymore. With a sigh, I sat up a bit and rested on my side so I could look at him.
“You’re so lucky I find boring, bisexual dudes irresistible,” I informed him sweetly.
My devastating wit just made him grin at me as he turned on his side too, propping his head on one hand and putting the other around me.
“I’ll keep on keeping on, being boring me while you take a normal thing like having new experiences and find ways to make it extreme or scary,” he said in that knowingly and annoyingly hot way of his.
There was no guarantee I would do that! Unless one counted past experiences and my personality as a guarantee.
“I want new experiences!” I defended. Being not crazy could be part of that.
“You’re still going to be the same person while you’re having them,” he reasoned.
