“Thank you,” Summer murmurs to Cody before she walks into a full-body scanner as per the instructions of a TSA officer. I dump my shoes into a bin with more aggression than needed when she mutters, “I told you he was a nice guy.”
Since now isn’t the time to tell her I’ve used the nice-guy ruse enough times to recognize when someone is trying to pretend they are something they’re not, I complete a scan in a second machine before joining her at the end of the security checkpoint, then I guide her into the plane that will take her home.
“Do you need to use the bathroom?” I ask Summer when her scuttle down the gangway resembles a child’s shuffle when they need to use the bathroom.
She peers up at me with her big blue eyes out in full force before she shakes her head. “I’ve never flown before. I’m nervous.”
Her confession is shocking but also expected. She had never seen a beach because she had never traveled further than a hundred miles from Buffalo before she left for college. I don’t even think she got her driver’s license until she realized the cheapest mode of transportation home each summer would be to drive. She grew up surrounded by mechanics, so she knew all about cars. She just had no clue how to operate them.
“Once I’m verified as the number one pitcher in the state, I’ll have you up in the air so often, standing on solid ground will feel foreign.”
“Or…” She pauses to keep me on my toes. “When I’m hailed the greatest oncologist of all time—”
“Or the worst since you’ll put yourself out of business when you discover the cure for cancer.”
She smiles in a way I’ve missed the past forty-five minutes before acting as if I never interrupted her. “I’ll whizz you around the world in my private jet.”
“A private jet?” I whistle like the tension beaming out of her is nowhere near as strong as it is. “So fancy.”
After bumping me with her hip, she hands her ticket to the flight attendant at the end of the gangway. The woman directs us to our seats before she commences closing the door we just walked through. Yes, the airplane we’re flying in is small enough to see the emergency exit doors, the cockpit, and the galley at the back, all from the first-class seats in the front.
The flight to Buffalo is quick but tedious. I used some of the funds from my cashed-in flight three weeks ago to purchase Wi-Fi for our trip so Summer can stay in touch with her Uncle Reggie, and I’d have the opportunity to work out what the fuck is happening with my credit cards.
Neither scenario weakened the choking tension lingering in the air. Rye has been unresponsive the past two hours, and I was handed proof my father is the biggest prick in the universe.
Wrongly believing he is my manager as claimed, the owners of Ravenshoe Ravens reached out to him this morning to discuss the possibility of me finalizing my studies via correspondence. The instant he learned I was planning to turn down their offer in favor of finishing my final year at Morrison, he canceledallmy credit cards—even the ones I’ve not once touched.
I literally have the clothes on my back and a couple of hundred sitting in a bank account my father has nothing to do with, meaning I have no choice but to barter with the cab driver sitting at the front of Buffalo’s municipal airport. “I don’t need a receipt, so you can turn off the meter.”
“That is a crime—”
“That no one will know about,” I interrupt, confident I can get through to him. “Please.Her father is in the hospital.” When he maintains his stubborn stance, I get desperate. “I’ll sign any piece of paper you have on you during the commute.”
“Deal,” he immediately replies, making me mindful he denied my begs because he recognizes me.
During the thirteen-minute drive to the hospital, I scribble my name across multiple forms of paper—receipts from Walmart, bank withdrawal receipts, napkins—if it has the possibility of absorbing ink, my signature is now a part of it.
“Go,” I say to Summer when she spots her Uncle Reggie in the loading zone at the front of the hospital. I’ve met her uncle once before. He turned up at Morrison unexpectedly one Halloween. He drank everyone at the frat party we attended under the table, then proceeded to confiscate multiple bottles of alcohol in my dormitory. His excuse? We were underage, and it was his parental responsibility to ensure we didn’t drink.
It took Summer months to live down the slack of his overnight visit.
I lift my chin when Summer mutters, “I’ll meet you in there.”
After pressing her lips to mine, a gesture not lost on her uncle, she slides out of the back of the cab and hotfoots it his way. I wait for Reggie to guide her inside before shifting my focus to the driver. I’m not happy I’ve devalued my signature for a thirty-dollar cab fare, and my annoyance doubles when he mutters, “That will be ten dollars.”
“Ten dollars? I just signed thirty plus slips of paper!”
“Paper won’t put gas in the tank.”
While grumbling about how he won’t need gas when I bury him under six feet of dirt, I toss a ten-dollar bill over the seat separating us along with the multiple sheets of paper. I’m still conjuring up ways to hide a body when my cell phone dings in my pocket. When I dig it out, the situation worsens.
Lindsay:Your contract has a pay-per-play clause. If you don’t play this weekend, you won’t get paid.
As I trace the steps Summer and Reggie just took, I tap out a reply.
Me:I’ll call you with a definite answer tonight, but at the moment, assume I am not playing.
Three dots trickle across the screen of my phone a nanosecond after my message is registered as being read, but I shut down my phone and slide it back into my pocket before Lindsay can lecture me via either text or over the phone.
