Page 74 of The Way We Swing

His name echoed across the stadium, louder than I expected, sharper than the others. I didn’t look at him. But I felt the weight of him standing next to me.

One by one, the rest of the lineup followed. We formed our line, caps tucked under arms, eyes on the flag ready for the national anthem.

While the announcer read off the St. Ed’s roster, I let my gaze wander.

The third-base side was a wall of red and black. It looked like the entire town had migrated south overnight. Kids on shoulders, dads in old letterman jackets, moms with face paint. There were more people here than there’d been at any game before. More than I’d thought would come.

The smell hit me next. Cut grass. Fresh dirt. Sunflower seeds. A faint trace of chew. It wrapped around me like home. This was everything I’d dreamed it would be.

The sky stretched blue and perfect overhead—no clouds, no wind, no chance of anything but sunshine. Someone had watered down the infield just right; the dirt was dark and even. The bases gleamed white.

This was baseball.

Now, the coin toss. As I walked next to Coach, Ricky screamed, “Tails never fails, Captain Quinn!” It was the same thing he’d yelled before each game since we’d turned twelve.

I thought back to the first time he’d called me Captain Quinn. When we were twelve, my dad had made me team captain. Ricky hadn’t been happy—he’d said it was because I was the coach’s kid. He’d heckled me for two weeks.

When he’d said it on the way to the plate in our first game, I’d snapped mid-field. “Don’t FUCKING call me that, Ricky.”

I had been benched for the next three games and had no longer been captain. It was the shortest captaincy in sports history—I hadn’t made it asingle pitch.

Ricky found it hilarious. Later that summer, he recruited Maddux and Silas into the joke. It never died. The other three seniors were so into the gag that they had refused Coach Berrios’s attempts to make them captains. They said I was their true captain and that they were not worthy of the title.

That was why I walked to the plate alone with Coach.

The coin flipped, and Ricky was right. We were going to be the home team.

I jogged out to my position at second, ready to get this started. We went through our pre-inning routine, the air crisp.

I tossed the ball back to Silas, and, finally, I heard my favorite words.

“PLAY BALL!”

Time to fucking do this.

CHAPTER 27

Their center fielder batted first. He’d hit two out in their last game, both no-doubters.

My glove flexed open and shut, a nervous rhythm I didn’t notice until Silas got his sign from Ricky. I jumped up in my spot, the grass firm below my cleats.

Silas came set with his first pitch, and the St. Ed’s team came out swinging.

Their leadoff hitter hit a ball deep into the hole to my glove side. I took a pivot step and dove at it, the ball finding my pocket. My chest pounded as I scrambled up from the dirt. The throw seemed to leave my hand before I could think. Pure muscle memory. When the ump’s fist shot out, I clenched mine to match.

I bit down, the grin twitching at my lips. Not yet.

After Easton tossed me the ball back, he shouted across the field, “Don’t try to stop it, Tanny-boy! Smile! We get to play some baseball today!”

The smile left my face when the next batter hit the second pitch he saw for a towering home run to dead center. Three pitches into the game, and we were down 1-0. Silas managed to get out of the rest of the inning unscathed, but the damage was done.

“That’s okay, boys,” Coach said when we ran off the field. “We needed to score a run to win, anyway. Tanner is leading us off, and then we go from there.”

I always hated when Coach said that. No shit, we had to score a run to win. Now we needed to score two. I pushed the thought out of my head as Gavin handed me my batand I walked to the on-deck circle. He was on bat-boy duty again, something I had asked Coach to let him do.

My fingers twitched around the bat handle, which was slick with sweat I couldn’t wipe away. Every breath tasted dry, like I hadn’t guzzled Gatorade all morning.

I walked up to the plate, trying to push aside everything but my game plan for this pitcher. I knew he would start me off with a fastball, and I wanted to jump on it.