Page 67

Chapter Eighteen

Reed

“The harder you want to control something, the more it gets out of your control.”

—Clayton Kershaw

Eliza quickly pulled her hand back and slid down into her seat. She hid behind her menu and kicked me under the table.

“Ow!” I rubbed my shin. “What was that for?”

She lowered the menu just enough for her scared eyes to come into view and gave a short nod to something behind me. At six feet, I’ve never been able to be sneaky about looking over my shoulder, but that didn’t stop me from trying right then.

I wished I hadn’t.

Viola Gratton, Fairfield’s nosiest church lady, walked over to the bar area of the diner. With her was none other than Eliza’s father.

Busted.

I snapped my head forward and tried sinking down into the seat like Eliza had, but yeah, not possible. “What’re they doing here?” I muttered from behind my menu.

“I have no idea. She’s probably pressing Dad about fundraising for the church or something.” Eliza now hid almost completely under the table. “He doesn’t know I left work early either. Ugh. We are so dead.”

Of all the diners the two of them could walk into.

Then again, this was the only one nearby…

Nana always said a good Christian didn’t hate people but that it didn’t count if it was directed at Viola “Greedy” Gratton. The woman was known for having dirt on everyone, and supposedly people paid her to keep quiet.

“We gotta get out of here,” Eliza whispered.

Yeah, no shit.

It’s not that I was afraid of Mr. Crowley. But if he or Ms. Gratton saw us, one of them would definitely tell my family or the rest of the town, and then what?

The team would lose every bit of trust they put in me to deliver them a championship win, and Granddad? Granddad would be furious.

He had been through enough, sacrificed enough, for this season and the chance to win back something that was his to begin with. If he found out I was hanging out with the daughter of his longtime enemy, it would destroy him.

I couldn’t do that to him. Not like this.

If anyone was going to tell Mr. Crowley or Granddad about me and Eliza, it would be me or Eliza. Period.

I whispered around my menu (to the top of Eliza’s head, since the rest of her body was still practically below the table), “There’s an exit door behind you. I’ll stand first and give you some cover. Maybe they won’t recognize me from behind. Then you can sneak out, and I’ll follow, okay?”

“Okay.”

I stood and waved for her to move. The seat creaked loudly as she slid out of it, and she stayed hunched over until she reached the exit, stumbling down the steps into the parking lot. I tossed my menu to the table along with a twenty and quickly trailed her.

“That was close,” she said after I pulled out of the parking lot. “Dad would’ve lost his mind.”

“Ha. My granddad would’ve been worse.” I opened our windows and was grateful for the low humidity tonight. “Nana would need to replace the door to the laundry after all the darts he would’ve thrown.”

“Darts?”

“Never mind.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek for a half a mile as the woods grew denser on the sides of the road. “So would your dad really have been that pissed if he saw you with me?”

She huffed. “Uh, yeah.”