Page 77 of Meet Me Under the Lights

More than you know.

“When is he supposed to come back home?” she asked.

My fingers fumbled against the edges of the tags under my shirt. “I dunno. He’s on some kind of special ops and has been radio silent for a while. Mom’s really worried.” So am I.

She rested her hand on my shoulder. “He went to UNC, right? Is that where you want to go too?”

“Yeah, he went to UNC. But I dunno where I’ll go.” I found a small stone and chucked it. “Doubtful I’ll get any kind of a scholarship for baseball, anyway.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You didn’t hear about my showcase shitshow from last summer?”

“Oh, that.” She laughed nervously. “Yeah, I heard about it. But who cares? That was almost a year ago.”

“It set me back months of eligibility, of scouts coming to see me play my junior year.”

She turned her head toward me. “Do you want to play college baseball?”

“Yes.” More than anything.

“Then it’ll happen.”

It’ll happen.

She had a gleam in her blue eyes when she said it. The shadow of her hat couldn’t hide it or the trail of freckles across her nose. But it was the way her entire body seemed so relaxed about it all that got me. How easy it was to just believe in something I thought was unbelievable.

Eliza radiated a confidence I’d kill for.

Maybe, if I was lucky, being this close to her would help me get there.

I smiled, and the tightness in my chest vanished. “I’ve wanted it for such a long time. I love the way I feel on the mound. It’s like coming home. You know what I mean?”

“I do,” she said. “I feel that every time I turn on a light board and press the first cue for a show.”

“Terrifying and exciting all at the same time.”

“And in that moment, you know—”

“You’re right where you’re meant to be,” we said together.

I laid my hand on top of Eliza’s and squeezed it.

Right where I’m meant to be.

Chapter Twenty-One

Eliza

“Theater was my first love. I can’t take the theater out of me. And I wouldn’t want to. To me, it’s home.”

—Jim Parsons

Trying to sneak in backstage unseen was about as possible as maneuvering around a catwalk while blindfolded, ankle-tied to a penguin, and covered in sleigh bells.

I would’ve picked that Christmas-catwalk-penguin scene a million times over my late entrance to rehearsal Monday. I didn’t mean to fall asleep with Reed earlier at the ball field in Clairview, but when the sun moved behind the clouds and the humidity dropped, we had let the quiet field speak for us.

I loved the peace of it all. I don’t remember the last time I felt that calm during a show or baseball season.