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“Really.” He shifted a bit. “But maybe we should ask your dad first?”

Right. “Ask” rather than “tell.” Because if Reed showed up unexpectedly as my date, what category storm was I tempting to make landfall?

I sighed. “Maybe we should.”

“Does he even know about us, E?”

I shook my head. Guilt dropped into my stomach like a chunk of ice.

“If it’s easier, I don’t have to go. I understand if you don’t want to talk to him about us yet.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to talk to him about us.” It was more that I didn’t know how to.

My phone buzzed twice in my pocket. I didn’t have to read the entire message to know what Mom sent. Based off the confetti bursts on my screen and the all-caps, our team just took the first seed in the Legion League Championship.

Any other summer, I’d be elated being on top.

But now?

“Everything good?” Reed asked, taking my hand.

“Yep.” I quickly put my phone out of sight as a horribly sour taste filled my mouth.

What the hell kind of a girlfriend was I?

All summer I had been worried about moving if we lost the stadium, but so what? If we moved, we’d still have our lives. Dad had a ton of money from Grandpa and what he did with the stock market, and he’d sell the hardware store. We’d be in a different place, yes, but we’d be together. Dad even said he would manage a new stadium, so eventually, we’d have baseball back in our lives too.

But Reed’s family?

Their farm was so close to foreclosure that one bad harvest could shut them down for good. Reed’s father wasn’t in a position to help out right now, and his mother worked full-time back home just to keep things “normal” for her only son. So what did that leave them?

Nothing.

Nothing except this season and the chance to win something that could literally save everything they had worked for their entire lives.

Reed unlaced his fingers from mine and rested his hand on my bouncing knee, and that was when the truth pressed down the invisible crown I had been forced to wear since birth.

I wanted that stadium so I could live my life the same as I always had, but the Fultons needed that stadium to live. To survive.

Suddenly, worrying about the Founder’s Day Tea and soggy cucumber sandwiches felt like the stupidest thing ever.

Our theater ghosts apparently had a sense of humor, because the ghost light flickered on and off in agreement.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Reed

“A baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings.”

—Earl Wilson

We only had a few days till we played the Middletown Pistons for our chance to go against the Crowley dynasty. All I wanted to do was practice, but Coach told us to spend a couple of days away from the field. And Eliza texted me yesterday asking if I could be there with her when she told her dad about us.

I went back and forth for hours before sending my response. Typing and retyping my answer.

Part of me was thrilled to get this entire thing out in the open. I hated sneaking around like a criminal. Hated feeling like I wasn’t good enough for her.

But the other part of me, maybe a selfish part, didn’t want any more pressure or eyes on me than I already had. I had cracked under the pressure once. Lost total control on the mound. It took me months to get it back, and even now I wasn’t sure I had it.