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That makes her different. She’ll neverfit in, in a good way.
And even if she did have a similar life experience, she’ll be viewed differently tonight. She’s showing up with me. Not only am I well-known on campus for baseball, people have a strange interest in my personal life. I don’t bring girls to parties and I don’t flirt back. Tonight, I’ll be doing both.
Lennon flicks out the light in her room and we head down the dorm hallway, side by side.
“You playedreallywell today, Caleb,” she tells me, purposefully bumping her arm against mine.
I nod, seriously. “I know. Some even considered it blowjob worthy.”
When her fist hits my bicep, I don’t flinch. I was expecting the hit.
I laugh. “Thanks. I might have been showing off some today.”
“Scouts were there?”
“Foryou, Matthews.”
“Oh.” The short syllable is saturated with surprise. “Really?”
“Really,” I confirm.
We walk out of her dorm, into the balmy evening. It’s the perfect temperature now that the sun has disappeared, still warm but not hot.
“I’m nervous,” Lennon confides, as we walk along the sidewalk toward my truck.
“About what?”
“Tonight. This party. The way everyone pays attention to you, it freaks me out. I want to be off in some corner.”
I already knew Lennon feels that way. But her confiding it is new. In the past, it’s always been her squeezing my hand when we’re at Jake’s house or when people stop me on the sidewalk downtown.
“We don’t have to go.”
“No. I want to go. I just also want you to know if I act weird and awkward tonight, that’s why.” Before I can respond, she asks, “How late do these parties usually go?”
I glance over after we’re inside my truck. “You got a curfew?”
Lennon smirks as she buckles her seatbelt. “A guy in my journalism class invited me to a movie tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, yeah?” I pull out of the parking lot and head back toward my house.
“Yeah.”
“What movie?”
“I forget the title. It’s a documentary.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Itwillbe, actually,” Lennon responds, catching my sarcasm. “A bunch of journalism majors are going, so I’ll get to meet some new people.”
I brake at a stop sign, reaching over and squeezing her knee. “That’s great, Len. And this won’t be that late. The whole team has practice tomorrow morning. None of the guys want to do ladder drills or sprints hungover and exhausted.”
There are twice as many cars on the street as there were when I left to pick up Lennon. And we’re located close to Greek Row, meaning most of the people coming tonight walked over.
Loud music reverberates through the night air as we walk toward the open front door.
I watch Lennon fiddle with the hem of her top as we step inside the house. She moves closer to me, so I rest my palm on the small of her back, guiding her forward, then turning her to the right.
