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I try to follow his instructions, but I still don’t come close to connecting with the ball. With each failed attempt, I grow more annoyed. More embarrassed.
Finally, I drop the bat. “This is a waste of time. I’m sorry.”
Caleb starts walking toward me. “Lennon…”
“It was really nice of you to offer to do this, but I’m hopeless. And I’m sure there are a million other things you’d rather be doing right now, so…”
He’s getting closer and closer. I compensate by stepping back. I retreat until my spine is pressed against the hard ridges of the chain link. Rather than give me space, Caleb follows.
He tosses his baseball glove down, creating a small cloud of dust as it hits the dirt. “I thought youwerehopeless, Lennon, for a long time.”
“Well, that’s ru—”
Caleb keeps talking like I never said a word. “But everyone else seems to think you’re just clueless. And so I don’t know what the hell to think now, except that I’m running out of damn time.”
My brow furrows. “What are you—”
Again, he interrupts. “You go on and on about how I have everything handed to me because of my last name. How I’ve never worked for anything and how I can do whatever I want. That my life is perfect.”
I gnaw my bottom lip, because phrased like that, it sounds terrible. “That’s notexactlywhat I—”
“Stop talking, Lennon. For once, just stop talking and let me say this.”
He’s so close I feel the mint essence from his gum prickle my face as he speaks. Caleb tilts my chin up and forces me to look straight at him. Storm clouds are gathered in his eyes, darkening what’s usually the same shade as the light blue sky behind him. Even if I wanted to say something right now, I’m not sure I could.
“You think I do whatever I want, but you always make excuses when it involves you. If I bring you over to my house or talk to you at a party or invite you to the movies, you never seem to see it for what it is. So, fuck it. You think there are a million other things I’d rather be doing right now? Wrong. There’snothingI’d rather be doing right now, Lennon. You think this is a waste of time? It’s going to be the highlight of my day. I’d watch you swing and miss at a baseball all day. I’m doing this to help you. So you can stay or you can go, but either way stop acting like I wound up here on accident, okay?”
I gape at him, stunned, as his hand drops from my face. Unexpected, shocking, life-altering moments have happened to me before. But none of them rendered me frozen and mute, the way this has. My body feels numb; my mind blank.
Caleb closes his eyes, hangs his head, then exhales. “Dammit,” he mutters, before looking up at me again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to unload all that. We can just—”
I finally decide how to react, rising up on my tiptoes and pressing my lips to his. For a split second, we stand like that. Then I’m moving backward, once again leaning against the fence. This time, I don’t even notice the hard metal.
Caleb kisses me hungrily. Eagerly. Like he’s been wanting to do it for a long time. And I realize, following the confession I haven’t fully processed, that he has.
I melt into him, responding in a way I never have with the few other guys I’ve kissed. There’s no second-guessing, or reallyanythinking at all. Every time my brain starts to catch up to what’s happening, Caleb does something different that overwhelms me all over again. His hands slide under my shirt or his tongue brushes mine.
He tastes like spearmint. His body is warm and solid, caging me against the backstop. Heat spreads through my body like a fever, a reaction that has nothing to do with the spring weather or the sunshine.
We kiss and kiss, until my lips are tingling and my legs feel like jelly.
I pull in deep breaths of air when we separate, glancing down at the dirt instead of meeting Caleb’s gaze straight away. When I do look up, he’s staring at me, lips wet and hair tousled. There’s a tentativeness in his expression, an uncertainty that’s oddly endearing.
“I thought you hated me,” I whisper. “That first day, I was in a dark place. My dad had just died, and it was all people were talking about. Well that, andyou. They’d make fun of my dad one minute, then be starstruck over you the next. And I got us lost and blamed it on you, so I figured you’d look down on me like everyone else. Worse, because I’d given you a reason to. Everything after… I never let myself consider that you paid attention to me for any good reason, I guess.”
And before this semester, when we started spending time together outside of school, I’m not sure I’d have believed him. Part of me still thinks this moment isn’t tethered to reality.
“I get it, Lennon. If I could go back, I’d do a lot of things differently.”
My hand rises without me consciously telling it to, my fingers running along the sharp line of his jaw. Caleb looks surprised by the contact, but he doesn’t pull away. His hands, still tucked beneath my shirt, press tighter against my lower back.
Foreign urges course through me. I want to kiss him again. I want to domorethan kiss him.
“What now?” I whisper.
He smiles, and it hits me differently. It’s like walking outside after being in a darkroom. Jarring in a welcome way.
“Now, I’m going to kiss you again. And then, I’m going to teach you how to hit a baseball. Okay?”
