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“You know what? Yeah. Okay,” she shrugged. “I don’t have anything else going on right now. What’s your idea?”
An hour later, we were taking our seats in the bleachers at the high school’s baseball field. They had a game that night, which was the kind of event nearly everyone would show up for. The kids all came because they were either in the game or knew everyone in the game, and all the adults would show up as parents supporting their kids or the kids of someone they knew.
“It’s weird to watch the game from up here in the bleachers,” Lana laughed.
“Yeah, as I recall it…we usually watched it from behind the bleachers.” I pointed around the back to the dark corner where we used to hide out as teens.
“We didn’t so much watch the game as we did use it as an excuse for getting out of the house,” she smirked. “Except for Claire, of course. She was always front and center with the rest of the cheerleaders, and Chris was always playing out on the field.”
“How come you never tried out for the cheerleading team?” I asked her.
She shot me a scolding look of disbelief, because we both knew damn well that was never her kind of thing. We both burst into laughter over it just as a big whiff of fried food wafted by us.
“I can’t stand it anymore,” I said. “I have to go grab one of those hot dogs. You want one?”
“I’ll take three,” she replied.
“I’ll just bring a whole tray of them over, and we’ll see who can pound back the most. How about that?” I winked as I stood to walk off, relishing in the sound of her snickering behind me.
We half-heartedly watched the game, mainly focusing on stuffing ourselves with concessions and reminiscing about high school. It was a bad combination to fill up on all that food while laughing so hard, but it felt too good to stop. We swapped stories and memories until the game was over and the rest of the crowd had cleared.
“Looks like we closed this place down,” I noted, looking around at the empty seats. “It’s a better feeling than closing Frank’s down, I guess. At least I can still walk.”
“It’s a good thing, too, because I need to walk off some of this food we inhaled, or else I’m going to have horrible indigestion.”
I laughed and shook my head. “You never did shy away from talking about things like indigestion.”
“Why should I? You get heartburn and gas just the same as me and everyone else on this planet,” she shot back, her tone changing slightly. The night had been so nice, but she was turning mean on me again. “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I have to be some dainty, fragile, polite little southern flower,” she scoffed.
“I never said you did,” I argued. “In fact, if you were…I’d probably be a hell of a lot less interested in ever hanging out with you.”
“Yeah, right,” she grumbled with a tinge of sarcasm under her breath.
I flew to my feet, unable to stand it anymore. “Alright, that’s it. There you go again. Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Get all bitter and mean towards me,” I fired back. “We used to be friends, you know? Way back in the day. Then, out of nowhere, you hated me. And now I’m lucky to see the nice side of you for longer than five minutes before you go right back to it. What did I ever do to you?”
“Just forget it,” she said in exasperation. “This was a mistake.”
She tried to take off again, but I lunged forward and grabbed her hand. “Lana, come on. Will you stop running away from me and just…just tell me what you’re thinking?”
She stopped and let out a heavy sigh. But she wasn’t running for once, so that was something.
“This doesn’t have to be like pulling teeth, you know. I’ll go first if you want. I’m standing here, looking at you and thinking…You have got to be one of the coolest chicks that’s ever stepped foot in Silver Point. And truth be told, I think you’re mean as a snake, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to be around you…or from burning up to know what’s going on inside that head of yours right now.”
She finally seemed to soften a little bit. The hint of a smile flashed across the corners of her mouth, but she was quick to hide it away.
“One time…in high school…you did something…,” she explained slowly. “You did something that hurt my feelings, and I…I never told you.”
“Damn. Okay. All of this over one thing I said? It must have been really bad.”
“Well…it’s not just that it was bad, it was that…,” her cheeks turned bright red, but she pushed through anyway. “It’s that…I had a…I had a crush on you.” A big gush of air came out with the words. Her hands lifted and flopped back down to her sides. “There. Are you happy? I said it. I mean, I’m sure you already knew. You’re used to every girl in town falling over you, and I was no exception.”
I was blown away, and it took me a moment to recover. Lana Miller…had a crush on me?
“I didn’t see that coming,” I admitted. “But okay. What did I do to hurt your feelings?”
