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I can’t expect my players to trust me if I don’t trust them. Carter is well on his way to a full ride in college for baseball, and he’s smart enough to know when his arm has had enough. If he says he’s still got some heat left, I’m going to believe him. Now it’s a full count with three balls and two strikes, and my heart is pounding in my chest, and my fingers almost slip from their grip on the fence they’re so sweaty.
“Take your time, kid,” I mutter, watching Carter take a deep breath on the mound while the other team starts heckling him.
He shakes his head when the catcher gives him a sign he doesn’t like, nods when he gets a good one, and then his eyes flicker over to mine. As I keep a positive smile on my face, Carter’s eyes go back to the plate, he winds up, and he executes a perfect changeup that confuses the hitter. The kid swings too early, and the loud bark of the ump shouting, “Strike!” sends a roar through the stands behind me. Carter ends the game just like he said he would, and I’m throwing my fists in the air, screaming right along with the fans.
The rest of the Wildcats abandon their positions on the field to race to Carter on the mound, joined by the handful of players sitting in here on the bench with me. We spend the next fifteen minutes celebrating and then shaking hands with the opposing team and coaches before the kids are all packing up their shit strewn around the dugout and heading out with their parents or friends to continue the celebration with pizza at Island Slice, like usual.
I stay where I am right by home plate as a bunch of parents on the team file through to make sure their kids picked up all their stuff and to shake my hand and thank me for coaching another great game. Everyone seems to have gotten used to me being here now, and the awkwardness and constant staring has died down.
It’s not until I’m finally alone in the dirt and the stands have almost cleared out that the only person I’ve wanted to talk to the entire night finally pushes open the gate in the fence and makes her way over to me. Sliding my hands out of my pockets, I’m unable to keep the huge grin off my face watching Wren walk toward me, knowing she’s mine, and she’s walking to me, and in just seconds, one of my favorite PG fantasies is about to come true when she’ll walk right up to me and into my arms to kiss me on home plate. I didn’t just win the championship game with a grand slam that will take us to state like the hundreds of times I’ve played this fantasy out in my head since I was a teenager, but it’s still just as exciting knowing it’s happening right after I coached my team to a win.
Wren stops a few feet away from me, and when she’s close enough that I notice she isn’t returning my smile, I give her a quizzical look, wondering why she stopped all the way over there and she isn’t in my arms right now. Especially after everything Palmer and Bodhi told me today, I want nothing more than to hold her and cherish her and erase every bad thing Kevin has ever done and said to her with nothing but good.
“You okay?” I ask, taking a step toward her and then pausing, wondering if something happened since the game ended. Maybe that piece of shit sent her another text.
I’ll kill him.
“Yep, great!” Wren quickly replies with what I now know is one of her fake smiles. The same ones she uses when someone asks her for a favor she’s too busy to handle but doesn’t have the heart to say no.
Wren’s eyes keep flickering away from me to look down, her whole body tense from her stiff shoulders down to her locked knees, and I start to wonder if maybe she just feels weird coming right up to me, making the first move. We haven’t been out in public together since our date, and maybe she just feels nervous even though there are only a handful of people left in the bleachers and they’re not even paying attention to us as they walk down the stairs to head off to the parking lot.
“Can I get a kiss for my awesome coaching abilities then?” I ask, holding my arms out and giving her a mischievous smile, letting her know she has absolutely nothing to feel weird about and I’ll take all the PDA she wants to give me.
Wren just giggles, but it sounds forced, her eyes still glancing away from mine and down every few seconds while I watch her wring her hands together in front of her. Everything about this feels wrong when it should be nothing but right, and something starts nagging at the back of my mind the longer Wren stands there looking uncomfortable and not closing the distance between us.
