The swing was so smooth and effortless I barely felt it. Adrenaline slammed though my body as I hit a screamer into right center, knowing it would find the gap. It had to. I dropped my bat and bolted for first, picking up speed as I rounded to second. I had at least a triple. I made the split-second decision to ignore the stop sign from my coach, kicking up dust as I passed third and charged for home. We needed this run to go to extra innings. From the corner of my eye, I saw the second baseman pivot and rear back to throw home. My heart rate skyrocketed and I slid, taking out the catcher staked over home plate.
She fell onto me in a cloud of orange dust that choked us both. We were still in a heap on the ground when the sound of the cheering crowd shifted from one side to the other—from our team’s fans to theirs. The Hawks swooped out of their dugout in a flurry of teal and black and tackled their rising catcher in a massive hug.
Only one of my fellow Mustangs came and offered me a hand up: our shortstop and my best friend, Jessalyn. I brushed her off, despite my eagerness to get away from the celebration going on around me.
“Way to go, Dana.”
“I was safe,” I told her, yanking off my batting glove to check my nose. I’d hit the catcher’s knee pretty hard.
“Actually, you weren’t. Otherwise Coach would be screaming at the umpire right now instead of—”
“Dana!” Coach was descending on me with a look that sent Jessalyn retreating to our dugout. His eyebrows were practically touching his hairline and his face was blotchy red from the blood roiling just below the surface. “What are you doing? Huh? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I was trying to win.”
“For us or them?” He got in my face, so close that I felt exactly what it meant when someone was spitting mad. My own anger receded under his frothing fury. “Are you wearing teal?” He jutted his chin toward my uniform. “Is that the color you’re wearing?”
“I’m wearing red,” I said, but so quietly he made me repeat it. “I’m wearing red.”
“I gave you the stop sign because you were never going to beat that throw. Damn it, Dana!” He turned away, hands on hips, and then faced me again. “You don’t get to decide what rules to follow. They—” he pointed at my teammates, who were watching me get chewed out from the dugout “—all know that.”
My temper flared again, but I held in my response.
“That’s it? You got nothing to say?”
Nothing that would make him stop yelling at me any faster. Silence was my best bet. I’d had more than a little practice getting yelled at by coaches, especially this one.
“You’re not starting on Tuesday—”
My head jerked up. “What?”
“—and I’m benching you for the first three innings.”
“You can’t—” When he walked away, I was right on his heels but skidded to a stop when he rounded on me.
“What? What can’t I do?”
It took everything in me to bite my lip. I clamped down so hard I tasted copper. I wasn’t responsible for us being down by one with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. And I sure hadn’t made a lineup that put Amanda Watson at bat after me. I’d had to take the chance. Amanda was the least consistent batter on our team. She either hit moon shots or struck out, the latter being more often the case when the pressure was on. But I couldn’t say any of that, not if I wanted to play at all the next game.
He was in my face again. “You think Selena would have pulled a stunt like that? No. Because Selena listened to her coach.”
My eyes stung at the mention of my sister, whose gaze I could feel from the stands. Every time I messed up, he compared me to her. I rotated my jaw and looked at my cleats. Selena had led her team to the state championships as a senior two years ago, something I was determined to do my junior year. And I couldn’t do that by risking wins with unreliable players. Why was I the only one who saw that?
“I was trying to win,” I repeated, half through my teeth.
“Yeah. All by yourself.” He thrust my discarded bat into my hands and went to join the rest of our pissed-off team as they lined up to congratulate the Highland Hawks on their win.
After the less-than-sincere—at least on my part—congratulations were given and I’d sat through our coach’s spiel about how well we’d played—not well enough, or I wouldn’t have had to try to save the game—and how we won and lost as a united team, I ducked out before anyone else could yell at me and headed around the bleachers.
“Hey, slugger.”
My scowl evaporated at the sound of Nick’s voice and became a smile when I turned to see the hulking Samoan guy who’d been one of my closest friends since junior high. Since then, he’d grown a lot bigger, a lot cuter and, frustratingly for me, a lot more shy too. It had gotten so much worse since we got partnered together in biology that semester. I thought he was developing more than friendly feelings for me, but with Nick it was hard to tell, which made it really hard to tell if I was developing any feelings of my own. Still, he’d come to my game, so maybe he was trying to be bolder. He even spoke to me first, though I could tell he was regretting his choice of the word slugger based on the way he lowered and shook his head.
“I should have just said Dana.”
“Nah, slugger’s a classic. So, the first game you got to see this year ended with me losing. Awesome.”
“I thought you were great.”
“Thanks,” I said, not really meaning it. “I didn’t see you.”
“I had to come late, so I only caught the last inning.”
“Even better,” I said.
He smiled, ducking his head a little. “It was only the first game, right?”
“Said like a guy who doesn’t play sports.” I stopped walking when Nick slowed. Then I mentally shook myself in an attempt to beat back my venomous mood. “Sorry. I’m the worst loser on the planet.” I also wasn’t looking forward to the car ride home with my endlessly disappointed dad and the shining sibling I’d never live up to. At least Selena would have to head back to her dorm eventually. Dad could berate me all night if he wanted.
Nick recovered from my semi-insult and kicked his foot to dislodge a cricket that had landed on his shoe. It was mid-March in Arizona, which, in addition to being the start of softball season, meant the weather was losing its cold bite. That was all the invitation the crickets needed. They weren’t at summer-level swarming yet, but the chirping was an ever-present sound outside, and it was already hard to avoid the little hopping bodies, try as Nick might.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I was late?” he asked.
I hadn’t known he was coming at all. I’d told him in class that I was playing, but that was all. “Everything okay? Did something happen with your grandmother?” Nick’s newly widowed grandmother had recently moved in and was still grieving deeply.
“She’s actually doing a little