What Comes Next Read online

  No tears, but slightly reddened. She wasn’t crying, but she had been. Recently.

  “Ana?” My voice was heavy, too scratchy, forcing me to clear my throat. “What’s wrong?”

  Her head dropped, but not before I caught the wry smile on her face. “You didn’t see your girlfriend out there?”

  I edged closer with slow, cautious steps. “I told you. Tracy’s not my girlfriend.”

  “She seems to think she is.” Ana tossed the damp towel in the nearby garbage, and turned to lean against the counter. Arms folded in front of her, she raised her chin to meet my eyes.

  “Tracy will say anything to stop this”—I waved my arm back and forth between the two of us—“from happening.”

  “This?” Ana brusquely copied my action. “What is this exactly? A challenge?”

  I sighed in defeat. “You’re asking me that again?”

  Ana shrugged. “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” she muttered softly.

  “Not the only thing, Ana.” I watched intently as understanding flashed in her eyes. “There’s the very real possibility that what I told you the other night was the truth.”

  “I thought so . . .” She glanced away with a rapid shake of her head. “And then Tracy . . .”

  “Look, Ana, I don’t know what she said to you, but I have a good idea. All I know is that Tracy doesn’t know me.” I cut the distance between us in half when Ana darted a look in my direction. “She never did. Not like you do.”

  She scoffed. “I don’t—”

  “You do. More than you realize.” Two more steps put me within touching distance, if I reached out. But I didn’t. Not yet. “It’s you I seek out. Not Tracy, not anyone else. When I’m with you, I’m not just trying to forget everything. Sure, you help me forget, but the reality doesn’t come rushing back the moment you’re out of sight. I think about you when you’re not there, I think about the next time I’ll get to see you, talk to you, kiss you . . .”

  One step put me close enough to smell the hint of strawberry in her hair. The urge to kiss her was strong. Somehow I managed to resist . . . for now, and only because I still saw a trace of doubt in her eyes. I settled for twirling a lock of her hair around my finger instead.

  “I don’t know where we’re supposed to go from here. I don’t know what the future holds,” I admitted softly, “but you’re the first girl that’s ever made me want to find out what comes next.”

  I met and held her gaze as she studied me for signs of deception. Finally, I saw the shift in her eyes I had been waiting for, and relaxed a little. Not even her next words worried me—not when she said them with that humorous glint in her eyes.

  “What if what comes next is . . . bad?”

  “While I don’t think that is going to happen,” I responded lightly, “I’ll gladly take any bad we’re dealt, along with the good.”

  “Hmm.”

  My arms spread open, and she leaned into me without hesitation as I wrapped them protectively around her waist. Brushing a curtain of hair to the side, I planted a kiss to her temple.

  “I like you, Ana,” I murmured, “and come Monday, everyone, including Tracy, is going to know it.”

  I made my move Monday afternoon. Spotting Ana in front of her locker between classes, I pushed my way through the crowded hallway to get to her. She squealed as I swooped in behind her and twirled her around. Her back hit the lockers with a metallic clang at the same instant my mouth claimed hers.

  My ears picked up a few gasps and murmurs from behind me, but that was no longer my concern. Not since the second I felt Ana in my arms. Not since her surprise wore off, and she started kissing me back. And definitely not since her fingers pressed into my scalp to pull me closer. I could kiss her every minute of every day, and still not get enough of this girl’s mouth.

  A few giggles over my shoulder reminded me that we had an audience, and I reluctantly pulled away before I landed us both in detention. A smile was left on Ana’s lips. Her eyes were slow to open, and I wanted to boast about my superb kissing skills that had turned her to putty in my hands.

  Another time, perhaps. When I reminded her later of just how awesome I was.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered for my ears only.

  “Kissing you.” As if to prove my point, I planted a quick kiss to the corner of her mouth.

  “In front of the entire school?”

  “I’m making a statement.” I swept across her lips to give equal attention to the other corner.

  “You mean you’re marking your territory,” she countered.

  “Something like that.” With my lips pressed against hers, I grinned. “Is it working?”

  Her eyes slid over my shoulder, and her head nodded fractionally. “It appears so.”

  “Good. Then my job is done.” I finally released her, but only because my internal clock warned me that the late bell would soon be ringing, and I had a game to get to. “The team’s leaving early for an away game in New Bern. I probably won’t see you until tomorrow.”

  “No climbing through my window this time?” she teased.

  “Don’t tempt me.” I returned her smile as I backed up, bumping into a few shoulders in the process. A hand came down on the back of my neck and steered me away at a faster pace.

  “Let’s go, man,” my friend and teammate, Vince, said. “Bus is waiting, and you’ve got a career to make.”

  As I walked away with Vince and a few other guys from the team, I glanced over my shoulder to find Ana smiling at her friend, Jen. I’d put that smile there, and I intended to keep it there. I looked again when the late bell rang, and watched Ana run off to class, along with the rest of the stragglers.

  Vince’s grip tightened, pulling my attention forward. “Focus, man. No girls. Just baseball for the next few hours.”

  “I got it.”

  I understood the need to focus more than anyone. But what my teammates didn’t realize was that Ana and baseball came hand in hand. With one came the other. Losing one meant possibly losing the other.

  Which meant, for now, baseball had to come first. If I ever wanted to see what came next with Ana, I had to make the most of the opportunity to play ball now.

  Ben’s barbaric plan worked. With one major public display of affection, the entire school got the memo that we were . . . something. I wasn’t exactly sure what that was, but Jen threw around words like “girlfriend” and “steady.” I didn’t correct her, because a part of me actually believed the wildly ridiculous idea that I was Bennett Sawyer’s girlfriend.

  Except, he sure didn’t make me feel ridiculous when I was with him. We weren’t together often lately, since he was busy preparing for his big game Friday night. His evenings were spent in the batting cage, or in the gym, instead of on the farm. His brother kept up with the fence repairs in his absence. Though they looked astonishingly alike, the atmosphere on the farm wasn’t the same without Ben around.

  He made up for his absence the best he could when we saw each other in school. He usually made an appearance at my table at some point during lunch period, occasionally found me between classes, and always found me after the final bell rang—before he ran off to another practice, game, or training session.

  He was so busy I didn’t bother to tell him about the letter I received in the mail Thursday afternoon. The return address had Robert Winston’s name scrawled above it. For that reason alone, I shoved it under my bed without bothering to open it. Maybe someday I would read it, but now, I had more exciting things to look forward to than anything my absent father had to say.

  Today was the big game. I assured Ben for the umpteenth time that I would be there before the first pitch was thrown. If he would let me go so that I could get home in time to make it back.

  With my back to the lockers, I pressed my palms to his chest to halfheartedly push him away. Behind him, the hallway was deserted. It had vacated at some point while we’d been kissing, and I hadn’t even noticed.

  �
��What are you doing?” he protested as he pushed his weight against my hands.

  “I need to go home before the game,” I reminded him again.

  He glanced at the clock on the wall. “You’ve got plenty of time.”

  When he moved my hand from its blocking position, and pressed the length of his body closer, I realized I needed a different approach. “You need to focus,” I tried.

  “I am focused.”

  “On the game, silly. Not my mouth,” I reprimanded him with a laugh.

  He temporarily aborted his attempt to steal another kiss. “Your mouth helps my game,” he told me in all seriousness.

  “I don’t see how.”

  “I don’t see how not.” His gaze dropped to my smiling lips, and he grinned broadly. Then, with a long, drawn out sigh, his grin vanished and his somber eyes met mine. “You’re one of the reasons I need to play well tonight.”

  I rolled my head to the side, and his kiss landed on my cheek. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” His words jumbled together when his lips finally found mine.

  The desperation behind his every movement and every breath was obvious, even if the reason for it wasn’t. Realizing what he needed, without understanding why, I let him control the kiss. Pace, depth, length—it was all him, and was nothing short of spectacular.

  Finally, when I was sure I could no longer keep up, he eased away. Freeing me from the lockers, he asked, “See you after the game?”

  “I’ll be there,” I promised.

  Of course, Ma and Pop insisted on making it a family affair. Unlike the last time, my persistence assured that we arrived well before the game started. We claimed the seats directly in front of Ms. Sawyer and Mitch, and the sharply dressed scout who sat silently beside them.

  Eyes darted in our direction from every seat on the crowded bleachers. His mere presence provided pregame distraction for the masses until the players took the field, and the focus shifted to the game.

  My eyes were on Ben as he trotted to his position between second and third base. Shortstop, Jen had explained to me earlier in the season. The most versatile position on the field. He had a lot of responsibility, but he handled it well. Best shortstop this school has had in recent memory. I’d heard it all. Interestingly enough, none of what I’d heard had actually come from Ben’s mouth.

  “Hey.” Something tickled the back of my neck, and I jerked to the side to find a lazy grin on Mitch Sawyer’s face as he leaned into the space between Jeffrey and me. “So I guess you finally let my poor brother off the hook?”

  “Off the hook?”

  “Yeah. You were mad at him,” Mitch reminded me. “I’m sure he deserved it, but he was moping around like a sourpuss for weeks.” His gaze swung toward the field, and his grin grew. “Now he’s prancing around the house like he’s fucking Tinker Bell or something.”

  A subtle throat clearing noise came from behind me—from Ms. Sawyer—and Mitch shot his mother an exasperated look. I don’t know what she did in return, but Mitch’s expression shifted until he resembled a scolded toddler.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered under his breath when he turned forward again. His mouth near my ear, he whispered, “Whatever you did, thank you. He’s much more tolerable now.”

  “I suppose you’re welcome,” I returned with a small laugh.

  “So what’s—shit!”

  Mitch jumped to his feet, along with half the spectators, when the ball cracked off the bat and torpedoed past the pitcher’s head. While the pitcher dropped to the ground, Ben dove for the ball, catching it on a hop as it sailed over second base. Cries of concern for the pitcher turned to cheers as Ben planted his foot, pulled his arm back, and sent the ball flying for first base.

  The unified roar from the bleachers at the umpire’s out signal was deafening. I barely noticed, as I was cheering just as loudly, if not louder, than everyone else.

  “That’s my brother!” Mitch announced proudly from behind me. His hands came down on my shoulders, and he gave me a little shake in his excitement. “That’s my fucking baby brother!”

  The next four innings went on with more of the same. Not every play was as exciting as that first one, but it was a thrilling game. Ben had a single his first at bat, a crowd-pleasing double his second time to the plate, and scored one of Stone Creek’s three runs.

  According to the murmurings amongst the spectators in the stands, he had played a solid game so far. We were winning three to two. Excitement filled the air as if everyone knew this was it. This was the night Bennett Sawyer could put this small town on the map.

  I watched with nervous anticipation as Ben took the field for the fifth time. Despite the excitement all around me, a feeling of melancholy washed over me. I wasn’t sure what brought it on. Perhaps it was the uncertainty of what would happen next. Maybe it was the realization that he would eventually leave, and that this was one of the last games he would play for Stone Creek before moving on to bigger and better things. Maybe it was knowing that I would be here for at least another year, without him. Likely longer, since college tuition was definitely not affordable enough for me to even consider.

  What I wished I had known was that something far darker loomed on the horizon. That something was coming that none of us was aware of, and that none of us could stop.

  It happened when Stone Creek was on the field, with one out, and runners on first and third. It should have been a routine play—one I saw Ben make effortlessly twice already this game.

  While the second baseman fielded the hard-hit ball, Ben broke for second base. The ball smacked his glove at the same instant his toes touched the bag—a split second before the runner coming from first slid into the bag. Ben retrieved the ball from his glove, pulled his arm back to make the throw to first—

  The runner’s foot came up, clipping Ben’s legs out from under him. He and the ball crashed, glove first, to the ground. Shouts of protest erupted from the bleachers, some calling out the runner for taking a cheap shot, while others cast concerned glances toward the scout over my shoulder.

  None of that mattered to me when I stumbled to my feet. What alarmed me was that Ben never got up to finish the play. He still hadn’t gotten up.

  The crowd quieted as one of our coaches rushed onto the field. He crouched down in front of Ben, and the other players circled around them. Just before they blocked my view, I thought I saw Ben push up into a seated position.

  That had to be good, right?

  I heard Mitch muttering to Ms. Sawyer behind me, and the concern in his voice didn’t give me much relief.

  Was it his wrist? Did he twist his ankle? Did it look like he hit his head?

  Several long, heavy seconds ticked by before the players dispersed and Ben stood to walk off the field.

  My breath caught, but Mitch leaned forward to reassure me. “It’s alright. They’ll need to check him out before they let him play again.”

  Wordlessly, I nodded my understanding. He was walking off the field on his own, so that had to be good. Unless he had an injury we couldn’t see. His wrist? Or his head?

  My stomach twisted into knots when Ben disappeared into the dugout, and I could no longer see him. While the game went on, my eyes stayed glued on the spot I had last seen him, waiting to get a glimpse of him again.

  Moments later, the rest of the team filled the bench as they took their turn to bat. Mitch grumbled when someone else batted in Ben’s spot. The energy from earlier was long gone. In its place descended a suffocating feeling of uncertainty.

  It only worsened a few minutes later, when Ben emerged from the dugout. Not to bat, not to take the field, but to take the long walk to the back door of the school alongside the assistant coach. Mitch and Ms. Sawyer jumped from their seats to join them, and the scout followed a moment later.

  I watched until they all disappeared inside the school, the game and its outcome no longer important to me. Half an hour later it ended, and I still had no idea
if Ben was okay or not.

  We won, but the cheers were stilted by the cloud of anxiety over our star player’s condition, and the status of his highly anticipated scholarship.

  Ben’s truck was gone from the school parking lot by the time we left. It wasn’t sitting in the Sawyers’ driveway when we passed their house on the way home.

  “Do you think he could still get an offer, Pop?” Jeffrey wondered from the back seat.

  “I don’t know,” Pop sighed. “These big schools have a lot of prospects. Sometimes they like to see a player a few times before they sign them. We know Ben’s consistent, but they won’t know that until they watch him play enough, and . . .”

  He trailed off with a shake of his head, but we all knew what he was thinking.

  Would the injury Ben got tonight prevent him from convincing the scouts of his worth? Would it get in the way of him achieving his dream?

  I hated not knowing. We all hated not knowing.

  I went straight to my room when we got home. I dressed for bed in a thin T-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts, and sat at the desk in my room, staring at the problems in my geometry book. Anything to interrupt my distress over Ben. Anything to not listen to my brother’s many questions, or watch Pop pace the kitchen floor with worry-lined eyes. Against my best attempts, my thoughts drifted to Ben anyway.

  I wondered what it would mean if he was hurt. Surely he wouldn’t lose his chance at a scholarship just because of that. Pop’s concerns were unfounded. Ben would have another opportunity. And if he didn’t . . .

  I couldn’t think about that.

  I wasn’t deaf, blind, or naïve. I knew all about the war. I knew it was fought by small town boys with no other options. I knew there was a chance that Ben would be drafted if college didn’t work out.

  I was on my third math problem when Jeffrey popped his head in the door, interrupting my unpleasant thoughts thirty minutes later. “Ma’s asking for you downstairs.”