One Last Night (5 page)

“
Come on. Coach only put
me in because we were up by five. Between your batting and Rowan’s
pitching, the rest of us are just field decorations.”

“
That’s bullshit,” I say.
“Okay, I’m having a good season. But we both know that bats run hot
and bats run cold.” I look around to make sure nobody’s listening
as the driver closes the front doors and puts the bus into gear.
“Everyone has their turn.”

“
Well, it’s definitely
yours right now,” Mitch says. He looks over the back of my seat to
the book in my lap. “German Existentialist Literature?”

“
Yeah.” I wiggle the
highlighter at him. “With all the traveling and games five days a
week I’m seriously behind.” Not to mention that if my grades slip
too much further my baseball scholarship’s in jeopardy, something I
can’t afford when I’m finally this close to making things happen.
All I need is a few more hours in the day.

“
You just need to learn to
sweet talk those TAs a little better,” Mitch says, pulling out his
tablet and headphones.

“
Right,” I say. I haven’t
sweet-talked anyone in months, not since I broke up with Hailey
last summer. Thinking about not having any girls in my life was
easy. Actually doing it is getting harder every day.

There’s not much to see on the three
hour drive back to Garvin—hills and scrub trees and the occasional
small town, so it’s easy to finally get some work done to the hum
of the other guys on the bus talking, messing with their phones or
listening to the movie that’s running on the monitors overhead.
Sometimes we pass through one of those micro towns, their main
streets literally two blocks long, with their raised wooden
sidewalks splintering in the sun and most of the glass fronts
boarded up. Almost all of them have a big fancy courthouse sitting
in the middle of a square right in the center of town—big brick
reminders of what life used to be like in this part of Texas. As we
roll out of town I look into the yards behind the peeling picket
fences at the rusty swing sets and the above-ground pools and
wonder what it would be like to grow up in a place like this. And
what the people in a place like this would say if they knew we were
watching.

I’m always relieved when we get back
on the main road as it rolls over the hills, nothing to see out the
window but vultures hopping around road kill and cows dotting the
scrub as they bend their heads to forage what they can from the dry
ground. The tiny towns depress me and make me feel even more like
an outsider in this part of the country. Much better to be flying
through a town like this instead of stuck in one.

It’s dark by the time we pull into the
parking lot at school. Some of the guys have been sleeping and
there’s a lot of groaning and stretching as the lights on the bus
flip on and people stand and grab their stuff.

“
Where you headed?” Mitch
asks as I swing my backpack over my shoulder.

“
Home I guess.”

He checks his phone. “On Saturday
night? Come on, you can do better than that.”

I shrug. “Like I said, I’ve got a lot
of work to do and we have a ton of games next week…” I know how
lame and pathetic that sounds the minute the words are out of my
mouth.

“
Plenty of time for all
that,” Mitch says as we hop down onto the asphalt parking lot.
“Come to the bar with me. We’ll have a couple beers, some wings…you
have to eat.”

I think about it for a split second.
All that’s waiting for me at the apartment is a frozen pizza and
Jessie and his stoner friends playing video games for hours in the
living room. Plus, if I blow Mitch off one more time he probably
won’t ask again. “Okay. Just for a little while.”

“
Great!” Mitch smiles and
taps his phone. “Nina’s meeting us there, and she’s got some hot
friend from class with her.”

“
All right,” I say, my
stomach already clenching at the thought. A friend of Nina’s. How
am I going to get out of this one?

“
Do you want a
ride?”

“
How about I meet you
there?” I say, nodding toward my bike.

“
Okay. Just follow me,
it’s not far.”

I get on my bike and follow Mitch’s
blue pickup truck out of the parking lot, the whole time wondering
if he’d notice if I just passed him and kept on going to the
apartment. But bailing on him again isn’t going to exactly cement
me into his list of friends. Too soon, his blinker flips on and I
follow him to the parking lot of McCarthy’s. I’ve been here a
couple of times with people from school and it reminds me of
Foley’s in Union Square—it’s kind of a trip to see a genuine Irish
bar full of dark wood and green accents here in the middle of
Texas, but nobody else seems to notice the irony.

The parking lot is full of pickup
trucks and American cars, so I pull the bike up onto the sidewalk
in front of the bar and set the kickstand down. I get an approving
nod from a guy in a huge cowboy hat as he walks by, taking in the
perfection of each line and stroke of paint.

“
Nina’s already got a
table,” Mitch says, as he walks up to the door. He’s got his urban
Texas cowboy uniform on—dusty boots, big belt buckle and a beat-up
trucker hat, his Saturday night going-out clothes. He’s so Texas
he’s even got tiny little cowboy boots hanging from his rearview
mirror. I’m not sure the t-shirt and jeans I threw on in the locker
room are going to measure up. I follow him through the door and the
wall of noise is immediate. The place is packed with people
standing three deep at the bar and lined up next to the pool tables
in the other room.

“
There she is.” Mitch
waves to Nina and I slowly follow him over there. As packed as this
place is, she’s the only dark face in the whole bar. I wonder if it
bothers her. It doesn’t seem to, which is amazing to me.

I say hi to Nina quickly and sit on
the other side of Mitch as far away from her as possible. It’s not
that I don’t like Nina, but there’s no way I can explain it to them
and still keep the secrets the way I need to. She’s insanely pretty
with her curly black hair loose around her shoulders and a body
that won’t quit. Her skin is a deep, golden color and I have to
admit to a tiny pang of jealousy when she leans over with one hand
on Mitch’s cheek to whisper in his ear. In a lot of ways, she
reminds me of Hailey and I realize that it’s not just the sex I
miss—although that’s a big part of it. It’s the little gestures,
the tiny indications of possession and desire that go along with
it, the outward signs of belonging to someone. I shake my head. I
meant it when I swore off women this year because fucking around
isn’t what I came here to do. Keep the focus on baseball and avoid
complications. And women like Nina were nothing but full-on
complications.

I look around the bar as Mitch gives
Nina a deep kiss and several of the guys are staring our way. A guy
in one group leans over to say something to his buddies and they
all laugh. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what they’re
saying. So much for college towns being liberal and open-minded.
Just another reason to keep my secrets to myself.

Neither Mitch or Nina seem to notice
the stares as they sit back in their seats.

“
My friend’s in the
bathroom,” Nina leans toward me. “She’ll be right back. Mitch
texted that you guys had a great game.”

“
It was good,” I say with
a nod, then turn to see what’s on tap.

“
Good?” Mitch says. “Our
boy here is on his way to being scouted.”

“
Really?” Nina says, her
dark eyes intent on me. I don’t like the way she looks at me. Like
she’s looking through me almost.

I turn away from her gaze. “I suppose.
Let me get some drinks.” I jump up from my seat. “Nina, another
beer? Mitch?” There’s a mostly full glass in front of her friend’s
seat, so I walk up to the bar alone to get three more beers,
focusing on SportsCenter on the TV behind the bar as the guy pulls
our drinks. When I turn back around to the table, I see a girl with
long, light brown hair sitting in the formerly empty seat and I
take a deep breath. How am I going to get out of this without
looking like an asshole? I’ll have to just stick to one beer and
then make some lame excuse for why I have to be home before
ten.

“
Here you go,” I say,
balancing the three beers in my hands as I lower them onto the
table.

“
Thanks Ty,” Nina says,
wiping the drops off the side of her glass.

I turn to her friend. “I was going to
get you one, but—” The rest of the sentence disappears into thin
air.

“
I’m good,” she says,
shaking her head and taking a sip of the beer in her glass. She
smiles at me and lifts her brown eyes to mine and I can’t help but
feel the familiar pull of desire. All those months, passing in the
hallway, walking up the stairs without a word and now she’s sitting
here at a table right next to me. I’ve never seen her hair outside
of the bun before and it’s beautiful, cascading in shining waves
down past her shoulders. Instead of the usual workout top, the
black shirt she’s wearing is silky and shiny and held to her
shoulders by whisper-thin straps.

“
Jenna.” I don’t even
realize I’ve said anything for a few seconds.

“
You two know each other?”
asks Nina, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

“
Sort of,” Jenna says, her
soft Texas accent infusing each word.

“
We, uh, live together,” I
say, and then realize how that sounds. “I mean, in the same
building. I have an apartment down the hall from hers.” God, I
soundlike a dumb-ass.

“
Well, look at that,”
Mitch says, punching me in the arm. “Small world and
all.”

“
I guess so,” I say,
sitting down next to Jenna. It’s distracting and delicious to have
her sitting next to me. Her hands are tiny, almost delicate as she
plays with a coaster. It’s all I can do not to reach out and touch
her, to see if her skin is as soft as I’ve imagined. To see if her
lips taste as beautiful as they look.

“
Nina said you had a game
down by Abilene today,” she says.

“
We did,” I say, taking a
sip of my beer to hide my embarrassment.

“
I’m from a small town
right near there,” Jenna says.

“
Yeah?” I say, pretending
that I don’t know a thing about her. I think about the tiny towns
we passed through and wonder which one was hers. Of course she
wanted to get away.

“
Grand Junction,” she
says. Then she laughs, and it’s a beautiful, almost deep sound. I
realize I’ve never heard her laugh before. “Although the only thing
grand about it is the name and the railroad depot closed something
like a hundred years ago.”

I can’t picture Jenna in one of those
micro towns. She’s too beautiful to be contained in a small, dusty
place. “Couldn’t wait to get out?”

Jenna shakes her head. “Not really,”
she says with a frown. “I love it there. Tons of space to run
around and do whatever you want. There’s a creek that runs through
town that’s great in the summer and Gramps built a treehouse in the
backyard that you can sleep in. Everyone knows who you are.” She
takes a thoughtful sip of beer. “Which, you know, can be good or
bad.”

Interesting. I didn’t expect that
answer. “Hmm. I thought everyone under the age of 70 would be dying
to get out of a town like that.”

“
Why?” She looks insulted
and I immediately feel bad.

“
Well…there’s not much to
do I guess.”

Jenna’s not letting me off the hook.
“There’s plenty to do.” She sits up straight and looks at me with
her head tilted to the side. “Just like a city boy to start ragging
on the country when he doesn’t know a thing about it.”

I smile at her. Looks like I’m not the
only one who’s been asking questions. “How did you know I’m from
the city?”

There’s a flash of hesitation in her
eyes, but it’s gone in a second. “Nina said you were from San
Francisco. And you don’t exactly sound like you’re from
Garvin.”

I run a finger around the rim of my
glass. “That obvious, huh?”

She shrugs noncommittally. “And you
don’t dress like a good ol’ boy.”

I look down at the band t-shirt I’ve
got on. I know exactly what she means, but I’m sort of enjoying
this conversation. “It’s just a t-shirt and jeans.”

She squints at me. “Not too many
people running around campus in a Zeppelin shirt and Nikes,” she
says, looking around the bar. “Wranglers, trucker caps and work
boots are standard around here.”

I lean forward on the table.
“Something wrong with that?”

There’s a glint in her eye that’s
almost a challenge. A challenge I’d better ignore if I know what’s
good for me. “No. I didn’t say there was anything wrong with
that.”

“
Okay,” I say, putting
both hands on the table. “I apologize for talking smack about your
town.”

She shakes her head. “Just because
you’re from Frisco, you think you’re all that. Just because I’m
from a small town doesn’t mean I’m an idiot, you know. Someday,
when I’m done traveling and doing everything I want to do, I’d love
to settle back down in Grand Junction. Maybe raise a family
there.”