Stealing Home: A Reverse Grumpy-Sunshine College Sports Romance
Stealing Home: Chapter 6

I HIDE OUT IN MY ROOM THE NEXT MORNING UNTIL I HEAR DAD and Campbell leave to pick up breakfast and then head to the field. Some days I beat Dad to the office, some days he beats me. There aren’t set hours since a lot of our work isn’t done at a desk, but everyone’s expected to check in by ten.

Being a chicken means that I have to dig through the cupboards for food—we don’t eat at home regularly during the season—and come up with a crumpled protein bar and some instant coffee. On top of the burger last night and the run I skipped this morning, my body hates me. I’ll work all of it off running up and down the stairs at the stadium between promotions, but it’s not the same as eating well and getting five or more miles in. I make a promise to myself to do better tomorrow.

Friday nights usually have huge attendance numbers. There’s not much else to do in Buckley. Tonight, we’ve got three corporate dinners and a postgame concert with a popular Christian rock band. The ticket presales are over eight thousand, and we have a good chance of selling out. The weather’s great, not miserably humid for a Texas June.

Dark thoughts from my too-short conversation with my mom linger in my head, but when game time arrives, everything goes smoothly. The nine-year-old national anthem singer remembers all the words. The promos get on and off the field without holding up the game. Bucky the Beaver delivers flowers to a lady in the wheelchair row, and she tears up.

Her gratitude twists something in my chest. This. This is why I have to run this team. I don’t want some outsiders to come and change the simple things that work so well, to take away our traditions and replace them with outrageous gags meant to reel in news coverage and sponsorship dollars. I will fight my mom over this.

I pull out my phone—I stopped texting her months ago, but this feels like the right time to break the ban and tell her exactly what I think.

You can’t sell the team. It will kill Dad. It will destroy my hopes of ever running the Beavers. DON’T DO THIS.

No response.

As I jog back to the field to get the Race Around the Bases promo in place, I can’t shake the feeling that storms are on the horizon. Sky’s clear. A perfect night for baseball.

This season our mascot is played by Mason Wheeler, a sophomore drama kid from my school, who absolutely loves his job. I should laugh when the little kid who races Mason/Bucky trips over second, stumbles into the beaver, and sends our mascot rolling into the outfield. The crowd’s eating up Mason/Bucky’s antics. Even Mia, who always leaves the ticket booth after the third inning to help me with the between-inning entertainment, almost pees her pants laughing. I know from a miserable personal experience how hard it is to stand up in that Beaver suit. Campbell is the closest player, and he hams it up, getting the mascot back onto his giant webbed feet. Bucky holds his back like he’s injured; Campbell dusts dirt off the beaver’s enormous rump before sending the mascot toward the dugout with a friendly pat.

Instead of joining the crowd in their adoration, I swallow hard and wipe my sweaty palms on my khaki shorts.

If Mom sold her interest, all of this would change. All of it.

MIA AND I ROLL THE PROMOTION GEAR INTO THE STADIUM DURING the ninth inning, planning to reorganize everything so tomorrow’s props are easier to reach.

“So.” She only starts sentences like that when she knows I’m not going to like what follows. “Whatcha doing tonight?”

“You mean after the concert, stadium cleanup, and counting the till?”

She huffs and jiggles the lock on the closet because it won’t unlatch. “Yes. After all that. What are you doing?”

“By then it will be after midnight and I’ll stink like ballpark and hot dogs and—”

“Come swimming tonight,” she interrupts, as the closet bursts open and props tumble out. “People are coming over and we’re going to play night games and swim. You won’t need to shower before, because the chlorine will wash away your stench.”

I know exactly what kind of people Mia is talking about—people of the male variety, namely athletic guys from school. They flock to Mia because she has the amazing capacity to be both a tomboy and a cool girl, and to date all of them without making any of them hate her.

“It’ll be replacing one stench with another.” This is where I excel. Saying no without actually saying the word. “How about I call you when I’m done here?”

She pulls a pencil out of her hair—no marks on her neck today—and it falls down her back like a waterfall. “I know you don’t want to come, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t come.”

Just like I know her “So” sentences, she hears my no even though I really don’t want to disappoint her. “I do want to come—”

“Except that you don’t.” She sighs and shakes her head, disappointed despite my efforts. “You’ve become this little ball of stress and anxiety and schedules. I think you need to be seventeen for a little while.”

You know how a dog’s fur bristles when it feels threatened? The hair on the back of my neck stands up, and just like that I’m irrationally angry at my best friend. Mia’s words sound too much like something Mom said at dinner last week.

I don’t want you to have regrets.

You need to get away from this town and see what else is out there.

You won’t be a kid forever. You need to enjoy it.

Mia offers me a sad smile and bumps my shoulder with hers. “The invitation is open even if you always ignore it.”

Guilt pinches. I suck as a friend from March to September. Mia knows it and still hasn’t abandoned me. “What if I come for an hour? Once I make sure that Campbell’s housing is arranged, I can probably ditch—”

“Wait. WAIT.” She holds up both hands, as if she’s stopping a freight train. “Where is Sawyer Campbell staying?”

I can see where this conversation is headed. “No, Mia.”

“But with my brother gone, we have an extra room. Or Campbell could stay in the pool house. Either way, I could build up a totally platonic …” She trails off, her eyes all dreamy. “I’m lying. I will quit this job right now if it means I get to hook up with Sawyer Campbell.”

And she would, too. Mia works for the team because it’s the only time we get to spend together in the summer. It’s not like she needs the money. Her parents own the largest air-conditioning company in Texas. If there’s one business that will never fail, it’s the one that makes Texas habitable.

“Traitor,” I say, faking a punch at her face.

“Why am I—”

My radio clips off her words. Meredith, our public relations director, is calling me with the list of players the media wants to interview. Mia turns back to the jalapeño sausage costume and straightens its sombrero and skinny mustache. The guy who’d worn it for the race got tripped by the Italian sausage, and they steamrolled each other to reach the finish line.

“Who do you need, Mer? Over.”

“Just Campbell,” her voice crackles through.

“That’s it? Williams pitched six good innings. Over.”

“Yep. Just Campbell.”

I roll my eyes. This is another problem with having big names in a small town. The guys who work their butts off every day are overlooked for the guys with bigger signing bonuses. Not that Campbell didn’t play well—he hit a homer in the third and doubled in his second at bat—but Williams struck out eight straight and only gave up one run. He should have gotten his moment in the spotlight.

“Ew,” Mia says as she hangs the lederhosen-wearing sausage back on its hook.

“I’ll get the sanitizing spray.”

“Not that.” Though she wipes her hands on her shorts. “You’re making that face.”

“Which face?”

“The face my abuela makes when a dog poops on her lawn.”

I laugh. Abuela Rodrigues has two main expressions: exuberantly overjoyed and thoroughly disgusted. For some reason, Abuela long ago decided she liked me even though I only understand every fifth word of her rapid-fire Spanish. Every time Mia and I drop by, she tries to stuff me full of homemade alfajores cookies—not complaining—and glares at her granddaughter. As if Mia has failed to feed me properly.

Wrinkling my nose up, I sniff like Abuela Rodrigues does. “I thought this was her smell-a-fart face.”

“It’s very similar to the dog-poop face. And you make it every time you hear Sawyer Campbell’s name.”

“Every time you say Sawyer Campbell—and you always use both of his names, by the way—it triggers my gag reflex. I think I have PTSD from almost tasting his barf.”

She tilts her head to the side, her dark eyes full of mischief. “You want him.”

“I do not.” Hot cousin. Hot cousin.

“You. Want. Sawyer. Campbell.”

Her voice is so loud, and the tunnels echo so much. If I wasn’t channeling Abuela before, I am now.

“I can’t blame you.” Mia takes the can of sanitizer out of my hand. “He’s glorious.”

“You’re ridiculous.” I turn my head out of the direction of the spray. “I’m going to go escort him upstairs.”

Mia laughs. It’s a vicious, evil laugh that makes me blush and want to punch her for real. “Have fun in the elevator.”

Small space. Campbell close. Why did she put that in my head? “You’re awful.”

“Glor-i-ous!”