Wild(37)

            He looked back at me, studying me over the laptop, and shook his head. “I do love the game. Don’t get me wrong. There’s a rhythm in it. A peace that comes over me when I’m standing on the mound.” He took a long sip from his drink. I watched his throat work, mesmerized. “It doesn’t matter if the ballpark is full of screaming fans or smack-talkers shouting at me from every direction. It’s like I’m on a boat drifting at sea, totally calm, the world fading around me. Nothing hurried. Just the sound of my breath, the pulse of my heart, the ball in my hand. Have you ever felt like that?”

            I took a breath, realizing I’d been in some kind of trance, my memory searching for a moment like that. His description had triggered that need in me. I’d never met a guy who talked like him. With mere words he fired a need in me to know that kind of peace.

            “Yeah,” I admitted slowly. “I have.” When I held my guitar, I felt that way. Or rather, I had.

            When it became clear I wasn’t going to elaborate, he continued, “If I’m lucky enough to make it to the majors, then great. But I have other interests, too . . . other things that bring that same feeling.”

            And this struck me as wholly unfair. My fingers tightened around the curve of my knee. I looked away for a moment and bit the inside of my cheek, disturbed by this. Nothing inspired me the way he described except for something I couldn’t do, and he had multiple things that spoke to him?

            “I’m actually interested in teaching.”

            My attention snapped back to him. “As in becoming a teacher?”

            He nodded. “Yeah.”

            “Like being a coach?”

            He sent me a look that said I’m not just a dumb jock, you know. “No. English.”

            “English?”

            “What are you? A parrot? Yeah, English. Literature.” He made a flapping motion with his hands. “I’m into those things that open and have pages in the middle.”

            I laughed awkwardly. “No, I didn’t know that about you. I didn’t know that you—”

            “Read? Yes, I can read words and everything.”

            I wadded up a napkin and tossed it at him.

            He chuckled and caught it. “I actually read a lot. And write.”

            I stared at him, not knowing what to do with this sudden new insight to him. He was a jock who . . . wrote? But, of course, it was believable. The way he used words. He didn’t just talk. He painted a picture with language.

            He rubbed a hand up and down the back of his scalp and blew out a breath. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

            “Not even Rachel?” I blurted before I could help myself. Clearly they were close. How could she not know that he liked to write?

            He shook his head, his eyebrows drawing tightly over his deep-set eyes. Like even he was confused that he had confessed this to me. “No. Actually I haven’t. When we talk it’s usually about . . . her . . .” He frowned like maybe this had just occurred to him.

            I wet my lips. A fluttery feeling danced inside my too-tight chest as I stared at him. Maybe she thought she knew everything there was to know about him. Every moment I spent with him, I discovered another layer. I doubt there would ever be a time when this guy didn’t fascinate me. “I want to hear about your writing. What is it that you write?

            “Fiction. Stories,” he provided.

            “I’d like to read them . . . if you’d let me.”

            He looked at me for a long moment and then smiled almost self-consciously. I blinked. Impossible. This guy never looked uncertain. “I’ve never let anyone read them before.”