“Ah, so you’re this big hitter I’ve been hearing about.” My dad speaks through a practiced smile, maybe sensing the bitterness wafting off of my cousin like fumes.
“She hits all right,” Zack pipes in, leaving our small circle and moving back toward the plate to his discarded bat. Hollis glances at his back as he walks away and lets out a short laugh.
“I hit better than he does,” she whispers, cupping her hand as if she’s sharing a secret with my father.
My dad chuckles.
“I bet you do,” he whispers back with a wink.
I want my dad to like Hollis. Whatever this thing is between me and her has been cast under a dark cloud because of all the shit with Zack and my uncle. It’ll be nice to admit out loud to someone that I really like this girl.
“We about done here?” I ask over my shoulder. My cousin scans the area. Most of the other players are gassed and already packing up. I can tell he wants to go more, probably to show off in front of my dad. But all I want is to get in my truck and talk with my father alone for the first time in way too long. I’ve missed him.
“Yeah, guess so,” Zack says, tossing his bat on top of his equipment bag before jerking one of the Velcro straps of his batting glove loose.
“I can stay, if you want to take a few more swings?”
Hollis’s offer is only within earshot of me, Zack and my dad, and I wish someone else heard so they would give in and stick around, too. As it is, I bristle at her suggestion and Zack seems poised to ignore it.
“I don’t mind sticking around, watching for a while,” my dad offers. He’s bound to be exhausted, and since he got in early, he shouldn’t have to leave for the airport for an entire day. I’m sure he wants to sleep.
“No, seriously . . . I’d like to work on a few things, too,” Hollis adds. Her gaze strikes a deal with mine, and I don’t like the dangerous gamble she’s making. Plus, I’m not certain how she’s getting home. The thought of her on this field alone with Zack, in a car—alone, with Zack—makes my stomach fold up into itself.
“I mean, I’m about done,” Zack says, building up an excuse of his own when Hollis cuts him short, grabbing his wrist with her hand. His eyes zero in on the enemy threat, and mine flash protectively, a sour feeling coating my insides and pulling down the sides of my mouth.
“Just another round, two tops,” she says.
The two of them stare at one another, only inches apart, and my pulse jackhammers in my chest, tempting my fist into action. But Zack doesn’t do anything. Why Hollis is making this offer—wanting to spend time with a guy I’ve been ashamed to call family lately—is lost on me. Unless . . . she really is just good. Stubborn, perhaps, is more fitting.
“You want me to come back in a bit, give you a lift home?” My motives are obvious to everyone, and Zack shoots me a snarky glare that’s his way of calling me pathetic.
“I can get her home.” My cousin holds my gaze for a solid beat, and our eyes briefly war. While his seem to tell me to trust him, mine warn him not to push me too far.
“Great. Okay, well, I’ll catch up with you later,” Hollis says, ending the discussion. She squeezes my forearm, this touch more tender than the way she grabbed Zack’s, and again, my cousin and I zero in on it. My body rushes with heat at getting caught, a sensation that sinks my stomach with the G-force of a roller coaster when my dad elbows my side and lifts a brow.
“See you at home, cuz,” Zack says, his smile falling into an ominous, relaxed line that reads like a devious plan. He lifts the bucket of balls and heads toward the tee to join Hollis. She’s strong, and she’s safe. I keep those two thoughts on repeat until my dad and I pull out of the parking lot and head toward our temporary home.
“So, you didn’t mention that Hollis is—”
“Hot,” I sigh out. I punch out a laugh before my head falls back to the head rest and rolls to the side to meet my dad’s waiting gaze.
“Pretty much that, yeah,” he says, giving me a crooked grin that tilts his thick mustache up on the right. His familiar laughter is a welcome sound, as is the endearing, soft punch he presses into my shoulder.
“Zack hates her,” I say, shaking my head.
My dad’s brow knits and he chews at his lips.
“Didn’t seem so bad back there.” My dad got the performance of a lifetime, from both of them. There’s way too much to get into for this short time we have together, so I don’t dispute him outright, but I don’t completely agree.
“Yeah, well, you were watching. You know how he looks up to you.” I wait for my dad to glance my direction again, and his faint smile lets me know that he gets how rough life is for my cousin.
“Yeah,” he agrees, moving his eyes back to the road.
My dad and I have never talked about it openly, but I think there’s a silent understanding between us that Zack had it harder growing up under my uncle’s rule. It’s always been the little things, like the public displays of discipline when we were little, or the immediate excuses my uncle made any time my cousin failed at anything.
“Zack would have gotten more hits today, but I had him up late last night practicing,” my uncle would say. Or, “I told him to only go seventy-five percent for this game since it didn’t matter as much as the championship will.”
Then, if Zack wasn’t perfect for the championship, he got his ass chewed out all the way home.
It was the
