Page 30 of One More Chapter
“Ant beamed him,” Aaron laughs.
“He hit that guy with the ball?!”
“Yeah. In wiffle ball rules, if you get hit, you can either start your at-bat over or take first base.”
I cup my hands around my mouth. “Jules! Just get hit! Then you get to go to the first base for free!”
She looks over her shoulder at me and laughs, then tightens her grip on the bat. Ant doesn’t throw the ball to her though. He gazes over to me with a dazzling look in his eyes, his smile as bright as it had been that night on the beach, when he’d tossedhis head back in laughter at something I’d said that he’d thought was funny.
It probably wasn’t that funny. But that night, he thought everything I said was spectacular. And I believed him.
Juliet ends up hitting the ball past three different people and makes it to first base, and Aaron blasts one over everyone, ending up with a home run. With no one else on the bases, I take the bat.
I live with Anthony Ellis. I will teach with him in the same classroom. But this is the first time in a long time I’ve actually looked him in the eye.
The eyes of a dazzling blue I could never quite capture in writing.
I catch myself as an author over-describing blue eyes like the differing stages of the ocean or changing shades of the sky. Ant’s eyes aren’t true blue. They’re a turquoise, shimmering aqua, like untouched waters in the most remote of places on earth. I haven’t seen a shade so stunning in all my life. It’s rare, just like that night we had together.
“Strike one!”
Sam, who is squatting behind me, startles me from my illicit daydream.
“I wasn’t even paying attention!” I argue.
“Gotta be quicker than that, Barker. Get your head in the game.”
Anthony winks, and I quickly fall in danger of freezing up again. Instead, I tighten my grip on the bat and put on my best mean face. Ant tosses the ball toward me, and I pinch my eyes shut as I swing with all my might, spinning myself in a circle on the point of my toe.
“Woof! I felt the breeze on that one.” Ant chirping me from the mound only fuels my determination to hit the damn ball.
“Put your hands together,” Sam whisper-yells from behind me as he tosses the ball back to Ant.
“Huh?”
“Your grip,” he clarifies. “Put your fists together. You’ll have more control over the bat.”
“Hey! No helping the other team, Ford!” Ant calls from the mound as I close the space between my fists so they’re connected. Would you look at that? Idofeel more in control of this bat.
“I thought the whole point of this get-together was to becomemore of a team!” he shouts back, then whispers to me, “Fists together. Don’t close your eyes this time. He isn’t throwing it that hard. You’ve got this, Pen.”
I have no idea how Sam expects me to “have this.” Anthony Ellis is bent at the waist, the arm that’s holding the ball cocked behind it, staring down his summer-sunburnt nose at me with a smug little cocky grin consuming him. And, in what should be an absolutely illegal move, he uses his free hand to turn his baseball hat backwards. Like, excuse you? Break my heart and then look good afterwards? I don’t think so.
“You’re goingdown, Penelope Jayne.”
Actually, you were the one who went down?—
“Stop calling me by my legal name, or I’ll let the entire staff know that you have an Avengers shower curtain, Anthony Ellis.”
“I believe you just did,” he says, still wearing that amused smile. “Here comes the heat.”
He tosses it to me like a grandmother would, but the ball is entirely hittable. I swing with all my might, closing my eyes at the last second. But I hear the crack of plastic on plastic, Sam yellingRun, Barker!and I open my eyes to take off for the base.
Unfortunately, when I open my eyes, I also realize that the ball merely dribbled its way through the grass right to Ant. I book it down the grass line, faster still when I see that shit eatinggrin on his face spread like wildfire as he picks up the ball and runs right at me. He’s gaining on me, the arm with the ball stretched to capacity. I stop in my tracks, drop-step to my left, go around him the other way, and make it to the base before he can touch me.
“Illegal move!” he smirks. “You’re out.”
“You’rean illegal move!”