Page 94 of Chasing Headlines

I shook my head.Sloppy. Come on.

“Take a lap.” Coach pointed with his fungo.

Jimenez threw his glove down. He hung his head and dutifully started down the first base line toward the outfield.

Idiot. Get your head out of your ass.

I punched my fist into the pocket of my glove. It made a satisfyingthunksound.

“Look alive. Who wants it. Come on, quick feet quick feet.” Coach called out. We stayed low and shuffled on our toes. “Shift.”

I shuffle-stepped right, moving closer to the bag at second.Clunk! The ball sang as Eberhardt hit a line drive straight up the middle. I pivoted. The ball raced through the air. I stretched and lunged, catching it off the hop just shy of the base. It was under me, and I stumbled over the bag.Shit.

I imagined the runner. I could dig the ball out of my glove and throw off-kilter. But I was already too slow. I righted myself and held my position, tagging the base and facing first.

Eberhardt nodded. He held up a hand and I threw him the ball.

I got back in position just in time to see Jimenez, sucking wind, pull his face mask back on and crouch behind the plate.

“All right. Look alive out there. Look alive. Who wants it?”

He sent the next ball sailing above third base. Fendleman waved off the incoming outfielder. He caught the ball and drilled it to first. A solid throw with good power. But he pulled Stanton a step off the bag.

“Take a lap!” Eberhardt pointed. Fendleman ducked his head.

I wiped sweat and dirt from my forehead before replacing the cap on my head.Some 'light practice'. Yeah, right.

Fendleman trudge off to right field. Behind him, the rest of the freshman were doing the jog-and-scoop maneuvers.

At least I'm getting real reps.

“Strikers, look alive out there. Look alive!”

And I couldn't stop the image that popped into my brain: of my reflection earlier this morning. Eyes red and glazed over, the world swimming in my vision, a stranger with a desolate version of my face. Unfocused. Unseeing. Drowning and barely breathing.

Look alive?I stared into the webbing of my glove.How much longer . . . can I even pretend?

If I’d thought I’d make it out of the locker room that day unscathed—because of my innocence on the hacking front—I had grossly underestimated Schorr’s aggravation. At the situation, me, someone disrupting his afternoon nap. Shit if I knew, but I hadn't done anything wrong?

“Sit your ass down in that there chair, hotshot.” Coach Schorr pointed through the window at one of his office chairs. I sucked in a breath and did as I was told. He closed the door behind him.

“Today was a fuckin fiasco. And for some reason, you were at the center of it.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“While technically that’s true. And I’m sure it seems unfair to be yelled at about something you had no knowledge of. Because you didn’t, right? You didn’t talk to a God damnedreporterbefore you spoke to your coach?”

I swallowed. Hard.Fuckin shit. What should I have told him?I shook my head. I couldn’t speak.

“Good. Because I shouldn’t have to remind you that you are here by the grace of God, Coach Jay, that man over there.” He gestured at the picture of Eberhardt hanging on the wall. “And every bit of favor I owe the Sabers organization. Do you think we just pull scholarships outta our ass, son?”

I lowered my head. “No sir.”

“Let me make things crystal clear to you, Mr. Cooper: you need to stay out of trouble. As far away from it as you can get. And if it happens to creep up on you, you run. And where do you run? You run to me or to Jeffrey over there, and we are the first to God damn know that you ate something that didn’t agree with you and so you spent the night in the shitter. If you get a hangnail, decide to take a vow of silence, if you think you want to try getting married and having babies while you’re still in college. If you miss a class, get a sniffle, have a bad fuckin hair day, I am thefirstto know. Think of me as your new BFF that only wants to know the bad stuff. But I sure as hell,do not want to find out because the God damned newspaper sponsor and the Dean are in my office. Do you hear me?”

I’m pretty sure there were residents of the cemetery the next county over who heard him. “Yes, sir.”

He blew out a breath. “Jeffrey says I need to apologize to your friend. But she winds me up, that one. So much like her brother.” He swept a hand over his head and continued muttering some string of words that sounded like: “. . . if she could pitch like him . . . but she wants to be a—” He glared and met my gaze. “You listening to me?”