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  “You hear that, Clint? Guyliner is acting all tough. I didn’t think you were the type to let your girlfriend fight for you, Goldie. That’s not—what’s the word?—chivalrous. That’s what the girls say about you, you know. Such a nice guy. Such a sweetheart. I wonder what all those girls would think if they heard you were in here rolling around with this freak? I bet they’d figure out real soon that nice guy is actually code for queer.”

  “At least he’s not a douche,” Graham retorted. “I’ve only been here a week, and even I’ve heard about how the girls refuse to have anything to do with your bigoted ass.”

  Roy didn’t take his attention from Connor. “Please, I can get with any chick I want. Unlike you, at least I know how to show a girl a good time. You two spend more time together in the library than anywhere else. In fact, I don’t think anyone’s ever caught you two getting it on in your car or anything. I bet the only reason Allyson dates you is because her daddy makes her. Anything to keep the baseball players happy, right?”

  “I bet you’re right.” Clint scrunched his face as though thinking hard about something. “You know, that would make Allyson a whor—”

  Connor’s temper snapped. He lunged forward and swung Clint into the lockers with a clang. Clint tried to step away, but he couldn’t escape Connor’s strong grip. “You will not talk about Allyson that way. I don’t care what you have to say to me or about me, but you will not, I repeat, you will not ever say another word about her. In fact, if you’re smart, you’ll pretend she doesn’t exist.”

  Graham patted Connor’s shoulder. Like his voice, the touch managed to cool his anger. “Don’t do this. They’re not worth it.”

  The distinctive squeak of rubber soles on tile cut through the tense tableau. “What’s going on here?”

  Connor swore under his breath. Of all the people who could have walked in on this fiasco, Coach Baxter was the worst. He’d been the football coach at Green Valley High since before Connor’s father’s day, and the man practically put Green Valley’s athletes on the college scouts’ radar single-handedly. Connor couldn’t afford to get on the guy’s bad side.

  Baxter narrowed his eyes at the hand Connor still had pressed to Clint. Connor released his hold and stepped back, knocking into Graham.

  “I asked a question.” Impatience added bite to Baxter’s bark. He fisted his hands on his polyester-covered hips.

  The smile on Roy’s face was so bright it could probably be seen from the moon. “Clint and I had to break these two up. I don’t know what started it, but they were fighting about something. Then Connor attacked Clint.”

  “It wasn’t a fight. It was an accident, and I didn’t attack anyone,” Connor burst out.

  Baxter grunted and pointed at Connor and Graham. “In my office. Now. You two,” he said, nodding at Roy and Clint, “get out of here.”

  As he and Clint left the locker room, Roy sent another beaming smile at Connor.

  At Connor’s wary look, Graham shrugged and followed Baxter. Graham cradled his wrist and tested the use of his fingers. “It’s okay,” he said, noting Connor’s concern. “I twisted it a bit when we landed. It’s not broken or sprained or anything.”

  “Will it cause you problems at practice?”

  “Nah, I’m a soccer player. No hands.”

  “You’re a goalie. I may not know a lot about soccer, but I’m pretty sure that goalies get to use their hands.”

  “We do, but really, it’s no big deal. It’ll be fine in a few minutes. Just need to shake out the tingles.”

  “Fitzpatrick, Parker, stop yammering and get your pansy asses in here.”

  Graham cocked an eyebrow. Connor tried desperately to not notice how the gesture showed off the outlined blue eye below the brow.

  “Move it!”

  “I’d love to tell you that he’s not as nasty as he seems, but I’d be lying.” Connor led the way to Baxter’s office.

  “Think we’re in trouble?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  “Sit down.” From his desk chair, Baxter watched with a serious expression as they sat. Baxter let the silence build, let the full weight of his disapproval hang in the air. Only pride kept Connor from sinking down under the pressure. “I expected better from you, Fitzpatrick.”

  “But, sir—”

  “You’re both aware that fighting is an immediate suspension, right?”

  “What? No. That is, we weren’t fighting.” Connor sat forward in his chair.

  “That’s not what happened at all,” Graham spoke at the same time.

  “Really? Why are you bleeding, Parker?”

  “It was an accident.” Connor couldn’t keep the pleading out of his voice. “We just ran into each other.”

  “And was it an accident that had you holding Clint against the wall? Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. I’ve been doing this for more than thirty years. There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t heard before. I’ve got to believe what I see with my own eyes. Now, I should contact the vice principal—”

  “No! Please.” Interrupting Baxter was not a smart idea. At least it wasn’t something that Connor would normally do, but calling the vice principal meant suspension, and the threat of that was more than enough to make him panic. A suspension for fighting would destroy the record he’d been working so hard on.

  “What did you say?” Baxter narrowed his eyes and leaned forward across the desk.

  “Sorry,” Connor blurted out, “but we weren’t fighting. Graham, tell him.”

  “Shut it. I said I should call the vice principal, not that I would. If I call him, I have to fill out paperwork and you two will get suspended. If you get suspended, you’re off the teams, and I’m sure none of us wants that to happen.”

  Connor sat back in the seat, afraid to hope.

  “Because this is a first offense, Fitzpatrick, and since you’re new, Parker, here’s what we’re going to do. For the next several Saturdays you two will come in and clean, organize, and paint the equipment storage shed.”

  “But—”

  “Did you have something to add, Fitzpatrick?”

  Did he? “Uh, I work on Saturdays, sir.”

  “I expect at least two hours every Saturday until the job is done. I don’t care whether you do it at four in the morning or four in the afternoon. It will be up to you two to agree to the schedule. On Fridays before you leave you will stop in and let me know when you’ll be in and to pick up the key. You will bring the key back on Monday morning. Is that clear?”

  Connor closed his eyes. This was so unfair. “Yes, sir.”

  “Fine,” said Graham coolly.

  “Well? Don’t you have places to be? From now on, keep your problems out of school. And Parker? Get that crap off your face. This isn’t a beauty pageant for Christ’s sake.”

  Connor and Graham jumped up and hauled ass to the locker room. Connor marched to the bench where his duffel bag lay discarded. He stared down at it for a moment, counting to ten and taking deep breaths in an effort to push back the temper that was building inside. With a suddenness that even surprised him, he kicked out, sending the bag flying into the corner locker.

  “Hey, wow. You okay?”

  Connor whirled around. The sight of Graham standing there, hands in his pockets, like nothing of any interest had happened, ticked him off even more. “Why are you so calm? You and I both know we weren’t fighting, and thanks to those asshats we nearly got suspended. Now we have to spend God only knows how many hours working on the equipment storage shed. In case you haven’t seen it, it’s more of a barn than a shed. It’s going to take weeks. Months. My dad’s going to kill me.”

  Graham shrugged. “You know Coach Baxter better than me. Do you think he would have changed his mind?”

  “We could have fought it. Explained to the vice principal.”

  “Maybe.” Graham wiped at his bloody mouth. “I’d rather not cause a big deal about it, especially since we can’t prove anything on
e way or the other. I’ve been the center of attention for shit like this, and it’s not something I want to repeat, even if it is on a much smaller scale.”

  Connor blinked. Graham’s last sentence distracted him completely from his irritation. He didn’t have a chance to ask about it, though.

  Cleats clicked on tile, echoing through the locker room. “Connor?” Marc peeked around a bank of lockers. “Get a move on. Petrewski’s about to lose his shit. If you don’t get out there soon, he’ll have you running suicide drills for the rest of the night.”

  “I’m coming.” Connor scooped up his bag. “I’ve got to get changed.”

  “What’s the holdup?” Marc looked at Graham. “New guy, right? You’re in my English class, I think. Marc Delgado.”

  “Graham Parker.” Graham nodded at Marc.

  Connor stared at Graham. There was more he wanted to say, to ask, but this clearly wasn’t the time. He sighed, pulling out his uniform pants. “I’d better get moving or Coach is going to rip me a new one.”

  “Yeah, I’m running late too. I’ve got to meet Mr. Martin at four to take a placement test for math. Apparently they don’t know exactly where to put me.”

  Graham was probably right about the uselessness of going against Baxter. “I guess I’ll see you on Saturday.” Connor ignored the questioning look Marc gave him. “That reminds me. Can I get your number?” He cleared his throat, hoping the blush he felt creeping up his neck wasn’t visible. Why was this so damned awkward? “We’ll need to work out our schedules. For the detention,” he added quickly, pulling out his phone.

  Graham recited his number. “Call or text, whichever. Let me know what works best for you.”

  “You’d better hurry. I’ll let Petrewski know you’re on your way.” Marc jogged past the lockers and out the door.

  “I’m coming,” Connor hollered after him. When he turned back to his duffel bag, Graham was gone.

  Chapter 7

  CONNOR DRAGGED himself into his house after practice on rubbery knees. Groaning, he dropped the duffel bag at his feet and fell back onto the living room couch. Practice was brutal. Coach was on some kind of sadistic streak.

  “Long day?” Becca strolled in from the other room, a glass of ice water in her hand. She settled in next to Connor on the couch and handed him the glass.

  Man, his sister was awesome. Maybe not the coolest thing a guy could think about his little sister, but damn, she deserved it. Connor took the water and drained the glass in three long swallows. “I so needed that.”

  “You look beat.”

  “Yeah, it was a long day with very few breaks and then practice about did me in. I’ve got about three hours of homework I have to do and about two hours of studying I should do before I can even think about going to bed.”

  “What did you do to your hand?”

  His left hand—his catching hand—gripped a cold pack in an attempt to lessen the swelling.

  “Bret’s working on his fastball.” The senior pitcher was determined to achieve a ninety-miles-an-hour pitch, and to do it consistently and accurately.

  “Okay. And that means?”

  “Well, normally it wouldn’t mean much of anything, except today I wasn’t paying attention and caught the ball wrong.” Connor removed the ice pack and splayed his fingers as though they wore the mitt. “Normally I catch the ball here.” He pointed to the center of his palm. “The mitt’s got extra padding built in. There’s a trick to catching a fastball, though. Basically, the ball missed the extra protection and hit my hand here”—Connor pointed at the knuckle at the base of his index finger—“and believe me when I tell you that sucks.”

  Lightning bolts of pain radiated from the spot, up his wrist and straight into his elbow. His fingers tingled with electrical fire, and it felt like the bruise drove through both sides of his hand. The pain was bad enough that Coach had pulled him from catching practice and had him running laps around the field. Connor knew he deserved it. He’d been replaying that moment in the locker room over and over again in his head. The feel of Graham on top of him, of being so close. Connor was lucky that it hadn’t been worse. When a ball came hurtling at a guy at ninety miles an hour, he should pay attention. If he had been alert, he would have made the necessary adjustments to catch the ball the right way.

  “Don’t you have some kind of protective glove you’re supposed to wear under the mitt that prevents that?”

  “How on earth did you know that?” His sister, to the best of his knowledge, didn’t know squat about baseball.

  She rolled her hazel eyes at him. “I’ve been watching you play baseball practically my whole life. I was bound to pick up a thing or two. Weren’t you wearing it?”

  “I ran late after student council and forgot to grab it on my way to practice.”

  She looked genuinely sympathetic as she reminded him that he had to watch Abby and the twins while she and their parents were out. “Mom and Dad are dropping me off at Margo’s to work on our Civics project while they meet with their accountant.”

  Connor groaned and covered his face with a green throw pillow. Becca peeled up an end to peek at him. “And you’ll have to cook them dinner too.”

  “I hate you, you know that, right?” Connor withdrew the pillow that was squashed between his hip and the arm of the sofa and smacked his sister over the head with it a couple of times. She giggled and tried to wriggle away.

  The front door opened and his dad walked in, the scents of motor oil and metal followed in his wake. “Aren’t you two too old for that?”

  Becca bounced up, escaping Connor’s attack. “Probably,” she said, standing on her toes to kiss her father’s cheek.

  Their dad smiled at her and ran a hand down her cascade of blonde curls. When was the last time Dad had shown him that kind of easy affection? Connor tossed the pillow to the end of the couch and sat up straight.

  “Hey, Dad?” he said, following his father into the kitchen where Kory and Kaleb were working on their homework while their mother paid bills. They might have been practically identical, but Connor knew Kory from the way he slouched in his chair and drummed his pencil on the textbook in front of him while trying to sneak a peek at Kaleb’s answers. Kaleb, on the other hand, hunched over his notebook, writing furiously.

  “Yeah?” His dad stopped at the sink to soap up his hands and scrub his nails with a small brush.

  “When do you need me at the shop on Saturday?”

  “I don’t know yet. Why?”

  Connor hesitated. He’d tried to come up with a good excuse to cover up the detentions. He hated lying, but he hated the thought of Dad’s reaction to a detention for fighting even more. “I have a project that’s going to take a few hours every Saturday for a few weeks. I want to be able to schedule it around my time at the shop.”

  Looking at his watch, his dad said over his shoulder, “Hey, babe, you about ready? We’ve got to get a move on.” He turned his attention back to Connor. “What? Oh, Saturday. If you come in early, at seven, I can let you go at two.”

  “Cool.”

  His dad wiped his hands on a dishtowel, really looking at Connor for the first time. “What did you do to your hand?”

  “Bad catch. Forgot to wear the hand protection glove under my mitt.” Connor flexed his hand, glad to see the swelling had reduced a bit. His index finger still looked like a bratwurst, but at least the rest of the area seemed to have gone down.

  “How could you forget something like that? You’ve got to take better care of yourself. An injury at this stage of your life could ruin your chances to play college ball.”

  Connor closed his eyes and counted to five. And then to ten. He would not react. He would not lose his temper. His jaw ached with the force of his clenched teeth. Did everything have to go back to his future? Couldn’t his dad be concerned about an injury for the injury’s sake and not for how it would impact Connor’s goals? “Just spaced it.”

  “You didn’t lose the glove, did you?”


  He made it sound like Connor was constantly losing things and couldn’t be relied on to keep track of his stuff. “No, it’s in my bag. Like I said, I just spaced it today.”

  “Speaking of your bag,” his mom broke in, gathering the papers in front of her, “take it up to your room. It’ll probably be a good idea to toss your practice clothes in the wash while you’re at it. And throw in the twins’ uniform shirts too. That way they’ll be set for their game this weekend.”

  “Jackie, we’ve got to go. Becca, you ready?”

  Mom grabbed her purse from the counter. “There’s a box of mac and cheese in the cupboard for dinner. Make a salad to go with it. Yes,” she said in response to Kory’s groan. “Abby’s napping, but you’d better wake her up. She went down late today, and if she sleeps any longer, she’ll be up all night.”

  Connor nodded, adding everything to his mental list of things he had to do tonight. As it was, he’d have to stay up past midnight to finish his homework after the extra chores he’d been assigned. The list didn’t leave any time to study for the Econ test he had the next day either.

  When his parents and Becca left, he hauled his bag to the room he shared with the twins, and collected the dirty clothes for the wash. His phone dropped out of the side pocket. He needed to call Graham.

  He dropped the pile of laundry at the foot of his bed, then sat. Connor eyed his cell phone, hesitant to call Graham, though he had no idea why. The thought of it made him feel… giddy. And if that wasn’t the stupidest thing, he didn’t know what was. He hadn’t even been this keyed up when he’d asked Allyson out the first time.

  Connor stared at the screen with Graham’s contact information. He could always text him; then he wouldn’t have to worry about what he would say. “Don’t be a wuss,” he muttered and dialed the number. After three rings he figured he’d gotten lucky and would only have to leave a message.

  “Hello?” Graham’s voice was a little breathless when he finally answered.

  “Ah, hey, Graham. It’s Connor. I thought we should figure out our plans for Saturday.” Oh my God, I sound like a dork. His pitch went up at the end of every sentence, making each one sound like a question. Man up, Fitzpatrick.