I opened the laptop Mrs. Thurman had given me and navigated to the high school section of the Seattle Times, hoping there’d be something about me. The headline read . It was followed by a paragraph detailing Ian’s extra base hits and RBI. I skimmed all that, but I read the last sentence over and over: “After a shaky start, transfer Laz Weathers settled down and picked up the win.”
At school, I was a three-hour star. All morning I got high-fives. About halfway through lunch, my phone vibrated—a text from Suja.
I must have smiled, because Hadley said, “Something good?”
“A girl from my old school. She read about my game.”
“She’s in love,” he said, batting his eyes at me. “And you are, too. How sweet.”
“Sh-shut up,” I said, smiling, and went back to eating.
“Text back, Romeo. You know she’s staring at her phone right now, heart aflutter.”
“Give me a b-break.”
He was about to razz me more, then stopped, which is why I liked him.
A bunch of times that afternoon I pulled out my phone and looked at Suja’s message. I wanted to write a great reply, but nothing came. At two o’clock I gave up, typed , and hit send.
When school ended, I headed to the baseball field for practice. Two TV trucks had pulled up onto the field, and a handful of cameramen and reporters milled around. I sidled over to where Hadley was standing. “What’s g-going on?”
“Ian is announcing his decision.”
“What decision?”
“His choice for college.”
“They send r-reporters out for that?”
“For Ian they do. He’s a five-star recruit. Local news will carry it, and it’ll be on 247Sports, Facebook, maybe even ESPN.”
Ian was standing at the front of the pitcher’s mound, Coach Vereen on one side and a young guy in a gray suit on the other. The cameraman was halfway between home and the mound. The smiling guy handed Ian a maroon and gold Arizona State sweatshirt and baseball cap. Ian pulled the sweatshirt over his head, stuck the cap on his head, and then everybody started shaking hands. Mr. Thurman and Mrs. Thurman stood behind the cameraman, arm in arm. Mr. Thurman looked like he was wiping away tears.
“He’ll get drafted in June by a major-league team, too,” Hadley said quietly. “If he gets picked in the first round, that’s millions of dollars in bonus money. The Thurmans are rich, but nobody turns down millions.”