Chapter Thirteen

Alyssa

Alyssa sat cross-legged on the worn concrete floor, pulling apart the pitching mechanism in cage five. A schematic she’d printed out at school sat beside her. Next to that, her phone displayed the manufacturer’s troubleshooting site. So far, she’d done six of the eight things they suggested. She had this thought that if she could just fix the damn thing—and the bum machine in cage one—Dad wouldn’t worry about coming up with the money for this part.

She wiped a hand across her forehead, grimacing when she noticed the grease on the backs of her fingers. She kicked the machine, waving a wrench at its open panel. “Ready for try number seven, you piece of—”

“Do you always love on the pitching machines like that, or is this one special?”

Alyssa didn’t turn around, despite the smile tugging its way across her face. So Tristan had come after all. “It’s special. A most special piece of non-working crap.”

The gate squeaked open behind her, and his footsteps came close. A moment later, he sat next to her on the floor. He was wearing athletic shorts and a gray Suttonville baseball T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Alyssa almost dropped the wrench. Those arms could make a ninety-year-old spinster feel faint. From shoulders to forearms, with ripped biceps in between, there was almost too much to stare at.

Alyssa cleared her throat. “I wasn’t sure how much time I needed to finish this project. I thought it’d be easy, and I’d be up front by now.”

Tristan gave her a lazy smile. “I came straight here.” He gestured to his clothes. “Sorry I didn’t dress up.”

His eyes were crinkled at the corners and flicked to her forehead. She sighed. “There’s grease on my face, isn’t there?”

“A little.” He picked up a towel from the pile of random tools she’d grabbed from the storeroom and wiped at a spot above her eyebrow. She felt it all the way down to the soles of her feet. “All better.”

“Mm-hmm.” She blinked to clear her head. “How was practice?”

A brief frown crossed his face before his smile returned. “I think I found a little Zen. I crushed a fastball and sent it over the fence.”

Alyssa gave him a fist bump. “Nice job. I wish I could say my day’s been half that productive, but I can’t.”

“What’s up with the machine?” He peered inside the open panel, examining the guts of the pitching mechanism. “Any ideas?”

“Lots of ideas, no solutions.” She pushed the access panel back into place and gathered up her tools. “We really need it to work, so I was trying to fix it. I’m not all that great with repairs, though, so it was pointless.”

Tristan stood and picked up her tool box before offering her a hand. “Can you call somebody?”

Alyssa looked away. “Yeah, about that… Not really. We’re, uh, we might have to close. Not enough business, see, since Top Sports came to town.”

Tristan froze. “You’re going out of business?”

“Maybe, I don’t know.” She led him to the storage closet. “I hope not, but we’re in the hole and have all these repairs that the city inspector demanded we fix, and we can’t.”

She set her tools on a shelf and looked up when she heard the door shut. Tristan had followed her inside. Maybe she should’ve felt all jittery with anticipation about being alone in there with him, but all she felt was sad. And tired. And confused.

Then he said, “You love this place, don’t you?”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “I grew up here. This is where I spent most of my weekends when I didn’t have dance or softball tourneys. My mom’s a nurse practitioner, so she had to work weekends sometimes, and Dad would bring me to work with him. It’s like my second home. My third’s the dance studio, in case you wanted to know.”

She slumped against the wall. The reality of losing Swing Away was becoming crushingly apparent. She couldn’t even fix the stupid pitching machines. Before she could stop herself, she choked on a sob and covered her face with her hands.

Tristan was there in seconds, wrapping her up in those strong arms. She knew she’d be embarrassed as hell later for crying all over this cute, sweet guy, but she couldn’t hold it in. The front of his T-shirt grew damp under her face, but he didn’t let go. He rubbed slow circles on her back, not talking or trying to tell her it’d be all right.

That made it both better and worse. It felt right to admit this to him, to lean on him. Who cared if she’d met him two days ago? Out of nowhere, fully formed, Tristan dropped out of the sky at the moment she most needed someone. And maybe she’d done the same thing for him—he looked better today than he had when she first saw him Saturday. Maybe it really was fate or something. On the other hand, Lauren was going to be so hurt when she found out Alyssa had lied to her. That only made her cry harder.

Finally, she reeled it back in. “S-sorry. That was… Yeah, just so you know, I don’t always cry when a cute guy shows up.”

“You think I’m cute?” Tristan gave her a devilish grin, and she laughed. “Don’t worry about it. You have a lot on your mind.”

“True.” She scrubbed her cheeks with her hands and wiped her palms on her jeans. “There, all better.”

He leaned in and kissed her temple. “All better. Do you want to get out of here? Or do you need to stay and work?”

“Could we go for a walk?” Alyssa needed some air, and a little sunshine wouldn’t hurt, either, especially if it highlighted Tristan’s arms in all their baseball-player glory. “There’s a trail across from the field where we practiced yesterday.”

“Sure. Whatever you want.” He paused, hesitant. “I hate to ask this, but I…kind of have to. Dylan Dennings… I saw him talking to you today.”

“When he asked me out?” Was Tristan worried she was blowing him off? “Yeah, but I didn’t say yes. He’s a nice guy, but I’m, um, seeing someone else at the moment.”

The smile on Tristan’s face could’ve melted snow, but there was a tiny furrow between his eyebrows. “I like that answer. I really, really do, but Dylan’s my best friend.”

“Ah.” Alyssa moved past him, uncomfortable. This situation was about to be far more interesting than she liked stuff to be. She pulled open the door and motioned for him to follow her. “Then we should talk while we walk…because it looks like my best friend has a thing for you.”