Chapter Twenty
timing of my reconciliation with Mami is I’m able to borrow her car after all. Driving our Subaru is a much better option than cruising down to DC in Tío Tony’s spare neon-red ’90s Mustang. The downside, I immediately hit traffic. Why the hell did everyone in the tristate area decide to drive down to DC at 11:00 a.m. on a Saturday?!
After sitting in gridlock traffic for almost an hour, I finally make it to the New Jersey Turnpike, just to—you guessed it—sit in even more traffic. The car fan is blasting cool air directly onto my face but I still feel white-hot all over. If I don’t start moving soon, there’s no way I’ll be able to make it to DC and back in time for the game. If I’m lucky, maybe we can catch a portion of it. But that depends on whether any of the cars in front of me move sometime this century.
Just when we finally start to move, my celebratory dance is cut short by a jolt of surprise when my music cuts off and a call from Doña Carmen comes in.
“Hello?” I answer quickly, worried that something may have happened while I’ve been gone.
“So, I hear you’re on your way to DC,” she replies in lieu of a greeting.
“Well, right now I’m stuck in traffic, but in theory, yes. How did—”
“Isabella just told me,” she answers for me before I can finish. “This is very sweet of you, Ivelisse, but is everything all right?”
My fingers freeze on the steering wheel. “Y-yeah. Everything’s fine,” I stammer, keeping my eyes on the road as the flow of traffic starts to pick up.
I’m not sure how much Joaquin has told her about what went down between us—clearly not everything. I’m not even sure if he told her about his plans to woo Tessa, and there’s no way I’m getting myself into even more trouble with him by spilling about his love life to his grandma.
“I’ve just noticed Joaquin has seemed a bit…off lately.”
I swallow hard around the lump in my throat, unsure how to respond. “We…uh…had a…disagreement, I guess.”
That’s putting it mildly.
“About?”
“Stuff.” Very convincing. “I’ve been having some…complicated feelings,” I finally manage to answer.
Doña Carmen may feel like family, but she’s Joaquin’s actual blood. There are invisible lines drawn on the table between us that I can’t cross. Not if I don’t want to risk ruining things more than I already have.
“About Joaquin?”
I don’t need a coherent reply, the way I stammer says enough. She hums in thought while I sit on eggshells, tapping the steering wheel as I slowly glide down the turnpike.
“I had plenty of boyfriends when I was your age.”
I choke on my own spit. The last thing I expected was for Doña Carmen to come out swinging with that one.
“Boys from school. From the next town over. Gringitos who just came to visit. One boy even drove all the way from Caguas to take me dancing—very romantic. Terrible breath, though,” she continues when I finally get my choking under control. “But they all came and went. Some never called again. Some went off to the States and promised they’d come home someday, but they never did…” Her voice trails off.
“You and Joaquin are special, mija. If he didn’t have you when his…” She cuts herself off again, the wound of having their family split in two still too fresh for her to touch. “People come and go. Friends, boyfriends. Sometimes even family. It takes work, love, to hold on to the ones that matter. Don’t let go.”
Don’t let go. The same words Joaquin whispered to me before we plunged hundreds of feet on the coaster, but with entirely new meaning.
But I’m not the one wielding that kind of power.
“What if he wants to let go?” I ask, my voice strangely hoarse.
It’d be a clean break. Me heading away and him staying here. We may be neighbors, but he at least wouldn’t have to face me most months of the year. Maybe the distance I’d been so worried about is exactly what he needs.
Doña Carmen doesn’t respond at first, the pause long enough that I start to worry. “He doesn’t,” she finally says.
And, strangely enough, I actually might believe her.
I make it to Isabella’s dorm with no time to spare.
“Get in and let’s go!” I shout as I pull up in front of her building, throwing the passenger side door open like I’m the getaway driver in a bank heist.
Isabella knows time isn’t on our side. My reunion with Mami set me back half an hour, plus the extra hour and a half of sitting in traffic. It’s already almost three, and the game starts at five. She hops into the car, throws her bag into the back seat, and we are on the road in ten seconds flat. Thankfully, the traffic isn’t as horrendous heading back to Elmwood, but we’ll still be cutting it close unless I drive twenty miles over the speed limit the entire way. I want us to get there on time, but I want us to get there in one piece even more.
“Think we’ll make it in time?” Isabella asks, glancing at where the map on my phone says we still have three and a half hours to go until we’re back.
“Definitely not for the first few innings,” I reply, breathing a sigh of relief at the clear expanse of highway—not a lick of traffic in sight. “But we can probably make it before the seventh inning.”
Isabella nods, twirling a lock of her now-hot-pink hair around her finger while biting down on her thumb on her other hand. A habit that runs in the family.
Unlike her abuela, Isabella doesn’t see right through me and my intentions. Joaquin and I have a history of kind gestures, and for all she knows this is another one. Nothing unusual or strange about this mad dash to cross state lines. Once I give her control of the AUX cord, she’s fully content with vibing to her music while I focus on driving as fast (and safely) as humanly possible. We chat about her new life at American, about the boy she’s been talking to for weeks and the girl she hooked up with last week and which one she should pursue (the girl, the guy sounds like a dud), while I carefully avoid the sordid details of my own private life.
“Whatever happened with Quin and that girl he was trying to ask out?” Isabella asks, and my heart stutters.
“They…uh…didn’t work out.” Vague enough, no need to wade any deeper. “She’s with someone else now.”
Isabella frowns. “That sucks—seems like he really liked her.”
I shrug, and I make the mistake of attempting to glance at her for her reaction, only for our eyes to meet for a flash of a second. My cheeks ignite as I focus on the road, hoping she doesn’t see the blush spreading down to my neck like a terrible rash.
If she does, she doesn’t comment on it. But I don’t miss the smile tugging at the corner of her lips as she turns to look out the window.
We fly through the last of the drive, chopping off a solid twenty minutes thanks to a shorter route Isabella knows to get us to Elmwood more directly. We’re still too late to catch the beginning of the game, but with something this down to the wire, every minute matters. The game is well underway by the time we pull into the Cordero parking lot, but the tailgate party is still in full force out here.
“You’d think they were playing in the World Series,” Isabella says as we make our way through the parking lot. She narrowly manages to dodge a beefy guy I can’t believe is a teenager tossing a hamburger bun across the lot like a frisbee.
To be fair, this is the World Series of high school baseball. Especially for the seniors—this is basically our last sports hurrah. Unlike Isabella’s graduating class, we actually have a shot at the championship title.
“Watch your head,” I warn her as another bun comes flying our way, both of us narrowly ducking in time.
“God, I do not miss this place.” She scowls right after she steps on a ketchup packet, sauce oozing beneath the soles of her sneakers.
Once she’s wiped her shoe clean, we brave the crowd and head for the bleachers. The sea of fans decked out in Cordero T-shirts, hats, and sweatpants isn’t any less rowdy. Popcorn and gummy worms litter the concrete as we scan the crowd for empty seats.
We manage to find two spots way up in the nosebleeds. Navigating our way up there is trickier than expected, with people getting knocked over or forcefully throwing debris every which way. I give the WAGs a polite wave as we walk past their premium seats close to the field. For once, I was hoping they’d welcome me into their midst, but all they give me are tight-lipped smiles as they huddle closer together in their seats. Guess they noticed my platonic separation from Quin, and a good view is reserved for true WAGs only.
Isabella and I link hands as we narrowly squeeze past a group of rowdy boys from the lacrosse team to take the seats beside them. Whatever happens on the field sends the lax bros jumping up in excitement. I watch in horror as one of their hot dogs goes flying into the air. Isabella, struggling to regain her balance after the boys nearly sent her flying into the seats below us, is standing directly in the flying hot dog’s path.
Without thinking, I reach out and pull her out of the line of fire by swapping our places, pushing her toward my seat and taking relish, mustard, and a half-eaten wiener right to the face.
“Oh shit, my bad,” the boy apologizes while sauerkraut drips down my cheek and under the collar of my sweater.
Somewhere behind me I can hear Isabella gasp before starting to curse the boy out in rapid Spanish.
“It’s fine,” I say with a plastered-on smile, accepting the napkin he offers me and returning to my seat.
“You sure you’re okay?” Isabella does her best to help, swiping the napkin from my hand and dabbing at the gunk caked on my cheek and neck.
“Mmm-hmm,” I mumble, and it’s actually not a lie. I’m here, covered in sauerkraut and sitting in awful seats, but the fact that we made it at all is a miracle. It’s not what I pictured when I woke up soaked in sweat at three in the morning, but it feels pretty perfect.
Everything except for the score.
“We’re down by two?!”
I whip around to glance down at the field, Isabella seemingly as shocked as I am.
“He must be off his game,” she mumbles, going back to biting her thumb.
Even from high up in the stands, I can see the sweat dotting Joaquin’s forehead. The easy confidence that carried him through the season is long gone, replaced by pinched brows and a tight-lipped frown.
“Get your head out of your ass, Quin!” Isabella shouts, and I pinch her arm, even though there’s no way he can hear us from all the way up here.
“You’re supposed to be a surprise!” I hiss as she drops back into her seat with a groan.
“Well, the surprise won’t be good if he doesn’t win.”
A fair point. My plan isn’t contingent on Joaquin winning the championship, but realizing his sister is here to watch him lose the final and most important game of his high school career won’t exactly be the heartwarming moment I want it to be.
Things aren’t much better going into the eighth inning than when we got here midway through the game. The only minor improvement is that we manage to snag ourselves some snacks before they sold out. Cordero is down by one, and Joaquin is definitely off his game. Hits he should’ve been able to catch in his sleep go whizzing past the tip of his glove, and his usually razor-sharp instincts fail him, leaving him scrambling to pivot and run in the correct direction. Watching his frustration boil over to the point that he starts taking it out on himself is a cruel sort of torture. If I wasn’t at risk of being booed by everyone within a five-mile radius, I’d sprint onto the field after he earns his third strike, and the team their second out for the inning, and hug him so hard he’d have no choice but to unclench his fists.
But seeing me would likely make everything worse.
The self-centered part of me that landed us in this situation wonders if he wouldn’t be in a slump if his best friend hadn’t wrecked their friendship a week before the championship game. While I’d gladly take the blame for him, thinking this is about me is flattery. Nothing else.
“Come on, man!” Isabella shouts as Cordero’s next at bat earns himself a swift first strike. “This shit’s painful to watch.”
I nod in solemn agreement. It is painful.
Every Cordero fan is on the edge of their seats as the game heads into the ninth, and final, inning. I’m chewing solemnly on a chicken tender and Isabella’s downing her inhumanely large cup of Diet Dr Pepper. Tension hangs over the crowd as storm clouds start to rumble above us. Even the threat of a downpour can’t pull eyes off the field. Either the game’s gonna get rained out or Cordero is going to lose its first shot at a championship title in a century. Both would be equally catastrophic.
We all release a quiet breath of relief as the away team earns a swift three outs, maintaining their one-point lead. Whatever went down in the Cordero dugout between innings, it worked. There’s a sureness in their movements when they step back onto the field, running and leaping and catching with an intensity I didn’t see in the innings before this one. If the pressure is this stifling in the stands, I can’t imagine what it must be like on the field. They know this is their last chance to save their asses.
It’s too much to ask for the miracle of a home run. Joaquin’s one of their most promising hitters, and even that’s not really his strong suit. DeShawn manages a decent enough hit to make it to first base, but when their second hitter lands them a swift three strikes and first out, dread layers the crowd like fog. No one in our row dares move a muscle as we watch each pitch and swing like our lives depend on it.
“Let’s go, that’s what I’m talking about!” Isabella shouts as Danny manages another hit, him and DeShawn now holding down second and third base. It’s the first time I’ve felt grateful for Danny in years.
We follow the crowds lead and leap out of our seats to cheer and stomp our feet in excitement. Everyone around us goes wild as the next batter steps up to the plate, a lump lodging in my throat as I lean onto my tiptoes and spot Joaquin.
A cheer breaks out among the stands, the same one from the pep rally—a cry of his name, breaking it out into two syllables. Growing louder and louder with every step he takes toward home plate, breaking out into a full-on frenzy when he turns and gives the crowd a sheepish wave. Hope. Joaquin’s given them—us—hope.
My heart swells with a deadly combination of pride and panic. The lone chicken tender sitting in the pit of my stomach threatens to make a reappearance as a hush falls over the field when Joaquin takes his place. It’s not on him to bring home the win, but it is on him to keep them in the game. Three wrong moves and he’s out, and they can kiss the championship trophy goodbye.
Isabella’s hand reaches for mine. I swallow hard, squeeze her hand, and pray for that miracle.
You can hear the popcorn machine whirring in the parking lot as the pitcher winds up, the ball moving through the air in slow motion.
Joaquin swings.
And he misses.
“Strike!” the umpire calls over the roar of groans in the stands.
The same rowdy group that spilled their hot dog on me starts heckling Joaquin at the top of their lungs, calling him a punk and telling him to get his head out of his ass.
Isabella seethes with rage, vibrating with annoyance as she glares at the boys like she’s trying to make them burst into flames. “Only I’m allowed to say that shit,” she grumbles under her breath as the guy closest to me calls Joaquin a loser.
If we weren’t surrounded by our classmates, this guy would have his ass kicked into the next millennium.
Instead, I commit his face to memory and tuck it into the back of my mind for whenever I can extract my more setting-appropriate revenge. Once I figure out who he is, an expired hot dog will find its way into his locker.
Back on the field, Joaquin jumps in place before resuming his stance. Again, the world goes silent, so silent I can only hear the creaking of the bleachers and the pounding of my heart.
Everything happens in a fraction of a second. My eyes water from the stress of forcing them open long enough not to miss a single moment. The pitch. The swing. The crack of the bat making contact. The ball flying through the air.
The shortstop makes a dash for the ball, confidently extending his arm where the arc should land, right in the middle of his glove.
Except it doesn’t.
The ball goes flying past the shortstop and tumbling into the grass of the outfield. The world becomes a blur of screams—mine and Isabella’s bleeding together with those around us into one deafening cry. Hands tremble and voices crack as DeShawn and Danny sprint as far as their legs can take them. A fresh wave of cheers break out as DeShawn clears home. In the mad dash of watching the runners make their way around the bases, I forgot to pay attention to what’s going on in the outfield. My throat tightens as the ball comes flying back through the air toward home. Danny makes a break for it, sliding down onto the dirt to avoid getting clocked in the head and skidding the last of the way to home plate.
And he’s…
“Safe!” the umpire shouts into the stands.
The roar of the crowd leading up to this moment is white noise in comparison to the absolute pandemonium that takes over after the umpire’s final call. Popcorn and hats and pom-poms are thrown into the air in celebration, tears streaking red-painted cheeks, jerseys being waved like flags.
Because of Joaquin.
Every member of the Cordero team comes rushing onto the field to surround him. It’s the kind of moment you see in sports documentaries—sans a jug of Gatorade to dump over his head. His freckled brown skin glistens with sweat in the glow of the sunset, his glossy white uniform stained with streaks of dirt and grass. I spend an embarrassing amount of time gazing at him like the marvel he is, wishing he’d turn and see me.
But I have a mission to complete.
“C’mon. Coach Mills said we could meet down by the dugout,” I shout over the screaming crowd to Isabella. I had the foresight to email him before leaving to pick her up, and thankfully he was open to the idea of letting her onto the field to congratulate Joaquin—assuming they won, of course.
Isabella nods, and we carefully head out of the stands. As promised, Coach Mills appears at the field entrance in an energized flurry, dripping with sweat and wearing a smile I didn’t even think he was capable of.
“You ready?” he asks in lieu of pleasantries. He gestures for her to follow him toward the door that leads to the dugout but Isabella whips around to face me first.
“Aren’t you coming?”
The joy inside me flickers like the light strip in Joaquin’s room. Bright, jubilant yellow fading to dull, muted blue. “Nah. This moment’s just for you two.”
Isabella crosses her arms and gives me the same glare she’d given our rowdy seat neighbors.
“It’s fine, I swear!” I insist, throwing in a laugh for good measure. Over her shoulder, Coach Mills taps the nonexistent watch on his wrist. We’re already running on a tight schedule and getting down here from the stands was more of a process than we’d thought.
“Go be with your brother before we get kicked out,” I say quietly enough that Coach Mills can’t hear before turning Isabella around and pushing her toward him.
She groans but doesn’t protest this time, and jogs to catch up with the others. “Don’t think this means you’re getting out of coming to the celebration dinner!” she calls over her shoulder. “We’ll go to your uncle’s place—so you don’t have any excuse for skipping!”
I roll my eyes and wave before they disappear behind a door marked Team Only. There’s no point in telling her Joaquin won’t want me around for this moment, and definitely not for a celebratory dinner. Tonight is about him, about them, about basking in the glory of the moment he’s worked his entire high school career for. Not about us—if there even is an us anymore.
Fighting against the swarm of people trying to head out early to avoid the inevitable parking lot traffic takes more out of me than I would’ve expected. By the time I make it back to the stands, snagging a free seat closer to the field, I’m dripping sweat and the Diet Coke someone spilled on me. I’m just a walking Happy Meal today, aren’t I?
As Coach Mills and Isabella appear on the opposite end of the field, I press myself up against the railing separating the stands from the field, ignoring the burn of the sun-warmed metal on my palms. The celebration is going just as strong as it was when we left, the entire Cordero team huddled together at home plate bouncing and screaming and jumping over one another until Coach Mills appears from the shadows, carrying a trophy the size of my entire body.
Finding Joaquin in the sea of white uniforms is easy, even without the extra few inches he has on the rest of the team. My eyes lock on him in time to see his mouth gaping as Isabella races toward him. His teammates part like the Red Sea, letting Isabella launch herself at her brother.
He’s unsteady on his feet, stumbling under her weight as she wraps her arms around his neck. The team helps keep them up, clamoring to get their hands on Joaquin’s back and push him upright. He still seems paralyzed by shock when Isabella lets him go, whispering something to him that I can’t make out. When she finishes, cupping his cheeks and smiling at him, he lunges at her this time, burying his head so far in her neck I can’t see anything but his curls.
It feels intrusive, watching him unravel in his sister’s arms, tears streaking their cheeks. I don’t even realize tears have started trailing down my own face until someone hands me a napkin.
There’s not much that I’m proud of from the last month, but at least I can be proud of this. Creating a perfect moment, captured by the photographers buzzing across the field, for the most perfectly imperfect boy.
Dabbing my cheeks, I head back to the parking lot.
This moment is exactly the way I’d planned it. Like with The Taming of the Shrew, I busted my ass to pull the strings and set the scene for something beautiful, knowing I’d hide behind the curtain when the spotlight turned on. That’s what I’m good at. Crafting the happy ending for someone else. Joaquin got the reunion he never saw coming, and a memory he’ll hopefully cherish forever. A memory that won’t involve me.
If I thought the party we’d walked into earlier was a rager, it’s nothing compared to the absolute madness at the end of the game. Boys with shaved heads and red-painted faces sing the Cordero anthem at the top of their lungs while music blasts from a dozen different speakers. Grills are lit up again for a second round of burgers and hot dogs, with people passing brown paper bags that I’m sure aren’t hiding juice boxes or Red Bull.
“Good Lord…,” I whisper to myself as the boy next to me rips off his T-shirt, revealing a Cordero Ram painted onto his chest.
Clearly, the Cordero student body doesn’t know how to do anything low-key.
It’s a struggle to make it to my car at the farthest end of the lot. While the excitement is infectious, a part of it is also unnerving. Boys who didn’t even know I existed yesterday urge me to join them for Jell-O shots while girls who have gotten my name wrong on multiple occasions pronounce my name correctly for the first time in years. It’s as if the shine of a championship win has mended any old wounds. Petty fights and breakups and cheating scandals are forgotten in the name of getting sloshed in the parking lot.
Tessa sits primly in the open trunk of her car, watching the pandemonium unfold in front of her like a queen overseeing her kingdom. She takes a careful sip of her drink—a green smoothie in a hot-pink tumbler—and straightens the bow holding her ponytail in place. Her uniform is still pristine and there’s not a drop of sweat on her even though she was doing backflips less than twenty minutes ago. She’s as beautifully otherworldly as always.
I linger on her longer than I should, but for once it’s not because of some spite from freshman year holding me there, wishing my glare could wither her into a husk. It’s because of her smile, soft and easy as she teases her friends and laughs after one of their jokes. No biting comments or tearing people down. Just being a regular ridiculously cool, attractive teenager.
Her eyes catch mine before I can turn away, the corners of her lips twitching into a small smile. She gives me a wave, earning the attention of her gaggle of friends as they stand on their tiptoes to see who she’s gracing with her attention. The fourteen-year-old trapped inside me yells to flip her off and move on, but I don’t listen to that part of myself anymore. So, I wave back.
A rumble spreads through the parking lot. The music and shouts crank up to maximum volume and I can feel the asphalt vibrating beneath my feet. I quickly wonder if we’re about to break into a stampede when the crowd shifts beside me. Someone grabs my wrist, a flushed and panting Danny breaking out of the throng.
What the hell?
“What’re you doing?!” I snap, yanking my wrist out of his grip. It’s the most we’ve said to each other since our breakup four years ago.
“Joaquin’s looking for you,” he says through labored breaths, sweat dripping from his forehead to his cheeks.
“Oh.” Every part of me goes warm, and suddenly I don’t mind the sweat Danny left behind on my wrist.
Maybe I misheard. The music and the excitement must have gotten to me. There’s no way Joaquin’s been looking for me when he’s surrounded by people who want to give him a shot to celebrate or take a picture with him.
No way.
“Found her!” Danny calls over his shoulder, waving his arms into the crowd.
I swallow hard as Joaquin emerges from the crowd next, just as flushed and sweaty as his teammate.
“Thanks,” Joaquin tells Danny, giving him a stiff pat on the shoulder. It’s a far cry from the last time the three of us were all together—Joaquin offering to sucker punch Danny in the nose for what he did to me.
Danny gives us both a nod, eyes lingering on me for a second longer than necessary of exes before he disappears into the crowd.
I glance over my shoulder as if I’m searching for proof that this is a mirage, but when I turn around, Joaquin is still there, breathless, and not a figment of my imagination. He closes the distance between us, his lips parted. “You brought Isabella here.”
My heart hammers, and my skin goes clammy under the intensity of his gaze. If I could shield myself from him, I would. But I’m trapped in his orbit. “Well, couldn’t have no one from your family here for your last game, so…”
He shakes his head, but not with anger like I’d feared. With confusion. “Why?”
“Because you needed something good,” I answer meekly. “And I know how much you’ve missed her, and your mom. And how much you’ll miss them, if you don’t see them this summer.”
“But…how? DC is like four hours away.”
“Only three. Unless you hit traffic.”
When he smiles, something inside me softens, gooey as a chocolate lava cake. It’s a brief moment where nothing went wrong between us, and we’re just Joaquin and Ivelisse. Best friends.
I can see the gears whirring in his mind as he realizes that I must’ve driven her here myself, but I continue before he can interrupt with questions or concerns. “I really am sorry. For…well, everything. I know I said it before, but things were really heated and my point kind of got lost in all the yelling, so I wanted to say it again. I’m sorry for what I did.”
The confusion is gone, replaced by something unreadable. He nods slowly, breaking our eye contact to stare at his scuffed cleats. “I’m sorry too.”
I do a double take. “For what?”
“For not thinking about how you’d feel about me asking out Tessa.”
“You don’t need to ask me for permission before you date someone.”
“Yeah, but this was different.” He lifts his head and steps closer to me. “What happened with Danny and Tessa seriously hurt you, and I was too wrapped up in promposal stuff to care that this might’ve brought up some weird feelings for you.”
Getting the apology I’d been wishing for weeks ago doesn’t feel as vindicating as I would’ve thought. Not only did I wreck things between us, but I’d left him feeling guilty over something I should’ve just been honest about from the start.
“It’s fine.” I shrug. “You were right, though. She has changed.”
We both zero in on Tessa in the sea of dancing, over-caffeinated bodies. Pulling focus, the way she always does. “She’s pretty cool,” Joaquin says.
“You could always ask someone else,” I blurt out. I may have screwed things up between them, but that doesn’t mean he can’t find his happy ending with someone new. “I can’t imagine anyone’ll say no to the champion shortstop.”
Joaquin shrugs off the suggestion. “I’m good.”
“Oh…” Relief washes over me, even though I know it shouldn’t. “Are you already going with someone, then?” I ask, though it’s none of my business. Barely a minute into talking to him again and I’ve become a mess of contradictions—my brain and my heart battling for dominance like him and Isabella warring over who controls the remote.
“Nah. Think I’ll just kick it with the team and their dates. You?”
“I’ve got a shift. So fun.” I throw in a nervous laugh that I pray will mask the obvious lie. My agenda for prom night is as barren as a desert. Even Tío Tony insisted I take the night off to “be a teenager.” Nothing screams teenage loser like sitting at home on prom night eating ice cream. “Maybe order a pizza afterward, if I’m feeling wild.”
This is the part where he’d usually rib me. Tell me not to get too crazy and order pepperoni, and we’d laugh until our stomachs ached. I never used to question myself before saying things to Joaquin. Now I don’t even know if I should be talking to him.
A gust of wind startles us both, blowing one of the curls that escaped my ponytail free. My heartbeat quickens when he reaches out for it, easily catching the brunette lock between his fingers. I’m buzzing, waiting for him to tuck it behind my ear like he has hundreds of times before, but instead he pulls away.
“Is this sauerkraut?” he asks, holding up his kraut-stained fingers.
Mortified, I shove the traitorous curl behind my ear. “Some guy accidentally dropped a hot dog on me.”
He frowns.
Behind him, the party livens up as the rest of the boys from the baseball team start spilling out into the lot. Someone dumps Grey Goose into the bowl of their oversized trophy, a “chug” chant sweeping over the lot as the team take turns sipping out of their championship goblet.
“You should go,” I say, jutting my chin toward the circle that’s formed around the team. “You’re the reason everyone’s celebrating. You deserve to get in on the action.”
“I’ll skip that part, thanks,” he replies with a shudder and a scrunched-up nose. He’s never been big on drinking, and I can’t imagine he’d want to chug out of a plastic trophy his friends have been slobbering on. “And it wasn’t just me, the whole—”
I don’t let him finish that thought. “Don’t be humble. Today’s your day.” I wave my arms with a flourish. “Bask in it.”
He chuckles softly, glancing over at where one of his teammates is now dry heaving onto the concrete. “Well, if you insist…”
The way he trails off, staring back at me with a familiar warmth in his eyes, gives me pause. As if he’s waiting for me to say something to make him stay, but I quickly squash that wishful thinking. Our gazes stay locked, and even as the cheers and screams around us get louder, nothing in the world matters but him looking at me. After what feels like an eternity, he turns to his teammates. “Guess I’ll head back.”
Because I’m still weak and selfish and want this moment to last longer, I stop him.
“Quin?”
He whips around quickly, something like hope gleaming in his eyes. “Yeah?”
I pause, the ache in my chest tightening until the one thing I’d tried to tell him weeks ago comes bubbling to the surface. “I read the letter. The one inside Otis.” His lips part, but he doesn’t say anything, so I continue. “Nurse Oatmeal got to him before I could find it, so I didn’t read it until a few days ago…I’m sorry.”
After a few seconds, he laughs, a sound that makes my knees buckle. “Of course she did. I had a feeling that might happen, but I just had to go the convolutedly romantic route.”
And, suddenly, we’re laughing together. Not hard enough that we can’t breathe but harder than the joke warrants. I laugh because of the absurdity—that he hid a love letter for me inside a stuffed otter, and our dog took it for herself before I could ever read it. And with relief—that we’re able to laugh together again.
But when the laughter dies down, I struggle to find the right thing to say next.
I opt for the truth. “I wish I’d read it sooner.”
His lips press into a thin line as his gaze fixes somewhere past my shoulder. “Yeah. Me too.”
It’s not the answer I wanted, but at least it’s an answer. We’re not throwing our arms around one another and professing our love at the top of our lungs. It’s not the beginning of a new story, but the close of another.
“Quin, c’mon!” DeShawn calls out to him, waving for him to join.
Joaquin’s head swivels from his pumped-up team back to me. “Bask in it, right?”
“Right.”
When he ends up choosing his teammates and rejoins them, I’m not as disappointed as I thought I’d be. Tears burn my eyes, but it’s easy to stop them. Watching Joaquin get tackled by his teammates, everyone around him clamoring for a second with the MVP himself, I smile.
I’ve always known that he’s the most incredible person in this town. Now everyone else knows it too.