One of the Guys (10 page)

“
Are you still pissed at
Carl?”

I looked at Logan, and I saw him
scowl at Pike, like he didn’t want me to know.

“
Yes.” He said, bluntly.

“
Why?” I asked
him. I’d already expressed my dislike, yesterday, so something must
have happened between
them
too.

“
He was being an ass, as usual.”
Logan said with a shrug.

I was about to ask him what he’d
done when Carl and Stu walked in. Logan wasn’t happy, and Carl
looked anywhere but at the two of us.

“
Are you coming to practice today?”
Stu asked.

“
Yeah of course.” Logan replied,
and they stopped walking as they began talking about innings,
swings and pitches.

I was lost halfway through the
conversation. I didn’t know anywhere near enough about baseball to
understand what they were saying. Logan hardly spoke about the
terminology to me, and I never thought about looking it
up.

As I looked between them, I knew I
was forgotten about, again.

No, I didn’t want to be center of
attention, but as a part of the group I would’ve liked to have been
included. Fair enough, I didn’t play baseball and it didn’t
interest me all that much, but I had been there for almost all of
their practices and I had attended
every
one
of their games.

Instead of standing there, waiting
for them to finish talking, I decided it was best if I just
left.

“
I’m going to class. See you guys
later.” I said.

I waited for a response.

Not one. Not even from
Logan.

I turned and walked away, feeling
my heart harden a little. I walked through the hallways and got to
my homeroom class and sat down. I put in my earbuds and started
listening to my music until it was time for my first
lesson.

I sat down on my seat and got out
my History book, waiting for class to start, and to see whether
Logan noticed I’d gone.

I hadn’t gotten any text messages
or missed calls. It was probably something stupid, like he’d
forgotten his phone.

Yeah, that was it. He’ll say
something when he gets here.

Logan walked in and sat down at the
table next to me, as he always did every year we had class
together.

“
Hey.” He said with a
smile.

I just looked at him.

I don’t believe it! He doesn’t
even realize that I left!
I
thought.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he heard me
saying goodbye.

I continued to stare, butterflies
in my stomach, and not the nice kind, thinking that maybe he
didn’t
notice, and he
might have even forgotten I was there.

“
What?” He asked, narrowing his
eyes a little, still smiling.

“
You don’t realize, do you?” I
asked, softly.

“
Realize what?” He looked
confused.

I was devastated, and my heart hurt
in my chest. The guys had done that to me before, but not
Logan…ever…and now…

“
What happened in the hallway.” I
said, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

“
No, what happened?” He asked, like
there was some news to hear.

I decided to give him a clue and
then work the rest for himself.

“
We walked into school together,
and Lex and Pike met us.”

“
Yeah?”

“
Think about the rest,
Logan.”

I sat back and watched as the
wheels turned in his head. I knew the moment he realized what had
happened. His eyes widened as they snapped to me.

“
Oh my God, Chase, I’m so sorry!”
He held his hands to his chest. “Why didn’t you say you were
leaving?”

“
I did. You went to your homeroom
and never even wondered where I’d gone, did you?” The look on
Logan’s face told me everything. “You forgot I was even there in
the first place.” I said.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to show
him that he’d hurt me, but I couldn’t. He would know my true
feelings, so I took a deep breath and willed the tears
away.

“
Chase, I’m sorry. We got talking
about practice and, I guess, it took over everything.”

“
Your game’s important, forget
about it.” I said, looking down at my book when the teacher entered
the room.

“
So are you.” He
whispered, and I turned to look at him. “
You’re
my friend too, and I
should’ve known when you’d left. Practice isn’t an excuse. I was an
ass. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

“
Sure.” I said.

I had a feeling that it would. I
don’t know why, or how, but I knew something was going to happen.
Something not good at all.

*****

“
We all owe Chase
an apology.” Logan said when we sat down to lunch.

He’d made a point of staying by my
side, being overly nice and paying attention only to me. Usually
that would’ve been a good thing; I loved it when I got his
undivided attention when it was just the two of us. But now? Not so
much. It felt forced as if he had to make up for forgetting
me.

“
What did we do?” Pike asked,
looking between us.

“
We forgot about her. Chase left,
and we didn’t hear her say goodbye or notice she was gone.” He
said.

Lex and Pike looked at me with
shock.

“
Fuck, Chase…!” Lex began, but Carl
cut him off.

“
I knew.” He said, causing all the
guys to turn to him. “Yeah, I heard her say she was going to class
and she would see us later. Then, she walked away.” He said with a
smirk.

“
What?” Logan almost whispered in
disbelief.

Surprised as I was that
Carl
had paid attention,
and I was also surprised Logan’s face was so furious.

“
Why
the
fuck
didn’t you
say
anything?” Logan shouted, causing quite a few students to
turn in our direction.

“
You were busy talking about
practice. It looked like it was more important, so I didn’t say
anything.”

I heard the jab in Carl’s tone,
about practice being more important.

“
You’re a fucking asshole, Carl!”
Logan growled.

I’d had enough of Carl. I wasn’t
going to let him upset me
or
Logan.

“
Isn’t it funny
how
you
noticed though, Carl?
You
were paying attention to me. Why is that?” I
asked, cocking my head to the side and narrowing my
eyes.

His face flushed as he looked
between the guys.

“
Yeah, Carl.
Why
is
that?” Lex asked.

I glanced to Logan, and he was
looking at Carl with so much anger I thought he was going to hit
him.

“
I was facing her, I saw her.” He
said.

“
So was I, dude.” Said Pike. “I
didn’t see.”

“
I didn’t pay any attention.” Said
Stu. “Sorry Chase.”

I waved my hand in dismissal. Stu
Never seemed to pay attention to any girl.

“
If
you
must
know…” Carl said, glaring at me. “…I was wondering
when
Chase
was
going to fuck off. Then, she went away.”

“
What?!”
Logan yelled.

“
But, you were still aware, Carl,
regardless of what you’re saying.” I said, even though his words
hurt me, I remained calm.

“
Stop being such a dick, Carl. Give
it a rest. Chase is one of the guys.” Said Lex, putting his arm
around me like he did at the diner.

Logan looked to his hand on my
shoulder and scowled.

“
Whatever, I’m
leaving. See you guys at practice,
without
the tagalong.”

Carl got up and stormed away like a
brat.

“
Sorry, Chase.” The guys
chorused.

We all sat down, wondering what the
hell Carl’s problem was with me.

It was decided that he just didn’t
like a girl hanging with them because he felt like he couldn’t say
what he wanted about other girls. I thought that was completely
wrong because he liked it when Sian showed up at the diner. Or,
maybe that was a one-time thing. He was a class 'A' ass, not doubt
about it.

Logan asked me whether I was going
to practice, but I didn’t want to. I wasn’t about to put up with
any more of Carl’s nasty comments.

“
Please?” He begged. “Come on. Carl
won’t say anything. You know I play better when you’re there.” He
gave me his best smile and raised his eyebrows. I tried, and
failed, to hold my smile back.

“
Oh, ok.” I groaned.

I liked that Logan thought of me as
his good-luck charm. It was sweet.

The gnawing in my stomach was there
from the morning and I couldn’t help the ever present feeling that
something bad was coming.

Logan went off with the guys to
change, and I went out to take my usual spot on the bleachers with
my books. The sun was beating down, as it was almost summer, so I
took my baseball cap out of my backpack. It was white with a red
peak. The school baseball emblem on the front; a tiger surrounded
by flames.

‘
The Flaming Tigers’. So cheesy,
but they liked it.

The baseball and football teams had
the same names to.

Sian, Gretchen, Charlotte, Carly,
and Poppy were cheerleaders for the football team, as well as some
seniors. Cassie hadn’t joined the squad, even though she was
friends with the girls.

I looked around for any sign of
them, but then I remembered Poppy telling me they were holding
tryouts, this week, for new sophomores to join when they go up to
junior year. Yay! Not.

Slipping on my mirrored aviators, I
watched Logan batting and running; without any of them knowing I
was drooling over him. If anyone looked, they would see my head
down towards my books.

Logan made his run around the third
base and waved to me.

I waved back, forgetting that I
still had my head angled down to my book.

Shit! It was obvious that I was
watching. Hopefully, he wouldn’t realize and know I was ogling him
as he ran.

I loved it when he ran.

His thigh muscles tensing and his
ass flexing under his track pants. Even though they weren’t tight,
I’d seen him many times in his baseball uniform and whoever decided
that the pants should be
that
tight deserved a fucking honor award. Especially
when Logan was up to bat and I had a great view as he leant
forward; his ass encased in the white fabric.

Mmmmm
I
moaned, internally, heat flushing through me with thoughts of Logan
during his games.

Yeah, you guessed it.
That’s
why I
never
missed a game. Who
in their right mind would miss
that
opportunity? Not me, that’s for sure.

That’s also the reason I didn’t
know much about the game even after going all of the time. I spent
my time watching Logan and not paying attention to anything
else.

“
Chase!” I heard Logan calling my
name.

“
Huh, what?” I said, my face
heating.

“
I called you a few times. Are you
ok?”

“
Oh, uh yeah.” I said, embarrassed.
“Just doing math in my head.”

“
I thought you were reading from
your Chem book?”

Damn it! Think, Chase!

“
I was.” I had nothing.

Fuck. My quick thinking brain had
gone on vacation.

Logan looked confused.

“
Um, okaaayyy.” He said, as if I’d
lost my mind. “I was just going to ask if you thought that run was
any good? If you saw, that is.”

“
Yeah, it looked good from
here.”

Real
good. Now go run so I can watch your muscles.
My head was running away with me!

“
Good. We won’t be much longer,
ok?”

“
No problem.” I said, tracking him
as he jogged away.

I blew out a sharp breath in
relief, and I felt like I needed to fan myself from the thoughts
running through my mind.

Logan got back to the bench, and I
followed his hands as he lifted the hem of his T-shirt and raised
it to wipe the sweat from his brow, revealing a stomach so ripped
you could wash your clothes on it. A V-line running into his pants
that made you want to see where it went.