Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
I could get it higher than that.
My mind wandered as I tried to loosen up my arm. Usually, I would stare out into right field and think about one of my classes. Maybe one of the books in English class, or some complicated math concept I was learning in trig. Not this time. This time it went to the cute, nerdy girl I’d helped get to the theater earlier. What was her name?
I realized I didn’t know it. I recognized her in the vague way I recognized any number of people who saw me in the halls and knew who I was. I was a celebrity in Murdock already. But certain people were always around. I wondered where I had seen her. She didn’t seem like a fan.
Whoever she was, she was cute in an artsy way. She seemed so excited about the play she was in, and it made me want to know more about it. More about her. I liked that kind of energy. It was the kind of energy I had for baseball, and I admired it when I saw it in someone else, regardless of the subject.
Shrugging, I shelved the thought of her for later. Right then, I needed to focus on my two-seamer. It had a little less miles-per-hour, but it made up for it with what coach called ‘stank.’ It certainly had some stank to it. I found my grip and took my spot on the rubber. I shook off two calls until he shifted to three fingers down. I nodded and set myself.
The two-seamer was going to impress. It always did.
As I got out of the locker room a little while later, I high-fived Marcus and nodded in the direction to Coach. Someone was in the office with him; I could see them through the glass doors. I didn’t care, though. It didn’t matter who it was. All that mattered was that Coach kept them away from me. I just wanted to focus on getting as good as I could on my own, without some representative offering his two cents.
I slipped into the school, which was quiet and dark. Mostly everyone was gone now, even the teachers who opted to stay late and grade papers in their classrooms rather than home. I enjoyed this time of evening. Tired, accomplished, and able to roam the halls peacefully with only the occasional janitor to say hi to before I made my way home.
It was then that I noticed a light on in a room in the distance. I walked toward it, thinking it might be one of my teammates or one of the teachers. As I got closer, I realized it was the theater workshop. Peeking my head inside, I saw the girl from earlier. Grinning, I opened the door and made her jump, dropping the brush she had in her hand as she worked on painting what looked like a scenic backdrop.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to spook you,” I said.
“It’s fine,” she said, holding one hand over her chest.
“You don’t look fine,” I said, laughing. “Seriously, I just wanted to come say hi again.”
“Really, it’s okay. I’m sorry again about earlier,” she said. “It was a mess. I hope I didn’t get paint on you.”
“Nah, just a little spot of blue on my hand,” I said. “Was it hard getting all that cleaned up? It looked like it kind of got you pretty good. Your back is a couple different colors.”
She cringed, and I realized she might not have known. Turning to try to look behind her, she saw what I was talking about. I had been nice by saying it was her back. It was actually, primarily, her ass and the back of her legs. They were a variety of colors, but the most prominent was yellow. Her jeans looked like they were out of an early nineties’ music video.
“I haven’t gotten it all cleaned up yet,” she said. “I still have to go back to the spot in the hall and finish cleaning that up before I leave. I told the janitor I would do it.”
“I could help,” I said. “I mean, it was partially my fault.”
“No,” she said. “No, you don’t have to do that.”
“Really, I don’t mind,” I said. “I insist. It’s already late. You shouldn’t have to stay that much longer because some oaf ran into you in the hall. I could have been occupying any other space.”
She laughed, and her cheeks flushed. She was even cuter that way. Something about her was drawing me, and I could barely even acknowledge it, much less put a finger on it.
“Okay,” she said. “Just let me clean this up. I figure this is good enough for today.”
“It looks amazing,” I said, stepping a little more into the room and admiring the backdrop. It was a desert, with old Spanish-style buildings rising on either side and a road leading out of a long white building in the back.