“I’m thinking she’s not the right girl for him,” Penn says. “I know she interests you, and you like her, but dude, you can’t chase someone who doesn’t want to be chased.”

“I realize that, but I know she likes me. She told me she did, but she’s just not letting herself like me. There’s a difference, you know? With the time I’ve spent with her and the messages we’ve shared, I know there’s something special between us, and I would hate to just give up on that.”

“You might have to,” Walker says. “It took me a long fucking time to get together with Kate, and as you know, I had to let her go at one point. If it’s meant to be, then it will happen. But if you push it, you might push her away.”

“I understand that, but my fear is that she’s not going to ever come to me, that she’s so in her head about not deserving a chance, that she’ll just walk away.”

Penn places his hand on my shoulder. “Then she walks away, man.”

I let out a heavy sigh and kick my feet up on my locker.

But I don’t want her to fucking walk away.

Hell, I thought I was so close when I went to her place. We talked for two weeks straight and joked around. I looked forward to her messages after my away games, and when I returned to Chicago, she was the first person I wanted to see. I took a chance and went to her place. And that chance was paying off, until . . . until she retreated, talking herself out of taking a chance on me.

“From his silence, I’m going to guess he’s not good with that,” Walker says.

“Yeah, I don’t think he is,” Penn agrees. “So best we prepare ourselves for what’s to come.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say as I stand from my chair. “I’m going to take a walk. I’ll be back before we report to the field.”

* * *

“Are we ready, boys?” Knox Gentry, our captain and shortstop, calls out as he warms up his arm with Carson Stone, our second baseman.

“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Dempsey says from where he’s stretching on the ground.

“Head on right?” Knox asks me as I finish up my calisthenics. My arm is already warm, it’s my legs and torso that are feeling a bit stiff, and I know why. Yesterday, I took my frustrations out in the weight room, and I’m paying for it now.

“Yeah, head’s on right,” I say as I line up near the foul line in the outfield and bend over to do some more stretching of my hamstrings, knowing damn well that someone in the stands is taking a picture of my ass this very moment.

“You sure? Because you don’t seem like your normal self. It’s crunch time, man.”

“I know,” I say while blowing out a heavy breath and stretching even further.