For those who are new to my writing, a quick teaser from my first novel, The Last Out.
It wasn’t supposed to snow in April. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the snow, and I especially love the snow when I’m grinding a rail or shredding the mountain on my board. But right now I was wearing my baseball uniform, trying to catch fly balls, and I couldn’t even see the damn ball because of all the snow coming down. I wasn’t afraid, not exactly. I’d been playing baseball for longer than I can remember, why would I be afraid of a baseball coming at me?
I couldn’t help but glance at my right elbow and wince at it. I’m not afraid of the ball, I’m not afraid of the ball… I had a healthy respect for the ball, that’s all. It’s nothing serious.
My name’s Devin Williams. I’m seventeen now, and I started playing ball when I was seven years old. I almost quit that year as well: I hadn’t been paying attention and took my eye off the play, and I had the luck of getting hit right in the elbow with the ball. Line drive too, so it hurt. Only, I’m lucky my elbow was in the way. Everyone says that if it hadn’t hit my elbow, the ball probably would have hit my head instead. I swear there’s still an indentation in my elbow where I got whacked, but of course no one believes me.
I’m not afraid of the ball.
As I prepared for the next batter, I heard our catcher call out to me from home plate, “Hey, Williams, you going to choke on some more balls?”
Sean Cobb was the school stud, and he made sure everyone knew it. I was sure it was all bull and that he hadn’t done half of what – or who – he said he’d done. Still, I couldn’t deny that he was hot. This is when checking dudes out sucked, because I didn’t have a chance with him and besides, I’m straight. I shouldn’t be thinking about guys like that anyway. It could be bad for my reputation and my ability to get through each day, if you know what I mean.
authorhunterthomson 