FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS OF THE CHEATER.FAKER.TROUBLEMAKER SERIES (WATTY'S 2016, FICTION AWARDS 2016, HACHETTE AUDIO 2017), JENNY ROSEN & KRISTEN MAGLONZO.
After bullies, braces, and brutal heartbreak shatters his faith in love, soon-to-be fre...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
NOTE: Check out this week's hilarious read of BOY KING by kaelking12! Enjoy the listen!
CHAPTER 40
Elias
So—right before I ate it in front of the girl of my dreams, I made the mistake of thinking that getting nailed in the stomach by a baseball was the worst things could get.
I mean, I've watched enough YouTube videos in my life to know all the textbook ways a guy can blow a date. Setting a chick's hair on fire. Accidentally giving her food poisoning. You name it, someone's done it. But tonight, I just might have set a new record. I'm pretty sure that nobody's started and lost a battle with a batting cage this badly in the history of fails.
Quote me.
The thing is, in the movies, when the main dude comes to his senses after being beat up, fighting for his life, or getting taken out by a flying object—the second he pulls through, the first person he wants to see is his girl.
It's no secret that I'm a movie kinda guy. Sometimes, I like to believe that real life can play out
like it does on the silver screen—and right now is one of those times.
If I wanted to be boring about this whole knock-out scenario, I'd just sit up right now and tell everybody that I'm okay. But playing it cool isn't any fun. So I figure that all I have to do at this point to turn this mini-disaster into first date gold is keep my eyes shut, moan a little, and wait for Lacey to shake me awake.
Or hold me.
Or close the gap between our lips and—
A mouth hits mine outta the blue.
A mouth that should be gentle but isn't.
Skin that shouldn't be prickly but is.
Breath that shouldn't reek but stinks of old hot dogs, cigarettes, and nacho cheese. Lacey couldn't smell like that toxic combination of things if she tried. Which means—
"Stay with me, little man! Breathe!"
I barely get the chance to.
I snap my eyes open way too late to stop the nightmare of all nightmares from coming true. I need to move, but my limbs won't respond to me. My arms are pinned under at least three hundred and fifty pounds of too many late nights at 7-11 and bulky batting cage muscle. I stare up at the tightly-closed eyes and sweat-covered face of the Safety/Manager guy who was so terrible at explaining the rules earlier that I stopped paying attention to them.
