THE PLAN (Manhattan Nights #0.5)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

BRETT

Contrary to what my friends think, picking women for them to possibly pork at parties has never been my idea of a good time.

Maybe because I've just never had that much patience to deal with a girl's drama. Or maybe because I've grown tired of their false hopes and the callous indulgence of their needs.

Or maybe because I don't give a f**k.

Whatever the reason, I've never been a matchmaker.

But today. Today, I'm making a new exception.

As the captain of my baseball team, I'm expected to bring possible candidates into the "dugout"—girls that my team can score with. And, of course, to keep up the image of alpha jock that I've been pretending to be these last few years, I do.

I do.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Still, I've already spent enough years pretending to be someone I'm not, so for the sake of a clean conscience and the preservation of an edible reputation, I'll follow through again and again and again, convincing myself that I'm doing it out of love for other people, when really, I'm doing it out of a need for acceptance.

Then, every now and then, I'll have to atone for my sins.

And later tonight, after a long week of struggles both on and off the playing field, I need to do just that.

"Becca Hamilton?" my friend Dresden asks me and Max.

"Already invited."

"How about Erica Berry?" Max asks Dresden over my shoulder we walk, backpacks on each of our shoulders.

"Off the list," Dresden responds. "She's still recovering from a breast reduction. She'll be out of school for the next three weeks. Until the end of semester…at least, that's what I heard."

My teammate Max tuts. "A shame. I'll really miss Erica. And her two friends, of course."

"Congratulations. You're even more perverted than ever, if that's even possible," I say.

"What? Just because I want to see Erica when she's recovered? That's not disgusting. That's just being a caring friend...you know."

Max juts his head to the hall and we leave the locker room, even after the showers, still smelling of field grass, dirt and light sweat.

"As for my 'perversions', they're the only thing keeping this exclusive VIP list for the party tonight,” he tells me. "It's my job to be disgusting. If I wasn't the one inviting girls," he points at me, "your parties would be packed with every guy on our team in tow."

I raise a brow. "And that's a bad thing?"

"Look, I know you’ve been missing a lot of practice lately, so I'm going to make the sacrifice and tell you this. But yes, having a sausage party during what is supposed to be one of the best end-of-the-semester bashes of the year is a complete waste of resources. The entire baseball team will bring their baseball bats. It's my job to make sure we have enough 'gloves' to put them to good use. And you, my man," he points to me again, "are the glove master."

In a London accent as thick as a pint of black porter, Dresden adds, "f*****g hell, Max. And I guess you're planning to be glorious glove master runner-up while we're at the party, yeah?"

Max shrugs. "Well, someone has to keep the guests entertained. And who better than second-best to our star player, Brett 'Jackhammer' Jackson, who is known for his skills on and off the field."

I punch him hard in the shoulder. "My nuts hang low enough, Johnson. Get off 'em."

"Ah, but the party won't be without 'nut' around all the same.”

"Easy, tiger. You’d better save up those jokes for tonight. Lord knows you don’t have enough to last you through the first beer of the night."

We walk side-by-side––Dresden with my stuff and I with Max's––as we exit the school's double doors and into a surprisingly warm December afternoon. Max and Dresden joke and laugh the whole walk, but I'm quiet.

My two teammates and I walk on, past the library, then cut into the courtyard, our conversation bordering on vulgar insults back and forth.

There's not much else to do in a school like Riverside High, let alone in the entire radius of Kansas City, Kansas, USA. I don't mind the irrelevant conversations.

I’m used to it by now.

My two teammates and I have known each other since we first walked into Riverside's doors as freshmen. And or the last four years, we'd breathed, ate and slept baseball, partying and girls.

A great life for an eighteen-year-old male.

Most people wouldn't know what to do with it, but…for a while, at least, I couldn't live it another way. My father once I said I was born to rule the same school we currently stand in.

I hate that the bastard was right.

But what he didn't mention is that I rule with a small handful of guys who, like me, aren't like anyone else on this campus.

As does the list we're compiling for our party. A list I wish to hell wasn't necessary, but trust me, it is–a necessity that doesn't quite exist in any other school.

Then again, they don't have a baseball team like Riverside's team.

Our baseball team is the talk of the town. We're the pride of this town. The pride of this county, even.

The talk of our state.

It's only fitting that this last party I ever throw for Riverside High will be epic, just like us and our achievements on the field.

It's what's expected of me. And I've always done what's expected of me...

Without fail.

Or at least until the end of semester, I should say.

"I'm going to make sure Erica will be there, alright?" Dresden says.

We've been going over tonight's damn party guest list all week and every time I think we'd finally decided on the three last names on our list, Dresden and Max get into some silly argument, followed by Max and then Dresden inviting some other girl they scored with, last week or three months ago.

Three names, that ultimately decide which girls will be at the party. Because it's two weeks before Christmas Eve and everyone in school has vacation after the holidays.

Me? I've had enough of parties. That's why I cancelled my last party. If I'd gone through with it, some poor freshman would've been a 'glove girl' for the whole team.

And since I plan on sneaking out of this town as fast as I can, I surely don't plan on staying on the team long enough to find out.

Max, just beside me, digs through his bag. "Why don't you pick the final lucky three, BJ?"

"Because I don't want to be the egotistical prick who thinks he's doing a good deed of charity just because he is picking out three girls who can't say no to helping some guy to get laid.” I grin. “That's your job. Besides, I really don't give two flying f***s who shows up. I'm just trying to finish out this fall semester by getting as plastered as I f*****g can. Everything else is gravy."

"So be it," Max says, his eyes losing focus to the corner of the courtyard. "And hey, don't look now...But it looks like the choir girls just got out of practice..."

"Don't," Dresden cuts our friend off. "Don't even start, Max. We've got too many options as is."

"I'm just saying! They're not looking half bad this year, fellas. Some of those goody-goodies have glowed up under the winter's surface, like the rest of us," Max says, completely not-so-subtly winking at me. "Seriously, Dresden, you should put eyes on 'em. They're looking like a Christmas bonus magnet. And you, BJ, haven't even seen them yet...Look!"

Dresden shakes his head. “Mate, I checked them out when they sang at a high school assembly right before Thanksgiving break. I barely recognized them. They looked like angels, yeah. But I wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot cock."

I snort. "That's because you Brits have nothing to give but a stiff upper lip."

"We do more than that, mate. Our metric system has a few more essentials," Dresden retorts. "Plus, we know how to work that so-called small length better than you Yanks can."

"Oh, well, then that changes everything, doesn't it," Max chimes in. "Women of the world and the UK, you all can rest easy, knowing you're safe from the likes of 'the Jackhammer’!”

Dresden's face hardens. He's felt a small amount of rejection from women of late, the struggles of our pre-season not allowing him to get in as many "practice" innings as he'd like. It's quite something seeing him go berserk.

"I'm just saying," he throws up his hands, "I'm not trying to defile my semi-working Catholic upbringing by going for the choir girls, that's all. Not to mention half of them have boyfriends that I know of. They're not the most approachable set, if you ask me. As high and might as a catwalk as they are, I'd feel safer asking for milk from a dog."

"Yeah, they're not your typical kind of girls," Max adds. "Not the kind you'd strike up a conversation with in a bar, y'know?"

Dresden looks at him. "You would know. You've been in enough of them."

"Exactly. But you can never tell me that the sight of a delicious piece of eye candy in a choir robe, breaking last summer's chastity vow, isn't what every eighteen-year-old American man's fantasy is made of. I mean, just look," Max chirps, pushing my shoulder.

I sigh. "What? What?" I ask, looking to the direction Max is, the ears of my baseball cap falling off my head.

But I immediately stop in my tracks when I see them, my heart starting to beat out of my chest, adrenaline already rushing through my veins.

Because, now that I've seen them, I know what Max's talking about.

And he's right.

Or at least he's right about one of them. And I recognize her immediately because...well...she's no stranger to me.

In fact, she's far from it. Or she was at least…

I remember my little sis's best friend Elsie Carpenter when those pearly white teeth of hers had braces, when those big brown eyes of hers had glasses, and when her blonde hair was a frizzy halo that no amount of styling could ever conceal.

But if this is a flashback to those days, then I must've been asleep in class that whole year. Because she looks nothing like her anymore.

Walking beside two girls who have just finished connecting their red chorus robes, she steps out of the choir room, still flipping through a notebook. Her gaze is glued to the pages, and her mouth is frowning as if she's thinking about something.

My heartbeat should've slowed to normal by now, but it only gets faster as she walks to the opposite end of the courtyard from where I'm standing.

It's been a few months since I last saw her. Since I set my eyes on her. Since I'd last tried to talk to her in my family's house.

Sometime over the summer, my sister Kay told me she’d left, relocated with her dad somewhere after rumors of infidelity had started floating around.

What Kayla didn’t tell me…was that Elsie was back. Not back in town. And certainly not back at Riverside High.

I don't recall her coming back to school over the fall break, but I didn't exactly look around the halls a whole lot, either. I spent most of my time living a life I'm not very proud of and losing track of time a lot of nights...in the arms of some girl or another.

Now I'm staring at her as if it's no big deal that I haven't seen her in months, when I feel like I haven't seen her in years.

All those times that I remember her crossing paths with me when I'd walk out of school with my sister, she'd look at me as if she couldn't see me. And every time I'd meet her gaze, she'd look away, as if she couldn't be bothered.

"Okay, what's up, BJ? You look like you just saw a ghost," Max jibes me.

I'm too focused on Elsie.

Because she’s back at school here?

My heartbeat starts to slow back to normal as I return my focus to Max and Dresden.

"I–no. Not a ghost. Just... Nothing. Forget it. I'm...just thinking about practice, is all."

Max shakes his head. "You're crazy. All I'm thinking about is that we might have found the answer to our biggest problem. Let's ask one of those choir prisses if she's willing to show us what those silk robes do to her maturing body," he suggests.

I eye them. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because they're choir girls," Dresden adds. "And if you've never been on the other side of that robe, you’d know the strict dads and the restricted upbringings make for a pretty hairy situation, so I don't think it'd be a good idea for us to go for it. Besides, don't we have better things to do, Brett?"

"You and I both know you don't mean that," Max replies with a grin.

I take an involuntary step back. "No. Dresden's right. We have plenty of other things to do anyway."

"Like what?"

"Like-"

I stop, watching with annoyance as I see Elsie Carpenter coming back around the corner in the direction I just saw her going.

She might have caught sight of me as she rounds the corner and stops in her tracks, too.

She looks like a deer in headlights.

Especially when she finally makes eye contact with me.

Her adorable face is frozen with confusion and disbelief as if she doesn't believe I'm really standing here...coming towards her.

That is, until she trips over her shoes.

Everything happens so fast.

She doesn't have time to raise her hands to break her fall, not that it would've helped her any because her books went flying in all directions on the hard, tile floor of the outdoor courtyard.

I move immediately, taking several quick steps toward her, catching her in my arms before she falls.

Her lips part in a gasp when she clutches my shoulders, and I feel my heart beating out of my chest again.

I've got her up against me.

She isn't moving, and neither am I. I don't know how long we stand like this, but it sure feels like forever.

I briefly wonder if I should let her go. But then Elsie's warm breath brushes against my neck, and I forget all about it.

I don't know when her eyes finally free themselves from their shock.

I feel her heart beat against mine.

I feel her breathing.

I feel my heart beating against hers.

Then a very familiar, yet very unexpected sentence escapes her lips.

"Hi."

And for some reason, the sound of her voice beats out every other sound in the world.

The world and the sun stop spinning for a moment.

And an entire day that I'd agreed to spend with my friends means nothing to me anymore.