Page 101 of The Fall Classic

Now I’m sitting with Logan on his tailgate in the Sugar Maple Farms factory lot while Olivia takes care of the handful of customers who’ve lined up on their break, and I’m wondering how I ever go back to my regular life after knowing that something like a life with Logan was ever even possible.

Everything in me hurts as his hand finds mine in the space between us.

“I have to leave in a minute,” he says, his voice husky.

Mine is strangled. “I know.”

“I don’t want to.”

I nod, not trusting myself to open my mouth. I’ll probably do something silly like say I don’t want him to go either.

He laces his fingers slowly through mine, and with his other hand, he traces the shape of my fingers. In spite of knowing better, I let him.

My chest and throat burn. My nose and eyes sting.

“Georgie.”

“Please don’t,” I say, staring at our clasped hands, feeling the rightness of the fit. “If you say something sweet right now, I’m going to cry, and I don’t want to cry.”

He laughs, but it’s wet, too, and when I look up at him, his eyes are doing exactly what mine are.

“Fine. No sweet things.”

“Just—” I look back down at our hands, because his piercing eyes will see right through me. “Just go and come back. Okay?”

“I’m coming back,” he says, making a promise I’ve heard my dad break a thousand times.

“Okay,” I say.

He leans down like he’s going to kiss me, and I close my eyes like I’m going to let him, even though I told him he doesn’t get a kiss unless and until he comes back.

My wretched heart cannot be trusted when it comes to Logan.

I feel his breath on my lips, and I brace myself for a kind of happiness I’ve never known …

Then I feel his hand slide across the skin of my neck, his thumb resting in front of my ear, and he tips my face to the side and presses a kiss softly, tenderly onto my cheek. He holds the kiss, breathing hard against me, and then he gives me two more gentle, quick kisses beneath my ear. A cool wind picks up out of nowhere and makes me shiver.

Logan rests his forehead against mine for a long moment, neither of us moving, both of us breathing the same small patch of unexpectedly cool September air.

“I have to go,” he whispers. “I’m going to miss you, Georgie. I don’t know how to care about baseball when I could be here, with you.”

“Don’t say that,” I plead. “You don’t have to give baseball your soul, but it’s more than a game to you and your family. It matters.”

“You matter.”

The swelling in my throat has made it hard to swallow. “Good. Then you know where to find me when the season’s over.”

He nods. Stands. Pulls me down from the truck and wraps his arms around me so long, and so tight, I honestly don’t know how he’s going to make his flight, and part of me hopes they kick him off the team because of it, but the rest of me hates myself for even thinking something so selfish. If I really care about Logan, then I want what’s best for him.

This—him leaving, him playing—is what’s best for him.

He kisses the top of my head while I Do. Not. Cry.

And then he’s letting go, getting in his car⁠—

Going.

Going.