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“Finch,” Jack said, and it felt like the group collectively sighed as they fell into the regular routine.
Wednesdays nights, for as long as the weather permitted, was a baseball night. Anybody could come, though new people were seldom invited. Jack and Crutchie were the team captains, and they always chose the same two people first.
(Davey had looked between the two captains, confused, the first time he played. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
Jack tutted, shaking his head. “Geez, Dave, I thought you seemed alright. I would never have invited you if I’d known you had something against disabled people.”
“I thought we were friends,” Crutchie had said, the slightest tremor in his voice. Davey, aghast, looked a little faint when the boys burst into laughter.
Jack ruffled his hair. “Crutchie has the best throwing arm in the group. He’s pitcher.”)
“Y/N,” Crutchie said, and you rolled your eyes.
He chose you first every week, though you weren’t anywhere near the best in the group. You didn’t deserve to be chosen first, but he unironically chose you every week. You sometimes wondered if he felt like he owed you for something, but nothing came to mind. It was a predictable, unexplainable act of kindness.
“Bad call,” you mumbled to him while Jack chose.
“I’m going to win,” Crutchie whispered back. “You’re my lucky charm.”
“How’s that work? Do you make a wish? Rub me real hard?”
Crutchie grinned, ears going a little pink. “Think that would work?”
You smacked him with your glove. “Why, Crutchie, I do declare. Not in front of the boys.”
He laughed, and though you stood by your belief that he should have chosen somebody else, you were pleased that he chose you first.
Race squirted you with his water bottle. “Ask Crutchie out.”
“Is this supposed to be, like, a psychology thing? ‘Cause it feels kinda good, so it won’t work.”
He sprayed you again, and you tried to remember if there was a spare shirt in your backpack. Maybe not?
“You suck at baseball. You suck serious balls, Y/N. He only picks you because he wants his balls and bat to see your diamond.”
You wrinkled your nose. “Gross.”
“Please.” Race rolled his eyes, blond curls matted to his forehead with sweat. “You want him to take you out to the ball game, too.”
Not like that, you didn’t. You wanted to hug him when you won a game without wondering if it was lasting too long. You wanted to embrace teasing about being chosen first, and you wanted it to be safe to believe that the guys were right about why.
“Not if you talk about it like that, I don’t,” you said.
“Aye! Crutch!”
The boy in question turned away from a conversation with Mush, eyes lighting up. “Yeah?”
Race grinned, crooked and cunning. “Did you know that Y/N likes ballgame food?”
“Christ,” you whispered.
“Everybody does,” Crutchie said, frowning.
“Ask what Y/N’s favorite food is,” he urged. “No? Fine - your weiner.”
You groaned, Crutchie’s face glowed red, and Race chortled.
You weren’t sure that you were making Crutchie feel so lucky now.
“Y/N! Hey!”
You grinned at the sound of Crutchie’s voice, stomach kicking with delight when you saw the grin on his face. He was scrolling through his phone, maybe to show you something funny he found online earlier -
“Awe,” Romeo crooned. “Look how happy they are to see each other. Adorable.”
The smile slipped off your face, and you saw Crutchie’s falter. You tried to smile when he showed you a meme he liked, but it felt false. Maybe all of your happiness had drained when the embarrassment set in.
There were still butterflies in your stomach, but they had more to do with the eyes on you than the boy you were standing with.
“Concept,” you said at school. Crutchie was by the vending machine, weighing the pros and cons of buying his daily soda in the morning instead of the afternoon. “Instead of hiding some stupid prop in Mush’s locker on Halloween, you hide in there.”
“If I don’t have caffeine now, I might die.”
“You’ll be in some creeptastic costume.”
He rubbed his face, weary. “If I don’t have caffeine later, I’ll die.”
“Well,” you said with a warm smile, “since you’re dying either way, there’s no need for a costume. I’ll just put your body in the locker.”
“Are you talking about some weird sex thing?”
You cringed when Morris Delancey came up behind you. “Do you need something, Delancey?”
“I need your boyfriend to get out the way,” he said.
You didn’t bother saying that Crutchie wasn’t your boyfriend. That being said, you couldn’t look at Crutchie, either. There was a painful, dull sickness settling in your chest, and you couldn’t even look at the friend who was going through the same thing you were.
“I want you guys to stop teasing,” you said firmly. “About Crutchie and me, you know? It isn’t cool.”
Katherine bit into an ice cream sandwich, chasing a bit of cookie that threatened to fall. “Why?”
“Because it’s embarrassing. Because it makes it hard for us to spend time together.”
“Stop being cute, then. Stop reacting.”
You scowled. “Please, Kath, I’m serious. It’s making me sick.”
She looked at you then, smile fading. “Ask him out, then. That’ll stop the teasing.”
What she was saying, you gathered, was that there was nothing she could do. The teasing had become an essential part of the group, and it didn’t matter how much damage it was doing to the relationship your friends were pushing for. If you couldn’t preserve the relationship by stopping the teasing, you would have to stop the teasing by stopping the relationship. It was the only way to keep Crutchie as a friend, however different the friendship may be.
You couldn’t even ask Crutchie to meet you after school without there being wolf whistles. The lines around his face, usually so cheerful, were bleak when he agreed.
You felt utterly nauseous when he met you at the back of the school. So unhappy, overwhelmed by something almost like pre-regret, and already nostalgic for the days when you were too young to be teased about dating.
“I think we need to stop hanging out so much,” you said.
Crutchie blinked, and though he didn’t look too surprised, you thought that maybe he had been expecting something different. “What? Why?”
“I miss you,” you said plainly.
“So we need to stop seeing each other?”
“I can’t even look at you without people teasing me about liking you,” you said, and your voice went thick. “Everything we do, people are talking. It makes me nervous to be around you, and I don’t want to be. Maybe if we just - if we take some time apart, or make it clear that nothing is going to happen, people will just - they’ll stop.”
He frowned. “That seems like a lose-lose situation.”
You threw up your hands. “Yes! I know, everything sucks. But if the others give up, you and I can try to salvage whatever’s left.”
“It got hard,” Crutchie said slowly, “so you want to give up.”
“No, I want the others -”
“It got hard,” he said again. “And you decided that protecting your image was more important than protecting our relationship. Our friendship, I mean. Because, apparently, the idea of us in a relationship is so abhorrent to you -”
You listened, horror dawning where the numbness previously resided. You started thinking that maybe you had misread something somewhere down the line - that maybe the both of you had assumed the other was bothered by the teasing because it was unfounded. Maybe he was embarrassed because it was true.
“Wait, Crutchie, do you -”
“Fine,” he said. He rubbed at his face, furious in a way that made you wonder if he was wiping at tears. “Fine, we can stop hanging out as much. I hope it makes you more comfortable. Truly, Y/N, I just want to you be happy with the way things are.”
You weren’t. You really, really weren’t.
“Why weren’t you and Crutchie partners in English today? You guys are always partners,” Race said.
“Because you guys are douches,” you said. “Because you guys were so relentless, so thorough, that we can hardly speak to each other anymore.”
Race blinked, surprised. “We were just telling the truth.”
“You made it impossible for us to figure out the truth for ourselves!”
“You already knew the truth,” he shot back. “You and Crutchie are crazy about each other, and you both know it.”
“I didn’t know,” you snarled. “I didn’t know he liked me, because you guys made it impossible for us to have a conversation without it being some big thing.”
Race’s jaw worked, but you saw a hint of shame flicker across his face. “What did you do?”
“I told him I need a break.”
“Idiot,” he said. “Oh, you idiot. You probably broke his heart.”
“Believe me,” you said. “Not more than I broke my own. Next time, keep your thoughts to yourself.”
“Y/N,” Crutchie said, and your head shot up. Nobody blinked twice when you walked to stand by your team captain, but you had to actively try not to gape at him.
He wouldn’t meet your eyes. You stood to his side, a few steps behind, and wished you could hold his hand.
“Bad call,” you whispered.
“You’ve never failed me before,” he said quietly. “I’ll always want you on my team.”
You had to blink back tears. You hadn’t realized you were near tears in the first place. The feeling was mutual, and maybe you hadn’t wrecked the possibility as thoroughly as you had thought.
You watched Crutchie during the game, and for the first time, he didn’t watch you back. He studiously kept his eyes on the game, pitching perfectly inning after inning.
He had listened to you. He had been angry, yes, but even in his anger he wanted you above all others. He was embarrassed, but not so embarrassed that he hadn’t been willing to tough it out to be near you.
You were the one who hadn’t been able to handle the teasing, and Crutchie was the one who had to deal with the brunt of the damage.
There were butterflies in your stomach when he gave Jack a cocky grin, and it had nothing to do with anybody who might have been watching.
Jack struck out, just as Crutchie had known he would, and your team won the game.
“Good game,” you said to Crutchie, several feet out.
He looked surprised that you talked to him, but pleasantly so. “Yeah, well, I had my lucky -”
You got to the pitching mound, wrapped your arms around his neck, and kissed him.
There were wolf whistles, but they paled in comparison to the sharp inhale Crutchie gave when you pressed yourself against him.
There were jokes, but that had nothing on the sound of his cane hitting the ground, his hum of relief, his clothes rustling against yours.
“I’m sorry,” you mumbled when you pulled away. You didn’t move out of his grip, opting instead to press your face into the side of his neck. “I was a jerk. I liked you that entire time, and I should have told you instead of freaking out.”
“I should have said something ages ago,” he said. “I could have prevented all of this.”
“So could I.”
He shrugged. “Guess it doesn’t matter now. It all turned out the same.”
You smiled. Of course he had forgiven you immediately. You hadn’t forgiven yourself - you would be such a good date that it would wipe all other relationships out of the water. “It turned out okay.”
“Turned out perfect,” he grinned. “Ready to face the music?”
“Are you kidding?” You pulled back, grasping his hand. “This is my favorite song.”