Page 34 of The Score We Never Settled

My uncle loathes Briggs with a passion I’ve seen similar to Tulane baseball.

It’s deep, faithful, and infuriating, sometimes.

It’s why I’m fake-dating Cruz in the first place. So I can go to the games and be around the baseball team as much as possible. If I weren’t, Uncle Ben would find a way to keep me away.

He’s not stupid.

“You don’t think I can change his mind?”

No.

Uncle Ben is all about being a country boy, a gentleman, someone smart enough to make their family proud.

Not a rebellious teenager who lacks the love of his father, still grieving—I think, anyway—the loss of his mother at such a young age, which causes disorder at town events.

Briggs once siphoned gas out of Mr. Anderson’s truck because he kept riding Briggs about his batting average. It got so bad that Mr. Anderson started making posters to remind Briggs of how he wasn’t connecting and being able to focus on the game, plastering them all over town like he was seventeen, too, and had some weight in the matter.

Mr. Anderson, at the time, was a middle-aged man who worked at the septic tank services, which gave Briggs all the ammo he needed to claim Mr. Anderson was full of shit.

You either love the kid, or you hate him.

That’s Briggs Kerrigan’s reputation in this town.

And even his father doesn’t show him the support and admiration he should get from a parent.

“This is workin’,” I say instead. “Uncle Ben doesn’t ask me any questions. I can come to parties, like this, to be around you and?—”

“We’re trapped in a closet,” he drones, running the tip of his nose along the shell of my ear. “And I want everyone to know you’re my girl, and you’ve always been my girl.”

“You don’t do yourself any favors when you just put sunglasses and a baseball cap on the baby Jesus last Christmas. He knows it was you.”

“Magnolia Ridge doesn’t have cameras like that,” he retorts smoothly, brushing his lips against my cheek. “Besides, the church ladies have been talkin’ about it ever since, and Jesus is supposed to be cool, right?”

“And how would you explain the water tower?”

“Anyone could’ve spray-painted that, too.”

“And everyone knows you can’t stand Cruz.”

“It wasn’t anything bad.”

REAL BALLPLAYERS HIT LEFT. I’D WALK YOU, TOO #69.

It’s Cruz’s number, clearly—because he’d pick the only number that has a sexual reference to it while most of the town has zero clue—and it wouldn’t have been anyone else.

“Let me figure somethin’ out,” I tell him, even though I personally haven’t come up with any ideas.

When I think I may have an opening, or I can say something nice Briggs did, Uncle Ben always finds something Briggs did or said to point out.

However, it’s not like Briggs helps me here. He’s always causing some mischief in town. Always causing talk amongst the townsfolk, and he has zero problem doing it.

Briggs pulls his head back to look down at me. “I can come over and help you strategize, Short Stop. I don’t mind.”

I give him an exasperated look because he won’t help with anything but kiss me silly and distract me. “Sure you will.”

“I will,” he poses simply. “Because, one day, Short Stop, this won’t be a problem. Your uncle is gonna love me. And you’re gonna be Mrs. Kerrigan.”

Smiling, despite myself and that very exaggerated assumption that my uncle will ever change his one-sided opinion, I don’t correct him. Because being Briggs’s wife would be a dream, one day.