Alana did, too. “I’ll go with you.”
“No, this is a stupid idea,” I said.
“It sounds fun to me,” Alana said.
I stood. “We should all go, then.”
“No, because when we turn on the lights, Diego has to be up here to hit the ball,” Frank said. And with that he, his flashlight, and Alana went back down the hill, leaving me and Diego in the dark.
“Wait!” I called out, but they didn’t stop.
Why would they do that? Alana knew I hated Frank, but why hadn’t she sent me down the hill with him so she could be alone with Diego? Considering she was the master flirter, she was doing this all wrong. Even I knew that. Was this another one of her games? Was she trying to make herself look more appealing? What was Alana thinking? Probably not that I had feelings for the guy she just left me alone with. Why would she think that? Only a horrible friend would like the guy her best friend liked.
I rubbed my arms and turned slowly away from Alana’s disappearing back and toward Diego.
He stood there, with his golf club, watching them disappear down the hill as well. He seemed just as disappointed by this turn of events as I did.
Okay, I could do this. I’d been doing this. Nobody needed to know about my feelings, including him. I sank back down to the dirt and looked up at the sky. The stars were so numerous that they seemed to be close to bursting through the blackness.
“It’s amazing up here,” I said.
Diego looked up, too. “I agree. But I wish I could see this sky over a million different cities.”
“Really?”
He propped the golf club on the ground and leaned on the end of it. “You don’t?”
“I don’t know. This is my home. It’s my comfort zone.”
“I would argue that you can feel that way anywhere,” Diego said thoughtfully, “if you are comfortable in your own skin.”
Maybe that was part of my problem. I wasn’t all the time. I was only truly comfortable when right in the middle of the lake. It’s when I felt the most like me.
“And that is what is called confidence, Diego. I’ve always known you had it.”
“I’m not confident about everything,” he mumbled. “So I get it.”
“Get what?”
“I get how you might feel out of your element sometimes.”
My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I could see much better now. I picked up a stick that was on the ground next to my leg and began drawing in the dirt. “Who taught you how to cook?” I asked.
“My grandmother. She was amazing at it. To her, food meant love, and there was never a shortage of it growing up.”
“And your grandpa?”
“He was a field worker. Back-breaking labor for pretty much no pay. But it’s what brought them here from Mexico, and my dad got to go to college and live the dream. He’s a pharmacist.”
“And your parents want you to go to college?”
“Of course.”
“And you don’t want to go?” I don’t know why I assumed that but his talk of seeing the stars from under a million different cities gave me that impression.
“I want to go to culinary school. But first I want to go and travel around the world and visit small villages and learn from little old women or men steeped in tradition. I just know those are things I’d never learn in any school.” His gaze was distant, like he was imagining this now.
His passion was contagious. “That does sound exciting.”
He straightened up, his dreamy gaze disappearing. “But not practical.”
“Is that you talking or your parents?”
“A little bit of both, I think.” He paused for a minute. “It was nearly impossible to even come here tonight. And this is only thirty minutes away.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s always a battle to get out of the house. In my parents’ dream world I would only do school stuff, work, and sleep.” Our eyes met, and I wondered if he was going to tell me he had been calling in to the podcast. This complaint was similar to what he had said the first time he called. I held my breath in anticipation, trying to decide what I’d say if he admitted it. I’d tell the truth. That I knew it was him. But he didn’t admit anything. He just went quiet.
“So they don’t know about your dream world,” I finally said. “Your desire to travel?”
“No. This is actually the first time I’ve said it out loud. It mostly lives in my head.”
He’d shared it with me first? That means nothing, I told myself.
“Any expert advice for me?” he asked.
Right. I was the advice giver. He wasn’t sharing this with me. He was sharing it with Kat. “I need my cohost here to give proper advice,” I joked.
He lifted one side of his mouth into a half smile.
“Let’s see. Advice.” I tried to think, even though my heart was beating faster than normal. “Isn’t part of being young being able to do impractical things? When else will you be able to travel the world without responsibilities?”
“Yeah …” He looked down the hill. “They should’ve found the lights by now.”
Diego was private, I was learning. Just when I thought I’d broken through and he’d revealed something about himself, he seemed to back off. I understood. I liked to keep things inside, too.
I followed his gaze down the hill. “Maybe they don’t know how to turn the lights on. Or more likely, the control box is locked.”
“Probably true. Should we head down and try to find them?”
“Sure.”
We stumbled over twigs and roots and around trees with only our phone flashlights to guide the way. Diego dropped the golf club off in his car, which was parked at the bottom of the hill. Then we had to walk through a parking lot and around the outside of the stadium to the entrance, which was locked.
“Do you think they found a way in?” he asked.
“If it was up to Alana, then yes. She really is adventurous,” I said. After hearing what it was he wanted to do after high school, I realized even more how much of a good fit he and Alana were.
We kept walking, skirting around the baseball field, which had chain link instead of cement walls. We found the gate but it was chained shut.
“My brother climbed this once and he’s not athletic at all. I’m sure we could,” I said, but then I remembered Max’s ripped shirt. I really didn’t want to rip my clothing tonight.
Diego tugged on the gate, and the chain was loose enough for a body to squeeze through. I wondered why Max had to climb the fence at all. Maybe he climbed it at a different section or the chain was tighter that day. I slid through, and Diego followed after me. The baseball field connected to the football field at one end zone, separated by another gate that wasn’t locked. And then we were in.
Alana and Frank hadn’t found the lights yet, but we walked the length of the field toward the goalpost at the opposite end. Diego had his eyes on the ground and it wasn’t until he said, “See!” that I realized why. The light from his phone highlighted the single golf ball, which had come to a stop at about the ten-yard line right in the middle of the field.
He picked it up with a smile and held it out for me.
“You think this proves something?” I asked.
“It absolutely proves something. Look where it was.” He took me by the shoulders and guided me to the exact location of the ball’s landing and turned me to face the goal. “Look.”