Read Online Home Run: A Novel by Travis Thrasher - Free Book Online

a farm with a freak of a father who berates him every single day. And every day he bats back and shows him. Maybe not his father, because his father isn’t anywhere around, but he’s showing someone something.

Chapter Eight
    Hit and Run
    The first thing he thought about when he stepped off the plane and waited for his brother by the gate was how he could get another drink. He felt too good to waste this buzz just for Clay.
    Cory never wanted this feeling to stop. It was like playing. The game, the moments, the rush, the thrill. It was a tangible, living and breathing thing, something he could scoop up in his arms and then let go to the amazement of the crowd. They burned inside his head and his heart, these strangers who watched and waited and cheered every movement. Time stood still and breaths would be held all while they waited. Hoping for the same rush and thrill. Hoping for the ride.
    Sometimes—no, all the time—it was hard to come down. It was hard to turn off the switch. Normal human beings couldn’t understand being put into a situation like that. The pressure and the madness and the adrenaline and the joy. To feel yourself blast a ball out of the park and then to see a whole host of fans under the bright lights, cheering you on … Nothing compared to it. Nothing.
    Eventually the lights were turned off, and the fans went home.
    Eventually, Cory was left alone.
    And this was just a little help to get to the next game. To the next rush and thrill.
    It used to be enough. The immense spectacle of it all. The spotlight on him. The favors that came with it. The women. But eventually none of those nothings could fill the inevitable void.
    Drinking did that.
    To an extent.
    His mouth was dry when he simply nodded at Clay coming toward him. Cory needed to do something about that dry mouth, and quickly.
    “Whose closet did you raid?” he asked his brother after noticing what he was wearing for the first time.
    Clay wore a matching Nike athletic shirt and a pair of sweatpants, both of which were too large on him. He simply nodded at the joke. “A vastly overpaid and overrated baseball player.”
    “He obviously works out to fill those duds.”
    “Yeah, but he’s also got chicken legs.”
    “You know—if you worked out you might look good in my clothes.”
    “I’ll never be as pretty as you.”
    Cory rolled his eyes at the brotherly jab. There were only a thousand of them they shared. It was nice to have that one person on this earth who would never think of him as Cory Brand but simply as the annoying older brother who never let him win at anything. The big brother who liked to tease and bully, but who’d spent his whole youth protecting this kid’s butt.
    Soon they were in the parking lot, looking for the car Cory had rented. Cory pressed the unlock button on the remote, and a black Corvette nearby greeted them with a chirp.
    “You didn’t need to waste money renting a fancy car.”
    “I’ve never met an upgrade I didn’t like,” Cory said. “Don’t worry about it.”
    When they got into the car, Clay mentioned he was hungry. And Cory was thirsty. He figured they could kill two birds with one well-thrown stone.
    “What do you say we make one last stop in civilization?”
    Cory started up the engine and then revved it as he smiled and raised his eyebrows at his brother.
    After loading up on roast beef sandwiches and jumbo-sized drinks at Arby’s, Cory and Clay walked back to the car to eat their food on the way to Okmulgee. It was an hour to town and another fifteen minutes to the old farmhouse, which Clay and Karen now owned. Before getting into the Corvette, Cory looked through the bag he carried and let out a curse.
    “Mr. Arby forgot my curly fries.”
    Clay glanced at him across the top of the car with a look that said, What do you want me to do about it?
    “Don’t make me go back in there,” Cory said.
    “Oh, come on.”
    “He nearly cried when I signed his hat. A grown man.”
    His