Read Online Sweet Spot: Homeruns #4 by Sloan Johnson - Free Book Online

should have talked to you. I should have told you I needed some time to think about what was going through my head. I should have been man enough to tell you I didn’t want to stop talking to you, but I needed to focus more on my job. Yeah, feeling like a failure is part of why I did what I did, but it’s not all of it.
    “When I was sitting there with Tim, something changed. At first, I was running through the list of everyone I’d failed by not making the cut. But then, I started thinking about you. It’s pretty damn sad, but you were the first real friend I had who didn’t give a shit about baseball. You were the one who opened my eyes to something more than the game.” This was all so hard for me to talk about. I felt weak and more than a little insecure admitting my weeks with Cody were the only time I’d let go and thought about more than one facet of my life. “It killed me to think about walking away from someone who gave me so much hope. Someone who was better for me than I could have ever been for you.”
    “That’s the difference between us. You always kept score of what I did for you, but I didn’t. Not once did I think you were taking advantage of me,” Cody argued.
    “Shit, I’m really screwing this up,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “That’s not what I was trying to say. I guess what it all comes down to is I left the way I did because it hurt to think about not seeing you at the end of the day. Once I got knocked down to High-A, there was no way I’d make it to Milwaukee.”
    “Wait, you mean to tell me you’re human?” Cody formed a huge O with his mouth and slapped his cheeks before rolling his eyes. “Seriously, you have to break down the pedestal you seem to have yourself on. You’re not a god among men, you’re a human with very mortal flaws. One of those, the one you think makes you weak, is actually the best of all. Too bad you had to go and fuck things up by trying to protect the carefully crafted image you had of yourself.”
    I hated to ask, but I had to. The thought of him giving me an answer I didn’t want to hear terrified me. “So, does that mean you might be able to forgive me?”
    Cody leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. One hand lifted to scrub at the short stubble on his chin as he considered what I’d asked him. The longer this dragged on, the more I wanted to reach across the table and shake him because he was doing it on purpose.
    When I’d first met Cody, I’d thought he was a shy kid who didn’t speak his mind. He quickly dispelled that notion the day he railed at me for not telling him I’d been at the Secured Hope fundraiser where he’d shared his life story with a room full of strangers. I’d thought I’d been doing the right thing to not bring up memories I could tell were painful ones that he’d rather forget. To him, it was a lie of omission and he called me on it. I’d seriously thought he was going to kick me out of the crappy little car Eric and Bryce had picked up for him so he didn’t have to keep borrowing Mason’s Jeep. I felt just as nervous that night as I did sitting at the back of the coffee shop, waiting for him to decide if this was an unforgivable offense in his eyes.
    “You know, part of me wants to get up and tell you to fuck off,” Cody finally said, his demeanor still cool as ice. “But then I think about how different I am now from back then. I did a lot of stupid shit, too.”
    “No, you didn’t,” I interrupted. No way in hell was he going to blame himself.
    “Uh yeah, I did. Just because you didn’t witness my mistakes doesn’t mean I never fucked up,” Cody countered. For the first time since I’d walked in, the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “It’s that whole ridiculous human thing again. We all fuck up. The important part is whether or not we’re honest enough with ourselves and others to admit it. And you did.”
    I sat up straighter in my seat as the