Cable, Baseball, and The Pool

The cable guy was currently drilling into my bedroom wall, effectively ruining any chance I had of looking cool when Leo came over later.

"Just need to tighten this connection," he said, like that wasn't the seventh time he'd said that.

I glared at my ceiling. This was fine. Totally fine. My first time having someone over who wasn't family or forced by a school project, and my room was being dismantled by someone named Dave.

My phone buzzed. *You sure you still want to do this?* Leo had texted.

Yes, I typed back. Unless you're busy with baseball practice.

*Canceled practice. Coach said we needed to rest before regionals.*

Right. Because Leo was the star pitcher. The guy who'd thrown a no-hitter last week and everyone had been talking about it nonstop since. Meanwhile, I was the girl whose cable had been mysteriously out for three days, and who may or may not have mentioned in homeroom that I was finally re-watching all of Avatar: The Last Airbender in order, which had somehow led to us making plans to hang out.

So. Here we were.

"All set!" Dave announced, finally.

He left, and I stared at my newly functional cable box like it had personally betrayed me.

My doorbell rang.

I took a breath. Checked my hair in the mirror. Considered hiding under my bed.

Downstairs, I opened the door. Leo stood there in his baseball hoodie and jeans, looking somehow taller than he had at school. His hair was still damp from a shower, dark curls falling over his forehead.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey."

"So... you mentioned Avatar?"

"Yeah. I was literally just about to start Season 2. If you're cool with that."

He shrugged. "Honestly? Anything is better than hearing about baseball strategy for three hours straight."

We ended up in my basement, where there was a pool table that nobody actually knew how to play. My dad had bought it years ago, convinced he'd become a pool shark, but it mostly collected dust and my little sister's stuffed animals.

"You play?" Leo asked, gesturing to it.

"Not really. You?"

"My uncle has one. We can figure it out."

So we did. And we were terrible. Absolutely atrocious. But Leo laughed more than I'd ever heard him laugh at school, this genuine, unguarded sound that made something in my chest feel weird and warm. We made up rules, cheated shamelessly, and accidentally knocked each other's balls (no, shut up, not like that) off the table more times than we actually hit anything.

At some point, Avatar: The Last Airbender played forgotten on the TV above us, but neither of us was watching.

"You're different than I thought," Leo said suddenly, lining up a shot and completely missing.

"Good different or bad different?"

He thought about it. "Just different. Like, you're always so quiet in school. But here..."

"Here I talk too much?"

"No. Here you're just... real."

I felt my face heat up. "Well, you're different too. I thought you'd be, like, all baseball all the time."

"I mean, I am. But that's not everything."

He looked at me, really looked at me, and for a second I thought he might say something else. But then his phone buzzed.

"My mom's here. She's making me go to dinner with my grandparents because of the game tomorrow."

"Oh. Right. The game."

He stood up, and I walked him to the door.

"Hey," he said, turning back before he left. "This was... this was good. Better than cable, honestly."

I laughed. "That's a high bar."

He grinned. "Text me?"

"Yeah. I will."

After he left, I stood in my hallway for a long time, thinking about how sometimes the best days start with broken cable and end with a pool table you don't know how to use and a baseball player who might actually see you.

Then I went back downstairs and finally watched my show, smiling at nothing every time I thought about him laughing at his terrible pool shot.

And maybe, just maybe, I was already starting to like baseball season a little more than I used to.