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jock—far from it. She’d passed gym class by showing up for class and being a good sport about being picked last whenever they divided into teams, and by ignoring how much she hated feeling uncoordinated, hated the way she jiggled when she ran, and hated wearing sports bras that were too tight and too hot and still didn’t stop her chest from hurting every time she bounced. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t give this a shot. Maybe without prepubescent boys in the mix, sports would be more fun.
    Besides, she’d left Baltimore and moved over a hundred miles to the small coastal town of Piper Beach almost four months ago and it was high time she made some friends outside of the hospital staff. This was why she’d moved here, after all—because she was convinced that somewhere out there, if she could only find it, was a place that felt like home.
    Bruce’s guitar jam wasn’t it. Maybe softball was.
    She approached a pair of African-American women in softball-type outfits as one of them straightened up from tying her laces. Wow, she was tall. Tall and stunningly bald.
    “What position do you play?” asked the stockier of the two, who sported a mass of braids.
    “Oh, uh, anything. Whatever you need,” Abby bluffed. She figured they wouldn’t assign her to anything important until they saw her play and knew what she could do. Or, more to the point, not do.
    “I’m Hank,” said the one with the braids. “We’re short players, so make yourself useful.” She glanced pointedly at Abby’s sneakers. “And next time, wear cleats.”
    The other woman poked Hank with her elbow.
    Abby decided not to take offense. Hey, at least her hair was in a ponytail, right? That was about as jock-like as she was going to get. She adjusted her headband, a print with bold orange daisies that matched her leggings but teetered on the edge of clashing with her red hair, and fluffed her ponytail in an I-never-play-sports-that-could-involve-safety-helmets kind of way. She was not normally prissy about her hair, and she didn’t even really mean it, but Hank brought it out in her—this weird cross between flirtation and defiance.
    “Just so you know,” Abby said, “I’m not good at sports.”
    Hank looked her up and down. “Don’t be scared, little girl,” she said rudely. “I’ll teach you to play.”
    The woman next to her snorted.
    Hank turned her head belligerently in her friend’s direction, hiking up one shoulder. “What.”
    “ We’ll teach you to play,” the woman said.
    Hank dipped her chin. “Come on, Aisha, I didn’t mean it like that.”
    The two of them got into an argument and Abby escaped and joined the rest of the group. Someone pulled her onto their team and soon she found herself up at bat.
    Her first swing was a disaster. A couple of women cheered in a motherly way, supportive of the new girl who obviously sucked.
    The next pitch, she could immediately tell from the change in the pitcher’s windup that she was moving more deliberately, more slowly, tossing her a gentle, easy-to-hit target. Being nice to her. Bruce’s attitude at the guitar jam was almost easier to deal with.
    Abby tightened her grip on the bat. She swung, and missed. How could she be so coordinated at the harp and so uncoordinated with a bat? She had good hand-eye coordination, just not when it came to balls. And no, she did not mind if anyone snickered at that, because she meant it that way too. Juvenile, yes. But true. When it came to balls—of any kind—she was not interested.
    “Give it a good whack,” the catcher encouraged her.
    Another pitch came at her.
    “Whack it!” someone yelled as the ball approached. “Pretend it’s your boyfriend’s head.”
    Abby clenched her jaw and swung, and as the ball thunked into the catcher’s mitt, the bat flew out of her hands.
    She didn’t belong here.

Chapter Three
    Abby navigated traffic the way she played music—exquisitely aware of the location of all the players, whether