friends //cody bellinger

four

   "I guess I can cross getting a tour of a professional baseball stadium off my bucket list." I said while I ran my hand across a rack of jerseys we were walking by, causing Cody to roll his eyes.

   "I'm just showing you your options. You can work at any one of these places." He held his arms out wide, referring to all the food stands and Dodgers merch kiosks that were all 5 feet within one other.

   I bit my tongue to stop myself before I say some snarky remark. I know Cody was just trying to help me but I could only hold my natural sarcasm back by so much.

   I took the 5 steps it required to get to where the next jersey kiosks was and looked through all of them. "If you can get me the job at one of these, that'd be fine."

   He smiled, glad that I'd finally picked somewhere. "Great. I already talked to Dave about finding you somewhere to work here too so you should be good to go."

   I raised my eyebrow at him. "When did you talk to you manager? I've been with you the whole time."

   "I texted him." He said, looking through the jerseys. "What size are you?"

   "Women's medium. Why?"

   He pulled out four jerseys me showed me all of them. "Because you have to wear one to work. Which one?"

   "Well since they all say Bellinger, I guess I'll take the Bellinger one." I said with a small laugh since he had picked out only his jersey.

    "Great. Now you can cover up everything you're showing with that tank top."

    I rolled my eyes. If he thinks he can tell me what to wear during this whole deal thing, he better think again, because I have a very limited clothing selection and most of them show a lot of skin. "Mk 1. I don't have enough to do my laundry yet so this is one of the only things that's clean and 2. I'm a girl and I have boobs. Boobs can almost never be all the covered so that's not my fault."

    "You're staying at my apartment tonight; bring your laundry over and do it there."

   "You'd have to drive us back to my place then first."

   He playfully rolled his eyes. "Well duh I was your ride here."

   I lightly slapped his chest. Obnoxious and occasionally rude sarcasm was my thing, not his.

He gave me a smile that I couldn't help but return. "Are you gonna put the jersey on?" He asked me.

I nodded and slipped it over my arms before starting to button it. Me being me, I managed to mess up the buttons so that they looked all weird and I still had one more button left at the bottom.

   Cody laughed hard by himself before helping me. He slowly unbuttoned them all before fixing them up one by one.

When he finally got to the top one he took his time to put it through the small hole. When he was finished, he looked at me and smiled. Our eyes locked and I couldn't help but long to feel his lips on mine again, but as far as I know, all that's over. How I'm all about this new job and getting my high school diploma. I have no time to worry about my old job or about anything more than this new "friendship" I've formed with Cody.

He was silent for a moment before saying, "That made me feel like one of those wives that tie their husbands ties for every morning." He chuckled at the end while I broke into laughter, forgetting all my previous thoughts completely.

"You look cute in my jersey." He said, taking my hand and spinning me around. With his hand still in mine, I put my other one on my hip and did a few poses, flaunting the jersey.

"Okay scratch that, you look cute all the time." He said smirking and spinning me around once more. I looked down to hide my blush and couldn't help but smile to myself.

"You're sweet." I said with a small laugh.

He chuckled. "I know, now follow me, there's friends of mine that I want you to meet." He laced his fingers with mine and led us to a building away from all the plans and into a room where a bunch of guys were sitting around.

   "Belli!!!" A guy with a bright red beard patted greeted Cody with on the pack before asking, "Who's your girl?"

   "This is my, uhm, friend, Emberly."

   Well great job Cody. You couldn't be anymore less awkward if you tried.

"Friend?" He asked, pointing down to our hands that were still locked together.

"Yea friend. He had to drag me here because I couldn't catch up and I yelled at him for pulling my arm, so he just grabbed my hand instead." I let go of Cody's hand and lied straight through my teeth to try to convince the small group of boys that had circled around us that nothing has ever gone on between me and Cody.

"Haha okay. I'm Justin by the way."

"Nice to meet you." I said, shaking his hand.

The rest of the boys introduce themselves to me which took a while 'cause there were a lot of them.

Eventually, Cody walked me back to the merch kiosk since the gates were opening which means I have to start working.

   "I have to go now. I'll meet you here after the game once the crowd dies down." I nodded my head to what he had just said. He placed his hand under my chin and ran his thumb across my cheek. "I'm proud of you for doing this. Thank you."

   When he walked away, the spot on my face he had just been touching went cold. I couldn't help but feel sad that he left and that I was going to have to be without him for a few hours.

   I didn't know what was going on, or even how to explain it, but I liked Cody. As much as I would hate to admit it, I honestly did really like him. I knew that I couldn't though. He didn't like me back. Why would an older, way more mature, and not to mention professional baseball player, like me. I knew he was just trying to help me. I couldn't let myself think of this situation as anything but that.