Batter's Box

Garden City Bushes pitcher Felix Jenson is a lot like his signature knuckleball: unpredictable, hard to understand, and sinking into irrelevance. Whenever someone takes a swing at him, he ducks and dives at the last second. After all, Jenson doesn't do romance. He barely does friendship. Those are meant for good people, for real people. He's neither.

Enter Colby Harris. The boisterous outfielder for the Louisville Ligers smashes into Jenson's life with the sharp crack of a wooden bat. The top prospect treats everything from baseball to Jenson like it's all one big joke. If there's one thing Jenson wants besides a call-up to the Big Leagues, it's to make Harris a sobbing mess.

When a fight at a charity event turns them into a viral headline, they're forced into damage control: a cross-country PR tour filming terrible social media skits for a fandom that can't get enough of their so-called chemistry. #Felby is everywhere.

Jenson hates it almost as much as he hates Colby. He despises how easy Colby makes everything look, how easily he laughs and says the right thing. How he connects with people. How he performs for the camera and at the plate. The worst part, though, is how quickly Colby slips past every wall Jenson puts up, catching the jokes no one else does, reading what Jenson means without being told, knowing exactly how to rile him up or calm him down.

When Colby Harris walks up to the batter's box, there's a good chance he'll hit whatever's thrown at him out of the park. Felix Jenson can't think of anything more terrifying than that.

This is the debut novel of Jarred Corona.