Dear Readers,

We’ve all been there—standing in the path of the one person who knows exactly how to break our defenses.

In this exclusive new excerpt from Curveballs & Curtain Calls, the polished masks of the theater department and the varsity baseball team completely slip away. Under the fading lights of the Rosenberry High parking lot, Elliot Maypedal and Jared King finally break three years of calculated, painful silence.

For Elliot, it’s a chance to confront the boy who once kept their love hidden away in dark utility closets. For Jared, it’s the agonizing reality of watching Elliot move on to Perry—holding hands openly in the hallways in a way Jared was always too terrified to do.

There are no rehearsed lines here. Just raw, bruising truths, the heavy shadow of West Side Story auditions, and a secret, fifteen-year-old cassette tape that changes everything.

Read the Exclusive Parking Lot Excerpt Now:

The school parking lot was completely empty.

Except Elliot.

He's leaning against a maple tree, backlit by the setting sun like some deliberate cinematography, and for a heart-stopping moment I'm thrown back to another sunset, another tree, another time when possibility hummed in the air between us like electricity. The last rays of sunlight catch his hair just as they used to in Grandma Helen's music room, transforming ordinary brown into burnished gold. My crutches sink slightly into the rain-softened ground as I approach, making each step feel even more precarious than usual.

"Hey," I manage, the monosyllable feeling woefully inadequate for everything churning inside me.

"Hey." He pushes off the tree, takes a half step toward me, then stops abruptly as if hitting an invisible barrier.

"That was...you were really good up there," I say, words fumbling against each other.

"Thanks." He looks at the middle distance, somewhere past my shoulder. "You were—" He stops. Starts again. "The guitar. You brought the guitar."

"Yeah."

A silence stretches between us, taut and complicated.

I shift my weight, unable to hide the wince as pain shoots up my damaged side. "You were amazing. But then, you always are."

Something flickers across his face—pain? regret? longing?—before he carefully neutralizes his expression.

His gaze drops to the ground, and he runs his fingers through his hair in that achingly familiar gesture that always betrayed his nervousness. "Jared," he begins, "I want you to know that I've moved on. I've released myself from the past. It was a long road to find my true self, but now I am no longer afraid. There were many tears shed along the way, but—"

"I know," I cut him off, unable to bear hearing the rehearsed speech. "You've moved on. You're with Perry. I get it."

"Do you?" His voice sharpens suddenly, the polite veneer cracking. "Because I remember another time you said you 'got it'—right before you told the whole team that rumors about us were just me being a desperate fairy with a crush."

The words hit with physical force, stealing my breath more effectively than any tackle. The memory of that day in the locker room floods back—the panic when I overheard Tommy and Brian discussing rumors about me and "that theater kid," the blind terror that everything I'd worked for was about to collapse, the horrible, unforgivable words I spoke to protect myself at Elliot's expense.

"Elliot, I—"

"Don't." He wraps his arms around himself, a protective gesture so achingly familiar it feels like watching a scene from our past. "Just—don't. We can't change what happened."

"Can't we talk about it? Really talk about it?" I lean heavily on my crutches, forcing myself to maintain eye contact despite the shame threatening to drown me. "Like how it only took you a week to start dating Perry? Seven days after I supposedly broke your heart, you were already holding hands with him in the hallway like what we had meant nothing."

Elliot's head snaps up, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Don't you dare—"

"A week, Elliot. Seven days." My voice trembles with the emotion I've suppressed for three years. "You just gave me this whole speech about needing time to heal, about how damaged you were from hiding. But there you were at the spring musical, kissing him where everyone could see, like our six months together were nothing but practice."

"You don't know anything about it," he spits, taking an aggressive step toward me. "You have no idea what it was like, watching Perry be proud to be seen with me, while you—" He cuts himself off abruptly, running both hands through his hair in frustration that vibrates through his entire body. "You wouldn't even sit with me at lunch. Wouldn't walk down the same hallway if your teammates were around. Made me duck into empty classrooms if you heard the team coming."

"That's not fair—"

"Fair?" His voice rises, edged with three years of accumulated hurt. "You want to talk about fair? How about watching you play the perfect straight guy so convincingly? Pretending I didn't know every expression on your face, every nervous tic before a big pitch? How about watching from the bleachers as you threw no-hitters for scouts while I sat there knowing exactly how your hands felt on my skin the night before? How about watching you date Katie Bell? Seeing her hand in yours where mine used to feel like it belonged?"

Each accusation lands like a physical blow, because beneath the anger is a foundation of undeniable truth. I did all those things. I compartmentalized us into secret moments while living a public lie. But anger rises in me anyway, hot and desperate and self-protective. "At least I was honest about being scared!" The words explode out of me. "I never pretended it was easy, never acted like I had it all figured out. But you? The second Perry showed interest—"

"Don't." His voice cracks, raw emotion bleeding through. "Don't you dare make this about Perry. This is about you. About how you could kiss me in utility closets but couldn't even look at me in public. About how you'd hold me for hours in your grandma's music room but practically run away if I tried to say hi in the cafeteria." He turns as if to walk away but pivots back with such sudden intensity that I almost step backward. "Perry asked me out five times before I said yes," he continues, softer now but somehow more devastating. "He wanted to take me to homecoming. Wanted to study together in the library where people could see us. Wanted to actually build a life together in the daylight, not just stolen moments in dark corners. And you know what? I turned him down. Every time. Because I was still hoping you'd find your courage. Still hoping you'd choose us over your fear."

That pulls me up short, the revelation landing like an unexpected pitch. "What?"

"But you never did, did you?" His voice trembles with suppressed emotion. "You were ashamed of us. Of me. You buried your music with your grandmother, buried your heart with your fear. And then that day in the locker room, when you called me—when you said those things—that's when I realized you were never going to choose the real you. Not your music, not your heart, not me."

"Elliot—"

"So yeah, maybe I moved on quickly. Maybe I jumped at the chance to be with someone who wasn't ashamed to make music with me. Who didn't make me feel like every song we shared was something dirty that had to be hidden away." He draws a sharp breath, and when he continues his voice has taken on a different edge—something harder, more present-tense. "And now here you are. Senior year, Jared. My senior year. The year I've been working toward for three years, every single production a stepping stone to this one. West Side Story. Tony." He says the name like it belongs to him, because until today it did. "I cannot believe you would walk in here and audition for my part."

The silence between us stretches, not empty but full—packed tight with everything three years of deliberate distance has compressed into this parking lot, this failing light, this moment neither of us planned for.

"And… I wasn't ashamed of you," I finally manage, my voice barely above a whisper. "I wasn't even ashamed of the music. I was ashamed of myself. Of the way my hands would shake when I picked up the guitar, wanting it just as much as baseball. Of how alive I felt singing with you, like I did on the mound. Of being someone my father couldn't understand, someone who needed both the game and the music to feel whole."

Something flickers in his eyes—pain or recognition, I can't tell which. "And now?"

"Now?" I laugh, but it emerges as something closer to a sob. "Now I'm the one watching you sing love songs while I figure out what's left of me. Three years ago, I chose baseball over music, over you. Now I've lost baseball forever, and you're living the life I was too scared to want. Playing music openly, loving openly."

He flinches as if I've physically struck him. "That's not—"

My voice fractures with the weight of a question I've carried for three years. "Tell me the truth," I interrupt, my heart hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape. "Did you really love me, or was I just an experiment? A mindless jock for your own pleasure, someone to pass the time until someone braver came along who wasn't afraid to hold your hand in public?"

The color drains from his face, leaving him pale and vulnerable in the fading light. His features contract with naked emotion, like watching a heart break in real time. In this moment, he looks exactly like the freshman boy I found crying in the locker room three years ago—lost and desperately alone.

"How can you even ask that?" he whispers, voice rough with hurt. "You were everything to me. Every secret smile across crowded hallways, every note passed in class, every stolen moment we had together—they meant everything. I went to bed every night with my heart in my throat because I knew the next day I would get to hold Jared King, even if only for minutes between classes." His voice fractures on my name. "That's why it hurt so goddamn much when you chose your reputation over us."

"And now look at me," I gesture bitterly to my crutches. "No baseball. No you. No future. Karma really is a perfect coach."

"Jared..." There's something in his voice I can't quite identify. Pity? Regret? Lingering affection? But I can't handle any of those emotions right now, not when I'm barely holding myself together.

"We should go," I say. "It's getting late."

I turn to leave, but his voice stops me, softer now, stripped of defensive anger.

"For what it's worth," he says with quiet intensity, "I did love you. So much, Jer..."

I shift awkwardly, my weight unbalanced on the crutches, and dig into my jacket pocket. The cassette tape feels warm from being carried so close to my heart, its cracked plastic case familiar beneath my fingertips. I've kept it through everything—through championship games and Grandma Helen's funeral, through dating Katie and the accident that redefined my entire existence. This piece of myself I was brave enough to create but not brave enough to share.

"Here," I extend it toward him. The label is faded almost to illegibility, but you can still make out the words: "Perfect Game — JK" in my messy fifteen-year-old handwriting. "I made this. Back then. For you."

His hand trembles visibly as he takes it, our fingers brushing for the first time in almost three years. That fleeting contact sends electricity cascading through my system, a cruel reminder of everything we once were to each other.

"You'll need your mom's old Walkman to play it," I add softly. "It's not exactly digital."

Each step away from him echoes in the empty parking lot, a rhythmic reminder of everything I've lost. Everything I threw away out of fear. The sound reminds me of a metronome, like the one Grandma Helen used to use during our lessons.

Steady. Constant. A beat to keep time by. But maybe, just maybe, also a beat to build something new upon. Because today I played her guitar again after years of silence. I stopped hiding one crucial part of myself. Today I let people see me—really see me—in ways I never allowed before. And even if I've lost Elliot forever, even if that particular symphony will never be completed, maybe I can still find the boy who used to sing without fear in Grandma Helen's music room. 

Maybe, in losing everything I thought defined me, I might finally discover who I actually am.