"Let me in!"

"What's the magic word?"

"Now!"

"Sorry, that is incorrect. Try again."

"Open the damn door."

Currently, I am standing outside our dorm room door trying to get in. I just showered and am ready to go to bed. Unfortunately, I left my key in the room yet again. Now, Miles won't let me in to the room, and I am quickly losing my patience. Not like I had any patience for him to begin with. I was tired from our day at the pool. After the chicken fights, we ate lunch. Then we swam around, and I finally got some tanning time in. I was a bit darker than I started, but not much.

"Sorry, that is incorrect. Try again."

"Miles," I whined, banging my palm on the door.

"Yes?"

"Can you open the door?" I asked as nicely as possible.

"You're missing something."

I was losing it with him.

"Oh my bad. Can you open the fucking door before I break it down with my foot, and then kick your ass with the other foot?"

"Hm, no. That's still not it."

I gave the door a strong kick with my foot. Consequently, the Marist dorm doors are pretty sturdy, and I think I just broke my big toe.

"Fuck," I yelped. I crashed down on the floor and grabbed my foot between my hands. A steady rush of heat hit my toes, and I clutched my foot to try to stop the pain. I was only wearing a pair of moccasins, so not what you call the most protective thing for my feet. I was rocking back and forth with my foot practically cradeled to my chest.

The door suddenly swung open, and Miles came running out. When I had decided to fall down to hold my aching foot, I had parked myself right in front of the door. Since I was on the floor, Miles did not see me as he came barreling out. His foot got caught under my thigh, and then his knee came to hit me square in the forehead. He went crashing into me before making a hard dive towards the ground. Before you knew it, we were a tangled mess of limbs on the floor. I was sandwiched between the carpeted floor and Miles's very heavy body. My head was throbbing from where his knee had smacked against my temple. My toe was still very much in pain, but now I had slightly forgotten about it, due to my pain everywhere else.

This position was all too familiar.

I let out a groan of pain, and so did Miles. His chest was pressed in to my nose, and his chin was above me and to the right of my head. My nose was being smushed to the point where I thought it was going to end up snapping in half. Miles's chest was rumbling a little from soft chuckles that were escaping his lips. He put his hands down on either side of my head, before finally rolling off me and glancing in my direction.

"Why the fuck were you right in front of the door?" he asked me looking miffed.

"Why the fuck did you decide to come sprinting out the door?" I muttered back, rolling to my side to be in a fetal position. His arms were spread out on either side of him. I curled up so I was facing him. My forehead was almost touching his side and my nose was basically in his shirt.

His cologne was wafting in to my nose. It was the perfect amount and it smelled really good. A lot of the guys at my school, mainly athletes, will use so much cologne. They need to understand that cologne does not make up for a shower. Miles's had just enough. I mentally had to restrain myself from flopping myself, face first on to his chest to smell some more.

"I heard you screaming, so I decided to come check what the hell you were doing," he finally answered.

I let out another groan.

"You are so heavy by the way," I muttered.

"It's all muscle, sweetheart," he replied, proudly patting his stomach.

"Sure. Just keep telling yourself that," I said, rolling my eyes.

He turned his head to look down at me.

"You've seen proof. Would you like some more or are you just saying that to see me without my shirt off some more?"

Yes. I would like that very much. I probably should keep that to myself though. The thought of him without his shirt made my cheeks start to warm up. As soon as I felt the blush coming on, I buried my face in my hands. The crown of my head was now pressed in to Miles's side.

"No," I said, muffled through his shirt.

"Are you blushing, you liar?"

"Am not."

"You so are."

"No, I'm not!"

"You just have to ask. I'll be happy to take my shirt off for you any time."

I punched him in the side with my fist.

"It's not nice to hit," he chuckled as he tried to pry me out of his side that I was now curled up in.

I could feel his body heat radiating off him. I couldn't lie that is was making my heart beat a teeny bit faster.

"You're hiding because you're face is all red," he teased.

I whacked him in the stomach to try to shut him up.

"Ouch," he laughed again. I pouted at his nonchalant response.

A moment of silence passed before he spoke.

"What's on your palm?" Miles suddenly asked, looking at my left hand.

Confused, I brought my hand up to be in front of my face and examined the area he was staring at.

Wouldn't you know, there were two little pieces of something embedded in my palm. The skin was red and raised where the two things were taking shelter in my hand.

Miles took a hold of my wrist and pulled my hand to be front of his own face. His soft breath was gentle against my skin as he carefully evaluated my palm. His eyebrows knit together in concentration. Warm shivers ran up my spine because of how close we were together right now. I need to figure what the hell is wrong with me.

"I think they're splinters," he said finally.

I groaned. I hate splinters with a passion.

Memories of when my dad and I used to walk the boardwalk in Ocean City came to mind. On some occasions, I would walk down the wood with no shoes. Coincidentally, my feet would be scattered with slivers of wood. Later, Dad would be the one to get them out. I would lay on the couch with my feet in his lap. Dad always had chocolate malt balls with him, so I would suck on one of those while he was working at the splinter.

"Are you going to get it out?" he asked, breaking my thoughts.

I nibbled at my bottom lip while contemplating the two stupid things that are stuck in my palm.

"Do you want me to get them out?" Miles questioned.

I didn't answer.

"Come on. It'll only take a minute," he said pushing himself up from the ground.

"It's okay. They can stay in," I replied, waving him off.

I'm such a baby.

"No, you need to get those out, or else they could get infected," he explained.

"You sound like a mom."

"Come on, Sweetie. I'll get those right out for you. You can even sit on my lap," Miles said in a suddenly high pitched voice with his hands on his hips.

I sputtered and burst out laughing at his motherly voice. I fell back on my back and continued to giggle up a storm. From my uncontrollable laughter, all of a sudden a snort came out of me. My laughing stopped short in pure horror of what just came out of me.

Crimson red rose to my cheeks, and my mouth gaped. I did not just snort in front of him.

Miles stared at me for about three seconds before doing the exact same thing I had just done. He started to chuckle, which quickly grew in to a full blown belly aching laugh. His hands went to his knees as he bent over dying laughing. Tears were forming at his eyes as his laughter drifted down the hall.

If the whole team had heard that, it would have been worse than when Miles tackled me to the ground during throw downs at second.

"Let's get those splinters out of your hand," Miles instructed me after he finally controlled himself. He let out a breath, doing his best to keep his laughter under control.

"Whatever," I snapped, slapping his hand away when he reached down to help me up. I heaved myself off the ground and went stomping in to the room with Miles trailing me.

"Ok... Little Piggy," he muttered closing the door behind him as we entered out room.

I spun around and glared at him.

"Don't you dare call me that," I seethed.

"What are you going to? Pull me in to roll around in the mud with you," he teased.

I whacked his arm in response before sitting down on my bed. Crossing my arms over my chest, I scowled at him.

"Oh, come on. I was kidding."

"It's not funny."

"Yes, it was. Even you know it was funny."

"I really hate you sometimes."

"No, you don't. Do you want that splinter out?"

"Yes, I do really hate you, and yes, can you get the splinters out?"

"Bring me tweezers and a needle."

"A needle?" I questioned, getting worried. I hate needles and shots. It's not even the pain. It's just the thought of the stupid thing going in to my skin. Let's just say when I was younger, a few nurses had to come in to hold me down, so the doctor could give me a shot. I think my mom hated bringing me to get shots more than I hated getting shots.

"Just go get those two things and I'll be able to get them out," Miles replied.

I searched through my bag for my cosmetics to get tweezers. My mini emergency sewing kit had a needle.

"Here," dropping the items in to his outstretched hand.

"You're going to have to sit on my lap," he said sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.

His lopsided, shy smile was cute and little boy looking. Blonde hair fell in his eyes as he looked up at me from where he was sitting on his bed.

"I thought you were kidding. Why can't I just sit next to you?" I asked. I could feel the crimson color coming back to my cheeks.

"The angle of how the splinter is coming out of your hand is kind of hard to get if I'm not looking at it a certain way. The piece sticking out of your skin is facing towards you, so I can grab it with the tweezers better if I'm looking at it straight on."

"Oh," was all I could reply.

Without giving much more thought, or I would be too embarrassed to do it, I scooted myself closer and sat on his lap.

God, was this awkward. I was sitting on one of my freaking teammates. Not to mention we already had some- I don't even know what to call it. Sexual tension? No, no, no. There's nothing sexual happening between Miles and me. I really hope I'm not too heavy. What if I'm hurting him from all the weight? He wouldn't say something about it, would he? Maybe not to me, but what if he tells all the guys how heavy I am. I'll be a fat little pig to them.

On the other hand, I did not mind sitting on his lap one bit. His body heat was again radiating in to me.

"Gloria," Miles said, poking me in the side.

"What?" I replied, a bit scared of what was about to come out of his mouth.

"I've asked like four times, if I could see your hand," he said, a smile pulling at one side of his mouth.

"Sorry," I muttered. My own freaking thoughts about him telling me I was fat and how warm he is is blocking out what he is actually saying.

I placed my hand in his as he looked at it closer. His arms wrapped around my middle to have both hands on my left hand. Miles's chin was brushing against my shoulder as he lowered it to get a better look. His arms were resting on my waist. My breathing was hitched a bit from the even closer proximity than before.

"Don't look," he suggested as I stared at my hand, terrified of the needle. His hands were pulling back the skin, so one of the splinter pieces was sticking out farther.

"Ok," I squeaked before looking at my own bed.

We sat in silence as Miles poked and probbed at my palm.

"Talk to me. Talking will get your mind off what I'm doing," he suggested. His eyes never left my hand as I watched his face out of the corner of my eye. It took me a moment to register the question, and by that time, Miles had glanced over to catch me staring at him. I quickly averted my eyes and stuttered out a question.

"Um... why do you know so much about splinters?" Internally, I face palmed at such an idiotic question.

Miles chuckled. "Well actually, I would like to be a doctor."

"Really?" I asked, more surprised than I should have sounded.

"I'm not stupid," he said, sounding slightly hurt.

"I didn't mean it like that. I promise!" I rushed out.

God, I was just embarrassing the shit out of myself. I would've never pinned Miles as wanting to be a doctor. He seems more like the "I-want-to-be-in-the-MLB" type of guy.

"It's okay. Most people are surprised when I say that. Not that I've told that many people," Miles said. The last sentence coming out softer.

"Oh," was all I could get out yet again.

A little sharp pain shot in to my hand, which made me flinch.

"Got one," he exclaimed, holding one of the pieces of wood in his hand. "The other one is deeper and bigger."

"Oh, joy."

"I'm going to have to use the needle for this one because none of it is sticking out of the epidermis layer."

"Whatever you say, Doc," I said, trying my very hardest to sound nonchalent as I was freaking out inside.

"Don't worry. I'll do my very best to get it out with the least amount of pain possible."

"Oh, good. I thought you were just gonna stab my hand with the needle until you got enough blood flowing out that it would just come out on its own."

"I can do that instead."

"You're not funny."

"You came up with the idea."

"I was kidding!"

"Yeah, so was I."

Without actually telling myself what I was about to do, I leaned my head back, so it was resting on his shoulder, and I was looking at the ceiling. Why the hell I just did that? Who knows.

"I hate you," I mumbled.

"Just keep telling yourself that," he whispered. His mouth was so close to my ear, more of his warm breath washed over my skin softly.

I closed my eyes. What is wrong with me? I don't even like Miles. I can most of the time tolerate him as friend, but that was it. I need to pull my hormones together and cool it.

"Is it out yet?" I grumbled after five minutes of Miles cautiously poking my palm with the needle.

"Almost. There's a small piece of it out now, but it's too small to pull out with tweezers yet," he explained, not losing focus on my hand.

"Why do you wanna be a doctor?" I asked out of the blue. I surprised myself for finally saying something somewhat intelligent.

"Well, I want to be a child's doctor. I like kids, I guess. I did pretty good in biology during sophomore year. I thought it was really interesting. I liked anatomy during junior year too. The human body is pretty cool. Now enough about what I want to do. What do you wanna do? I feel like you ask all the questions, and I answer. Let's flip it."

I haven't put much thought in what I want to do yet. Baseball has been the main concern, but now I need to start doing college applications. I probably should start thinking about it a little more carefully.

"I honestly don't know what I want to do. I've always thought about being a high school teacher for history, but I don't like high school kids."

Miles laughed. "Not a fan of your peers?"

"Most of them, no. I do like animals, though. A veterniarian or something in that field has been of some interest."

"That's cool. Lenny's your dog right."

"Yeah," I answered, surprised he had remembered that. "He's our baby."

"Our dog is the baby too."

"I didn't know you had a dog. What breed?"

"She's a border collie. Her name's Miley. She is absolutely spoiled by my brothers and me."

I giggled at the thought of a squirmy border collie being treated like a princess by Miles and his brothers.

"What's so funny?" he probbed.

"I can imagine it."

"Yep, she's the little sister of the three of us."

I chuckled harder. He laughed with me.

"Is the splinter out yet?" I questioned, realizing I hadn't felt any pokes in a while.

"Yeah... Sorry. I got it a couple minutes ago."

"Oh."

We sat in silence for a second longer. My head was still leaning against his shoulder contently. I didn't really want to move away from his body heat. I was rather comfortable.

"I guess I should get up," I said absentmindly.

"Um, sure," Miles responded hesitantly.

I slowly got up, immediatly, missing the warmth from Miles's skin. I stood there awkwardly in front of him.

"I'm going to go to bed, then," I said quietly.

"Sounds good," Miles replied looking around the room.

I climbed in to bed and grabbed my book from the night stand where I had left it earlier.

"I'm going to read some before I go to bed."

"Alright. Night," he said before pulling off his shirt and sliding in to bed.

"Night," I responded. I stared at the lines of the page I stopped at. I read the words, but I didn't really register anything that was happening. My mind was reeling back on what just happened in the last 30 minutes. I don't know why I was thinking so hard about this. Nothing had happened.

I barely consider Miles a friend. I don't have any feelings for him. I think. He's just the annoying, blonde prick that is living in the same room as me for the summer. There is nothing special about it. I'm here for baseball and so is he.

I had stopped reading all together and now was staring at the closet on the other side of the room.

"Gloria, you okay?" Miles's voice, as always, broke my thoughts.

"I'm fine. Just thinking."

I placed my book back on to my night stand. Not having read a word more of where I last left off. Switching off the lamp sitting on the table, I buried myself in to the covers of my bed.

...

"Well, looks like this is our last practice before our first game," Coach Rust began. "We've practice hard these last six weeks. I'm fairly satisified at all the hard that has been put in. You guys are already better and stronger players. Tomorrow, we will be heading to Colgate University. It's going to be about a three and half hour drive. Our game is at one, so we'll be leaving here 8:30 sharp. The bus will be picking us up in front of the dining building. We are pulling out at exactly 8:30. If you miss the bus, looks like you won't be coming with us, and next practice you will be running the entire time. So don't be late. Bring your bags and everything else you need with you. They are providing lunch at the park. Any questions?"

Jackson raised hand.

"Jackson."

"What are we going to be wearing?" he asked. The sensible one of all of us asking probably the most important question.

"I have the jerseys, belts, and hats in the dugout. Everyone should wear white pants and white socks. Anymore questions?"