Free Bait & Switch by Darlene Gardner Page A

had come swiftly, as it always did. But this time something that felt far too much like pain had accompanied it. Somehow, in the last few days, Mitch had pierced her heart and crept inside. For her self-preservation, she needed to extricate him.
    “Hey, sweetheart. Where you headed in such a hurry?” One of a group of men kicking around a soccer ball yelled as she passed.
    Peyton ignored him, keeping her eyes straight ahead, like a pointer directed at its prey.
    It was Mitch’s fault she’d resorted to confronting him at work. She’d intended to wait until he contacted her, but more than a day had passed with no word and then he hadn’t answered his cell phone or doorbell.
    She spotted him in the distance surrounded by a virtual army of teenage boys dressed in baseball uniforms of various colors. Mitch stood out despite the generic T-shirt and gym shorts all the parks and rec employees wore. The sun was low in the sky, adding a burnished quality to his skin. His dark hair gleamed, like sun-washed coal.
    Peyton steeled herself against his good looks. She was breaking up with him. Right here. Right now. He wouldn’t talk her out of it this time.
    With her long strides eating up the ground and closing the distance between them, she got ready to blast him. Somebody else beat her to it.
    “The schedule says the Red Eyes are playing the Blue Moons on Field One,” shouted a burly boy in a red uniform.
    “But Mitch said we’re playing the White Heads on Field One,” a boy in blue piped up.
    “That’s right. The White Heads are on Field One,” one of the white-shirted team members interjected. “But we’re playing the Black Death.”
    “Death to Mitch, I say,” announced a boy in a black shirt. “He’s the one who screwed up.”
    “Killing me won’t help.” Mitch backed up a step as the group advanced. “Let’s look on the bright side. We have a field, right? You guys can combine teams.” He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. Black and Blue versus Heads and Eyes.”
    The team members’ voices erupted into angry chaos. If they’d been aboard a ship, Mitch would have a full-fledged mutiny on his hands. He pinched the bridge of his nose, looking beleaguered and out of his element.  
    Peyton’s heart sank.
    The boy in black yelled something resembling a battle cry. That did it.
    “Quiet!” Peyton yelled.
    Nobody shut up. If anything, the volume rose. Peyton stepped into the fray, clearing a path through the noisy boys to Mitch. His head jerked up and his eyebrows rose in a silent question. She positioned herself in front of him, wasting no time with explanations.
    “I said shut up!” she shouted.
    As if by magic, the voices quieted. She looked out over the sea of young faces and shook her index finger.
    “Shame on you, behaving like this,” she said. “Haven’t you ever heard of compromise?”
    “Compromise?” One angry voice rose out of the silence. “We paid our league fee. We shouldn’t have to compromise.”
    “This never happened before.” The speaker was a White Head, whose acne was so bad he could have been his team’s poster boy. “There have always been plenty of fields.”
    “You mean there are more than one?” Peyton asked.
    A member of the Red Eyes gestured to the green expanse surrounding them. “There are lots of fields.”
    “Then go see if any of them are free,” Peyton ordered.
    “Hey, good idea,” one of the Blue Moons cried. He raced off between a Head and an Eye.  
    Peyton moved away from Mitch, careful not to look at him.
    “Haven’t seen you around before.” The boy in black sidled up to her. He was tall and reed thin, with eye black under his eyes and black polish on his fingernails. “Call me Poe, like the poet.”
    “Your mom named you after Edgar Allan Poe?” Peyton asked.
    “I named myself,” he said. “Edgar and I are both masters of horror. If you want, I’ll write a poem for you.”
    From the corner of her eye, Peyton noticed Mitch listening