Go Away, Darling

by Alexis Anne

  “Like every Tuesday?”

  He switched his fork and knife. “Something like that. I don’t want to interfere with your work though.”

  “I think a weekly adventure sounds manageable. I already have times set aside to get out of the house and away from my work as part of my pre-Chris life.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah. Otherwise I don’t leave the house. I work and work and work, and then get so cranky because I haven’t, you know, gone outside, that I become miserable. So I started making weekly lunch dates with my friends or on Fridays I usually visit one of the island art centers or museums. So a weekly fishing adventure with you sounds perfect.”

  His eyes narrowed and I wondered if it was because I used the word adventure instead of date. The truth was I felt like I was slipping, sliding down a slope and I was trying very hard to get my feet back under me. There was Chris my friend and Chris the man I wanted to spend all my time with. But our reality was in the middle somewhere and I found it almost impossible to live in that in between space.

  So I did little things, like change the word date to adventure.

  I had no idea how I was going to last the entire winter like this.

  “So tonight you’re going to win the World Series.”

  He laughed and sighed. “Yeah. That’s the plan.”

  “You will. Every batter is terrified of you.”

  “Unless they figure me out. Then I’m screwed.”

  “They won’t figure you out.” He was so smart on the mound. Yes he threw hard, but he knew every batter. Their likes and dislikes, what they swung at and what they sat on. And he used that information to play with their minds, convince them one pitch was coming when he was really throwing something completely different. He toyed with them masterfully.

  “Have you?” he asked quietly.

  “What do you mean?” My stomach turned over with nerves and butterflies. It was a nauseating combination.

  “Have you figured me out yet?”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever figure you out,” I breathed. Chris was grumpy and youthful and brilliant and sweet, and he switched between those aspects of his personality at random. Or at least it felt random to me.

  “I’m a pretty simple guy, Liv. I promise, what you see is what you get.”

  I wanted to believe him. I really, truly did. But I couldn’t change the fact that I was a little bit scarred by my past experiences with Beau and my fiercely protective maternal instinct was a beat of its own.

  “So walk me through tonight.”

  He sighed with resolute frustration, letting the topic of figuring each other out drop. “If we win, the field will be chaos. A pile on the field. The celebration there will last for a while. There will be on field interviews and I’ll definitely be caught up in several of those as the starting pitcher. Then, like the other series, we’ll wind up in the locker room for the champagne and beer.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed. “After that, I’m going to need to kiss you.”

  My stomach knotted and squeezed with desire. “Yes.”

  “It will be a late night.”

  “Linc is with Summer and Beau. After the game we’re crashing at his house and then Summer and I will take him home in the morning.”

  “I want to see him.” He said that with vehemence. Fierceness.

  “Yeah okay. Just let me know when and how and I’ll arrange it with Summer and Beau. You know the crowd will part for him.”

  Chris’s eyes flashed with annoyance. “Yeah. Good. I’ll text you all the information and you can send it on.”

  “I’ll give you their numbers just in case, too.”

  “Wonderful.”

  The rest of lunch was oddly quiet, but ended in a devastating kiss that made my toes curl.

  As Chris took the mound later that night, the air, which was already super charged with electricity, became so intense I would have sworn the hair on my head was standing up. From my perch beside the dugout I could see the way his jaw flexed as he chewed gum, the intense focus of his eyes. Everyone was jumpy, moving and stretching, bouncing on the balls of their feet, waiting for the first real pitch of the game. All the pregame antics—the national anthem, the celebrity first pitch, the other celebrity first pitch, the announcing of every coach and team member—were fun, but also served to amp up the energy inside the stadium.

  And now it was finally game time. A potentially history making night for Chris. The crowd went wild as he threw a strike. I snapped a picture of his cool confidence. He appeared neither pleased by the strike, nor frazzled by the volume of the crowd. He threw another strike, his eyes laser focused on Wes, the catcher, communicating something silently, then returned to the mound, delivering a decisive three strike lead-off. This time that passion came out, he began circling the mound without even looking at the batter swinging or Wes catching the ball. He knew with complete confidence that his pitch was a strikeout.

  Snap. Snap. Snap. I loved how the stadium lights cast things in stark contrast. It was my job to suss out the shadows, the angles that brought out each player’s personality. In this moment, as he yelled and talked to himself, I wanted to capture the stress, pride, and brilliance as each flashed over his face before returning to the mound as cool and collected as ever.

  He pitched like a man possessed, with fervor and an almost clairvoyant knowledge of exactly how to pick apart each batter. These were the best of the best. And yet they could barely keep up with Chris Kaine’s arm. He lasted until the end of the seventh inning when, with a five run lead, they decided to switch to closers for the eighth and ninth innings, winning the game and becoming world champions.

  “Olivia!” I stopped snapping pictures and turned toward the booming sound of Beau’s voice.

  He stood just to the side of the dugout waving at me, Linc in front of him and Summer and Trent beside him. As I suspected, his size and celebrity cleared his path to the field with relative ease.

  I waved back and then moved over to where Chris was giving an interview. When he was done I caught his eye.

  My heart skipped at the heated way he smiled at me. “Hey, Liv.” He rested his hand on the small of my back. High enough to seem friendly, but oh my god, so intimate with the electricity in the air. He had to lean down and whisper in my ear to be heard over the noise in the stadium, which of course only made things even more intimate.

  I tried very hard not to be turned on but...I was. I was very turned on.

  “Linc is here.”

  “Show me the way.”

  He kept his hand on my back as I led him over to the stands, only letting go when Linc started bouncing up and down.

  “Hey bud!” They high fived and performed a handshake of some kind.

  “Beau, thanks for helping out.” He shook Beau’s hand. “And Summer. Thank you so much.”

  “Uh, I think I should be thanking you for tickets. Congrats, by the way.” They hugged.

  “My boy!” Trent had been in tears most of the game, according to texts from Summer. So we all gave them some space to hug and cry together. It had to be just as big of a thrill for a coach to see one of his players reach the biggest game in baseball and win.

  Chris returned to Linc, pulling him out of the stands and onto the field. “You want to come with me for a bit?”

  My son’s eyes went wide. “Can I Mom?”

  “Of course.” I watched as Chris gave him a used baseball from the dugout. He introduced him to Wes and Erik who were finishing up their interviews. Then he found a shirt that was entirely too big for Linc and draped it around his shoulders.

  “He’s really good with Linc,” Beau murmured, watching me carefully.

  “Linc started calling Chris his best friend. I can’t decide if it’s because of the championship or because he plays video games with him.”

  Beau shrugged. “Maybe it’s both.” He didn’t say much more. Just kind of let his approval hang in the air while giving me meaningful looks.

  If I
wasn’t mistaken, my ex-husband was giving me the greenlight on Chris.

  “So we’ll see you back at the house?” Summer asked very slowly. Hesitantly.

  “Yeah of course. I still have to shoot the locker room celebration. I’ll be late.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Take your time. No rush at all.”

  Before I could ask my sister and Beau what they weren’t actually saying, Chris and Linc returned, Linc on Chris’s shoulders.

  “Aren’t you a little tired to be hauling around a kid?” I reached for Linc who batted my hands away.

  “I haven’t been able to feel my arms for at least an hour. I’m fine,” Chris laughed as he bounced around on his feet, making Linc howl with delight.

  “I know the feeling, but be careful. It will all come crashing down soon,” Beau admonished.

  “Where’s your family?” I asked. The Kaine’s were in a box with the other close family members.

  Chris finally put Linc down. “Scott’s already in the locker room and Ben took mom and dad back to the hotel. They fly out first thing so they don’t miss anymore shows.” His eyes lingered on me.

  I felt a thrill shoot down my spine at the intensity of it. Then he returned his gaze to Linc. “Did you have fun?”

  “Best day ever!” he howled, arms in the air.

  I saw Beau frown a little. “Come on little man. We need to get you to bed.”

  Linc let Beau pick him up. The minute his feet touched the ground he turned to me. “Good night, Mom.”

  I gave him hugs and kisses. “See you in the morning.”

  I left my favorite camera safely tucked away inside her case and bagged my second favorite camera with plastic bags and rubber bands before taking up a spot inside the locker room. The team was done with field celebrations and interviews, and was ready to storm the locker room to spray champagne and beer all over each other.

  Before I moved inside I took pictures of the guys laughing and pulling ski goggles on to protect their eyes. Then I found a spot just off to the side where I could get shots of the guys coming in, of the speech in the center of the room, and the explosion of alcohol. I was prepared to be absolutely soaked by the time this was over and I was pretty excited to be part of it all.

  I took hundreds of pictures as the celebration unfolded, constantly cleaning my lens. I got fist bumps from the guys and offered my own beer shower. After the speeches were more interviews from an equally soaked press corp, more celebrating, and just constant smiling. The Mantas locker room was a bubble of pure joy and I was carried away with it, too. I couldn’t remember the last time I took so many pictures. My eye became my lens that day in the bullpen. I saw this entire playoff experience through my camera.

  I fully admit that sometimes a picture is just a picture. That I use all my skill and experience to create a technically excellent composition. But that’s where photography and art diverge. When, as the photographer, I see the raw emotion, the subtle contrast, the natural state of my subject and know without thinking, exactly how to capture that moment in time with my camera.

  That’s what I’d spent my last few weeks doing and it was exhilarating to look around the locker room and see the conclusion to the story. I snapped picture after picture of hugs, smiles, and singing, of beer cascading in a river over Wes Allen’s forehead and down his cheeks as he grinned, of Chris roaring and chanting with his fellow pitchers.

  A hand wrapped around my arm just above my elbow and I felt Chris’s already familiar presence behind me. He whispered against my ear. “Follow me.” His breath and nearness sent a shiver down my spine.

  My clothes dripped and my shoes sloshed. He took my hand in his and we rounded a corner and down a hall away from the noise. A door opened and then we were in a darkened training room.

  And Chris wasted no time taking my face in his hands and kissing the air from my lungs. “Fuck, I’ve been waiting to do this. I hate that I couldn’t kiss you on the field.” He kissed deeper, his tongue capturing mine.

  I didn’t think. I just kissed. And kissed and kissed and kissed. It was natural to get so swept up in kissing Chris that I forgot about everything else. We bumped into walls and banged against a table or counter or both, before I caught a corner on my hip and jumped away in surprise and a little bit of pain.

  “Ow!”

  Chris reached out and steadied me. “Are you okay?”

  I rubbed the bruised spot. “Fine. I’m fine. I just took a sharp angle to the hip.”

  He pressed his hand over the spot. “Better?” His voice dropped to a low, protective vibration that made me shiver.

  “Yes.” Then I looked up and got caught in the tractor beam of his slightly drunken gaze. “Congratulations.”

  He blushed a little. It was one of the things I adored about him. “Thanks.”

  “How does it feel to be Most Valuable Player in a World Series Championship?” Even though he was my Chris I couldn’t help looking at him with a little bit of awe. He was, essentially, the best pitcher in the universe.

  He blushed again and raked his hand through his wet hair. “It’s a dream come true. Every kid who picks up a baseball dreams of winning a World Series. I used to stand out on the mound and pretend I was pitching a perfect game to win a World Series.” He stopped and stared at me, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open a little.

  He was truly shocked to be that guy—the man who everyone dreamed of being.

  “Well...you didn’t pitch a perfect game. But you pitched seven scoreless innings with only three hits. For a World Series final game, that’s as close to perfect as anyone can hope for.”

  He shook his head a little like he didn’t believe me. “I know I was there. I know I’m the guy who threw all those balls, but I swear, Liv, it doesn’t feel real. I’m going to wake up and this will all have been a dream and I’ll still have to go and pitch.”

  I moved back to him, put my arms around his neck and pressed my body against his. “You’re not asleep. The game is over and you won it.” Then I pressed up onto my tiptoes so I could reach his lips. I kissed him slow and deep until my entire body tingled from head to toe. “How do you feel now?”

  His eyes were still closed. “Like I have enough adrenaline to run a few miles. Maybe compete in a log toss?”

  I laughed because even from the sidelines I was amped up, so I could only imagine the energy coursing through Chris’s veins. “I don’t know of any log tossing competitions nearby.”

  His arms tightened around me. “Well then I guess kissing will just have to do.”

  All the restraint we carefully applied to our kisses over the last few weeks disappeared. We caught fire. Suddenly kissing wasn’t nearly enough.

  “Don’t go to Beau’s,” he pleaded, his hands roaming my waist and finding skin. “Come back with me. I don’t want to be alone.” He pulled away, pressing his forehead to mine, eyes screwed shut. “I hate myself for asking you this, by the way.”

  “Don’t hate yourself.” Did I want to go? Was I ready to be alone with him when we were so adamant things stay friendly in public? Could I cross these lines back and forth as we danced with the future?

  That was what scared me most. I knew what I felt with Chris was impossible to ignore. That I wanted to get swept away in it all.

  But I didn’t know if I could go back. Tomorrow, when the dust settled and reality set back in, would I be able to navigate the minefield of feelings that involved a relationship with a professional athlete while being a protective mother?

  “Don’t say yes.” He kissed me again. “Be stronger than me.”

  His hand slid along the small of my back and I sizzled everywhere. “Oh…”

  “Nope. Don’t do that,” he growled.

  “You’re the one who keeps kissing me.” And I was the one who’d lived on a shelf for far too long. Chris was the first guy I’d really kissed in ages, let alone anything more. My body screamed to be allowed to feel and to react.

  It wanted.

&nbs
p; I wanted.

  “It’s the adrenaline. And the fact that you’re the vision of a wet t-shirt contest.” His hand grazed up my side, then moved away from touching my breast and instead moved to cup my face. “I’m really glad you were here to see this.”

  My insides flipped and turned as he paced away from me once again, breathing heavy.

  “Where are you going?” I felt more than empty when he walked away. Like someone filled me up to overflowing, then flipped open a trap door and everything rushed out.

  His eyes went wide and he waved his hand between us. “I need space or I’m going to maul you. You’re too damn sexy, Liv.” Then he muttered under his breath. “Too damn sexy.”

  It made me smile. And my silly heart did backflips because I had my own adrenaline coursing through my veins. I hadn’t done anything like this in years, and to do it with and for someone I had so many feelings for? I was so mixed up and confused and hot.

  I reached for him. He moved away, staring at my hand. “What are you doing?”

  “I want to kiss you.”

  “Nope. We’ve kissed and now we’re done. We should get back to the locker room.”

  I blocked the door, confusing myself, but my body seemed to have taken over control of the ship. “Take me to your hotel.”

  He jerked away, looking around the room like a second door might magically appear. I grabbed his soaking wet shirt and hauled him against me. “We need to celebrate. Take me to your room, Chris. Or I’m walking out that door and going to Beau’s.”

  His nostrils flared and his eyes darkened in a way that made my shiver. “Tell me you mean it. Say you want me.”

  It was like taking a step off a cliff into nothing but air. “I want you, Chris. Desperately.”

  His hands came crashing in around my face as he kissed me with such ferocity it made everything else disappear.

  12

  The relief and the ecstasy

  Chris

  I booked a hotel room so I wouldn’t have to worry about travel or driving, no matter the outcome of the game. If we won it would be a late night and a busy following day. More interviews, more celebrations, appearances. Eventually a parade. If we lost, it would mean getting good rest and reporting to the field ready to help in any way possible.