Fastball Flirt (The Boys of Summer Series Book 1)

by Kelsey Cheyenne

  After this movie ends, another similar one starts right up. The front door opens and slams shut and I sit up, excited for another night of living in blissful sin.

  “I’m in here, baby. What do you want to do for dinner? I was hoping we could order in, but I can cook if you want?” I call out. I won’t lie; I miss Leo constantly bringing me food. Maybe instead of New York, he can work out of Boston and live down the street.

  Hollis comes into view. His tawny hair is a tousled mess on his head. One hand is holding his phone down low, like he’s just gotten off a call. His handsome mug is pinched, eyebrows drawn down, and a deep frown cut into his face.

  “Hollis, what’s wrong?” I leap off the couch with a racing heart. My hands find his shoulders and I bend my knees, getting under him to force him to make eye contact. I use my fingers to lift his head and his eyes are far away and forlorn. When he finally looks at me, my heart breaks. His dark eyes are broken, devastated.

  “I just got off the phone with Coach McGuire,” he tells me.

  My first thought is something must’ve happened, someone died.

  “Is he okay?”

  “Yeah, uh, he’s fine.” He glances down at his phone in disbelief. “I’ve been traded.” I take a step back, the intensity of my shock rendering me unstable. I’m speechless.

  “What do you mean? What does that mean?” I’m borderline hysterical, praying there’s another definition to the word.

  “I’m not on the Red Sox anymore.”

  “So, what, are you like a Yankee now? Oh, or maybe a Met? That’s still close.” I can work with him being in New York. Wouldn’t it be ironic if he were traded to the Phillies? I mean, if I was willing to do that distance before, I could still do it now. Maybe I could get the other job back…

  No. I can’t think like that. I can’t give up my dream for a guy no matter how deeply I feel for him.

  “Um, no. I’ve been traded to the Houston Astros.”

  I’m quiet for a solid minute, maybe more. I back away from him until the backs of my legs hit the couch and I collapse.

  “How—how can they do this?” Tears spring to my eyes. I look at him, still frozen in place, through my blurry gaze.

  “My contract was up and with the injury…”

  “Your injury? Is that even legal?”

  “Yeah, it’s common. I’m young…I’m a liability now.” He comes over to the couch and sits beside me. His warm hand envelops mine, but I’m numb from the inside out. I barely feel the contact.

  “So…you’re moving.” I see him nod out of the corner of my eye, as if he doesn’t want to verbalize it, to admit it and put it out in the world. He doesn’t want it to be real, but it’s real enough already.

  “We can make it work, though. We did it for the last two years. This new contract is only for three years.”

  “That’s five years, Hollis. Five years of distance, of not being with you. That’s a long time.”

  “Fuck, I know.” He runs a hand through his hair, messing it further. A sudden energy fills the room and I turn to look at him. He sits up straighter, his face determined. “Come with me.”

  I wish he wouldn’t have said those words. “Hollis…”

  “What? You’re only just starting out. It wouldn’t be a big deal. It would be so easy.”

  “It wouldn’t be a big deal? Hollis, you’re asking me to move across the country, to put my dream on hold and uproot my life, and you don’t think it’s a big deal?” He doesn’t say anything. His brown eyes are wide, confused at my outburst. “God, you can be so entitled sometimes. It’s a big deal to me. It’s everything. This is what I’ve been working toward my entire life. This goal, this dream, fuck, even this hospital. I won’t put my dreams on hold for you.”

  “So, distance, then.” He’s so decisive, as if it’s the easiest decision to make. He put no thought into it.

  I shake my head and his brows pull inward to a deep V.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I can’t do it anymore. I thought we would finally be together, having some sense of normalcy despite your job being anything but normal.”

  “Lila, I’m on the road half the time anyway. What’s the difference if I’m traveling with the Sox or living across the country with the Astros? Either way, I’m not here.” He pushes off the couch and paces, tugging on his hair. He’s frustrated—with me?

  But I’m resolute in my decision.

  “I’m sorry.” A tear falls from my left eye and I swipe at the wet streak.

  “Lila—”

  “I need air.” I push off the couch and grab my purse by the door, storming out into the cold air. It’s snowing and the streets are bustling with Christmas spirit.

  An hour ago everything was different and anything was possible. I was full of hope and possibility. I was like them, happy, spirited, in love. Nothing could get me down.

  I never saw this coming.

  I didn’t want anything to change and now my world has been flipped upside down. I do the only thing I can think of in the moment, with frozen tears sticking to my cheeks.

  I pull out my phone, pull off my glove, and call my best friend.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Lila

  Stepping out into the sunny, nearly-seventy degree weather, I fall into the chair beside my best friend. She hands me a mug of coffee and when I inhale the sweet aroma, I can tell she decided to make it Irish this morning.

  “Thought you could use it.” She’s already dressed in her scrubs, ready to head off to work. I wish she had time off to lie in bed, eat copious amounts of ice cream, and wallow with me, but I didn’t exactly give her ample notice I was coming. I hopped on a plane after breaking things off with Hollis and have been here ever since.

  It was either come here or spend Christmas with my parents in Minnesota and frankly, getting a root canal sounds more fun. I don’t need them to rub my failed relationship in my face.

  “What’s on the agenda for today?”

  I glance over at Bridget with a look that says, ‘you’re lookin’ at it.’ I continue to scroll through Instagram, liking a picture of Phoebe’s two-year-old daughter, Chai. Yes, they named their baby after a latte.

  “No, girl, you gotta get out and do something today.”

  “It’s Christmas Eve. Everything will either be closed or packed with people.”

  The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people spreading holiday cheer. Call me the Grinch or Scrooge, but this year I’m feeling especially un-Christmassy—which is saying something considering the people who raised me.

  “Then go for a walk, get some fresh air, something. You need to get out of this funk. Your relationship is over and it was your choice. You have to own your decision.”

  “Thanks for the support.”

  “You know I got your back, babe, always, but this isn’t you. You and Hollis just weren’t meant to be. Sometimes that happens and it’s okay.” She glances down at her watch and downs the rest of her coffee. “I gotta run. I’ll be back around seven. Love you. And get out of the house!”

  I roll my eyes and lean back in my chair on Bridget’s tiny balcony. Her apartment is small, but she makes it seem larger than life. It’s decorated with a too-big tree in one corner with presents sprawled underneath; snowmen, wreaths, and stockings decorate every inch of the living room. I don’t know how she manages to get in the holiday spirit in sunny, seventy-degree weather, but I guess people do it all over the world.

  It’s part of the reason I wanted to come here for the holiday and intrude on my best friend. I’ve never felt further from Christmas. In Boston, it’s snowing and the air is full of magic. It was making me sick.

  I grab a book I find on Bridget’s coffee table and my phone to head downstairs to sit by the pool. If I have to get out of the house at her demand, this is as far as I’m willing to go. As I head downstairs, I see there’s a missed call from my brother who I’m sure is just having a blast i
n Minnesota. For some reason, he and his boyfriend decided to go back to spend the holiday with our parents. Oh, right, because my parents actually like Jackson and Marcus. It’s just me they hate.

  I decide to call him back later, not wanting to risk him trying to put my parents on the phone.

  There’s also a missed text…from Hollis. I’m tempted as hell to ignore it or delete it without reading it, but call me kitten and write my eulogy, because I’m too damn curious to not open it.

  Hollis: You can stay in the apartment. It’s already paid for the next year anyway. I’ll be gone by the time you get back.

  What? Is he crazy? I can’t stay at his place without him. That’d be too weird. Why would he even offer it to me? Is it because he thinks I’m too pathetic to afford a place on my own? Since he and I have broken up, I might be able to convince my parents to get me another apartment. Yes, I’d even stoop so low to beg my parents for money; that’s how much I don’t want to live at this place.

  I lay my phone face down on my towel and crack open my book. After reading the first few pages, I turn the paperback over and read the blurb. I groan as I realize it’s a romance novel. Damn Bridget and her hopeless romanticism. There’s no way I can stomach this right now.

  Pushing off the lounge chair, I call it quits, bringing both offensive objects—the book and my phone—back upstairs. I try to keep myself busy, searching through Bridget’s cabinets to find something to cook her for dinner. The best I can come up with is a takeout menu for a Mexican place that confirmed they are open today.

  Once Bridget gets home, I pour her a glass of wine like I’m a good housewife and get her dinner.

  “Thank you,” I tell her, my voice thick and watery. She’s always been my best friend, but lately she’s been my rock. She’s more experienced in the boy department and she’s helped me out more than she’ll ever know. Not just letting me stay with her—and crash Christmas dinner at her mom’s—but emotionally. Without her, I don’t think I’d have gotten through this breakup.

  “You’d do the same for me.” She’s right. I would.

  We spend the night together, hanging out like old times and envisioning how our lives will turn out. I tell her about Hollis’ text—she agrees his proposition is wicked bonkers—and she tells me about this new hot radiologist at the hospital. Every time we’re together, it’s like no time has passed.

  Also, time moves way too quickly.

  The next week passes swiftly and before I know it, it’s New Year’s Eve. I find myself wallowing, lost in what could have been as the memories assault me.

  My first New Year’s with Hollis was spent in bed, making love as the ball dropped, as the streets filled with partygoers. “I want to spend every New Years with you like this. There’s nothing like celebrating bringing in another year with a bang,” he told me that night, a coy, flirtatious grin pulling at his sated smile.

  I’d joked he only wanted me for sex and I’d start withholding until we got married and become a born again virgin. “Try to resist this. You wouldn’t last a week.”

  Of course, he had been right.

  Hell, we’d made love again that night.

  What I wouldn’t give to go back and relive those moments. To recreate those moments. Everything was simple then. I thought we had the world by the balls and we could control our fate. I thought we’d be together forever, that he was it for me. I certainly wanted him to be.

  Who am I kidding? I still do.

  I want to fight for love, but sometimes it’s out of our control. I know I made the right choice, even if my heart screams at me every day for the rest of my life. The past two years were only bearable because I knew there was a finish line. I could handle seven-hundred and thirty days apart because after that, we’d be together for real.

  Fuck, I was so naïve. I’d never even considered he’d be traded and have to leave. Of course, it happens all the time in baseball. It’s not like a new, uncommon tactic they created for the sole purpose of getting rid of Hollis and tormenting me.

  Even if I went with him to Texas, who knows where he’d be next. Still in California? Back to Boston? Maybe California or Florida or fucking Chicago. I can’t be his lackey and follow him around the country. I worked my ass off to become a nurse. I’m not going to cave and give up my life for him.

  My head is stubborn, but my heart is broken. If only the right decision didn’t have to hurt so much.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Lila

  I can’t put my key in the door. I’m standing in the hallway outside of what used to be Hollis’ apartment and I can’t unlock the deadbolt. I told Hollis I couldn’t stay here without him, but he insisted. He doesn’t want to sublet it out to anyone and he already paid for the year.

  Now that I’m here, I can’t do it. Even if I didn’t plan on staying here, I’d have to go inside eventually to get my things. The reality kicks me in the gut. I don’t want to stay here, but I don’t have anywhere else to go. What am I supposed to do? My hand is shaking holding the key, but I can’t push it into the slot. My heart is breaking all over again at my reality. I can’t be with the man I love. How the hell is this fair? Now, I’m stuck living in our former apartment which is now just mine.

  My heart hurts. My head hurts.

  Taking a deep breath, I steady my hand and open the door. I don’t know what I was expecting, as if everything would be covered in old white bedsheets and dust, like the air would be stale and unlived-in. Of course not. Hollis couldn’t have been gone for long.

  The space still smells of him and it causes an ache in my chest. The place is still, but so loud all at the same time. Everywhere I look is full of memories we shared, both good and bad.

  I close the door and slide down it, sitting on the ground as the tears start to fall. God, I didn’t expect it to hurt this much. I know there are millions of songs about heartbreak, it happens on TV and in books, and yet I didn’t believe it. I never thought it would be like this. This…damaging. It’s as if my chest is caving in and I’m unable to breathe. Everything hurts.

  It’s like one giant symptomatic placebo effect.

  There’s that classic saying ‘it’s better to have loved and lost…’ and I don’t know, I think I call bullshit on the whole thing. Is it really better if it ends and feels like this? How does that work with the other saying, ‘ignorance is bliss?’

  Personally, I’ll take ignorance any day. I’d take anything to not feel like this.

  On the plus side, I start work tomorrow which will be a much-needed distraction. Pushing off the ground, I walk toward the bedroom. It’s hard enough being in the apartment, but the bedroom is another slice through my heart. I don’t have a choice. I open the closet and gather the scrubs I have to wear to work tomorrow. I’ll be extra prepared tonight so tomorrow can go seamlessly. If nothing else, at least it’ll keep me distracted from the heartbreak crushing my chest.

  Once my clothes are set, I order food, not in the mood to cook anything, even if there is food here. Instead, I opt for my usual comfort go to: Chinese. The delivery guy and I are on a first name basis. Maybe it’s something I should be ashamed of, but I can’t bring myself to care. Especially not today.

  Once the food arrives, I turn on the TV. I should’ve been more prepared. Of course, ESPN was the last thing on. It’s not even baseball season, and yet across the bottom of the screen, the first thing I see is, HOLLIS GRAHAM LANDS IN TEXAS, SPOTTED AT MINUTE MAID PARK. I mean, can I catch a freaking break!?

  I change the channel and catch an episode of Friends while I try not to cry into my chicken. At least Ross and Rachel are ‘on a break’ for this episode and I can be reminded about how stupid boys are.

  I settle into my new job effortlessly. My first week was nonstop and I wouldn’t change it for the world. This is why I stayed in Boston—for this, my dream job. It may be cheesy and cliché, but it truly is everything I’d hoped it would be and more. There have already been some heartbreaking days; days I cried and di
dn’t know how I could go on. I questioned everything, accused another nurse of being heartless for dealing with it and seeming so detached. She told me words I’m sure will stick with me forever: “I have to be detached. It’s the only way I can help all of the sick babies. If I quit because of one baby, another one might get hurt because of it.”

  I excused myself to the on call room, cried for ten more minutes, then pulled myself together and got back out there. She was right.

  Every nurse and doctor becomes desensitized to the devastation and the tragedy, but it doesn’t mean we don’t care. We care too much. We don’t want our emotions to keep us from helping someone else. I get that now.

  I fall into a pretty easy pattern consisting of work, sleep, eat, repeat—and shower when necessary. My time is pretty much always accounted for, which I naïvely didn’t expect; I knew I’d be busy, but I thought I’d have some free time. I was wrong.

  There’s so much I understand now that I never did before. My parents, for instance, how I resented them so much growing up, but I didn’t really understand the demands of the job. Now my brother and Bridget are in the same boat and I barely have time for them.

  It doesn’t excuse my parents for being complete assholes to me, but between the hours and stress, I can at least empathize. A little, anyway.

  I’ve tried to keep up a solid routine with Bridget and Jackson to check in at least once a month. Turns out, working in the medical field is nothing like Grey’s Anatomy, and in fact, can be pretty lonely. My brother has the most interesting life of any of us right now.

  Bridget, like me, is wholly single, but she’s ready to mingle. That’s been her motto her entire life, unlike me. Hollis had to go ahead and change everything for me. I was perfectly content not dating and focusing on school—until him.

  My brother, at least, is still happily dating Marcus. Jealousy churns in my stomach at the thought of his relationship. I want that. I never thought I wanted it or needed a relationship. The problem is, I just didn’t know what I was missing. Freaking Hollis. Why’d he have to be so hot and charming and perfect?