Even now, I could feel that high. I could feel the way my stomach used to sink in, how I could feel the bones of my ribs. By some twisted mental gymnastics, I could justify the terrible way I was abusing myself by how much control I felt. Not even realizing that I was so out of control, I was headed for an early grave.
I feel his body flinch; the sadness clouding his blue eyes. “Frankie, I had no idea …”
I smile sadly. “No, you wouldn’t. No one did. Not until Mom found me passed out on the floor one day. I’ve been through years of therapy, and a very good in-patient program when I was at my worst. I was so thin, my hair began to fall out. I couldn’t keep anything down. The lining of my stomach was eroding, and the bile was disintegrating my teeth. I know that’s disgusting, but I … I want to paint you a picture of what it was like. Because you’ve told me that I wouldn’t like the man you were when you were at your lowest. That I wouldn’t want to be with a Sinclair who wasn’t sober. But you wouldn’t even know the Frankie who suffered from an eating disorder for all those years. Because worse than what I was suffering on the physical side, my head was so fucked up. I was a shell of a person. I was nasty, nervous, hated my life, and hated myself. I thought I was in control, but really, I had nothing together.”
“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” He says it so fiercely, I watch the tic in his jaw.
“I’m aware of that now. But for a long time, I couldn’t see it. Just like you couldn’t see past your alcoholism. We all have a past, Sinclair. Mine is just as ugly as yours. That’s what makes us beautiful, as we are right now.”
His palms smooth over my cheeks. “And that’s why you went into fitness, isn’t it?”
God, how he knew me in such a short time. I nod. “After I got out of the in-patient program, I started to get better. My image of my body was changed forever, and it put me on a path to healing. I got invested in eating clean, in only giving my body good fuel. I wanted to be strong, so strong that I would never go back to that way of living. I switched my major doubled up on nutrition and physical education degrees. I started talking to the coaches in the gyms that I would see there, training their athletes. They gave me pointers, and I started to study the way professional teams did it. I became … well, obsessed. From one obsession to the next, that’s my personality. I replaced an addiction with an obsession, albeit a healthy one. It’s why I’m so dedicated to my work.”
“We’re both damaged.” Sinclair twines his fingers with mine.
I think it’s the first time he truly sees how similar we are because I’m allowing him to.
“Both healed,” I correct him.
And I see it there, the fear in his eyes. He wants to protect me fiercely, but now he knows my darkest secret. There is nothing more between us, nothing that keeps him from knowing every part of me. I’ve done it, given all of myself to him. And he’s not pushing me away, but I know there is a hesitation there.
I just hope his want for me, his feelings, are strong enough to overpower that.
Clearing my throat, I have to change the subject. I didn’t realize that telling Sinclair about my bulimia would dredge up so many emotions, but it has. Things I haven’t thought about in forever, images of a girl I no longer know. I thought I was long over this, but it’s always there, in a corner of my mind. Thinking too much about it will send me spiraling.
“Do you want to work in a more expanded capacity than spring training? Do you see yourself staying here, or going to another organization?” I ask.
We haven’t talked about the future. What he wants professionally, or about what we will become. He knows my goal of going to Packton, working for the major league team there. But I have no idea where that leaves us or what he’ll do after spring training.
An unreadable look passes over Sinclair’s face. “I’m honestly not sure. Taking it one day at a time was all I could manage when I first got down here. And now that I’m starting to really enjoy my job, that I’m improving my skills, I’m cautious about dreaming too big. I think I’d like to stay on a video production team, wherever that is. I’m not sure Nick can keep me on after spring training, though.”
He hasn’t really answered in the way I hope, so I press for more. “Would you ever want to go to Packton?”
Because for me, that’s the goal. As I feel myself getting more and more attached to him, falling for him, I kind of want that to be his end game, too.
Sinclair pulls me to him so that I can’t see his face. “I’m not going to say no to any opportunity that comes calling.”
Again, kind of a brush-off.
“I hope they promote me, at some point. I know it’s probably a few years off, since it took me a few years to get the head coach job here, but I want to go to Packton. Until then, I’m going to kick ass here.” I say it both to convince myself and to let him know where I’ll be.
I was the one who told him we should keep this casual. But the more time we spend together, the more I want to define this. The more he shows me who he is, the deeper into him I fall.
“You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever known, Francesca.” His hands palm my breasts as he rolls me over, the use of my full name sending my heart galloping.
I ignore the fact that Sinclair has made me no promises. I ignore my usually spot-on gut as it blares warning signals. I ignore that the end of spring training is so close, it’s practically smacking us in the faces. I ignore the fact that our days are numbered.
When he slides into me, our eyes locked, I ignore everything else.
I let Sinclair make the closest thing I’ve ever felt to true love, to me.
And I feel my heart slip from my chest and into his hands.
16
Frankie
The week after Sinclair and I essentially make love in my bed is the last week of spring training.
We haven’t spoken about our feelings. Neither of us addressed what happened in my bed that night. I don’t know how he feels, and I’ve never felt so fragile. If I tell him that I want to make this work, that I’m falling in love with him, and he doesn’t say it back? It will devastate me.
Things have been strange. They’ve been the same, yet different. We still spend every waking moment that we’re not working or at games together, but there are words we’re not saying trapped between us. This has turned into more than either of us bargained for, and I don’t know that we’re quite equipped to handle it.
No one was looking for a relationship. It was only supposed to be one fun night or a few hookups that left everyone feeling satisfied.
Hell, I knew I wasn’t looking for anything long-term. And I especially wasn’t expecting to fall in love with Sinclair. There’s still so much I feel I didn’t know about him.
But I know his soul. It scares me to death that I want him to know mine.
So I say nothing. And knowing that today is his last day on the spring training video crew, I …
I can’t bring myself to go see him.
It’s the last game, and the players leave for Packton tomorrow. In the next twenty-four hours, there will be a mass exodus from the southern facilities. My Florida city will become its little world again; gone will be the flashbulbs and media swarming the famous baseball players who live here for just weeks.
And with them, Sinclair will go, too.
What will my life be like, then? He’s filled my world with an energy I didn’t know it was missing. He’s filled my time with a companionship I didn’t know I needed.
Will he ask me to come with him wherever it is he’s going back to? Will he ask to stay here with me?
In all other aspects of life, I seem to be so brave, so decisive. But in this instance, I am weak. There is no strength in me; I can’t bring myself to summon the courage and tell him how much he means to me, how much I want him.
Maybe it’s because after my confession about my eating disorder, he looked so spooked. Yes, he told me how beautiful and strong I am, but I could see it in his eyes. It wa
s the first time I peeled back every layer, where I was completely raw. And it had scared him.
I’m sitting in my office, trying to work up the bravery to go to him. I hear a noise coming from somewhere in the building, and I know it’s over. The last spring training game has ended.
That spurs me on.
Stop being such a child, Frankie. A voice in my head chastises me for being so foolish. I’m a strong, determined, brave woman. If I want the man, if I want any shot at having this relationship last, then I need to will it to happen. I need to take action.
Jumping from my office chair, I sprint down the corridors and through the halls. I probably look like a mad woman, rushing to put out a fire that isn’t an emergency to anyone else but myself.
When I enter the Pistons’ southern facilities lobby, I’m swept up in a crowd of people. Players signing autographs. Employees bustling about, making sure everyone has what they need before they depart. It should be hard to find him, but it isn’t.
We’ve become like magnets, Sinclair and I. I can always spot him straight away; his presence is as known to me as my own breath.
Our eyes lock, mine violet and his blue. I want to go to him, tell him everything I’m thinking and express how much I want to … what? Stay together? Keep in touch? Beg him not to leave and just stay so we can figure this out?
I don’t get any of those options, though.
Because I watch as it happens. He opens his perfect mouth and then shuts it. Then his eyes go out, like the light they’ve held for me was just snuffed.
Sinclair raises a hand. In goodbye or cutting me off from whatever I was about to do, I’m not sure.
This is how we end it, though, I’m sure of that.
He’s dumping me. In the middle of a crowded lobby, without a single word.
Well, we’d have to be an actual couple for him to dump me.
That night, I’ll go home and cry into my pillow. And a month after he leaves, I’ll get the biggest surprise of my life.
17
Sinclair
She doesn’t ask me to stay. She doesn’t ask me to keep in touch.
In fact, I leave Florida without much closure from Frankie at all.
I could tell, in the lobby of the building with all of those people around us, that she was coming to talk about it. To finally have it out, have us answer once and for all what we were and how we continued it.
When it came down to it, I was a coward. I wanted to leave it, this perfect spring training fling that blossomed into something it was never supposed to be. I wanted to remember her and I as a spectacular shooting star, riding high on the best part of what we were to each other before it all burned out.
Because it would. I’d seen it happen time and time again. Especially to me. Even if I’d never been in love, everything I ever touched went to shit.
After her apartment that night, when she told me about her secret that brought us closer together than I’d ever thought possible, I’d made love to her. Real, true love. What we did that night was more intimate and sealing than any emotion I’d ever felt.
And it scared the shit out of me.
I didn’t want to, but I knew it would happen. I knew I would shut down, that I’d find some way to escape talking about it. Because I had no idea how to do this, not for real. And Frankie … fuck, Frankie is perfect. With all she’s overcome, how secure she is in her recovery and determined she is in her job? I’m nowhere near that. I’d only end up disappointing her.
So we didn’t talk about it. I actively tried not to bring it up. After all, we were never great at talking about our emotions.
Actually, we were when we weren’t overcomplicating it. I’ve told her things about me that I’ve never told another person. She dove deep into her backstory on how she recovered and got into the healthiest mindset of her life. Her talking about her own addiction helped me discover things about my own. Sharing that common bond, it brought us closer together. I fell for her in a way I’ve never, and will never fall for another woman.
But when it came to talking about our emotions where the other person is concerned, we’re cowards. Both trying to stick to the narrative that this was casual.
So I took the easy way out. I shrugged her off; I didn’t even have the balls to give her a proper goodbye. I’m an asshole. It’s as if my leaving Florida has turned me back into the rich, spoiled bastard I’ve always been. Frankie and I both saw the end of spring training coming like a nail in the coffin, the end of whatever it is that was happening between us.
So like everything else in my life, I bottle it up. I don’t talk about it. I wave goodbye to her on my final day at the facility, a lingering look the last interaction we have, and I board a plane home to Pennsylvania.
I have her number. She has mine. Either of us could have called, could have bridged the gap and gotten closure, or proposed long-distance or something. But she doesn’t. I don’t either. With each passing day, my heart splits down the middle a little further and a little further, creating a chasm.
For months, all I think about is Francesca Kade and wonder whether she’s thinking about me.
And wonder if I will ever grow the fuck up and go after the woman I love.
18
Frankie
Five Months Later
Packton, Pennsylvania sure is a far cry from Fort Myers, Florida.
It’s the thought running through my head as I pull up to the stadium in my beat-up Camry, which is now even more beat up from the days’ long drive I took to get up here.
Move up here, I should say.
Because you’re officially looking at the new assistant strength coach for the Packton Pistons. No more triple A, no more spring training. No, I’m in the big leagues now.
One of the full-time coaches went out on paternity leave and decided not to return in favor of spending more time with his family and running his own solo coaching business. And I like to think that Colleen Callahan thought of me. So, the open position due to a baby being born went to me. Which is ironic and hilarious, all things considered.
There is no Jorge at the front when I get checked in and no familiar faces as I walk through the massive front of the stadium. These halls are hallowed, and it feels more like I’m in the Colosseum than a baseball stadium. There is no game today, but since we’re in the midst of the playoffs, people bustle around setting up projects I’m not even aware of.
Finally, I make it down to the lower levels, where the weight room and my office are housed. I’m walking through the bowels of the stadium, mesmerized by the plain concrete walls. I haven’t even gotten to the major league field yet, stood in its center, and looked up at the sky, and I’m already in awe.
My hand is on the swell of my bump, palming it and rubbing my thumb over it.
“This is the big show, little boy,” I whisper, just in case anyone passes me in this hallway and thinks I’m insane for talking to myself.
I’ve been talking to my baby since the moment I found out I was pregnant four months ago. I don’t have many people in this world, and this little guy is about to be my whole universe. It was a shock. Initially crying hysterically, wondering what to do and how to alter my life, my reactions ran the gamut.
But then I’d gone to my first appointment. They squirted the cold jelly on my stomach and a whooshing noise and then an image had gone up on the black-and-white screen. And then there he was. My baby. His little heartbeat flickering on the monitor. At that moment, an utter sense of calm washed over me. From that point forward, I was his mother. There were no if, ands, or buts about it.
Me and him against the world.
Of course, there was another party involved. One who hadn’t bothered to call me in five months. Not even a text. I know we left things casually, or awkwardly, if you counted that wave. We mutually decided not to pursue more. But part of me always wondered why? Why had he brushed me off? Why hadn’t he wanted to talk, even to get closure?
On more nights in a week t
han not, I fall asleep thinking about Sinclair. My heart aches in the darkest parts of the night, wondering if I’ll ever feel the same way about another man again. And then there is the matter of the baby.
His baby. The one we made together, growing inside of me. I know it’s wrong of me not to have called him yet, not to even have sent him a text about what’s going on. I would never ask anything of him, if he doesn’t want to be involved, it will gut me emotionally, but this baby boy and I will be just fine. If he does want to know his son, though, I won’t keep him from him.
Except I have kept this from Sinclair. I know I need to call him, but my wounded heart and pride haven’t allowed me to yet.
That’s a problem for another day, though. Because I’m almost at my office. I’ve almost reached the place I’ve spent so many years dreaming of occupying. The major league is here, and I’m so ready to get started.
I’m cradling my bump, trying to transmit my excitement to my baby through the touch of my hands, when a figure is making its way down the hall toward me.
It’s only when it comes into focus, when the man is just feet from me, that I make out who it is.
Tall. Lean. Wiry.
Bronzed skin, even in this dead of winter. Well, as cold as it can get for a Florida girl in September.
Flashing aquamarine eyes, which look just as shocked and surprised as I feel internally.
“Sinclair?” His name feels funny rolling off my tongue, and an unexplainable shudder rolls through me.
How is he here? Did he get hired on by the main team, too? I mean, he hadn’t seemed all that interested in coming up here when we talked about it. God, he looks delicious. Jesus, I didn’t realize I missed him so much. Never in a million years did I think I’d see him when I walked in here. But why not? It wasn’t an impossibility, and now I feel like an idiot for assuming our paths would never cross.
Check Swing (Callahan Family Book 3) Page 8
