by Shey Stahl
“What’s that for?” At least he has money. And I know what I’m doing for dinner. Thai food, and he can’t complain. Who hates Thai food? Nobody that I’m friends with.
“You need money, right? I won’t be home for dinner. Get you and Tatum something.” His eyes drift to my easel, curiously examining my painting, but I know where his focus lands, and it’s not on my work. The Starbucks cup I’ve been nursing and trying to make last longer than necessary.
“You said your card wasn’t working.”
“It wasn’t.” Our eyes meet, and this is where I know the conversation might get dicey. Remember narcissist?
“How’d you get coffee then?” he questions, sliding his wallet into the pocket of his suit.
“The kid behind me in line bought it.”
Collin’s features harden. It’s a switch that’s been flipped when I tell him someone bought the coffee for me. He turns to stone. “You can’t be serious.”
I’ll pause here. If you’re thinking he’s jealous, that has nothing to do with it. I could kiss a man in front of him and I’m not sure he’d care. Okay, yes, he’d care, but him thinking I took a handout is far more degrading to him than me flirting. I’m certainly not going to offer up the fact that yes, I did flirt with the college kid today, but the anger swooshing in my head like water holds that fun fact at bay.
“It’s not that big of a deal.” I pick up the paintbrush in my hand. “He offered, and I didn’t want to be rude.”
“I’m sure,” he grunts, stepping back. “I’ll see you tonight.”
He leaves as abruptly as he entered my shop. Why is it that men can totally ruin your day with one conversation? As my granny Gina used to tell me: Marriage between a husband and wife is psychological. One is psycho and the other is logical.
I’m not pointing, because that’s rude, but you and I both know who the psycho is here.
A sticky substance most commonly used by batters to improve their grip on the bat.
CASON
“You know in that movie Major League when he ate the crow in the locker room before the game?”
I stare blankly at Ez and Forest, our first baseman deep in conversation over superstitions.
“No, wasn’t it a snake?” Forest’s eyes drop to the rattlesnake’s tail in his hand. Knowing Forest, I’m pretty sure he obtained that himself, and the snake is somewhere in here. Wouldn’t be the first time. He once brought a scorpion in and left it in Ez’s locker.
When I lean forward, the ice pack on my shoulder falls off. “I think you guys missed big chunks of that movie. It was a chicken.” I’ve seen the movie enough to know every detail.
“Right, yes, it was.” Ez points at me, smiling as he adjusts his shin guards. “He’s right. It was a chicken.” He lifts his head. “Who’s got a chicken? I need to bite its head off.”
No one answers him. At least not with where a chicken is at. It’s ten minutes before game time, and we’re not in the mood to get amped up. That’s the difference between any other locker room before a game and the ones of baseball players. We play worse if we’re amped up.
And, if you haven’t guessed it yet, baseball players are highly superstitious. Don’t believe me? You don’t know anything about baseball players then.
Playing on Friday the thirteenth? Not great. Triskaidekaphobia. Don’t ask me how to pronounce that one, but from what Ez tells me during warm-ups, it’s the fear of the number thirteen. And he has it. Which explains his I-don’t-trust-you attitude toward our left fielder.
Superstitions are a part of baseball. Kissing a rosary before a bat, fixing gloves and hats before a pitch, hitting home plate… all things ballplayers do to avoid any amount of bad luck. And then there’s the general ones. Leave the pitcher alone on game day. Don’t step on the chalk line. Never mention a no-hitter.
AS WE OPEN our three-game set against Long Beach, we’re all on edge. The weather cleared up and allowed us to get the game in but we’re struggling at the plate.
I’m pitching a good game. It’s the thirty-second pitch of the game. Fourth inning. One out. A strike count 1-2, but that’s when I’m shaken, mentally.
Throw a strike. Keep it in the park. Don’t think about who’s up.
Though I need my mind to be on the game, it’s not. It’s on the one in the stands, two rows back watching me with intention. It’s Brie Beckett, my ex-girlfriend. Why we broke up isn’t all that complicated, but has everything to do with maturity and the demands of a college baseball player, hell, college athlete.
Unfortunately for me, the moment Brie shows up, I’m a mess out there, my breath leaving me in gasps. I loved her. God, did I fucking love that girl. Probably the only girl I ever loved in a string of relationships I can’t quite pinpoint their failure.
Behind the plate, Ez puts two fingers down. A cutter. Leaning to his right, he distances himself from the right-handed batter. I nod my approval, set over the rubber, and drift my eyes to first base, then narrow in on Ez’s mitt.
If I had to guess, Ez is smiling under the mask. He knows who’s up and my feeling about it. I’d love to let a pitch go right at his fucking nose, but that’d mess up my stats and not something I want to do.
I don’t want to throw a fastball to a right-handed batter on the inside. If I do, it’ll cross over the plate and the bat barrel. If I want to deliver him a fastball, I’ll let my wrist turn ever so slightly, and my fingers will fall to the left side of the ball and change the rotation of the ball, its path, and will hit a few inches on the inside toward the batter. It gets me strikes, usually, but like I said, I don’t want to throw that pitch to this particular batter.
The reason why Brie showed up today didn’t have anything to do with me. It has to do with the guy holding the bat and his grudge against me. The only pitcher to ever strike him out. Happened last season, game two of the three-game series against them, and I’ll never let him forget it.
But it goes back even further than that if you want to get technical about it because that guy, we were best friends growing up. And now my girlfriend of the last three years is blowing him.
Funny how betrayal works. Baylor Wright knows a thing or two about it. We make eye contact, and I wonder if he ever considered my reaction before he fucked my girlfriend. Maybe.
He chokes up on the bat, his left foot swiveling and digging into the dirt. There’s hollering on the field. “Come on, throw it in there!” “Give ’em the heat, Reins!”
It’s an unremarkable pitch at an unremarkable moment in the game to anyone but me.
Despite the humidity in the air from the afternoon rain, my arm feels great. I take a breath and relax. Shake out my arm and stare at the dirt beneath my feet and feel the ball in my hand. Curveball. I’d learn to throw a curveball in junior high by an extremely patient pitching coach my dad hired for me. That crazy bastard would sit between the mound and the plate and have me throw a curveball. I was so terrified of hitting him. I picked it up quickly.
Let it go. Hit the glove.
I visualize the path the ball will take from the release to the leather. I twist, wind up, and throw the pitch.
I’m not sure what happened, but once it left my hand, I knew I’d held the ball too long trying to hang the curveball. Instead of brushing the outer inches of the strike zone, I launch the pitch too far right. Baylor gets a hold of it and sends it sailing to left field toward our unlucky left fielder.
Ez flips his face mask up and rushes to his feet to protect the plate.
Sweat runs down the back of my neck as I think about the pitch I just threw.
The inning ends with little commotion. An out at third, and a fly ball to center field.
I don’t look at the stands or the pitching coach probably wondering what the fuck that was about. Ez bumps his shoulder to mine. “I spit on his shoes.”
“Whose?”
“Baylor.”
Snorting, I stare at my mitt and then my hand. What happened out there? Why couldn’t I throw
that curveball?
My dad told me once, after he tore his rotator cuff at the end of a three-game series on the road and was leading the league in strikeouts, that “The game usually gives you what you deserve, good or bad.”
For me, it goes back to Friday the thirteenth. I’d love to say I’m not superstitious, but maybe I am. Maybe it’s all because of the damn day of the week and the fact that we give up 7 runs and end the first game in the set with a loss of 6-7. Maybe it’s the two wild pitches I threw after that. Or that same time tomorrow, we’ll face off against them again. It’s not the last time I’ll see Baylor this year, and unfortunately for me, not the last of Brie.
“Bro, you add six and seven, it’s thirteen. How fucking bizarre is that?” Ez grumbles, confirming his triskaidekaphobia fear.
Noah, our shortstop, bumps me from behind after we shake hands with the Dirtbags. I purposely skip Baylor, and he knows why.
I drift my eyes to the stands after the game and notice she’s waiting for him.
“She fuck the entire team or just Wright?”
Squinting, I turn my head and stare at Noah as we walk off the field. Why the fuck would he ask that now, after the game we had?
“Shut the fuck up,” Ez tells him. “Don’t say that shit to him.”
Noah and me, we’re not friends, and though baseball players are certainly known for their egos, he doesn’t have one. I don’t know why I don’t like him, maybe because of comments like that. While it’s meant to be a jab at Baylor, I take it personally.
My attention finds her in the stands, her smile directed at the one she left me for. Soft, blue eyes, innocent, though her actions weren’t. She believed the rumors that I’d been fucking around on her. I hadn’t. Not once. But it didn’t matter. Damage was done and she did her part to destroy it. She seems unaffected by my presence, and I’m undone. Funny how that works. Time heals all wounds?
Bullshit. It exposes you.
For some reason, as I’m walking back to the dugout, I think about that woman from this morning. The one I bought coffee for. I bet she could make me forget about Brie. A thrill of excitement shoots down my spine.
In the locker room, the guys don’t say much about the loss, aside from Ez. He’s Italian, loud, and always has something to say.
Shirtless and holding ice to my shoulder again, I lean my head against my locker. I stare up at Ez, wishing he’d shut the fuck up. I hear enough of his bullshit sleeping on his couch every night. I don’t want to hear it after a loss like this.
He grins, winking at me. “Reins offered his cream to a MILF this morning.” He takes a chug from his Gatorade. “He struck out.”
I kick my foot out, trying to kick him with my cleats on. “You don’t know that she was a mom,” I point out, my thoughts shifting from that shitty game. And maybe that’s why Ez brought her up. He knows me and understands that anytime Brie enters my mind, it takes days to get over it.
“She drove a minivan. If you can call that driving.” With laughter on his lips, he elbows Noah, who’s next to him. “And with those hips, she was definitely a mom.”
“Damn.” Noah smirks, twisting his hat around backward as he peels his jersey off. “Bummed I missed it.”
I’m not. And I can tell you exactly what’s going to take my mind off Brie. Imagining that MILF riding my cock while I’m in the shower later. I also contemplate going back to that Starbucks to see if she goes every day.
“She fuckin’ jumped the curb to get away from him,” Ez adds, screwing the cap back on his Gatorade.
I hope you choke.
I give Ez the look that says “shut the fuck up.” He doesn’t listen to me. I met him freshman year. We lived in the same dorm together our first year, and not once has he ever done what I asked him to. But he saves my ass behind the plate, so I stay friends with him. And his family back in Southern California is some kind of mafia or gang, I’m not sure. But from the stories he’s told me about his cousin Enzo, I want nothing to do with that family. Too bad I’m sleeping on his uncle Luca’s couch these days. Scariest time of my life.
“Reins?” Chiasson yells from his office, our pitching coach behind him with a look of disappointment.
Shit.
Groaning, I make my way into the office and stare at the wall with my dad’s picture. He went to ASU until he was drafted his sophomore year to Seattle. Sometimes I wish I would have taken the offer I got from three different teams before I even graduated.
But the fact that I’m sitting in this office lets me know I’m not ready for the big leagues.
“What was that about?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?” Luis, or Chiasson as we call him, is the head coach here at ASU. He played three seasons in the majors with the Cubs, and if you know anything about making it to the big show, you understand just how talented he is.
Most people who watch the game will never understand what it takes to get to the majors. Just because you’re signed with a team doesn’t mean you will ever see a major league game. And if you see even fifteen minutes in the majors, you’re a great baseball player. Maybe even exceptional.
My performance tonight? Not exceptional. Nervously, I chew on my bottom lip, my knee bouncing.
Chiasson stares me down, his voice similar to Kevin Costner’s. You know what I’m talking about. A distinct, rough growl that when he’s talking, you fucking listen. Too bad he didn’t tell me who his daughter was before I fucked her. Would have been helpful. But he mutters, “What happened to the kid throwin’ 105?” as if to throw it up in my face that I didn’t do that tonight.
My jaw tightens and my heart kicks up. Here’s the problem with an exceptional performance in the bullpen. You’re expected to do that in a game. So many variables are at stake there though. Like your ex showing up and tanking your game.
I run my hand through my hair. “I don’t know what you want me to say here.”
“Some nights you have it, some you don’t,” my pitching coach adds, crossing his arms over his chest. He knows I work hard.
I meet his eyes and then back to Luis. I wonder if he’s going to bring up his daughter again, but he doesn’t. His chest expands with a breath. Disappointment, maybe, or a bit of regret that he’s put so much effort into me and I’ve struggled this year.
Chiasson nods to the door. “Get tonight’s game out of your head and focus on tomorrow.”
Nodding, I stand and leave. Ez finds me soon after. “You sleeping with me tonight?”
He’s talking about me sleeping on his couch, but his comment earns a side-eye from one of the rookie backup pitchers. One who’s so stuck up he might as well be wearing a cardigan over his shoulders.
Noticing the attention, Ez winks at him and runs his hand suggestively over my shoulder. By the way, he’s fucking buck-ass naked. “You should stretch tonight, baby.”
I shove him away from me. “Knock that shit off.”
Laughing, he catches himself against the lockers, sweeping his hair wet from his shower. “You know you love it, Reins.”
Fucker.
He grabs me by the arm and points to our center fielder, Mazzie, who’s walking around with his cock hanging out. Believe me, nobody in a locker room is modest. It’s a lot of cock and balls, on and off the field. “His fucking dick looks so angry.”
“I’m not looking,” I point out, trying to avert my eyes.
“It’s hard not to. It looks… angry, man. Like a cobra ready to strike.”
Sighing, I walk away from him. Not only is Ez superstitious as fuck and burns just about everything he cooks, including popcorn, but he loves to make you uncomfortable.
Somewhere between leaving the clubhouse that night and running into Brie outside, I think about something my dad told me last year before the college world series. He’d heard it somewhere, I’m sure, but I can’t recall where. “Don’t let the success or failure of your last pitch affect this pitch right here, right now.”
Leaning against my car, I bury my hands in the pockets of my shorts. I stare up at the night sky that’s still rumbling from the storm earlier. Brie stands in front of me, tears in her eyes. “I didn’t show up to throw you off.”
I nod, but I don’t know if she’s telling me the truth. This girl, God, she’s everything I thought I wanted in the future, but she couldn’t see that before it was too late.
She blows out a breath, swallowing as she fidgets with the phone in her hand. “I should get going.”
I hate the thumping of my heart and the pain that follows. “Did you wait around over an hour after the game to tell me that?”
Her eyes linger on my face. “Yes. Why?”
I exhale in an over-exaggerated way. “Bye, Brie.” I reach for the handle of my Jaguar, wanting to be anywhere but this conversation with her. We’ve been here too many times over the last three months. Do you want to know when I found out she fucked Baylor?
Christmas Day. She told me on Christmas Day. “Merry Christmas, I sucked your best friend’s dick.”
Okay, she didn’t say it like that, but the point was made. She’d left me for my best friend, and here I was, pine tar, stuck like glue to a girl who no longer wanted the life I thought we had planned out. The one where we dreamed of me in the majors and her by my side. The one where after college, she studied to become a pediatrician, and we eventually started a family.
And then I think about what went through my mind after the game and my dad’s words ingrained in my head. “The game usually gives you what you deserve, good or bad.”
Had I deserved what she did? Had I treated her badly? I’m not sure I ever asked the question. I think I’d been so caught up in the betrayal between them that I didn’t ask any questions.
“Why him?”
Brie lets out a soft laugh, though I’m not sure why, and her blonde hair falls into her face with a breeze around us. I’m hit hard by her scent and the realization that I’m to blame for some of this. “Cason, you’re explosive on a mound. Absolutely breathtaking to watch shut down some of the greatest hitters in baseball, and I have no doubt that talent will take you as far as you want it to.” She smiles a sympathetic smile and then looks down at her phone once more. “But as far as being in a relationship with you, you’re a completely different person off the field.”
