Room 4 Rent: A Steamy Romantic Comedy

by Shey Stahl

  You will never meet a more loving person in your life. I guarantee it. I absolutely adore her and always have. Our parents were done having kids after me, but when I was seven, Sadie came along. She was like my own personal baby doll, and I’ve been fussing over her ever since.

  “I haven’t decided if I’m going to class today,” Sadie says, hugging Tatum to her side. “I’m thinking I should take this little nugget to the movies.”

  Tatum’s eyes light up. “I want to go!”

  “Thank you,” I mouth to Sadie, grateful she’s here with me.

  LATER THAT MORNING, with Nahla acting as my attorney, and let’s face it, therapist at this point, I head to the bank with the notice in my hand. The longer the time goes by, the more upset I become. By the time I’m at the bank, I’m pissed.

  “I’m so angry at him for this, and the worst part, he’s dead, and I can’t get answers as to what he was thinking.”

  Nahla reaches for my hand and looks over at me as we stare at the bank in the distance. “Maybe it’s a misunderstanding.”

  “Maybe the condom in his wallet was too.” There. I said it, and I’m not taking it back. You can’t make me.

  “What?” Nahla whips her head around to stare at me, questioning brown eyes widen. “Seriously?”

  “Yep. And, he had an entire box, opened, in the glove box.”

  She sucks in air between her teeth. “What the fuck?”

  I hold up the foreclosure notice. “Yeah, what. The. Fuck?”

  I’ll admit, for the last week I’ve been bordering on fits of anxiety with a sprinkle of depression. Ordinarily, I’d chalk this up to life over twenty-five or the fact that my husband just died, but this is over the top.

  Nahla places a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I don’t have to be looking in the mirror to know the blotchy spots covering my chest and my neck. It’s obvious my blood pressure is through the roof. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure this out. It could all be a misunderstanding. Please remember that until we get inside the bank.”

  “Oh, suck a fart.” I reach for my bag on the floorboard of her car. “There’s no way this is a mistake given that I can’t use my cards, have no money, my cell phone was shut off, and this just in, about to be homeless!”

  “I won’t let you become homeless,” she assures me, reaching for the door handle. “Let’s go talk to them.”

  An hour later, it’s confirmed, I’m screwed. Our checking account is twelve hundred dollars overdrawn, and our mortgage hadn’t been paid since November. It’s March.

  They give me the names of some financial counselors, express their sadness for their branch manager dying, and I’m actually surprised they didn’t tell me he was embezzling money at this point because what else could go wrong?

  Word to the wise, friends, never say those words out loud because reality will straight up fuck you in the ass.

  And here’s how it went from bad to being almost, literally, fucked in the ass. Actually, let’s back up about ten minutes. Tatum is standing in front of me, whirling her dress around while wearing her cowgirl boots she loves so much. “Can I go swimming?”

  “The pool is cold, honey. Maybe we can go in the hot tub tonight,” I suggest, smiling at her because there’s no way I want her to sense my panic for what has become my life. I notice her boots—the ones with lace and diamond studs on them. Collin bought them for her a couple months ago when he was at a conference up in Sedona. I hadn’t seen Tatum wear them yet, but the fact that she is makes me smile.

  I remember doing the same thing when my dad passed away, and my mom.

  “Cool boots,” Sadie notes, standing beside her. It’s the first I’ve seen of her since I got back from the bank. Though she can tell by the look on my face I have news for her, we don’t talk about any of it around Tatum.

  But here’s where I get fucked in the ass with no lube.

  It starts with another knock at the door, and at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the devil to welcome me to hell.

  This time though, Tatum swings the door open, Sadie behind her, and says, “Who are you?”

  No hello, no, would you like to come in? To the point and direct. That’s my girl.

  With Sadie beside me, I wrap my arm around Tatum and look up at the woman standing before us. “How can I help you?”

  The girl, she’s probably Sadie’s age, wearing a crop top and leggings, has her long blonde hair pulled up underneath a hat. Nervously, she bites her nails. “I was looking for Collin Greyson.”

  Tatum takes off, running into the family room and lunges for the couch while yelling, “He’s in heaven!” There’s no anger in her words, and I can’t even tell you if there’s sadness. She’s just yelling to yell because that’s what three-year-olds do.

  “I’ll go check on her,” Sadie says, walking away.

  My focus remains on the girl. “She’s right. He… passed away last week in a car accident.” Despite my annoyance for him or the fact that he’d obviously been lying to me for months, tears sting my eyes the moments the words leave my lips. Why? Why does emotion and love do that to you?

  “Oh. You’re his wife… aren’t you?” Now there are tears in her eyes.

  “Yes, I am. Who are you?”

  She holds out her hand to me. “I’m Remi.”

  To be polite, I shake her hand. She reminds me of a yoga instructor and incredibly beautiful in a natural way. Without a stitch of makeup, you can tell she doesn’t need it. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Well, I don’t know how to say this.” She pauses and adjusts her hair. “Can I come in?”

  Nothing would surprise me at this point. It really wouldn’t. Tatum’s outside with Sadie, both of them fully dressed in the pool now and laughing. “Yeah, you can come in.”

  She takes a seat on the couch and sighs for some reason, as I sit across from her on the chair. Maybe she’s the reason he had the condoms?

  Ha. Look at her. No way she’d sleep with Collin. Clearly she could do better than a banker with a dad bod.

  Oh, but friends, I’m wrong. Look at her face. Look closely. See the devastation? The confusion? The worry? It’s all there, like her world has been turned upside down over this news. “I came here thinking he’d be here, not that he was dead,” she admits tearfully. At this point, I’m a little concerned about her mental stability because she begins to shake. “I can’t… I think I’m having a panic attack.”

  Shit. Look at her. She’s taking this worse than I did. That’s when she hits me with the fastest curveball there is. One that curves at the very last second. She looks right into my eyes, and for a moment, I take in the color of hers. I have no idea why either because what the fuck does the color have to do with anything at this point? But I stare. They’re kind and gentle. Unusual. Not brown or hazel, but gold with navy blue rings on the perimeter. Her eyes remind me of a painting I have above our bed of a sunset on a fall afternoon. There’s a dusting of freckles like sun kisses on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

  She sniffs and catches a tear. “I’m… well, I uh, we….” She pauses, draws in a quick breath, and then sighs.

  My body heats up, sweat pricking every part of me. It’s like I have a fever all of a sudden. Anger smashes into my chest and then pounds as if I’m riding on a roller coaster, and we’re just about to the top. And then I reach the top and break through that tension. It needs release. It needs an outlet in the form of words. “Just spit it out already,” I snap, numbness working through me. Emotion clogs my throat for a minute, but I push forward. “You were fucking my husband.”

  At first, she doesn’t want to. I think the only reason she does is because she doesn’t want to lie anymore. There’s a tight nod from her as tears roll down her red cheeks. “I was seeing your husband. For the past year.”

  Blank stares. Did I hear her correctly?

  And you know, I gave her a lot of time to say she’s bullshitting me. But it never came, so I had n
o choice to believe it.

  What kind of pot of shit is this? Ten years. I gave Collin ten years of my life, and this is how he runs the bases?

  To hit a home run.

  CASON

  On the mound, I’m the epitome of self-preservation and compartmentalization. I push everything else out of my head and focus on Ez’s mitt and the sound a strike makes hitting the leather.

  I drown out the shouting to throw a slider. It’s the bottom of the sixth, we’re ahead by two runs. Last game in the series against Oregon State. If we win, we win the series.

  My pitch count is low, my agent is in the stands, and if I had to guess, the man next to him is from the Angels. He’s been coming to my games for the last month, constantly assessing and watching. I know a lot of scouts. Product of having a dad in the majors. They’ve negotiated constantly over the last few years, and though I’ve been eligible to enter the draft since last year, I haven’t yet.

  Right out of high school, I was offered just under four million. I turned it down.

  But you knew that already.

  What you probably don’t know is that even though my pitch count is low and I’ve thrown ten strikeouts this game alone, my mental stability is better than it’s been all season. I don’t know where the change happened.

  Maybe because I talked to my dad before the game.

  I don’t know.

  What I do know is that scout sitting two rows behind the plate with the radar in hand, he’s not going to see the unbreakable kid who finally realizes that even the untouchables show their weakness. That kid with the exceptional arm, who everyone thought would be one of a kind, well, his invincibility is starting to leak out.

  That kid on the mound that everyone is watching, he’s twenty-two, and nobody needs to know he’s facing the game alone, with his demons.

  He takes one pitch at a time. One batter at a time, he throws the game he’s capable of.

  My fastball is hard. Hovering in the upper 90s all game long and reliable. My curveball, a little wild but slides in there exactly the way it needs to. My changeup? Good luck getting a piece of that one. I’ve thrown it four times tonight, and not once has anyone gotten a piece of it.

  And then comes the third batter of that sixth inning. Shit. Trevor Long, a taller kid originally from Louisiana, he’s two for two tonight.

  I don’t know if you know this, but I can tell you the stats of most every player we see on a regular basis. I study films, their stance, and what pitches will strike them out. I know Trevor is leading the league in home runs. I can’t throw a curveball on him because he’ll send it right over that centerfield fence line. He’s a right-handed batter and steps to the plate, his ritual—one I’ve seen many times—but his confidence is impeccable.

  Aware of the music thumping through the ballpark but not really hearing it, I draw in a breath and let it out, holding the ball loosely.

  Strike him out and move on. Don’t throw for speed. Throw for accuracy.

  I focus on Ez behind the plate, someone who is smart when it comes to the game. He sees things in a baseball game most hardly do. Maybe it’s because he has a clear view of the entire field, or maybe because he’s that fucking good.

  Ez holds down one finger, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

  Two-finger fastball. Okay, I can do that.

  Sweeping my glove over my forehead, I nod and steady my breathing.

  Set my hands.

  Wind up.

  Release.

  Everything feels perfect about that one, from its release to delivery. The hiss of the pitch and the foomp of it hitting Ez’s mitt, followed by the bellow of the umpire. “Striiiiiiike!” he yells, animated with a hand gesture.

  That sound, it’s what relief sounds like.

  Blowing out a breath, I focus on the commotion in the stands, the cheering that comes next, and the whispers in the dugouts. Our team freaks out, jumping up and down, whistling at me, and clapping, but I don’t know why. They can’t be that excited over a strike.

  The umpire tells Ez something, and he nods, returning the ball to me. I look down at it and wonder what the speed was on that one.

  “Two more! Two more, Reins,” Ez says, throwing the ball back to me. “Give me two more, just like that!”

  I don’t dare look into the dugout again or into the stands. That pitch had heat on it, but I have no idea what the speed was. When baseball’s right for me, I can feel everything. A nick on the surface of the ball. A gob of mud under my spike, under the foot from where I’ve driven from rubber. The wind on my face. The sweat on the back of my neck. All of it.

  It’s as if I’m not playing a game at all, but it’s my own heartbeat. The pulse that keeps everything moving for me.

  I throw another, and one more, with just as much speed to end the inning. Trevor smiles at me, the barrel of the bat in his hand, shaking his head. No longer two for two, I give him a head nod.

  In the dugout, Ez stares at me with a goofy look, the entire team patting me on the back. “What the fuck are you staring at?”

  “Huh?”

  “I said, what the fuck are you staring at?”

  “You,” he says, winking at me, his arm slung over my shoulders. “I’m staring at you, baby.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you.” He points to the scoreboard that lights up with the replay and the flashing speed. “And you, ya fuckin’ beefcake, just threw 105.”

  The two pitches before that one, 102, 103.

  I act unimpressed and shrug it off, but damn, my heart’s racing. Had I really thrown that hard in a game?

  I look to Chiasson. He gives me a nod and slaps his hand to my shoulder. “Get ’em, kid.” Little impresses Chiasson. If it does, he doesn’t let on, but tonight, that stone-faced, sunglasses-at-night-wearing motherfucker locks eyes with me and smiles.

  I return the nod and smile. Maybe he’s forgiven me for fucking his daughter? Not likely, but a 105 mile an hour fastball might have at least weakened his grudge against me.

  We begin the inning by securing a four-run lead, and I even hit a home run through left field. For someone who hasn’t been batting much lately, that’s impressive but has nothing on my pitching the remainder of the game. I shut them down. Two-seam fastball, four-seam fastball, changeup, slider, curveball. It’s all there for me, and we end up winning 8-4. Best game I’ve had all year.

  In the clubhouse, the team stands and applauds me. I walk in with a grin and sit at my locker, the roar in my own head drowned out by the guys around me.

  Before the press is allowed in, the guys are lit, the win their only concern. “Dude!” Noah stands in front of me. “You just broke the record in the majors.” He points to the doors of the clubhouse that will soon open, and the press will be let in. “They’re going to fucking freak out. You’re gonna get so much pussy over this.”

  Ha. Like that will fix anything, but the idea is one I’m not opposed to.

  I glance down at my phone when it vibrates with a text from my dad.

  Dad: Good job, kid! You amaze me every day. So proud of you!

  And another from my aunt Sway, who follows my career about as closely as my dad does.

  Aunt Sway: Duuuude! 105!

  You know who doesn’t send one?

  My mom. I doubt she even knows what day of the week it is.

  “Where are we heading tonight?” Ez asks, looking to Forest for an answer. “We need to celebrate! And I need some slob on my knob.”

  Slob on my knob? Just when I think he can’t get any nastier.

  Forest shrugs one shoulder. “Dude, did you see Lowry’s swing. It’s ugly.” For a guy who spends hours in the cages, and even more time watching tape of his own swing, someone with a bad one is a travesty to him.

  Ez shakes his head. “Right? Close up, it’s worse. It’s fucking haggard.”

  “Hurts my back just watchin’ it,” our right fielder, Les, adds. Les is about five foot four and solid fucking mus
cle. Stockiest baseball player I’ve ever seen but can sprint from right field to first base in a snap of your fingers. How, we don’t know. For this reason, his nickname is Road Runner. We’ve been known to yell, “Meep Meep,” from the dugout a time or two.

  The conversation is quickly diverted from getting fucked up to the game and then back again. Welcome to locker room talk. It doesn’t make a goddamn bit of sense most of the time.

  We never party in the middle of a set, but it’s Saturday night, we won, and there’s no stopping us.

  “Back to going out,” Ez says, waving his hand around and redirecting the conversation. “Rula Bula.”

  Noah shakes his head immediately, peeling out of his jersey. “Are you sure you want to go there?” He stares at Ez. “Don’t you remember what happened last time?”

  “No. I try to block that night out,” Ez mumbles. “But my next hit will be solid.”

  “What’s he talking about?” I ask, unsure if I want to join the conversation or not.

  Noah’s eyes light up. He loves to tell a story, and if it involves embarrassing Ez, even better. “The last time Ez and Forest were there, they were trying to score with some strippers, and Ez had a drink thrown in his face.”

  “Can we please not tell this story again?” Ez jams his gear into his locker. “It’s old and recycled.”

  I smile. “I think I need to hear it.”

  “You really don’t,” Ez adds, tossing his cleats over his head.

  They smack Noah in the face, but it doesn’t stop him from his animated recollection of the night. “So Ez asked one of the strippers to dance, she said no, and then he backtracked and said, ‘No, I didn’t ask you to dance. I said you look fat in those pants.’ And then the chick Forest was with threw her drink in Ez’s face.”

  Forest frowns. “Fucked it up for both of us. Which reminds me.” He pauses and points to Ez, who’s glaring at us. “Stay away from me tonight. I haven’t been laid in weeks. I don’t need you fucking up my average even more.”