Game On

by Collette West

BROOKS: WTF, Jilly? How does she know the name Sasha only calls me in private? Thanks a lot, man.

  While the team was on the road, I managed to dodge my teammates' texts and emails for a while, but due to a quirk in the schedule, they were only away for four games. It didn't help that they lost every single one of them. First, a make-up rain date in Kansas City turned into a bloodbath when they lost nineteen to two. Then they got their asses handed to them by Detroit, dropping all three games of a pivotal series.

  The New York Kings are a team in disarray because I wasn't there to put a lid on things, and it all bubbled over both on and off the field.

  That's why I came in extra early today because I knew they'd all be waiting for me. The second I walked in the clubhouse, I got swarmed as they bombarded me with question after question. The paparazzi screaming and yelling at me was nothing compared to the tongue-lashing I got from my teammates.

  Pedro set the tone, not even bothering to say hello or ask how my arm was doing. "Bro, how did she know that my wife likes to travel with the team? Because you know what? Her boss found out and now she's in big trouble for calling in sick last week."

  Drake was quick to follow my battery mate. "You'd better hope that she has one hell of a lawyer, lover boy, because I'm not gonna take this shit lying down. She'd better be prepared for a lengthy legal battle."

  Even easygoing Landry got into it with me. "Jilly, the folks down at the local honky tonk called my wife. They said they might be gettin' their liquor license revoked because someone's claimin' they served alcohol to my teenage son because one of the books mentioned he was in there and it just ain't true. Dude, you gotta do something about this."

  But defending myself was pointless when they all ganged up on me.

  "C'mon, guys. I didn't know anything about it."

  "Yeah right, Jilly."

  "That's bullshit."

  "What do you think we're stupid or something?"

  "She wrote about me too, you know."

  "So what?"

  "She shouldn't be writing about any of us."

  "How are you gonna fix this?"

  "I don't know. I don't even know where she is."

  "Uh huh."

  "You expect us to believe that?"

  "Well, find her!"

  But Chase, the one guy I was waiting to rip my head off, kept his distance. He didn't approach me, at least not around the other guys. He watched what was going on from the back of the room and didn't intervene on my behalf like he usually does. He let me take the heat for all of Hailey's transgressions. I'd brought a traitor into our midst, and he's leaving it up to me to sort it all out.

  But what if I can't? I don't know how Hailey obtained her information. She must've been studying the team for a long period of time to pin down so many personal details about each and every one of us. I can see why the guys are freaked out, feeling like their privacy has been violated.

  Because I feel the same way.

  ***

  My mind snaps back into the game when Pedro throws down the sign for the slider. I don't shake him off, even though I want to. My elbow's twinging like the motherfucking Tin Man in need of his oil can. Yeah, I might've fooled Liam all week, but being in a game is different. It's not like facing the minor league guys I pitched to in Stockton the other day. This isn't a simulated rehab thing. This game counts. When I play, I don't go halfway. I go full out, giving a hundred percent, regardless of pain. Too bad my slider's the pitch I feel it the most on.

  Yesterday's MRI said that the tear didn't get any worse, but it didn't get any better either. And right now, it's throbbing like an SOB. I shouldn't be out here, and I know it. I should call Tony out of the dugout and tell him that it's too sore to keep going. It just doesn't feel right.

  But I don't because I have enough negative headlines swirling around me at the moment, thanks to Hailey. The least I can do is try and do my job. Even if I can't get my pitches where I want them, because no matter how pissed the guys are at me, they want to win this game just as much as I do. If I can't hit my spots and nip the corners of the strike zone, then I can't leave a sub par fastball hanging right over the plate. I have to at least keep it in the park and make sure the batter's only able to hit it off the end of the bat, trusting that the defense behind me will run it down and catch it—and save my sorry ass.

  I stare in at Pedro's glove, focusing on nothing else but reaching the target he has set up for me. From the windup, I deliver the pitch, and that's when I hear something pop—that sickening kind of pop.

  I try to shake it off when the hitter swings and misses, but I know I've done it this time. Everything seems to slow down around me. It's like I'm hearing the crowd from underwater. My elbow is on fire as a lone trickle of sweat drips down my back. For all the 'could've, should've, would'ves,' it's too late now.

  I just tore my UCL.

  I'm out for the year.

  I don't need an MRI to tell me that. I know it in my heart.

  My arm hangs limply at my side, and I grip the back of my elbow. Like a bad case of déjà vu, I see the combined blur of Tony and Liam rushing toward me.

  "Is it…?" I hear Tony ask, even as I squint to see him through the tears I'm holding back.

  I nod with a groan.

  He takes a moment to pat me on the back. "It'll be all right, big guy. I promise it'll be all right."

  And I know he's talking about a whole lot more than the severed ligaments on the inner side of my elbow. He's well aware of the damage Hailey's caused, and he knows that neither problem is going to be a quick fix.

  This time, Tony doesn't send me back to the dugout with Liam. As a sign of solidarity, he walks me off the field himself, his hand splayed firmly against the number twenty-four on the back of my uniform. He's taking the opportunity to show the world that he's in my corner—from Terry to my teammates to anyone else looking to take a swipe at me. I'm still one of Tony Liotta's boys, and that kind of loyalty doesn't come cheap. It has to be earned. No matter how dark this moment may seem, Tony believes that, somehow, I can work my way back to where I was before.

  I'm just not sure how that's possible without Hailey.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hailey

  Ring…ring…ring…

  "Hailey, can you get that?" my mom calls from behind the counter, swirling a ladle of tomato sauce around a pizza crust.

  I pause, my hand hovering over the receiver.

  If I answer this, it'll be the first time I'm making contact with the outside world since Terry ran me out of New York. I've been hiding in my parents' basement—too afraid to go out, too afraid to pick up the phone. But after five days of going to ground, it's time to face the music.

  "Hello. Halpert's Pizza and Subs," I answer.

  Click. They hang up.

  Great. While interest in the Halpert name has gone through the roof, business here has been slow since customers who want to order food can't get through because too many journalists are tying up the line, wanting to talk to me.

  Ring…ring…

  "Hello. Halpert's Pizza and Subs." This time, I force a grin onto my face since, through the years, my mom has always drilled into my head that a customer can hear if I'm smiling or not.

  Click.

  Okay, enough of the nicey-nice bullshit. Now, I'm getting steamed.

  Ring…

  "Hello. Halpert's Pizza and Subs," I say a lot more forcefully.

  This time, I hear the person on the other end breathing, but they still don't say anything. Awesome. Now random mouth-breathers are pranking us. Great.

  "Listen, asshole. Quit calling here! You got that?" I slam down the phone with a huff. We're getting harassed enough without having to deal with pervs like that.

  "Hailey, can you come back here and help me wrap these meatball hoagies before your father takes them over to Rick's Garage?"

  My mom always emits a controlled sense of busyness, no matter what, well accustomed to the ebbs and flows of life. It's jus
t taking me longer to get back into the groove again, probably because I'm fighting it so much.

  "Stop looking so glum, Hails." Mom glances at me with her signature worried expression.

  "It's kinda hard not to." I roll my eyes and start ripping off arm-length pieces of foil from the industrial-sized roll. "Oh, Ma, you have the game on? Really?"

  I try not to glance up at the miniature flat-screen sitting atop the refrigerator. This is supposed to be Jilly's first game back. I checked online this morning and saw that the Kings said that he was ready to resume pitching as of today. I know I should start breaking my bad habits when it comes to following Jilly, but he's an addiction I don't think I'll ever be cured of. He means the world to me, and he always will—no matter what Terry Bloom has to say about it.

  "C'mon, Hails. You know he might pitch tonight," Mom replies.

  "Ma, don't make me watch this." I reach up on my toes and turn it off.

  "You can't run from your problems, you know." She slides the pizza into the oven before setting the timer. "If I'd had any idea what you were writing about down in that basement night after night, I would've stepped in a whole lot sooner."

  "No, you wouldn't have." I rustle open a plastic bag and start lining up the sandwiches one by one. "You never had any interest in what I was writing."

  "That's not true!" She spins around while washing her hands at the sink. "Your father and I scrimped and saved to put you through college. You never showed us your work. Maybe if you had, we could've prevented all of this."

  "Yeah, like I was gonna show you the sex scenes I wrote." I grimace, packing the to-go order in an insulated delivery carrier. "So not happening, Mom."

  "Well, I read them now—so what's the difference?" She dries her hands on her apron, her cheeks turning red.

  "You did not!" I exclaim, feeling sick to my stomach.

  "I had to see what all the fuss was about. I am your mother, after all." She glances at me like she doesn't know if she likes me knowing about such things, much less writing about them.

  "It's what readers want. I don't necessarily feel comfortable…writing about that stuff, but that's what sells. And I certainly don't wanna end up having to sling pizza for the rest of my life." I mentally kick myself when her face drops, knowing I went too far with that remark.

  "Well, it's what's kept a roof over your head, missy. You should be grateful. And keep your voice down, I don't want your father to hear you talking like that," she scolds me. "And now, with Drake Schultz's lawyer sending you that threatening letter, don't you think it's about time you took your books off the market before things get any worse?"

  "Ma, you know it's been slow here, even before all of this happened, and my books are actually bringing in some money now—money we could really use." I watch her carefully, not wanting to injure her pride but needing her to understand why I'm doing this.

  "I don't like it, Hailey. It's like you're digging yourself into a deeper and deeper hole, one you'll never be able to get out of. What if these lawyers end up taking all of your profits anyway? Then what good will it do? What if it's still not enough?"

  She has a point. I know Terry's not going to take this lying down. He fired a warning shot by releasing my name when I didn't immediately comply with his request. It seems like he's still giving me time to reconsider, but I have to get this last book out if it kills me. It's too important not to.

  But Mom keeps harping away at me. "Hailey, you shouldn't have gone to New York in the first place. I knew it'd come to no good. You never even showed us your apartment. I didn't know where you were or what you were doing, running around the city at all hours of the day and night. I was a nervous wreck the entire time you were gone. The only thing that gave me any comfort was knowing that, at the end, you had Jilly there with you. I don't even care that you up and left all of your belongings behind. I just thank God that you're back home with us, safe and sound."

  "New York was fine, Ma. The dream date contest is what got me in trouble," I mutter, hiking my butt up onto the counter, dodging around the subject of the break-in I never told her about.

  "I don't understand why you just couldn't reach out to Jilly on your own. You didn't have to enter some contest. I'm sure he would've loved to have heard from you. You two always got along so well." She wipes her brow and scurries around, placing the lid on the sauce and lifting the heavy container back into the fridge.

  I should be helping her instead of sitting here, complaining about my life, but it feels good to talk it out. I've been keeping everything bottled up inside until I thought I was going to burst. New York just wasn't my scene. It chewed me up and spit me right back out.

  "Did you try calling him?" Mom broaches the one subject I really don't want to talk about. "He doesn't know you got on that bus. He's probably worried sick about you. At least tell him you made it home okay."

  I think back to the night I fled the library and took a cab to the Port Authority bus terminal. The earliest departure back to the rolling hills of Butesville, New Jersey, wasn't until six a.m., so I waited there until morning, trying to stay in the busier areas around the newsstands and restaurants, keeping away from the riffraff roaming through the corridors in the wee hours of the night. If my parents or Jilly knew where I was, they would've had a heart attack.

  "I can't, Mom. He doesn't wanna speak to me. It's better this way. We can make a clean break…just like the last time." My heart clenches at the thought, but I push it away.

  "And that worked out so well for you." Mom opens an empty pizza box from the stack under the counter, getting ready for when the timer goes off.

  "What? I had Kurt." I feel like biting my tongue for even saying that.

  "Do you know he came by to see you yesterday?" Mom groans. "I told him you weren't here, but I don't think he believed me, which means he's bound to come back sooner or later."

  "Yeah, well I don't wanna see him." I sigh deeply, remembering what it felt like to have Jilly kiss me. There's no way I can go back to the alternative.

  "I don't know why you went stringing that boy along in the first place." Mom shakes her head at me. "You and Jilly were inseparable all through high school. And then you graduate and somehow you end up with a schmuck like Kurt and Jilly goes on to be a superstar pitcher with the Kings, the guy you were supposed to be with—or at least the one who was worth giving a shot."

  "That's not how life works, Ma." I rest my chin on my knees.

  "Feet off the counter." She claps her hands, reprimanding me. "Always looking at the bad side of things. Always focusing on the negative. You never even gave Jilly a chance. You just let him walk away. You didn't even fight for him. You shoved Kurt in his face and had him leave town with a broken heart. That was cruel, Hailey. That's not the type of person we raised you to be."

  "Ma, we've talked about this a million times!" I protest, hopping down. "Jilly never would've made it to the Kings if we'd tried the long-distance thing. He would've been torn, his heart in two places at once. Athletes need focus, discipline, single-mindedness. He needed to concentrate on his pitching and nothing else. That's what worked for him."

  "But is it working for him now?" My father walks in from behind the swinging door, scaring the crap out of me. "I was listening to the game on the radio while making deliveries, and Jilly was just taken outta the game."

  "What?" My mouth falls open, and I suddenly find it hard to breathe. Please, God, don't let it be…

  "He tore his UCL completely this time. He's out for the year." My dad's announcement rings in my head like a harbinger of doom.

  "That poor boy." My mom covers her mouth in dismay. "Hailey, you need to call him, see how he's doing."

  "I can't, Mom. All right?" I snap at her, not knowing where to look because it feels like the walls are closing in on me.

  "But Hailey—" she insists.

  "Not now, Mom!" I shout, pushing past my startled father and out the kitchen door.

  I need air. I feel the tears tr
ickling down my face, but I'm too afraid to go outside. The majority of the paparazzi packed it up yesterday when it became apparent I wasn't coming out, but there still might be a stray photographer hanging around, hoping to get a shot of me. So I trudge down the wooden planks to the basement instead, closing myself off.

  But try as I might, I can't shut out thoughts of Jilly and just how worried I am about him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jilly

  "Count backwards for me from thirty, Mr. Gillette." The anesthesiologist glances down at me from above the tiny, moveable hospital bed I'm sprawled out on.

  "Thirty."

  Today's the day I'm having Tommy John surgery, and the doctor behind that door is going to take a healthy tendon out of my leg and weave it through the holes he's about to drill in my elbow.

  Yeah. Fun stuff.

  "Twenty-nine."

  The Kings expect me to be throwing harder than ever by next summer, and they wasted no time scheduling my operation. Every day I can't pitch is a day they're setting themselves up for another potential loss. Other teams think they have a chance against the rest of our relievers, and our bullpen immediately loses its intimidation factor. Without me, the game is back to being nine innings again.

  "Twenty-eight."

  My eyes feel heavy and I struggle to keep them open, fighting until the bitter end. I don't know why. I can't stop this from happening. It's inevitable that I'm about to get my body sliced open in multiple places.

  By the time I wake up, I'll be the bionic man. Better. Faster. Stronger.

  With nothing but time on my hands to think about Hailey.

  At least I got to hear her voice on the other end of the phone. She made it home. She…

  And then I'm out.

  ***

  I feel her before I see her.

  She crawls onto my lap, pulling my arms around her. My elbow doesn't hurt anymore. Nothing hurts. Everything feels good. Oh so good.

  I open my eyes and she smiles at me.

  "Hold me," she says, snuggling into me, but there's no need to explain. I like holding her and she likes being held—end of story.