Hardball: (A Kinky Sexy Dirty Standalone)

by CD Reiss

  I hated feeling like that. I pushed the jacket down. “I’m sorry. I don’t like expiration dates. I’m not saying I want more from you or anything like that, but it’s too risky for me. The whole thing.”

  “Promising anything past March—”

  “I don’t need a promise.”

  “Promise is the wrong word. Attempting. Trying. That’s risky.” He wasn’t committed to putting his jacket back on, and I wasn’t accepting it, so he stood there holding it between us.

  “We have opposite ideas of risk,” I said. “Things last until they don’t. I can’t do this your way. Thanks for the lift home.”

  I pushed the door open before I could change my mind. The warmth of the house blasted my face, and I stepped away from him. Into the foyer. Turned. He stood there with his jacket over his arm, his posture telling me I could still change my mind.

  “Nice running into you too,” I said. “I’m still looking for the glove. I’ll have it sent if we find it.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay. Bye.” I gently closed the door. Click.

  I didn’t lock it. I didn’t want him to hear the clack of the deadbolt. It seemed rude.

  I watched out the window as he got back into his car, revved the engine, and sped away. I ran into my room, threw off the shoes, and got under the covers. It seemed as though it took forever to get warm.

  I regretted that he couldn’t see it my way. I regretted that I’d given him so much of myself while getting pushed against the door, but I didn’t regret saying no to his proposal. I knew the limitations of my heart, and having a relationship with an expiration date would have hurt me more than cutting him off on my front steps.

  I didn’t want an expiration date. I wanted to go in with both feet. I wanted to be blind and dumb when my heart was ripped out of me. To go in faithfully, with everything, so when I stood alone again, tears welling up, I could tell myself that he was the asshole. He’d fucked up. He was awful, and my mother was right. Too good-looking, too talented, too rich. How was I supposed to soothe myself if I went in knowing when it would end?

  Cynical. The whole idea of it was cynical.

  Eventually I fell asleep in my mother’s gold dress, feeling as though I’d dodged a mess of heartache.

  nine

  Dash

  Youder came by to work out. The weeks before spring training were spent making sure we didn’t get our asses kicked in Arizona. We were out of shape, lazy, sloppy. Youder and I had worked out together three times a week from January to March the same way for the past five years.

  We took the old stone steps down the hill to the southernmost point of my property and turned right around. The hill looked like a sheer face with bushes and rocks latching onto the dirt to defy gravity. We scrambled back up the hill on well-worn trails, hitching and heaving, working out arms and legs against our own body weight.

  Twenty-five laps per session in January.

  By the first week in April, we could do a hundred even if it took all afternoon.

  He had his foot on the top of the fence separating the patio from the baby fig tree, stretching, and he spoke as if what he was saying wasn’t supposed to mean anything to me. “Trent’s pushing me to move.” He took his leg down and put up the other one.

  “That’s how he makes his money.” I twisted at the waist, stretching the sleeping back and shoulder muscles.

  “Yeah. He says Baltimore’s got a young team. They’re looking for maturity, and they have a third-base coach moving into retirement.”

  Jack would make a great coach. He was a natural leader and a clear-and-unemotional thinker. He knew the mental game. He’d mentored me when I was at Cornell, and he’d been on the team that wanted me the most. He was the reason I was playing for Los Angeles and not Pittsburgh.

  “Barnett’s never retiring,” I said.

  “Trent says otherwise.”

  “He doesn’t know shit. He’s an agent.”

  “He knows plenty. He’s an agent.”

  I stopped stretching. “You’re not going to Baltimore.”

  He regarded me seriously, putting both feet on the ground. “I might.”

  I took a deep breath and looked toward the horizon, over the stretch of the Los Angeles Basin, to the stadium, like a bird’s nest on the east side of Elysian Park. At night, it looked like a spaceship landing, but in the day, it was just a grey cleft in the city.

  “You’ll be all right,” he said. “We have three winning seasons behind us. They can pay the best—”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “But Baltimore’s a loser. For you.”

  I didn’t wait for an answer but trotted down the old, cracked steps that led to the southernmost, wildest, and lowest edge of my property. My meds hadn’t kicked in, and I was going to say something impulsive.

  It was his career. He could do whatever the fuck he wanted.

  He caught up to me at the bottom, and without a word, we started up. My anger at Jack abated as my body expended energy, dealt with pain, opened my thoughts.

  I don’t like expiration dates.

  I pulled myself up on the trunk of a bush, needles catching my arm and going for my face. I was impervious to accidents and pain. More stimuli to get me through and distract me enough to let me pay attention.

  Expiration dates.

  The treadmill was impossibly boring without a book. Free weights were no better unless I had an audiobook in the headset. Counting reps literally caused me psychic pain, the urge to run was so strong.

  This I could do. Climbing up a hill I could fall down was good. I could give it attention, and the stakes were high because falling could lead to a career-killing broken bone.

  Things last until they don’t.

  I threw myself up the hill and back down again. One step at a time. I’d built the charms in my life one at a time, and one at a time, they’d collapsed.

  So one at a time, I’d have to build them again.

  I didn’t have women in Los Angeles, yet the hopefulness of that thought brought Vivian to mind. I tried to shake her as I climbed. I had reasons for the rules.

  So no.

  But I tasted her in my dry mouth. Heard her in my gasps. Once her voice came to my mind with its talk of expiration dates, I couldn’t shake it. She was in my invigorated muscles and the ache in my arms, and the harder I pushed, the harder she did.

  Maybe I could break the Los Angeles rule.

  It seemed reasonable. If things were going to fall out of the bottom, I couldn’t just fill from the top. I had to rethink and remake the setup of my life then hold fast again.

  One step at a time with her. No rushing. I could have her by the time I went to the Cactus League. I would have her. Own her. Make her body mine. Satisfy my unreasonable, disproportionate craving for her. I gasped for it with every wrench up the hill, every burning muscle, every drop of sweat down my face.

  As I climbed the hill, lifting myself by a tree branch, leveraging enough weight to get my leg up to a ledge in the slope, I passed Youder for the third time.

  “Last lap,” I said, breath heaving.

  He gave me the thumbs-up and scrambled behind me.

  When I got to the top, I grabbed his bottle and sat on the edge. I’d never gotten this far ahead of him.

  He threw himself on the flagstones at the top of the hill, where my patio started. “Jesus.” He barely had enough breath for the two syllables.

  I leaned back and handed him the bottle. “You have two months to get it back.”

  He sprayed his face with water even though it was freezing out, then he downed half the bottle. “I won’t.” He sat up. “This is it. This is where the shit starts filling up the bag.”

  “Whatever.”

  “The age thing. It’s real, son.”

  “You’re just lazy. Julio Franco played until he was forty-nine.”

  “I’m not Julio.”

  He wasn’t Ju
lio. I wasn’t saying he was. I couldn’t tell if he was being intentionally thick or if I was bent out of shape for no good reason. Let’s face it, I didn’t make the effort to figure out the difference.

  “People look up to you. They look at you, and they see a guy who could play ball to the end. You start getting soft, you work through it. Get a little older, work harder. If you leave, you just prove this game’s like all the other ones, okay, but it’s not. And it’s not because guys like you play.”

  “Old guys?”

  “You know what?” I stood and put my hand out for him. “You’re not a free agent until October. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He grabbed my hand, and I pulled him up. He clapped me on the back.

  I drank a quart of water when he left. It took so long to drink that much water, and I had to stay still for it. Jack getting too old to play hurt me in places I didn’t poke too often. The place where I couldn’t play. The place where an injury took me off the lineup. The place where my life was turned upside down and death fell out.

  I had a book to read. I’d stop thinking about Jack leaving and playing without Daria’s pin and the missing ports-of-call women if I buried myself in it.

  Fifteen minutes in, when I laughed at a line so clever it seemed to twist on itself, I wondered if Vivian had read it.

  I was sorry she hadn’t been able to let me finish the job at the same time as I was grateful she’d refused me before she went full psycho. I respected that. Admired it. She had a lot going for her. It was too bad about the circumstances.

  Another line cracked me up, and I realized the book I was reading was by Dwayne F. Wright. The same guy who’d written Eternal Joke.

  It didn’t all have to be about sex, did it?

  We could be friends. That could be part of the New Rules.

  I grabbed my phone.

  Have you read The Underling?

  ten

  Vivian

  I don’t want you to think less of me. I don’t always read the opaque stuff. I read a lot of romance

  I read the Story of O

  What did you think?

  (…)

  (…)

  Are you there?

  Yes

  (…)

  I liked it. Eye-opening

  How?

  You’re curious, aren’t you?

  About you? Yes.

  (…)

  (…)

  I didn’t like that her first master shared and abandoned her

  She was better off. Once you make a woman yours, there’s no sharing.

  Make her yours how?

  How?

  Let me tell you, exactly

  When you take a woman who has never been tied up before and you loop her wrists over the headboard and her legs to the footboard. And you blindfold her so she can’t see where your hands are. When you touch her body everywhere, suck her nipples hard, play with her until she’s so close to orgasm she’s begging for release. When you say, “You’re mine you beautiful thing, no one else will have you,” then there’s no turning back.

  (…)

  Have you ever done that before?

  Everything through “release”

  And I shouldn’t ask this. We’re just friends

  But I have to

  I haven’t

  Done anything like that, I mean

  I was going to ask if it turned you on

  (…)

  (…)

  (…)

  Vivian?

  Was that inappropriate?

  It was inappropriate

  And I am very turned on

  eleven

  Vivian

  “You look tired.” Francine poked our slice of apple pie.

  Pie was the new thing, replacing macaroons, which had replaced cupcakes as the most stylish way to end up with a closet full of clothes that didn’t fit.

  “I was up all night texting with Dash.”

  “Mr. Winter? Really?” She’d dubbed him Mr. Winter because he’d slated the relationship to end in spring. “Were you texting about how many times he was going to fuck you before he split?”

  “Shh!” I glanced around the coffee shop.

  Everyone must have heard her. They were just being polite. Thank God. She pushed the pie to me, and I speared an apple.

  She fiddled with the white pom-pom on her pink hat. We were both dressed in jeans, but hers were original Sergio Valenti’s, and mine were Gap. She was one of seven stylists in Los Angeles making money. I thought I should try to let her dress me one day. If she saw my mother’s closet, she’d explode.

  “What were you texting about then?”

  “Books. Until three in the morning. He is—I mean, I can’t believe I’m texting Dash Wallace. I feel like I won the lottery.”

  “You should fuck him,” she said, dropping her voice on the word fuck as if that kept anyone from hearing. “And quit this lottery talk. He’s just a guy.”

  I flashed on feeling the rock hardness of Dash’s dick between my legs. His hands gripping my arms to keep me up. His knees pressing my legs open. I’d brought myself to orgasm twice thinking of him and the things he’d texted. After the discussion of The Story of O and whether or not it turned me on, we moved to safer subjects, but I’d throbbed for him all through it.

  I flushed hot pink. “We’re friends. We agreed.”

  “It’s been years, Vivian. Years.”

  “I can’t sleep with him until spring training and just stop.”

  “Do it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’re practically a virgin. Come on! He’s so cute. And I bet he moves like a champ. Please. You’ve slept with one guy your whole life. Just a few weeks. For fun!”

  I rolled my latte between my hands, letting the warmth spread over my skin. “I’m not that way. I’m not judging. Everyone has to do what makes them happy. But I’m not in the market for a fling. I like serious relationships.”

  “Like the one you had with Carl, you mean?”

  “Shut up. I just… it’s not like I want to marry the guy. I don’t even know him. But I don’t want to make it cheap.”

  “Who said anything about cheap? Make him take you out,” she said.

  “See what I mean?”

  “What I’m saying is, how do you know you won’t like a fling? You’ve never tried it. And if you start having ‘feelings,’ you just end it before they’re too much.”

  I put my cup down and blew on the surface of the latte until the foam was a white crescent against the edge. Francine sounded logical and right. What could it hurt?

  “I saw Carl the other night,” I said.

  “I know,” she replied, sitting back.

  Carl and Larry were still friends. We hadn’t split our friends in the breakup. We just kept all the hurt feelings away from friends we shared. Except Francine. She was a vault.

  “How did you feel about it?” she asked.

  She was a vault for Carl as well. If Carl told Larry anything and Larry shared it with Francine, I’d never know.

  “I looked awesome,” I said, meaning every word. I’d even felt beautiful. “He did too. He was with this girl. Woman. Big tits and lips.”

  I didn’t have big tits. Mine were great, perfect for me, but not Ds. And my lips were also fine, but not Angelina Jolie pillow pets. Was that what Carl had been looking for?

  I realized I didn’t care. That was new. I used to use all of my shortcomings as a reason to beat myself up about Carl, and now, in the coffee shop with Francine, I just didn’t care what kind of woman he wanted that I wasn’t.

  “What did Jim think?” Francine asked. “Did he paw you to make Carl jealous?”

  “He was with Michelle. I was talking to Dash at that point. I have to say, I’ve seen Carl a few times since we split up, and every time it gets easier. He looks more together, and it gets easier anyway.”

  She reached across
the table and held my wrist. Her hand was warm from her cup of chocolate. “You’re ready.” She tilted her head to make eye contact. “I know you think I’ve always thought you were ready. But I knew you were hurting, and I was looking for a Band-Aid. This is different. I know you don’t believe it. I know it’s hard. But I mean it this time. You’re ready.”

  I let her hand stay there. Maybe I was ready to look for a man again. But I wasn’t ready to throw my body around until April. I hadn’t changed that much. “I’m scared.”

  “I know,” Francine whispered back. “I know, and that never goes away.”

  twelve

  Vivian

  I couldn’t keep my mind on my work. I had a stack of books to get back on the shelves and a bunch of late notices to slip into backpacks. Iris had eaten two apples during recess and four after lunch. Which was fine, but now I had to get more. I had to write requisitions for new books. I had a proposal with the public library pending that would have them send a book for every child off the semester’s reading list. I could do all of it. I wasn’t overwhelmed, necessarily.

  You’re ready.

  By Wednesday morning, the physical memory of him had faded and been replaced by the plain intellectual excitement of seeing his texts. We were reading Goalpost together. I couldn’t keep up with him, but trying was so fun that I’d been up late again on Tuesday night, talking about the characters and making predictions. It wasn’t my usual romance fare, but I didn’t miss the alpha guy getting the girl, losing the girl, getting the girl. A break was nice once in a while.

  I got the go-ahead to send an email to all the third-grade parents about the missing glove. By lunch, I was catching up on all the things I’d let slide in my Dash-induced haze when Iris came in with a plastic grocery bag.

  “Lo siento, señorita Foster.” She apologized, placing the bag on my desk, head hanging like a puppy.