by Raine Thomas
“Why not?” Frank pressed. “What about that charity deal you’ve got to attend next month? The one over Memorial Day weekend. You’re always saying what a hassle it is attending those things as a single guy. Ask Jasmine to go with you.”
His dad was talking about the opening of the new boys and girls center the team’s owner, Caroline Sanderson, had established in the name of her recently departed husband. The team, their significant others, and many prestigious members of the community would be attending. His dad wasn’t wrong that Will didn’t enjoy attending them alone. He always felt like a fifth wheel among the players who brought dates, and usually ended up fending off unwanted advances from most of the single ladies.
“I just don’t think we should mix business with pleasure,” he said at last. “If things didn’t work out between us, I’d be risking Katie’s happiness too.”
Frank frowned as he turned off the water. “You don’t think Jasmine would stop working with Katie because of one bad date, do you?”
“Why are you assuming it’d be bad?” Will automatically argued. He waved a hand before his dad could reply. “I know what I said. And I’m not sure how she’d react if things didn’t pan out.”
His dad took the towel from him and dried his hands. His gaze remained on Will’s face as he folded it to put it back through the towel ring beside the sink. Then he leaned on the counter.
“Look,” he said, “that event is over a month away. Just promise me you’ll give it some thought, okay? You’ve put your life on hold long enough. You haven’t even celebrated your twenty-fourth birthday yet. You deserve to have a little fun.”
“My birthday’s in a few days,” Will muttered. Then, seeing his dad’s quiet look, he sighed.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”
Chapter Twelve
“And how does that make you feel?”
The question was one Jasmine had heard often from Dr. Monica Smythe during their counseling sessions over the past few weeks. At first, it had annoyed her. She had grown up in a household with a Chinese father and a German mother. While she’d always had the love of both her parents, displays of emotion hadn’t been a large part of their family’s dynamic.
Once she reminded herself that her feelings were why she was attending these appointments, she had pushed past her inherent discomfort and tried to provide honest answers. She wouldn’t make the progress she needed to if she didn’t.
Their initial conversations had centered on her injury. She’d talked about how it had happened and her anger toward the dancer who dropped her. She shared her bitterness and resentment that he was now a corps de ballet dancer in the city’s largest ballet company, as were several other members of her graduating class. She revealed her frustration, heartache, and fear over how long it was taking to heal, and not knowing how to handle the uncertainty of her future.
At every turn, Dr. Smythe reassured her. Jasmine’s feelings were perfectly normal, she explained.
They were also hindering part of her healing.
It had taken Jasmine a couple sessions to understand that. The more she shared with Dr. Smythe, the less she felt burdened. Less burdened by anger. Less burdened by fear. Less burdened by her own expectations.
Once she worked through that, they moved on to Jasmine’s family. Through Dr. Smythe’s help, she’d come to realize that she was harboring a substantial amount of guilt. She felt guilty for not thinking beyond herself to see what kind of financial burden she’d put on her father after her mother died. She felt just as guilty for not making him and her sister more of a priority over the years. That guilt was only made worse by her sister’s generosity in getting her a job and letting her live with her, and her father’s offer to pay for these counseling sessions even though it went against his vow to stop helping her financially.
“Do you think you’ll ever take your family for granted again?” Dr. Smythe asked at the end of that session.
“No.”
“Then you’ve learned from this, and it will help you all as a family. Accept your guilt, then let it go and move on with the knowledge you’ve gained.”
Today’s session had taken a different direction.
“You’ve mentioned your work with Katie a few times,” Dr. Smythe said. “Let’s talk about that.”
Just thinking of Katie made Jasmine smile. She was such a sweet and talented little girl. They’d been working together for a few weeks, and Katie was engaged throughout every lesson. More than that, she practiced diligently on her own, something Jasmine hadn’t done when she was so young.
“It’s going well,” she said. “She loves dancing just as much as I do. She’s helping me remember the passion I had for ballet when I was younger.”
“That’s positive.”
“I think so. I’ve never met anyone like her. Even though she doesn’t talk, we communicate well.”
“Are you aware of why she doesn’t talk?”
“No. It doesn’t seem appropriate to ask.”
She didn’t add that she’d done a little research without learning that answer. She had told herself it was wise to learn as much as she could about her student to better teach her, but the truth was, the more time she spent with Katie and Will, the more she wanted to know about them.
Katie’s lessons over the past few weeks had gone largely like the first one. Jasmine arrived at Will’s house, fixed the poor attempt at a bun that Will or Frank tried to do, and got right into working with Katie. If the lessons were scheduled close to a mealtime, Will or Frank—depending on who was there for the lesson—invited her to stay and eat with them, which she inevitably did.
She just couldn’t say no with Katie always so hopeful.
Their casual mealtime conversations had made Jasmine even more curious. She started her research by reading up on Will’s career.
He’d been drafted out of high school by the Colorado Rockies at age seventeen. He had then worked his way through the team’s farm system, beginning in Asheville, North Carolina in single-A. He’d been drafted as a starting pitcher, but struggles in his initial outings in AAA caused him to transition into a relief role at age nineteen. By the time he hit the Majors at age twenty-one, he had already begun to show promise as a closer.
It was in Will’s Wikipedia bio that she discovered Katie hadn’t entered his life until she was four. The details on that were vague. Jasmine had only been able to piece together from the timeline that Will had been seventeen when Katie’s mother got pregnant, and that coincided with when he was playing ball in North Carolina. No details about Katie’s mother were anywhere Jasmine could find, which was why she hadn’t gotten the insight she’d hoped into Katie’s issues.
She wasn’t about to admit any of that to her therapist though. She’d surely get a lecture about maintaining boundaries with clients.
“A child’s mental health is a delicate topic,” Dr. Smythe said. “You’ve mentioned her father is heavily involved in your work with her.”
“Yes.”
Will attended each of Katie’s lessons when he was in town. It was something that touched Jasmine. Throughout her childhood, it had been her mother who took her to her lessons and paid attention to the instructor’s feedback. If she was lucky, her father showed up for recitals. Seeing how invested Will was in Katie’s dance education—indeed, how invested he was in her overall well-being—showed her what a great guy he was. They’d come a long way from her thinking of him as the outrageously overprotective dad who wanted to toss her in jail.
Now, she thought of him in other ways…ways she was sure a teacher wasn’t supposed to think of a student’s parent. It was awfully hard not to when he was so damn charming and attractive though, wasn’t it?
“If you ever have the opportunity to ask her father for more details,” Dr. Smythe said, “it could be helpful. Knowing the cause of Katie’s trauma may aid you in helping her to heal.”
Jasmine nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“It sounds as though this teaching role has provided you with some unexpected benefits.”
“I suppose it has.”
“You said you’re doing this until you’re healthy enough to begin auditioning again. Didn’t you say that time is coming soon?”
A prickle of anxiety creeped along Jasmine’s nerves. Her last PT appointment was coming up in a couple weeks. Based on her most recent appointment, she expected Everly to give her clearance to begin auditioning.
“Yes,” she said.
And finally, the big question.
“And how does that make you feel?”
As she’d been instructed during their first session, Jasmine took a moment to process her feelings and put her thoughts together before responding.
“Confused,” she said at last.
“Okay. Talk it through.”
Jasmine took another moment to watch the ducks swimming on the pond outside the doctor’s window before saying, “I’ve known since I performed in my first dance recital that I wanted to be a professional dancer. It didn’t take much longer for me to focus on ballet. It has been my life for nearly twenty years.”
“And now?”
She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “Now I’ve met Katie. My work with her has made me question whether I’m so strongly pursuing my dance career because it’s my true passion, or if it’s because it’s all I’ve ever known. When I see the joy on her face, I remember the joy I used to feel when I danced.”
“Do you think you’ll recapture that feeling if you succeed in your goal of dancing professionally?”
Jasmine swallowed the lump that lodged in her throat. “I don’t know.”
Her session ran through her mind on her drive to Katie’s lesson afterward. When she thought about auditioning, it both excited and terrified her. She had been on the sidelines for almost fifteen months. She’d done everything she could to stay in top form, but would that be enough to land her a job?
And what would she do about her work with Katie if it was?
As soon as she pulled into Will’s driveway, she did her best to push her uncertainties to the back of her mind. Katie deserved her focus.
She smiled when she headed up the sidewalk toward the house. Katie had been out with her sidewalk chalk again. There were drawings of rainbows, smiley faces, and colorful hearts from the driveway to the front door. Spying a stray piece of blue chalk under one of the bushes beside the door, she impulsively reached down, picked it up, and drew a baseball near the front step.
“The laces need to be tighter.”
She glanced up and spotted Will standing just inside the front porch’s storm door. She tried to tell herself that her racing heart was due to startlement and not just her reaction to seeing him again.
“Have you seen the size of this chalk?” she asked, holding up the chunky piece.
He grinned and opened the front door for her. “That wouldn’t stop a true artiste.”
“Oh, yeah? Which of these smiley faces is your handiwork?”
“The lopsided ones.”
She handed him the chalk as she passed him and walked into the house. “I thought so.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” he intoned.
She laughed, the weight from her session with Dr. Smythe completely falling away. Will always made her feel better. It was just one of the reasons she looked forward to these lessons as much as she did.
Her lesson with Katie went as well as each of the previous ones. Jasmine was catering the lessons to Katie’s interests, which meant she was listening to a lot of The Void’s music. In her spare time at home, she was working on some choreography to “Not Mine,” one of The Void’s most popular songs. The ballad lent itself to ballet more than the band’s typical music. Katie was sure to love working on it. For now, Jasmine was teaching her the proper forms and transitions so they could eventually put everything together with the music.
“Are you hungry?” Will asked after the lesson concluded. “I thought we could order pizza.”
Jasmine had learned that Will didn’t do much cooking. He tended to either order something or microwave it, which meant he and Katie ate a lot of prepackaged meals loaded with sodium and preservatives. She suspected that was why Frank came over for dinner a couple times a week, since he seemed to enjoy cooking.
“Why don’t you let me loose in the kitchen for a change?” she offered as she put her dance shoes in her bag.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I love to cook.”
That was stretching things a little. Her sister was really the cook in the family. But Jasmine had learned enough from her parents and her sister over the years to make a decent meal.
“All right. Have at it,” Will said, waving her toward the stairs. When she passed him to head down, he added, “Of course, if your cooking’s as bad as your sidewalk chalk art…”
“Hey, if that’s the standard you’re setting, we don’t really have a problem.”
“Oh boy.”
Thank goodness Frank helped Will out with the grocery shopping. Jasmine found frozen chicken breasts, red and green peppers, an onion, cheese, salsa, and flour tortillas. She would have loved some Mexican crema or ingredients to make fresh guacamole, but the fajitas would be fine without them. With the help of Will’s indoor grill and the seasonings in his spice cabinet, she cooked the chicken and sliced the veggies while Will and Katie played a game on their Wii. Thirty minutes after they got downstairs, they all sat down to dinner.
“Lord, these smell good,” Will said. “Thanks for cooking.”
“My pleasure.”
As he always did, Will put Katie’s plate together first. While Jasmine imagined it was what most parents did, it never failed to tug at her heart. When he glanced up and saw her watching him, he smiled.
That did more than just tug at her heart.
She turned her attention to preparing her own fajitas and tried to distract herself from her inappropriate reactions to him. Maybe being so domestic with him and Katie wasn’t such a wise thing to do if she wanted to maintain her professional distance.
Which, of course, she did, she told herself.
“Are you looking forward to going to Philadelphia, Katie?” she asked.
Will was about to depart on a twelve-day road trip. Because he would be gone so long, he’d arranged for Gareth to fly with Katie out to Philadelphia during their three-game series there.
Katie nodded.
“I’ve never been there,” Jasmine said. “I’m sure you’ll have tons of fun.”
When Katie signed something, Jasmine looked to Will to interpret. She’d been trying to learn some basic signs, but she didn’t know many yet.
“She says you should come,” Will answered. To Katie, he said, “Jasmine has another job, kiddo. You’ll see her when you get back.”
Katie signed something else.
“What did she say?” Jasmine asked when Will didn’t immediately interpret for her.
“She wants you to see me play,” he replied, his attention on loading up his tortillas. “Jasmine has more important things to do with her time,” he said to Katie.
“I’ve seen your dad play many times,” Jasmine told Katie. “We put his games on the TV at the bar, and I went to a game with my sister and our friends earlier this week. Maybe once you’re back in town, we can go to a game together.”
Katie smiled and nodded.
Jasmine exchanged a look with Will. She read in his expression that she had not only surprised him with her admission, she’d pleased him. Her face grew uncomfortably warm under his scrutiny.
His slow smile told her he noticed. “These are delicious,” he said, lifting his fajita to take another bite. “Definitely much better than your sidewalk chalk art.”
She lifted her chin as though he had insulted her. In truth, she was relieved he’d let the other topic drop. She wasn’t sure what she’d say if he asked whether she’d always been such a baseball fan or if her passion for
it had developed more recently.
Because of him.
“That sounds like a challenge,” she said, “What do you think, Katie? Should we have a chalk draw-off after dinner so we girls can crush your dad’s ego with our talent?”
As she nodded, Katie let out a little sound. Both Jasmine and Will stopped in mid-chew.
Had that been a giggle?
Jasmine met Will’s gaze. She saw his disbelief and towering hope. Knowing that acting strangely or commenting on it could ruin whatever progress they’d just made, she swallowed the bite of fajita in her mouth, put on her competitive game face, and did her best to pretend she hadn’t heard it.
“That’s it, Campbell. Your fate is sealed.”
It took Will another long moment to say, “I look forward to it.”
Something in the softer tone of his voice told Jasmine there was more he wasn’t saying. It had her heart stuttering.
She once again asked herself what she was doing. By blurring the line between her professional and personal relationships with Will and Katie, she was only going to make it harder on them when she fully transitioned into her dance career. The last thing she wanted to do was break their hearts.
You’re helping Katie, she reminded herself. You’re doing what you can to boost her emotional and mental well-being in addition to helping her learn a new skill. You’re just being a good teacher.
But when she saw the banked heat in Will’s gaze the next time their eyes met, she knew she was deluding herself if she thought he and Katie were the only ones likely to get their hearts broken when things between them inevitably came to an end.
Chapter Thirteen
Ten days into the team’s twelve-day road trip, Will sat in an uncomfortable metal folding chair in the Arizona bullpen. As usual, he’d set up his chair away from the majority of his fellow relief pitchers, most of whom only gave the game minimal attention. There were several conversations going on that had nothing to do with baseball, as well as a game of quarters in one unused corner of the pen. Because Cole Parker was the starting pitcher, most of the guys knew they wouldn’t be needed that evening.
