The Game of Love

by Heather Graham

  “Did you—cry a lot when your dad died?”

  “Yeah. A whole, whole lot.”

  “What do you do to stop?”

  Sean hesitated again, thinking. He shrugged. “You do…things. You just keep doing the things you should do. Like dressing and eating and going to school and talking to people and…building snowmen.”

  “You make lousy snowmen, Sean.”

  “I know. And you throw a lousy baseball.”

  “Hey—”

  “I can learn to make a snowman. You can learn to throw a baseball.”

  Ryan stood up again. He started packing snow, a little fiercely.

  Jeff was just about to close the door on the two of them when Ryan spoke again.

  “Hey, Sean.”

  “What?”

  “I’m, uh, sorry for the things I said about your mother. I didn’t mean them. It was just that…that she wasn’t my own, d’you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. Hey, Ryan. Do you want to know something else I’ve never done?”

  “What?”

  A big fat white snowball suddenly went flying into Ryan’s face. Sean laughed exultantly. “I’ve never had a snowball fight!”

  “Well, you’re going to lose this one!” Ryan returned, and as Jeff closed the door on the boys, Jade was smiling through a mist of tears.

  * * *

  It was a quiet night. It would take time for Ryan to really be Jade’s friend, and she didn’t intend to push him. Frieda carried most of the conversation through dinner, though Jeff’s dad, a wonderful, dignified, older version of Jeff himself, helped, too. They were wonderful people, warm and welcoming. She was grateful to know them. Somehow, in the midst of tragedy, they had made her feel that she was a real part of the family.

  She thought that Jeff would want to be left alone that night; he didn’t. He spent some time saying good-night to Ryan, but then he was back in his bedroom with her. He didn’t speak at all, he just took her in his arms. He made love to her with a very special tenderness, and for the first time she was certain that he did need her, needed her very much.

  They left Chicago the next morning. Frieda was sorry to see them go, and Jeff made her promise to visit them in Florida soon. He thought it would be best for Ryan to get away from the cold and the scene of his mother’s funeral.

  * * *

  Ryan did seem much happier at home. In a few days’ time, he and Sean were screaming, yelling, shouting, laughing, arguing—being busy little boys and learning to be brothers.

  It was good for Jeff and Jade to be home, too. It seemed that the past had been buried in that windswept cemetery, leaving them both free to begin life again. Before long they too were laughing, yelling, loving—getting on with living together.

  Days passed, weeks…months.

  And with each moment, their home became a happier one.

  It seemed that the culmination of that happiness came as they sat by the dock one afternoon, looking at the new sailboat they had finally bought.

  Jeff ruffled her hair against her cheek and drew her down to the grass by the water’s edge.

  “This is heaven. This is all a man could ever want. We’ve got a private world here, our home, the breeze, the sun, the bay. I live in Eden—with you.”

  Jade smiled and drew a finger down his chest.

  “It’s a fun life, huh?”

  “Umm.” He settled his head in her lap. “And just think, we can start sailing around. Go to the Bahamas, just take off!”

  Jade hesitated. “It might not be quite so easy.”

  “Why not? The boys are almost ten, big kids. They can help with the work. We’ll be as free as birds.”

  “Uh…not exactly.”

  “And why not?”

  “Well, Ryan and Sean are pretty easy. But I don’t know. We’re going to have to pack scores of diapers, baby food and the like. Vitamins…whatever else babies need. Honestly, I don’t quite remember.”

  Jade held her breath, waiting for his reaction. He sat up and lit a cigarette.

  “You’re nervous!” she accused.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m nervous.”

  But then he tossed the cigarette out into the bay, whirled around and toppled her back onto the grass.

  “A baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ours?”

  “Jeff!”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean it that way…I mean, really? Are you sure?”

  She didn’t know whether to smile or not. “Quite,” she said primly.

  He started to laugh, and he sounded just like Ryan when he breathed, “Wow!”

  “You’re…happy?”

  “Deliriously!”

  “Oh, really, Jeff?”

  “Absolutely!”

  He kissed her. The kiss began tenderly, but soon it grew very fierce. He broke away from her at last, and when she stared up at him, she wondered about the new child. Sean was so beautiful; Ryan was so beautiful. And this child…this child would be a little like each of them. He or she would be very beautiful, too.

  “I love you,” Jeff told her huskily. “I love you, and every move you’ve ever made has made me deliriously happy.”

  “Oh…Jeff.”

  He kissed her again. Then he picked her up, and started spinning her around, laughing with pure joy.

  “Wow!” he said again, and kissed her. She was dizzy when he released her.

  “Wow,” she replied softly.

  “Oh, wow,” he repeated, and he held her close to him, so close that she realized that he wasn’t just happy, but also very aroused.

  “Jeff!” she warned him. “It’s the middle of the day. The middle of Saturday. The boys are in the house!”

  “So, my love,” he replied, putting his arms over her shoulders and bringing his face to hers. “Let’s christen the boat!”

  He kissed her again.

  “The boat…dinner out somewhere. We’ll tell the boys the good news then. But…the boat first.”

  He moved his hand along her shoulder to her ribs. He stretched it between them, caressing her breast, finding a nipple and quickly bringing it to an erotic peak.

  “The boat,” she murmured.

  Laughing, he caught her hand. They scampered across the grass together; then their feet were clattering on the wooden dock. Breathlessly they gazed at the bay, at the palm trees, reveling in the privacy and serenity of their little jungle.

  Then Jeff caught her hand again and they leaped aboard the new sailboat.

  Her name was to be the Genevieve. Ryan had chosen it.

  And that afternoon, with an eternity of tenderness, ferocity, desire and love, the Genevieve was duly christened.

  EPILOGUE

  “Foul ball!” the umpire shrieked.

  “You can do it! You can do it, Sean!” There were shrieks from the stands, shrieks from the players not on the field, shrieks from a dozen parents.

  Two outs. He had to pitch two outs.

  He and Ryan were on the Buccaneers team this year. This was it—the championship game of the season. They were playing the Eagles, and they were in the last inning. The bases were loaded, and if Sean didn’t pitch two more outs, the Eagles could undo the present six-five score.

  Sean wound up for the pitch. The ball flew.

  “Strike two!” the teenage ump yelled.

  Sean felt a little dizzy. He could see his mother in the stands, smiling, giving him a thumbs-up sign. Toby was behind the wire, shouting that he knew Sean could do it.

  About twenty feet from first base, Jeffrey stood silently watching the field. Arms crossed over his chest, he was handsome and tall, his dark hair tousled, his blue eyes keen as he followed the action.

  Whether they won or lost the game, Sean knew, Jeff was going to tell both of them how proud he was. If they won, he’d say, “Super!” If they lost, he would say, “Hey, it’s only a game, you know. You played your best, and you played by the rules, and that’s all I can ask. Good game, guys, good
game.”

  Sean knew that he was good. He knew that he would play lots of games, and that he would lose some. He was even pretty darned sure that one day he would play in the Major Leagues. He really didn’t need his mother’s approval, or his stepfather’s—not in baseball, anyway. Math…well, math was another story.

  “Pitcher!” someone yelled.

  He wound up and threw the ball.

  “Stri—ke three!” the ump called.

  Only one more out…one more out.

  Sean adjusted his cap and stared toward first base. Ryan was there; he could catch with the best of them now. But for some dumb reason, the pitcher always seemed to get the credit for a good game.

  His stepbrother smiled at him. “One more, Sean! Just one more!”

  Sean nodded and turned back to stare at home plate. The last batter for the Eagles was up. Parents were going crazy all over the place.

  “Play ball!” the ump roared.

  Sean nodded, but he didn’t throw the ball. He dropped it, doubled over and clasped his shoulder, falling to his knees.

  He heard his mother scream—darned if he couldn’t recognize her scream no matter how much other noise there was—and he gave a quick little prayer that God, and his mom, and his dad up in heaven, would forgive him.

  It was his stepfather who reached him first. “Sean? Hey, son, what’s wrong. What happened?”

  Sean had to look up and hope that his acting would not fail him. “I’m sorry. I’m okay. It’s just my shoulder. I guess I got tense and strained it. I’m okay, really.”

  He saw his mother running up behind Jeff; he saw Jeff wave her away. He saw the concern in her brilliant green eyes, but he saw, too, that she was going to trust Jeff. She forced herself to offer Sean a weak smile, and went back to the stands.

  “I’ll take you out of the game—” Jeff began.

  “No, no. I’m okay. I just think that maybe I’d better not pitch. Switch me—”

  “I can’t put Tommy back in as pitcher, Sean. He’s already played half a game.”

  “I know. Put Ryan in. He’s back-up pitcher.”

  Sean couldn’t read his stepfather’s eyes. There were an enigmatic blue.

  “I can catch, Jeff. Honest. I just don’t think I can pitch.”

  Jeff hesitated a second. People were clustering around the fences; the Eagles’ parents were all whispering excitedly. No one wanted Sean to be hurt, but if he was out as pitcher, they figured they had a sure shot at the game.

  “All right, Sean. Switch with Ryan.”

  Sean nodded. Jeff left the field. Sean went trotting over to first base. “I can’t pitch, Ryan. It’s your baby.”

  Panic swept over Ryan’s features; he went a little white. His eyes were as big as saucers.

  “I can’t do it, Sean! I can’t! Sean, this is the last guy! If he hits it good, they could win the game!”

  “Go, Ryan! You can do it! You got to do it! My shoulder’s out!”

  He gave Ryan a shove toward the pitching mound. Ryan moved reluctantly.

  “Oh, God, please tell me I did the right thing,” Sean whispered.

  Ryan moved to the mound. Sean was certain that his own team had little faith in their new pitcher, but the parents and the players started rooting for Ryan, anyway. That was the kind of team spirit his step-dad and Toby encouraged: you rooted for whoever was up.

  Ryan looked around. He poised himself. He wound up for the pitch.

  “Strike one!”

  Sean could see the deep breath that Ryan took, then quickly the ball sailed out again.

  “Strike two!” the ump screamed.

  But then even Sean panicked a bit. The next three pitches were balls. It was two and three. If Ryan blew it again, the player would walk to first. And an Eagle would come home to tie up the score. They would go into extra innings.

  “Come on, come on, come on. You can do it,” Sean whispered beneath his breath.

  There wasn’t a sound from the crowd.

  Ryan wound up, and the ball flew.

  “Strike three!” the ump called.

  Wow, Sean thought. It was just like a circus. Parents were screaming their heads off. People were rushing everywhere. The whole team was running toward Ryan.

  Toby reached him first and threw him right into the air. The whole team was there, patting him on the back, yelling his name.

  Sean shuffled his feet in the dirt and smiled. He realized that someone was standing in front of him and he looked up into his stepfather’s sceptical blue eyes.

  “How’s the shoulder, Sean?”

  “What? Oh, I think it’s going to be okay. Just a kink, you know.”

  “Sean, he might not have made it, you know.”

  “I knew he could! I knew it! He just—” He flushed, aware that he had given himself away. “I…I’m sorry. I guess I really should have been thinking about the whole team. But Jeff, honest to God, I knew that he could do it—and he did!”

  Jeff smiled then. He put an arm around Sean’s shoulder and led him toward the rest of the team.

  “Did I ever tell you, Sean, just how damned proud I am to be your stepfather?”

  Sean went a little red. He lowered his head. “Mom would go crazy if she heard you cuss around me or Ryan,” he said a little uneasily.

  Jeff laughed. “Well, yeah. And she’d be right. But this is one of those real man to man moments, Sean. I was thinking that you were a whole lot older than you are.”

  Sean felt his eyes get a little teary.

  “You sure you’re all right, Sean?” Jeff asked.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Impatiently, Sean brushed at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Come on, let’s go! The Eagles have to buy us ice cream!”

  They walked toward the fence and the parked cars. Kids and parents were beginning to move away, still yelling and calling out. Sean saw Ryan right away.

  Jeff picked up his own son and gave him a great bear hug. “Never got off a sticky one like that quite so well myself!” he said.

  Ryan beamed. Even the tips of his ears turned red. He mumbled something happily to his father, hugging him back. Then, over Jeff’s shoulder, he saw Sean.

  “You did that on purpose!” he mouthed.

  “Hey, no, man!” Sean protested.

  And then Ryan smiled.

  Sean had experienced a few moments of doubt, and a few minutes of envy. It was nice, after all, to be in the limelight. Nice to have everyone yelling and screaming and cheering for him.

  But it was all worth it. With that one smile, it was all worth it. Sean had forgiven Ryan a long time ago for the things he’d said about Jade. He knew that Ryan had just been hurt. Hurt, that same kind of bad, want-to-die hurt that he himself had felt when he had lost his father. Maybe that was why it was so great now. All of them—his mom, Jeff, Ryan, and himself—they’d learned what it was like to hurt. And they’d made it, anyway.

  “Hey, Slugger, how’s the arm?”

  Jade, who had been with Ryan, finally reached Sean. He couldn’t tell her that he’d made the injury up. But he couldn’t leave that worried look in her eyes.

  “Must have been a little cramp. It’s fine now.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  She bent down next to him. As always, she smelled good, like flowers. Her tawny hair swept over his grubby Buccaneers shirt as she whispered in his ear.

  “You’re a rotten liar, Sean. You always have been. But I love you to pieces. You’re pretty special.”

  He knew that he had turned red. “Aw, Mom!”

  She laughed.

  “Let’s go!” Jeff called.

  “You forgot,” she called back. “I’ve got my own car! I had to wait for the pool cleaner this morning, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jeff muttered. He shrugged. “Let’s drop the Volvo off at the house. I’ll follow you and we’ll drive to the ice cream parlor together. I’ll take the boys now. Ryan, Sean, hop in the Lincoln.”

  Jade grinned, ga
ve Sean a little wave and started for the Volvo Jeff had bought her for her birthday. Sean and Ryan went after Jeff. In the back seat of the car, they immediately started rehashing the game.

  “I thought we were gonners in the second inning!” Ryan told Sean.

  “Yeah, when the new kid whacked the ball into the next field?”

  “Yeah, it’s a good thing only one guy was on base.”

  “Luck does have something to do with it sometimes,” Jeff said, meeting their eyes in the rearview mirror as he put the car into reverse. “That’s something that—”

  Crunch!

  The sound of bumpers slamming together reverberated through the car. Jeff glared into the rearview mirror and began muttering.

  “Dammit! She still can’t drive worth beans!”

  Sean and Ryan looked at each other, clamped their hands over their mouths and burst into laughter, anyway. Jeff was already out of the car. The boys turned around, kneeling on the seat to stare out the back window.

  Jade had her hands on her hips. Her sun-touched hair was flying in the wind and her eyes were bright with anger as she tried to outshout Jeff.

  “You chauvinistic twit! You never look where you’re going!”

  “You wouldn’t be a safe driver on a four-lane, one-way road, you ding-a-ling!

  “It wasn’t my fault—”

  “It sure as hell wasn’t mine!”

  Jeff looked a bit threatening, Sean thought. He was a whole lot taller than Jade, and the way he was leaning toward her was a little bit scary.

  But then Sean realized that they had both become silent. They were staring at each other as smiles slowly crept onto their mouths.

  Then they burst into laughter. Jeff put his arms around Jade and hugged her, and still they were laughing.

  “You’re the twit!” Jeff told Jade.

  “Uh-uh,” she protested. “You really are a temperamental chauvinist.”

  “I wonder if we’ll be doing this all our lives?” he sighed.

  “If we are, it will be a small price to pay for spending those lives together.”

  “A very small price,” Jeff agreed, and his lips lowered to hers.

  After a moment they became aware that they were not alone. Slightly confused, Jade broke away from Jeff. From the back seat of the Lincoln, Sean and Ryan were applauding. Clustered around the two cars were Toby and Lynn and Miriam and a score of others, all applauding, too.