by Beth Bolden
“He handed me five thousand dollars and ordered me to the mall to buy short skirts and low-cut blouses, with an underlying threat that if my cleavage didn’t improve, he’d tie me down and dump bleach over my head,” she said bitterly.
It was not at all what he’d expected her to say. “That sounds…difficult?”
“It sucked. I hate shopping. And I had exactly three hours to find what I needed and get everything packed.”
Jack gestured to her still-wet clothes. “Shopping expedition sucked, check. But that doesn’t explain the rest.”
“My flight got booked after everyone else’s. Toby claimed the arrangements were made long before I was hired so I got stuck searching for the tram for the rental-car lots. And apparently it’s on the other side of the fucking airport, and I got stuck outside in the middle of a downpour and well, you see the rest.”
“It sounds like a nightmare,” Jack told her, thinking all the while that it sounded more like Selfish Prick Plays Travel Agent. Selfish Prick Plays Human Piñata would be a definite improvement.
“He’s just trying to get me to fold,” she explained quietly, glancing down at the damp towel in her lap, “and he’s pretty damn close to getting his wish.”
“We can fix that,” Jack said, suddenly jumping to his feet and pacing up and down the narrow space between the two beds. “I can teach you about baseball. Everything about baseball.”
“That’s not the only problem,” she said, objecting, but he could see the glimmer of hope peering out of her gray eyes. He understood exactly what it felt like when nobody believed in you, and those moments when it felt like the entire world was stacked against you and not one single person wanted you to succeed. But he could be the one she needed; he could believe in her. “I’m still not great on air. I stumble or ramble and I never look right.”
Jack stopped in front of her and settled back on his heels so he was at her eye level. “Isabel Dalton, I know you can do this. I know you can beat this. You’re strong and certain and so damn smart.”
The tiniest hint of a smile was beginning to peek out of the corners of her lips, so he continued. He just wanted to see her really smile again. Even the smile that she used to wrap him around her little finger. “All those things Toby doesn’t like. That you’re not perfect on air—you’re not flawless or polished and that you’re real. You don’t have fake blonde hair and you don’t wear too many expensive clothes and too much makeup. I don’t want you to lose those things because that’s what makes you different and special. Even better, those are the things I like about you.”
She laughed a little self-consciously, a blush rising on her wet cheeks. “You know, it’s hard to think you’re bad for me when you talk like that.”
“I’m never going to be bad for you,” he swore without even thinking, and as the words left his mouth, he realized just how true they were. He wasn’t going to be yet another reason for her to cry, so if she wanted them to be just friends, he’d learn to deal with it—he’d even learn to stop railing against it in his mind.
Izzy gave him a startled look, gazing at his face intently. “Thank you,” she said softly. “You have no idea how much I needed that.”
Jack settled back on the edge of the bed. “You really think during all those years of everyone telling me I’d never make a professional baseball player, I never felt this way once or twice?”
A tiny smile broke over her features. “I guess you did know, though the pep talk isn’t why I came over.”
“It isn’t?” he teased, nudging her knee playfully with his. “And here I thought you just wanted to see me.”
Izzy’s face flushed again. “Pretty much all of my reasons were self serving,” she confessed. “I also need help with more baseball stuff.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, getting to his feet. “How about that drink and then we’ll go over it?”
Izzy glanced over at him with so much gratitude that he wanted to shake her and tell her to cut it out. More worshipful gazes like that and it would be damn hard to remember that he was trying to be her friend and only her friend.
“Sure,” she said, leaning over to her laptop bag and opening one of the zippered compartments. “A beer would be great.”
Jack opened the mini fridge and grabbed two bottles from the shelf, using the edge of the counter to pop the lids off. He turned back toward her and let out a groan at what he spotted in her hands.
“Not those damn note cards again,” he ground out playfully as he sat back down next to her. “I thought we established that those were a waste of your time.”
“You said they were a waste of time,” Izzy retorted, “but they’ve been invaluable to me.”
“That’s only because you haven’t had any real experts assisting you,” Jack said, clearing his throat, and plucking the cards from her with his free hand. He glanced down. “And the RBI thing again,” he groaned. “I thought we covered that.”
“No,” she said, biting back a smile, “you made fun of me not knowing what one was. You never remedied the situation.”
He remembered making that promise on a hot Florida afternoon, and he wasn’t sure if it was the memory making him warm or the fact that she’d shown up tonight, hoping he’d make good on his promise. Trusting him to make good on it.
“Time to fix that,” he said, sliding down to the floor in front of the bed and leaning back against the mattress. This is safer, he decided, much safer than the bed. He picked the remote up and pointed it at the TV, changing the channel from sitcoms that weren’t funny to the MLB Network.
“What’s this?” she asked, joining him on the floor. “A game? Is this a rerun?”
“Yep, a repeat of Cincinnati and the Rangers, but the score doesn’t matter,” Jack said. “Watch and learn, Dalton.”
“Holy shit.”
Izzy jerked awake way too suddenly, drool on her lip and a painful cramp in her back. Rubbing her face with a hand, she looked up and saw Noah Fox leaning against the door jamb. She must have slept through him opening the door, because who knew how long he’d been standing there, chuckling at the position he’d found them in?
She’d been half asleep, mostly leaning against the mattress, but partially using Jack’s firm shoulder as support as the game hit hour three. She’d learned a lot from him, but between the late hour and the beer and everything she’d been through today, exhaustion had finally caught up with her.
Sitting up, she leaned as casually away from Jack as she could without making it obvious she was trying to distance herself. This was only the beginning of their friendship—bizarre as it was—and they’d already gotten caught. Not with their pants down or anything, but Izzy knew so many people that would see fire where there was only smoke.
Jack propped himself up lazily, clearly not at all concerned by the interruption and eyed Noah Fox with annoyance. “Damn you,” he said, his voice scratchy from sleep. “Things were just getting good.”
Izzy blushed.
“I’d better go.” The words stumbled out of her, and she couldn’t quite make her legs work the way she wanted, but she finally managed to rise to her feet. Her trembling knees were thankfully hidden by the bed, and she reached down to pick up her laptop bag off the floor.
“It’s good to see you again, Izzy,” Noah said with a bright smile, as if he wasn’t at all that surprised to find her here. “We should definitely see more of you.”
“Keep it up and she’ll never come back,” Jack said without heat.
Noah shrugged apologetically. “If I’d known you had a female visitor, I definitely would have stayed away.”
Izzy blushed again, and practically buried her face in her bag as she stuffed her notes back into their compartment.
Finally she looked up, and self-consciously tried to pull uncooperative fingers through her
still-damp and now very-tangled hair. “This was a business meeting,” she said, sticking her chin out bravely, but Noah only chuckled.
“Maybe to you. But that one over there is a lot slicker than you think. Hell, he’s a lot slicker than I thought he was.”
Without thinking, Izzy glanced over, and sure enough, there was the faintest hint of a blush on Jack’s face. As if he had anything to be embarrassed about. She was the one who’d practically drooled on his shirt.
“I’d better get going,” she said, reaching over to collect her two suitcases.
“Night game tomorrow,” Noah drawled as he meandered over to his bed. “No need to rush on my account. I’ll just sit back and watch.”
“Nothing to see,” she said firmly, resisting the urge to glance back at Jack and beg for reinforcements. She could handle the undeniably foxy Noah Fox. She’d handled Jack Bennett, hadn’t she? “Besides, I’ll need to be up earlier than you two tomorrow, and there’s that little matter of beauty rest.”
She was almost to the door when Jack caught up to her. “Call me if you need any help with the stuff for tomorrow,” he said in a low voice. Izzy nodded, her hand on the door handle.
“Oh,” he added, “and you don’t need it.”
Maybe she was still half asleep, but Izzy wasn’t sure she followed. “Excuse me?”
Jack flashed her the brightest smile she’d seen from him yet—cocky and confident and way too sexy for the sanity she was still trying to preserve. “The beauty rest. You don’t need it.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I wanted to tell you before you found out somewhere else,” Hector drawled out, as he propped his feet up on the worn desk. The particle board creaked under the weight of his stubby legs. They were in the nearly empty office that the Detroit Indians set aside for the away team to use. The only time they’d ever used it, as far as Jack knew, was when roster changes were made and Hector had to break the news privately.
“Wanted to tell me what?” The worst ran through Jack’s mind. Hector was benching him or maybe even worse, trading him.
“Ismael Butler stopped by the office yesterday. Told me that he’d been to Vegas to talk to some of the city council members there. They’re interested.”
“Interested in what?” Jack asked the question but he already knew the answer. He remembered all too clearly Izzy’s question during spring training and how he’d brushed the concern aside because a man like Ismael Butler had lots of reasons, both business and personal, to be in Las Vegas. It might have nothing to do with the Pioneers—or that was what he’d told himself at first. Then the whole problem had completely fallen off his radar after the few innings he’d spent with Izzy during that stupid spring-training game. Thirty measly minutes with a woman, he thought to himself with disgust, and he was forgetting about the most important reason he’d been put on this earth.
“Bennett, you’re not stupid. You know why Ismael took himself to Vegas, and you know it’s no good.” Hector eyed him frankly, and under the pressure of his gaze, Jack wanted to confess every partially forbidden feeling that he’d ever had about Izzy, and that all of them combined had done their best to distract him from what was really important. But it was kind of hard to confess to your boss that fuck it, you didn’t want to be only friends.
“Why are you telling me?”
Hector shrugged his shoulders. “You’re not the oldest on the team, and you haven’t been here the longest, but the guys listen to you. They like you.”
“But it’s not decided.” Jack held his breath. It was football and not baseball but he remembered all too well when Art Modell had uprooted the Cleveland Browns in the middle of their season and had informed them they’d be moving to Baltimore. Visions of the Strip flashed through his head and it wasn’t that he hated Vegas; more like the city was the end of the line for a dream that he’d had for a very long time.
“Not decided,” Hector said. “But it’s something you should prepare yourself for, if it happens. You know what to tell the guys if they ask you.”
Actually, he had no idea what he should tell them, or what even to tell them to say. Even though the media had clearly started sniffing around the idea of Butler moving the team to Las Vegas, nobody had any clear confirmation or probably the insider info that Butler had actually begun to consult with the city council. And with that thought, Jack’s blood ran cold. A story like this, even with a quote from a player off the record, would be a major coup for a struggling reporter like Izzy. It might even be enough to get Toby off her back permanently.
And, he realized, if played correctly, it might even be enough to prevent the worst-possible scenario. He remembered a few years ago when the Seattle Supersonics NBA basketball team had been moved to Oklahoma City, much to the entire city’s devastation. Portland was weird that way; they might not care about the Pioneers when they were actually in the city, playing, but if there was any sort of threat they might be moved, he wondered if they’d care.
“I’m not expecting it’ll become any kind of story,” Hector continued, “but obviously it’s sensitive information that Butler doesn’t want getting out.”
“Obviously,” Jack echoed, giving up on the idea of using Izzy as a funnel for the story.
“I know how much playing in Portland means to you. How much you wanted to win a championship for the city.”
He had. He did. “It was a pipe dream,” Jack admitted, and it was hard to say the words; even harder to think them and mean them. He couldn’t count the number of nights growing up he’d lain awake in bed, flat on his back, tossing a baseball in the air and catching it and fantasizing about being on his home field, a field as stately as Wrigley or as beautiful as Fenway, as his team became the best in the world.
He probably wasn’t the only boy who’d done that, but he was definitely one of the few who came within spitting distance, and it hurt, some place so deep down that he tried to pretend didn’t exist, to face the fact that it probably wouldn’t happen.
“If that’s all you wanted,” Jack said when Hector stayed quiet, “I’ve got a game to get ready for.”
He was almost out the door when Hector’s voice stopped him. “The reason I told you was because I know you have that crazy dream,” he said. “That’s why the guys listen to you. It’s easy to get this far and realize that you’re living the dream, that it can’t get much better than this. You have people telling you all the time—regular, ordinary people—that what you have is so extraordinary you don’t need more. But you, you’ve never settled. Don’t start now.”
Jack didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t like he wanted to freaking settle either, but when it came down to it, he knew something that his younger, idealistic self hadn’t—decisions like these weren’t his call.
In fact, they had almost nothing to do with him at all, and while that made his need for control go haywire sometimes, he’d had to learn there was no point in arguing. He’d go where he was told, field the balls he could, hit the pitches that came his way the best he could. Where he played or for what team wasn’t a choice he had control over. It was stupidly sentimental—way too sentimental to actually vocalize out loud—to only want to win a World Series for the Pioneers. No doubt Ismael Butler would move them and rename the team something horrible and tasteless, like the Strippers. Or the Elvis Presleys. The first time he’d ever met Ismael Butler, he’d thought that money, even the kind of limitless money that he possessed, couldn’t buy class. So, Jack supposed that it shouldn’t have surprised him that Butler was contemplating moving the team to his own natural habitat.
“Think about it,” Hector said, and Jack only nodded. There was so much he wanted to say that he couldn’t, but at the same time, all the words in the world probably couldn’t express what he was feeling.
He trudged down the dirty hallway and back into the clubhouse where nobody really notic
ed his entrance, just as they hadn’t really noticed his departure.
“Where’d you go?” Foxy asked the moment he was back at his locker, stripping his shirt off.
Correction: nobody had noticed except Noah. Jack thought that one of these days he was going to correct the completely false assumption that all Foxy possessed was a pretty face, a righteous pair of biceps, and a home-run swing that could make a grown man weep.
“Hector wanted to chat for a minute,” Jack answered, trying to play as it as casual as he could. Noah was not only horribly superstitious—of course, most baseball players were—but worse, he was more than a little high strung. Jack might be able to eventually tell him what Hector had said in the right moment, but plain and simple, this one sucked. They had a game in less than two hours, against the reigning World Series champs.
Talk about irony, Jack thought to himself. Like salt poured in an open wound.
“Those strikeouts Sunday afternoon weren’t that bad,” Noah remarked, pulling on his own jersey.
“Yeah,” Jack noncommittally. If only Hector had wanted to talk about his strikeouts, he would have been a hell of a lot happier.
“Three strikeouts and you still won the game. Can’t imagine what, or maybe I should say who, made that happen,” Foxy continued, as if he wasn’t right smack in the middle of the clubhouse. Jack tightened his grip on his pants and internally willed his best friend silent.
“Quiet,” Jack hissed. “Besides, like I told you, we’re just friends.”
“You say that now,” Noah said, good-natured smile never wavering. “And for the record, I never even said her name.”
“Then, let’s just say, for the record, that we don’t need to discuss her at all. Okay?”
Noah just shrugged. “If that’s the way you want to play it,” he said.
