by Beth Bolden
“I’ll tell them tonight. Maybe we should do one of those big-team-dinner deals.”
“You think so?” Hector raised an eyebrow. “That wouldn’t be a bad idea. You boys work hard. You could use a little break. Do you want Pilar to call around and find a place?”
“That would be great. I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll have her circulate the particulars after the game,” Hector said, sounding a little too pleased with himself.
“I’ve got batting practice,” Jack said, getting to his feet.
“Yeah. Get lost.” Hector smiled and waved his hand, and Jack was almost out the door before Hector spoke again. “You know that girl, the one who quit on the air? Toby’s reporter?”
Jack clenched his fists, his fingers biting into flesh. He didn’t turn around. “Yes.”
“How’s she doing?”
Hector knew. The realization rocketed through him like jet fuel, but then he supposed he shouldn’t have been too surprised that Pilar had told her husband.
“From what I hear, she’s doing fine. And her old boss is much better. Out of the hospital.”
“She should come down and catch a game sometime. I know Pilar misses her.”
Jack cleared his throat and finally turned around. “I haven’t really talked to her, sir.”
He hated the sympathy on Hector’s face. “You should.”
When Jack finally got back to the clubhouse and his locker, he pulled his phone out and contemplated the screen. Maybe he should call again, give Izzy one last chance to answer. And if she didn’t pick up, leave one last voicemail.
He ducked into the empty dugout and dialed the number. Unsurprisingly, the call went to voicemail. It was his last chance to make it right, to convince her that he was worth taking a leap of faith—and he knew Izzy wasn’t very good at those.
“Hey, Iz. I know you haven’t called me back, and I know you’re probably doing that on purpose. I’m not too dense to understand when you’re avoiding me, but I want you to know I’m not going to give up. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.” He paused, clearing his throat. “There’s only a week left of baseball, and I’d really love to see you at a game. I’m sure Pilar would love to have some company in the wives’ section. Just don’t make this a goodbye, because it’s a really crappy goodbye.”
Pilar had found a restaurant with a private room that had no issues with staying open late or with hosting a crowd of hungry baseball players. As waiters circulated with drinks and baskets of bread, Jack stood up at the head of the table and raised his glass of iced tea.
The rumble of low-level chatter ground to a halt, twenty five or so faces suddenly gazing up at him.
“I want to say thanks for coming. And thanks for being a great team this year. We’ve been through a lot.” He paused and glanced to his right, hating the pinched look on Noah’s face. Another headache, but he was still here, still supportive. It gave him enough courage to continue, even though every molecule inside him was telling him to shut up and sit down. “It makes sense that it’s coming down to this week, these last seven games, and if it wasn’t obvious enough from the standings, there’s something else that’ll make those seven games even more important.
“Ismael Butler, our esteemed owner, came to see me before the All Star break, and informed me that he wants to move the team to Las Vegas. I know these rumors have been swirling around for months, but he set the record straight. They’re all true.”
The buzz rose again, more panicked than pleased, and Jack cleared his throat loudly. “None of us want that to happen. Portland is our city, even if we’re not from here. We’ve even started selling out some games. While that’s great, that’s not going to keep us here. What’s going to keep us here is the playoffs. That’s the promise Butler made to me. We make the playoffs and he’s keeping us in Portland. Indefinitely.”
A loud cheer suddenly erupted down the table, and as Jack looked at his fellow teammates, he realized the challenge was what they needed. They needed to understand exactly what was at stake during their next pitch or the next time they stepped inside the batter’s box. “I know we can do this,” and he was almost shocked to realize that he meant it. “A toast to us!” He raised his glass and as glasses down the table raised in response, the tension he’d carried around for so long finally began to lift.
His career was poised to take off. Whether he stayed in Portland or moved to Vegas or ended up playing for some other team, he’d be successful enough. But Iz, he thought, it’s not the same without you. I wish you could have been there tonight.
She hadn’t returned his voicemail. No text messages. Jack hung his head and tried to reconcile a world where he never saw her again, and couldn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
By the time the last week of the baseball season rolled around, Izzy had given up the charade of not caring about the Pioneers playoff race. In the evenings, Charlie would put the game on, and she’d silently join him on the couch. At first, he’d still press her to talk about Jack, but as the week progressed and the games grew tenser, he grew quieter. Instead, they’d sit next to each other, anxious and still until the last out.
Every game, Jack looked more intense, until Izzy thought she’d break from the pressure, just watching him on TV.
He needs me, she’d think helplessly, but then she’d hear Charlie panting on the treadmill, and she’d remember how much he needed her, too.
And as each day passed, it seemed more and more likely that the American League wild-card spot was going to come down to the last game of the season. It was on a Friday night, at the Pioneers stadium, and as it approached, she couldn’t help the furious debate with herself. On one hand, she wanted to be there when they won, and in support if they lost, but on the other hand, she couldn’t bear to give Jack—or herself—the wrong idea about their future together. She also wasn’t sure that if she came face-to-face with him, if she could actually tell him it was over.
That was why she’d never told him. The words, they just wouldn’t come to her. They failed her whenever she stared at her phone or at her email, trying to find them to tell Jack that it had been great, really, but now, it was over.
Between her difficulty in deciding whether to go to the last game, and the tenseness of the games themselves, Izzy had given up the hope of sleeping through the night. After Charlie would switch the TV off, she’d climb the stairs to the guest bedroom she’d appropriated as her own and lie awake, sometimes for hours, replaying in her mind every moment she and Jack had spent together.
When she’d lain awake for so long she knew sleep wasn’t coming, sometimes she’d turn on her iPad and spend the rest of the night watching old interviews with him. The turning point usually came when she finally succumbed and watched the video of her first interview with him and Noah. Even then, she’d looked at him a little too much, smiled a little too brightly when he’d spoken to her. He’d blinded her with his charisma and his determination. Was it any huge surprise that she’d fallen in love with him?
When the sun finally rose, she’d stumble downstairs and fix Charlie his turkey-bacon-and-egg-white breakfast, almost welcoming his litany of bitching about the tastelessness of the meal. It was better than sitting alone, dwelling on how sorry she felt for herself.
She’d hoped that she’d hidden her insomnia from Charlie, but on the morning of the last game, she came down the stairs and found him at the stove.
He turned around with a jaunty smile. “Don’t worry, I haven’t fallen off the wagon. It’s still that shit turkey bacon and those cardboard eggs.
“Oh. Good.” She tried to smile, but somehow during the night she must have forgotten how. It had been a particularly rough night, because she’d known that today was her last chance. If only she could have postponed the decision another few weeks, she might have been ready to make it.
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“You’re a mess,” Charlie said, without even looking at her. “I should be taking care of you, instead of the other way around.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Izzy said stupidly, collapsing into one of the chairs circled around the table in the tiny breakfast nook. “I’m fine.”
She didn’t have to see his face to know he’d rolled his eyes at her outright lie. “You’re not sleeping. You’re miserable. You want to go see Jack so badly your heart is practically dragging you out the door.”
“I can’t leave you. You just had a heart attack,” she pointed out.
He didn’t argue with this, so Izzy figured the argument was over. She’d won—even if she hadn’t really wanted to. Dragging herself to her feet, she walked over to the counter and filled the coffee pot with water. Charlie wasn’t allowed to drink coffee, but she was pretty damn sure she could use a whole pot to herself today.
A knock on the door echoed throughout the condo, and Izzy looked over at Charlie. “Are we expecting visitors?”
“One visitor,” Charlie said with no surprise. He turned off the stove and dumped the scrambled eggs onto a plate. “And no, it’s not Jack. He’s not crazy enough to miss one of the most important games of his life, even for you.”
“I didn’t think it was him,” she protested, but it sounded weak even to her own ears. Of course she’d wanted it to be Jack.
“I decided that if you weren’t going to go after what you wanted, I’d have to push you,” Charlie said. “I called that nice doctor at the hospital and got a recommendation for a live-in nurse. That’s probably her now.”
Another crisp knock. Charlie looked at her seriously. “I’m not going to let you stay here and take care of me. You’re better than that. It’s enough that you’d sacrifice your personal and professional future for me, but I’m not going to let you.”
She was so damn tired, the tears seemed to well out of nowhere. “I’m not leaving you.” Her voice was scratchy. She’d never let herself have a choice before; she sure as hell wasn’t going to ruin it by picking wrong.
“Then I’m going to have to fire you,” Charlie said, not sounding even the tiniest bit guilty about this. “Because you’re going to that damn game, and whether the Pioneers win or lose, you’re going to fix things with Jack. You’ve been so pathetic the last few weeks, I can’t stand it anymore. You’re such a sad sack, looking at you almost makes me have another heart attack.”
A chuckle broke through her tears.
“Go to him,” Charlie said, taking her shoulders in his big hands. “You’ve lost too much to let him go, too. You need him, and he sure as hell needs you.”
“Are you sure?” she asked in a watery voice, feeling hope sprout inside her.
“Izzy, I couldn’t be more proud of you than if you were my real daughter. Now go answer the damn door before the woman decides we don’t want her and she leaves.”
“Okay.” She was laughing through her tears now, happiness blooming inside her. “And then I’m going to the airport.”
Charlie’s face broke into a smile. “It’s about damn time you started talking sense. Now, can we negotiate about the bacon?”
“Hell, no.”
Even though their last game wasn’t until seven that night, Jack was at the stadium at 8:00 a.m. Sleep had been a cosmic joke, and finally, as the sun had begun to rise over the horizon, he’d gone out on his tractor, sans music for the first time in almost a year. His silence had nothing to do with Corey Rood and everything to do with the fact that today the noise in his own brain was plenty loud enough.
He spent a long time sitting in the dugout, trying to enjoy what might be his last pre game in this stadium, in this city. The grounds crew came out to tend to the grass, and he gave them a sharp nod, but instead of shooting the shit like they normally did, the guys left him alone.
But even the peace of the field couldn’t seem to silence the buzzing in his head. Finally, he went back into the clubhouse, figuring he’d try to work some of the kinks out by hitting some balls in the batting cages.
Noah was sitting alone in the clubhouse, elbows propped up on his knees, silently contemplating the industrial carpeting. He must have been lost in his own thoughts because he didn’t even glance up.
“Foxy.” At Jack’s words, Noah’s head jerked up. “You’re here early.”
“I went by the neurosurgeon’s office first thing this morning. Tried to get cleared for this game.”
Even though he already knew what his best friend’s answer was going to be, Jack gave him the gift of asking anyway. “Did you?”
Noah just shook his head, and it killed Jack to see how despondent he was. “You’ll get it done in the off-season. Don’t worry about it, man. You’ll be back next year.” The deliberately cheerful, optimistic tone was another gift, but Jack didn’t think Foxy really appreciated it. He was too lost in the possibility that he’d never play professional baseball again.
“Just get out and win for us tonight,” Noah said, and Jack could see the effort it took to jerk himself out of the hole of his own thoughts.
“That’s the plan,” Jack said, sounding a lot more confident than he felt. They’d won plenty of close games, and the players couldn’t possibly be more motivated than they were right now, but it was still a lot to ask, especially of a team that had collapsed in this exact same situation last year.
Jack grabbed a bat from his locker and his batting gloves. “I’m gonna go hit some balls in the cages,” he said. “See you around?”
“Yeah, I’ll be here. Nowhere else I’d want to be.” And suddenly, Jack knew he wasn’t the only player contemplating the possibility they wouldn’t be back here next year. They might not even be back together. And Foxy might not even be playing. Don’t think about it, he ordered himself, but it was too late, and the pressure bore down harder on his shoulders—nearly a physical load that he couldn’t seem to shake. If he was being honest, he’d be glad when tonight was over. Maybe he’d get a decent night’s sleep again. It would feel good when the only reason he had trouble sleeping was because he missed Izzy next to him.
As he hit balls in the cages, other players trickled in, most of them arriving a lot earlier than they typically did. Jack could sense the anticipation in the air, the serious expressions on their faces telling him they felt the same inescapable pressure.
He’d expected the day to pass excruciatingly slow, each moment drawn out longer because of his own nerves, but suddenly, they were all in the clubhouse, dressing for the game. The atmosphere was so tense you could have cut it with a knife.
I’ve got to get everyone to relax, he thought. They’re going to go out on the field tight and wound up. He knew he could play that way, had played that way for months now, but he wasn’t most baseball players. Most players had a relaxed rhythm that helped them play their best. At this rate, they were going to jog onto the field and completely implode.
Jack turned from his locker, shrugging his jersey over his shoulders, contemplated the silent, choked clubhouse. Noah, already dressed to observe, but not to play, glanced over at him and Jack could see that the same thing was on his best friend’s mind. You’ve got to do something, Noah’s expression said.
And really, it made sense that it had to be him. He was the one who’d offensively spearheaded their first-half heroics, he was the guy who had brought them down when he’d lost his focus after the All Star break, and he’d been the one to unite them as one team by telling them about Ismael Butler’s ultimatum.
Really, he thought, it couldn’t be anybody else.
Decision made, he stepped up onto the bench, and for a second, the height made him a little dizzy. He’d never been one for public speaking or for being the team leader. All he’d wanted to do was keep to himself and play the game of baseball that he’d always expecte
d out of himself, but baseball was a team sport. He wasn’t meant to play it alone.
“Last game,” he finally said loudly and as confidently as he could. After all, he was the guy who had the overabundance of brash confidence, from years of coaches and managers and reporters telling him he’d never be big enough, strong enough, good enough. But damn it, he was all those things, and he could pass a little of that certainty on. It was the least he could do.
“Last game,” he repeated, even stronger this time. And this time, there was a murmur of assent from the players assembled around him. “Last game, and we have something to do. It’s the same thing we’ve done ninety-four other times this season, so I know we can do it. Nine innings, twenty-seven outs. And it’s our turn, our time to own this game. We’ve worked hard enough. Let’s bring it home.” He lifted his arm, the hand that someday he’d known would wear a World Series ring. “Pioneers!”
“Pioneers!” The answering chant rung in his ears and he jumped down, not only feeling a difference in the clubhouse air, but in himself.
Izzy had texted Pilar on her taxi ride to the airport, and by the time she’d landed in Portland, there was a reply waiting for her.
Of course, chica, you have to sit with me. Ticket at will-call. I’ll meet you in the stadium at 6:30. Have something to discuss with you.
Her heart was pounding so hard from excitement and nerves that she barely gave a second thought to the last part of Pilar’s message as she raced through the airport and hailed a cab at the outside curb. Glancing at her phone, Izzy hoped she’d be on time to meet Pilar.
The taxi deposited her at six thirty on the dot, and as she climbed out, she couldn’t believe the swarms of people in front of the stadium entrance. It was almost bittersweet, that the city had discovered the team just as they were about to lose them. But not if Jack Bennett has anything to say about it, she reminded herself. He’ll never go down easily.
