by Megan Ryder
“It’s the job, Sophie. We fix them, then move on. That’s the drill.”
Sophie grabbed her hand, squeezing it. “So, what happened?”
Stacia glanced up through watery eyes. “You know what happened.”
Her friend shook her head. “You need to say it.”
Stacia yanked her hand out, the sympathy almost more than she could bear. “Exactly what you warned me against. I fell in love, okay? I fell in love with Jason Friar. I got confused between the job and reality. I was a fool.” A stupid, blind fool.
Sophie walked around the breakfast bar and gathered her friend in her arms. “You didn’t screw up, honey. He screwed up by letting you go. He’s the fool, not you.”
Stacia allowed herself a few moments to grieve, but the comfort was not the same. All she felt was the way Jason had held her after her father’s phone call, the way he wiped her tears, then the way he stood up for her and made love so sweetly to her. “It was real, Sophie. He really did love me.”
“How could he not? You did everything for him.”
“No, it wasn’t like that. He never wanted me to do anything for him; he loved me despite some of that.” And she lost it, destroyed by the media. She, the image consultant who was supposed to know how to handle the media. Hoisted by her own arrogance.
Sophie sat on the stool. “So, what happened? Was it the article?”
Stacia paced, tears drying. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so. He kept ranting about betraying him.” She continued to pace, sipping the chai. Then she stopped, snapping her fingers. “Of course! How stupid could I be? He thought I was using him.”
Sophie’s eyebrow furrowed. “I don’t understand. Why would you use him? What would you have to gain?”
She seized Sophie’s arms, shaking her. “You see, the article said I used my clients. Jason’s been used his entire life, so-called friends, groupies, even his old coach, and his dad. He thought I was using him like everyone else. He doesn’t know how I feel!”
“How do you feel?”
She stared at her friend. “How can you ask that?”
“You never said. Did you ever tell him?”
“I love him. No matter what.” She truly did. Instead of fresh pain, hope sprang in her. She loved him. She could overcome this. Everyone knew love trumped everything else.
Sophie smiled. “It’s about damn time. Now, what are you going to do?”
“I have to see him.” She glanced around the room looking for her purse and keys. Sophie grabbed her arm and pointed her in front of the mirror. “Not like that, you don’t. You’ll scare the hell out of him. Go take a shower and clean yourself up. The team is playing their one-game playoff today.” She held up two tickets. “The team sent these for you. Get going!”
Stacia hugged her friend then darted up the stairs to get ready. She had a man to win back.
*
Jason sat on the stool in front of his locker, head hanging. He tried to review the game in his mind—the pitcher, the hitters, the pitching plan. But all he could think about was Stacia, what she had done, where she was, how she had hurt him. In the past week, he had been sleepwalking through the season, playing as lethargic and uninspired and unfocused as he had accused the team of just a month prior. All the fun, the joy had gone out of the game.
He had found himself searching the stands for an auburn-haired siren, driving up to the condo hoping to see lights on, looking over his shoulder when giving interviews, expecting her to be coaching him. Instead, he was alone and all of the joy had leached out of the world when she had left. Correction, after he had driven her away. He had even stopped hanging with the guys, preferring to go home and drink his beer in solitude. But even in his condo, her touches were everywhere—from the food in the kitchen, to the arrangement of the furniture, to her perfume in his sheets. He had taken to sleeping on the couch with a blanket on it to mask her scent so he could grab a few short hours of fitful rest.
It was all taking its toll on him. His hitting was virtually non-existent. He was sleepwalking down to first. And he was a hair late on catching balls. He’d lost his good luck charm and everything was falling to shit.
But worse of all, the team was suffering and he couldn’t seem to pull his head out of his ass long enough to help. They were leaderless, unfocused, and the kids tried, but Cody was not enough to keep the team moving forward. As a result, the Knights were in a one-game playoff.
Win or go home.
And the way they were playing, they would be home before the day ended.
Two legs appeared in front of him, a shadow blocking the fluorescent lights of the locker room. Cody Patterson stood there in his uniform pants and a crude t-shirt. Great. Now the kid was even getting in on the action, telling him to get his head out of his ass.
He jerked his head to the underground batting cage and headed down the hallway, expecting Jason to follow. A perverse part of him wanted to ignore the kid, but he was too tired to fight it. He slowly stood and trudged the long mile across the locker room, the sympathetic eyes of his teammates following his every leaden step.
Cody closed the door to the room and blocked the door. “Jason, man, you’re killing us out there. We need you.”
“No shit. Tell me something I don’t know.”
Cody got right in his face and the sympathy in his eyes made Jason look away. “Look, I know your girlfriend screwed you and the situation sucks. Fine, your life sucks. Join the club. But today, this is the game, the one we need to win to get to the playoffs. And we can’t win without you. Now, I’ve given you your space and even tried to get Stacia to come and talk—”
Jason’s head whipped up. “You did what? No way. I don’t ever want to talk to her again.”
“That’s what she said. Fine. Whatever. I don’t give a rat’s ass about her and your situation. Believe what you want about her, about everything. I don’t care. I need your head in the game and your bat and glove on the field. Isn’t that what you taught us? You woke us up and had our backs when we didn’t know we needed it. Now we’ve got yours. We’re a team and we need you. Can you pull your head out of your ass and deal with that, then deal with Stacia later?”
He was right. The goddamn kid was right. He’d let everyone down all because some woman screwed with his mind. It was time to move on. And the kid had called him on that. He wouldn’t have done that a month ago. Jason had had some effect on the team.
He straightened and look Cody in the eye. “What the hell are you doing down here? We got a game to win!”
Cody grinned and whooped, slapping him on the back. They emerged from the cage and twenty-six pairs of eyes met them, expectation and hope shining in each one.
Jason got into the center of the room, Cody a few steps behind him. “Okay, guys. I’ve let you all down and I’m sorry.”
“Shit happens, man.”
“No sweat.”
He waved off the platitudes. “No excuses for my behavior. It was stupid and childish. It’s time to get serious and give these Tigers the ass-whipping they deserve. We own this league. We’re just toying with them until we destroy them. So, let’s get our asses out there and take them down! We have a Series to win!”
The guys all cheered and gathered around, hyping themselves up.
Jason saw Hammonds, Miranda, and Sam standing there, all nodding and smiling. He looked beyond them, hoping against all hope that another face was there, but the hallway was empty. He shouldn’t have been surprised. She swore she wasn’t using him, but if she wasn’t, she would have been here for the most important game of his life. Instead, she’d moved on without a backwards glance. He deserved it. He’d been a complete jerk, kicking her out without even listening to her. What did he expect? That she’d read his mind and be there? No, she has more self-respect than that.
He ignored the sinking feeling in his chest and followed the guys onto the field. He had a game to win and a girl to get back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I
t was a tight battle. The Tigers were a tough team, which is how they had scrambled their way up the wild card ladder to tie with the Knights on the last day of the season, forcing this one-game playoff. The Knights were playing at home, in front of their home crowd, but it may have been a mistake. The hype surrounding the game and the insanity in the stands only made the guys nervous, forcing stupid errors. But the ninth inning dawned and the teams were tied one to one. The Tigers had a runner on third and two out. Everybody was on their toes, tension and stress playing on all of their faces.
Jason called time and motioned in the infield into the mound.
“Okay, guys. We can do this. We’ve done it all season and even came back from the dead.” The whoops from the guys reinforced his words. He held up a hand. “Calm down, stay focused and don’t let anyone change it, okay? We can take these guys. Don’t try anything fancy. Go for the sure out, at first. Take your time, sure outs, no mistakes. Got it?”
They all nodded and slapped gloves then departed for their positions. Jason took a deep breath and got into position, crouched low, eyes on the batter, poised on the balls of his feet, glove ready. A movement above the Knights’ dugout caught his glance. A flash of auburn hair. Before he could focus, the pitcher delivered the pitch.
Crack!
Ground ball right between him and the pitcher’s mound but Cody was there to cut it off. Jason backed to the bag and got ready for the throw. The ball took a bad hop on Cody and he barely had time to glove it and throw to Jason, off target. The ball sailed into the first base line, directly in the runner’s lane. Jason barely had time to think. He gloved it and tagged the runner out. The runner’s path caused him to tear into Jason’s arm, jerking his shoulder back and out of joint, dislocating it immediately.
Jason immediately dropped and blacked out from the sudden yet familiar pain. When he woke, a few seconds or even minutes later, he was surrounded by the worried faces of his team, the coaches, and the trainer. The sharp pain almost took his breath away, throbbing and stabbing. The look on the trainer’s face said it all.
His season, and most likely his career, was over.
*
Jason lay back on the athletic training table, the dull roar of the crowd in the stands above the locker room reminding him that life went on with or without him. Baseball will go on, the team will go on, while he drifted into limbo. He wasn’t stupid. He knew the shoulder was gone, shot, done. Nothing left for him. It was over the minute he chose to stick his arm out into the lane to tag the runner.
He could blame Cody Patterson for throwing the goddamn ball offline again. He could blame the team for not playing well enough sooner to avoid the one-game playoff. Hell, he could blame himself for even giving a damn about baseball and trying to come back.
It wouldn’t change the bottom line. His life was over. He had nothing left, no job, no career, and no Stacia. Maybe it was for the best that he had driven her away. He had nothing left to offer her.
The announcers on the television went crazy and the trainers began whooping. Jason glanced up, the sound piercing his brooding. “What happened?”
“Homerun. We won, Friar! We’re headed to the playoffs!”
Several minutes passed, with the announcers replaying the ending, while Jason closed his eyes, trying to block out the celebration. The team burst into the locker room celebrating their victory and ascent into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history and for all of these players. He heard the pop of champagne bottles, the rustle of the plastic and the shouts from the players.
“Close the door on your way out, Tommy, ’kay?”
The athletic trainer eyed him with sympathy but, inside of hollow platitudes, he left him to his brooding silence.
They had popped the shoulder back in and put some ice on it, numbing the shooting pain, bringing it to a dull but familiar pain. If only ice could dull his emotions, the pain at losing everything. If it could, he would immerse himself in a tankful of ice water until the pain went away. But life didn’t work that way. He’d made the fatal mistake of caring—about the team, about the playoffs, about Stacia. Like everything else in his life, it went down the crapper leaving him to wallow in this pain that was worse than any physical pain his shoulder injury provided.
The noise crescendoed as the training room door opened then it closed, shutting him out of the celebration.
“Hey, man, is it as bad as it looked?”
Jason cracked one eye open to see Cody Patterson standing at the foot of the table, concern and fear etched on his face. He closed his eyes again, shutting Cody out. “It wasn’t your fault, Patterson. This damn shoulder was a ticking time bomb. Bound to happen anytime.”
“If I hadn’t thrown off-line…”
Jason shot up and grabbed Cody’s champagne-soaked shirt with his good hand. “If it wasn’t this time, it would have been another. Big fucking deal. It’s done, okay? Now, go enjoy your celebration.” He shoved the younger man back a few steps and lay back down. “Leave me alone. I’m tired.”
Cody stood there for a few long moments, the weight of his gaze and guilt pressing on Jason. “You saved our season, man. Not just today but the last two months. We wouldn’t be here without you. Not sure how we’ll go forward without you.”
Jason didn’t move, not even to open an eye. The pain was too fresh and he wasn’t letting anyone off the hook. His instinct was to lash out, inflict the pain he was feeling, push everyone away. “Big fucking deal. Go win your damn games. Leave me the hell alone.”
After another long pause, the door opened, letting in noise, then muffling it. He should have regretted hurting the kid like that, but the pain subverted the regret, pushing it down deep. He leaned back against the wall, envisioning the ice spreading numbness through his body, willing away the pain that no amount of ice could ever numb. Several long moments passed when the door opened one more time.
“I said, get the fuck out of here!” He threw a pillow from the table in the direction of the door, making a soft thud against the wall.
A whiff of perfume wafted to his nose and the click of heels walking the few steps across the cement floor alerted him, flooding his senses with more emotions. His heart clenched and he resisted the urge to grab her with his free arm. He steeled his emotions, remembering he had nothing left for her.
“What do you want? I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again.” Guilt, regret, grief pounded in his veins, drowning out any last feeling of love, burying it deep inside.
“Tough.”
The thin, vinyl padding gave a little as Stacia sat on the table, her backside pressed against his leg. She touched his shoulder and he wrenched his arm away, sending fresh darts of pain down his arm and up his shoulder. He cursed loudly. “Get the fuck away.”
“No swearing will push me away, Jason. What can I do?”
The pain, the sadness in her voice tore at his heart, ripping it open anew. He opened his eyes, wincing inside at the sympathy in her eyes. “Not a goddamn thing. You can’t fix this, Stacia. No one can. My career is over. My life is over. I don’t need you anymore. I have nothing left to give.”
She reached out, tentatively, then pulled back before she could touch him, her heart reflected in the sheen of tears in her eyes. “I don’t believe that. We can find the best doctor. He can fix your shoulder. You’ll play again.”
He slid off the table, bracing the ice and bandage with his other hand, putting the table between the two of them. “You don’t get it. I was always one bad break away from a career-ending injury. I was on borrowed time. No doctor could perform this miracle.” The pain inside was a living, hot ball of magma looking for an outlet. Mount Vesuvius waiting for the right moment to erupt. The pain bubbled over and burst out.
“What do you care? We’re done. We had our fun, but you did what you had to. My image is wonderful. The world loves me now. They’ll be sad for a day or so and then move on. That’s the way of the world.” Bitterness and anger boiled over, seek
ing and finding a target. He turned his back on her, a deliberate exclusion. “Go running home to Daddy. Work on his campaign; whatever it is you do. Go back to your life and leave me to mine, because we had nothing, Stacia. This was just sex and business. We both got what we needed at the time. You scratched your little itch and rebelled against Daddy. I had a few more months of a career, a tease that will haunt me the rest of my life. It’s over. Everything is over.”
The pain had finally finished, the anger gone. He sagged against the other training table, suddenly so tired, bone-weary. He wiped his face with his good hand, surprised to see wetness on the hand. “Just leave me alone, okay? Just leave.”
He could feel the pain in her gaze, the hurt, the sadness. But he had nothing left for her, nothing to help her, nothing to offer her. It was better to make the final break. Better for both of them. She shouldn’t be saddled with an old baseball player who had nothing but memories and most of them fucked up at that. She needed to move on with her life. He would only hold her back.
“Jason, if you ever need anything, you just have to call.”
The soft catch in her voice made him wince, a pain that went far deeper than the shoulder, than the loss of his career. He steeled himself against it, waiting a few moments before opening his eyes, hoping that maybe she had ignored him. Maybe she had stayed.
It was too late. She was gone.
*
Jason sat on the exam table, avoiding the x-rays on the machine. The door opened and the doctor walked in, reading his chart. He sat in the chair facing Jason and looked grim.
“I told you last year that your shoulder couldn’t take another injury. This injury, the dislocation, was beyond a regular one. It was catastrophic. We could try surgery again to tighten the muscles and tendons, rehab to strengthen it, but the bottom line is you’ll never play baseball at the pro level again.”
