Caught by You

by Jennifer Bernard

  “You got me. I have to admit. The corn? Non-­organic, GMO . . .”

  “I’m not even sure exactly what GMO is,” she admitted. “And I’ve eaten tortillas all my life.”

  He wiped a tear off his cheek. “You’re an imp, you know that? You’ve been playing me this whole time. So much for my moves. At this rate, I have a better chance of making you not fall in love with me.”

  “Might be a lot less work,” she said demurely.

  After that, he abandoned his planning method, and simply went along for the ride when he got together with Donna. He asked her lots of questions, listened attentively, and observed. He learned about the pain of her mother’s leaving, and how she still idolized the gypsy, world-­traveling Lorraine MacIntyre. He heard all about her father, a quiet man who spent most of his time under cars in his shop. He learned about her wild party days; her friendship with Sadie; her spontaneous, warmhearted nature; her dislike of rules and bullies; her deep love for her son. She’d gotten outstanding grades in high school, but hadn’t been interested in college. He knew about her knack for mimicry, her way with a quick joke, the fact that she preferred laughter to sadness. Given the choice between being sexy and being funny, she’d pick funny every time.

  That didn’t make her any less sexy to him, but they were keeping their distance on that front. Strangely, now that they were “engaged,” it seemed almost too . . . intimate.

  About a week after their “engagement,” as Mike headed to the clubhouse to get ready for a bullpen session with Yazmer, Joey called. Mike answered with his traditional greeting. “How’s my kidney?”

  “What on earth are you doing, Mike? Rita said you’re engaged.”

  Mike winced, feeling funny about his decision for the first time. Joey was like the voice of his conscience. “Yes, although the way things are going, my fiancée might not survive to the wedding. Did you know that some ­people can’t digest chocolate? What kind of life is that?” Donna had played one more prank on him the night before, when he’d brought her a box of Godiva chocolates.

  “I’m serious, Mike. What are you up to?”

  “You make it sound like getting married is some kind of evil genius plot.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m wondering.”

  “I promise it’s not. I’m really engaged. Mama’s happy. She’s willing to overlook the fact that Donna’s a non-­Catholic unwed mother. Dad isn’t. Big surprise.”

  “Are you in love with her?”

  “You know how I feel about that sort of thing.”

  “Mike.” Even over the phone from Chicago, Joey’s soft reproach made Mike wince. “Are you really going to let your experience with Angela taint the rest of your life?”

  “It is what it is, Joey.” Could he help it if Angela had ripped up his heart and left nothing but shredded scraps behind? “Anyway, Donna’s about as different from Angela as a girl could be. You’d like her. She’s a little spitfire.”

  “So you like her.”

  “Of course I like her. She’s funny and sort of . . . quirky and fearless. Loyal.”

  “Loyal,” repeated Joey thoughtfully. “So, not the kind of girl who would ditch you because you changed careers.”

  “Not likely.” Not the Donna who had stood up for her friend when no one else had. He tried to imagine Angela climbing up on a bar to defend a friend’s reputation—­or for any reason—­and failed. Then again, Angela didn’t drink. Angela was cool, serene, polished. He’d loved her hopelessly ever since he’d sat behind her in second grade and spent the entire school year staring at her long dark braid. He’d been stunned when she let him take her to a dance in seventh grade. Even more shocked when she’d accepted his worshipful proposal when they were nineteen.

  In the end, she’d slipped through his grasp, the disdain in her dark eyes gutting him like a trout.

  “If she makes you forget about Angela, she has my stamp of approval,” Joey said.

  “This has nothing to do with what I felt for Angela. That’s in a category all its own. This is different. It’s the right thing. I made a mess of things for her, and it’s my responsibility to fix it. This way she can get her son back, and she really loves him.”

  “Is that what marriage is to you, responsibility? That doesn’t sound very fun.”

  “Don’t worry about that part. Donna and I have lots of fun.”

  “So maybe you do love her.”

  Feeling restless, impatient, Mike pulled the phone away from his ear as he tried to maneuver around the door of the clubhouse. Suddenly it swung free and he was staring at Yazmer’s cocky face. “I gotta go, Joey. Why don’t you just congratulate me and leave it at that?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know why so many ­people worry about gays getting married when straight men like you make such a joke of it,” Joey grumbled, before hanging up.

  Mike clicked off the phone and hoisted the strap of his gym bag higher onto his shoulder. Yazmer was giving him a funny look, as if he’d never really looked closely at Mike before. Had he heard Joey’s last comment? Would he put it together that Mike had a gay brother?

  Infuriated that he’d even wondered about that for a second—­who cared what Yaz thought?—­he brushed past the pitcher. “That was my brother,” he told him defiantly. “From Chicago.”

  “Okay.” Yaz trailed after him. “Heard you put the ring on the fling.”

  “What?”

  “Two words. Preeee-­nup.”

  “Oh. Yes, I’m engaged.”

  “Who’s the lady in the Solo scenario?” He made a record scratching sound.

  A devil’s impulse made Mike nearly say, Actually, Yazmer, it’s a guy. Hope you can make the wedding. He restrained himself. “A girl from here in Kilby. No date’s set yet, so you can hold off on the bridal registry.”

  “Trying to steal my spotlight? It ain’t going to work, yo. The Yaz is the Yaz. Everyone wants a piece of me. They can have it too. So long as they slide some silver my way. Plastic too. The Yaz takes plastic.”

  “All right. I’ll see you in the bullpen, Yaz.”

  “Gonna be late, got my agent calling.”

  Whatever. It was his session. Mike went to his locker and changed into his workout clothes—­sliders, baseball pants, a loose T-­shirt, and cleats. He strolled out to the field, where T.J. Gates, Ramirez, and a few others were fielding grounders. The sounds and rhythms of baseball settled into his blood, soothing him. He closed his eyes, absorbing the thud of ball into glove, the crack of bat on ball. Fastball, curveball; he knew the difference from the way they hit the glove. Wild pitch in the dirt. Hard throw to home.

  Baseball. He loved this game. When the Navy had released him, baseball had taken him in. He still missed the military life, with its adrenaline and testosterone, but baseball . . . not too shabby either.

  He opened his eyes. The bright sun glanced off Ramirez’s sunglasses and one of the new rookies’ braces. The kid was no more than nineteen, which made Mike feel suddenly ancient. On the far side of the field, Crush leaned against the bullpen fence talking to Mitch, the pitching coach. Crush’s ever-­present silver flask poked from his back pocket. He turned and, spotting Mike, waved him over.

  “Solo,” Crush greeted him. “Got a question for you.” He glanced at the infielders whipping the ball around the horn, and steered Mike toward the far reaches of right field. “Is something going on with Yaz?”

  “Don’t ask me. Ask ESPN. I don’t understand half the things he says anyway.”

  “Supposedly he has some big announcement coming, and my gut tells me I’m not going to like it. You’re supposed to be getting close to him, working your voodoo catcher magic.”

  “I’m . . . uh . . . getting there. His pitch count’s down. I got him to speed things up, but he went too far.”

  “I noticed. His last start was an hour and half long. Fans wo
uld have felt cheated, if he hadn’t spent an extra half hour on the field at the end of the game, demonstrating his dance moves.”

  “Yeah. He does things big, I’ll say that.”

  “Well, see if you can keep an ear to the ground. I’d appreciate it. Now let’s talk about this wedding of yours. Not a big fan of the institution myself, not that you’d know it from my three divorces, but if you’re going for it, might as well stretch a double into a triple, so to speak.”

  “What the Jeter are you talking about?”

  Crush paused, blinked, then shook his head as if knocking the phrase from his brain. Mike grinned. Hey, he’d tried.

  “The Catfish Wedding of the Decade,” Crush said grandly.

  “What?”

  “Let’s make a big shebang out of your wedding. It would be good for team-­town relations, and you know how sketchy those have been lately.”

  Mike scowled. “Do you mean good for your campaign to keep the Catfish?”

  Crush went on, ignoring, as usual, anything he didn’t care to hear. “We’ll hold the ceremony right here on the diamond. The invitations could be printed to look like tickets to a game. We’ll hand out souvenir baseballs to all the guests. We’ll give the Kilby Press-­Herald an exclusive, they’ll eat it up.”

  Mike tapped his bat against his instep. “I have to talk to Donna about it.” Since Donna hadn’t—­technically—­agreed to actually marry him, that should be an interesting conversation.

  “Sure, sure. Don’t worry about the extra expense. I got it covered. Let your girl pick out the best wedding dress in town. Sweeten the deal a bit.” He winked.

  Implying that he needed to sweeten the deal? “Thanks for the vote of confidence on that.”

  “You got it, hot stuff.” Crush clapped his shoulder.

  Striding toward the dugout, Mike pulled his phone from his gym bag and called Donna. Better give her a heads-­up on this. Her machine picked up, her laughing voice saying, “This is Donna’s phone. Leave your number and I’ll call you back when I actually feel like talking to you.”

  A slow smile spread across his face. Donna was one of a kind, that was for sure. He lowered his voice to a seductive murmur. “This is your fiancé calling. I know you feel like talking to me, because talking leads to kissing and kissing leads to touching and touching leads to other touching and that other touching, when it’s done right, and you know I do it right, leads to ‘Oh Mike, don’t stop,’ and that leads to . . . Anyway, call me back.”

  He grinned as he hung up. Even leaving a message for Donna was fun.

  Chapter 11

  LATER THAT NIGHT, Mike opened a Shiner and set it on Donna’s coffee table next to a to-­go container of baby back ribs from the Smoke Pit BBQ. “Boom,” he said triumphantly. “You were drinking a Shiner at the Roadhouse the night of the brawl. And I’ve personally seen you make a bloody mess of an entire rack of these ribs. So this is a guaranteed allergic reaction–free meal and don’t even think about pretending otherwise.”

  Donna, dressed in loose pajama pants and T-­shirt that read, I solemnly swear that I am up to no good, eyed the feast happily. “Score one for Solo.”

  “Damn right. You know what this means. After you’ve sucked the marrow out of all these, we get to make out for a while.”

  “How do you figure that?” She was already digging in, a rib in one hand and a beer in the other. Mike tried to imagine Angela eating ribs with this amount of voracious delight, and failed.

  “My biggest tool to win your affection is obviously going to be my incredible kissing skills and irresistible physique. You owe me a chance to give it a whirl.”

  “We already made out, remember?”

  “Yeah. I remember.” So did his cock, which had been in a semi-­aroused state since he walked into her apartment. Which was a little odd, since the profusion of football images was, quite frankly, kind of a turnoff.

  “Tell you what. We can make out after you tell me about the experience that made you not believe in love anymore.” She put her beer bottle to her mouth, shooting him a stern glance over the brown glass.

  “Ancient history.”

  “You said she was your high school sweetheart. If we’re going to be engaged, kinda sorta, I need to know. Who broke your heart, Mike Solo?”

  He took another Shiner from the six-­pack and cracked it open. She had a point. There should be no secrets between them, and why should he hide his history with Angela anyway? “First of all, you’re right, she did break my heart, but only because I was too idealistic. I know you’ll want to know this, so I’ll say it right off the bat. I am no longer in love with her. Period. She shattered all my illusions about women, because I always assumed women were basically goddesses here on earth.”

  Donna took a big bite of succulent meat. “Only some of us, Solo. Only some of us.”

  He ignored that. “Her name was Angela DiMatteo and I fell for her in second grade. She was perfect. Her hair ribbon never came undone and her knee socks never fell down. I know, because I would have given my left nut to see her legs.”

  “You knew her in school?”

  “St. Paul’s School for Catholic Girls and Boys. She and her family moved to Chicago from Italy. I spent a month learning how to write, ‘Will you be my valentine’ in Italian.”

  “Did she say yes?”

  “Eventually, she did. She played hard to get all through elementary school and junior high.”

  “Then what?”

  “We got engaged, I went to the Naval Academy, we saw each other during my breaks. I’d take her for drives and have dinner with her family. Her grandmother used to glare at me and mutter curses in Italian. I didn’t care. I just stared at Angela the entire meal. I thought my future was all set. Life with my own private angel. Then my brother got sick, I gave up my kidney, left the Navy, and that was that. She told me her family couldn’t accept my decision and she wouldn’t cross her family.”

  Donna had put down her beer and ribs and was staring at him, perplexed. “Accept your decision? I don’t understand.”

  Mike’s chest felt tight. He wasn’t used to talking about all this. He tried to force some air into his lungs. If she was going to marry him, she deserved to know everything. “Well, it was because of who my brother is. Her family is extremely traditional. My family is conservative too, but the DiMatteos make mine look like hippies.”

  “Okay, so you both have conservative families.” She pulled one leg under her, angling her body toward him. “Are they opposed to life-­saving medical intervention?”

  “No, no. It’s not that.” God, he couldn’t believe how nervous he was. This brought back memories of when he’d broken the news to Angela and her expression had turned to ice. “Like I said, it’s because of my brother.”

  “Geez, Solo, what’s wrong with your brother? My imagination’s going wild here. Is he in prison? A serial killer? Drug addict?”

  “God, no. Joey’s an economics professor at the University of Chicago. Specializing in the economies of third world countries, which is why he was in Africa doing research for his doctorate. That’s where he got E coli and didn’t get proper treatment in time and . . .” He inhaled a deep breath. “Well, he’s gay.”

  Her expression didn’t change. “That’s it? He’s gay?”

  “The DiMatteo family—­and my own parents—­didn’t think I should give up my Navy career for a homosexual. In their mind, he’s a sinner.”

  Slowly, comprehension stole across her face, along with a horror that matched what he’d felt at the time. “Wouldn’t it be worse to let your own brother die?”

  “That’s what I thought. But we’re talking about very strict Catholics here, very conservative. I don’t know if other Catholics would feel that way, but my family did. And my father is very, very stubborn.”

  Silently, she toyed with the label on her b
eer bottle, then drained it in one long gulp. “That’s . . . really tough, Mike. How is it with your family now?”

  “Awkward. My father won’t see Joey, and I get so damn angry about it. Every time his name comes up, it ends in a fight. So we don’t talk about him. It breaks my heart.”

  She squeezed his hand. “You did the right thing, Mike. I’m sorry you had to lose so much because of it. Is Joey okay now?”

  “Up and down.” His standard answer, but he didn’t stop there. “I wish the new kidney fixed everything, but it didn’t. He gets every virus within a twenty-­mile radius. I worry every time he goes into the hospital because of all the germs there.”

  Picking up his hand, she nestled it next to her cheek—­the sweetest goddamn gesture he’d ever seen. She didn’t say things would be okay, or tell him he shouldn’t worry. She just offered her sympathy and her soft touch. They sat that way for a while, then Donna let out a chuckle.

  “If your family is so traditional, I bet I’m just their type. Don’t they put gays and single unwed mothers in the same circle of hell?”

  “I’ll have to check with Father Kowalski on that one.”

  “Maybe it’s the fun circle,” she mused, “where they serve beer and barbecue.”

  Mike felt the tension in his chest ease. “I hope you get to meet Joey soon. I bet you’d like him.”

  She clinked her bottle against his. “I know I’d like his kidney.”

  He chuckled. Just the sort of joke he and Joey liked to make. And her reaction to the news about Joey—­pretty much the opposite of Angela’s. An odd thought crossed his mind, so odd he had to bury it with a mouthful of smoky, sauce-­slathered meat. Was it actually possible that Donna was the perfect girl for him? That Angela never had been?

  One quiet moment on the couch had done more to make Donna fall in love with Mike than all the flowers in the world. It was a good thing he had no idea how appealing he was when talking about his brother. In her opinion, he was a hero, giving up so much to keep Joey alive. Not just a kidney, but a career, family harmony, and even the love of his life.