by J. Sterling
“Don’t call her, Brett. Give it to me,” I said with a tight-lipped smile, and held out my hand.
Brett didn’t argue, which surprised me. I figured I’d have to battle him for the damn thing. Instead he balled up the note and chucked it at my chest.
After pulling it from my lap where it had landed, I stuffed it back into my pocket, determined to throw it out after lunch.
“Are you heading home after this?” Jack asked as I chewed my pizza.
“Yeah, why?” Where else would I go?
“Will you ask Gran to make lasagna tonight?” he said with a stupid grin, then added, “Please?”
“No way. You know how long that takes her. I can’t ask her at four in the afternoon to whip up some homemade lasagna for dinner tonight.”
Thank God for Gran and Gramps. They showed up when our parents abandoned us when we were little, and have been there for us ever since.
Our parents bailing on us the way they did affected Jack and me in different ways. I was on my best behavior from that moment on, hoping that somehow if I was extra good, maybe she’d know and come back home.
But Jack went the opposite route, determined to get into trouble whenever possible. He picked a lot of fights and kept everyone, except for the three of us, at a distance. He refused to let anyone in—not wanting to be vulnerable, I guessed—and started treating girls like crap pretty early on. Truth be told, the girls allowed it and almost encouraged it, so I wasn’t sure if it was all our mom’s fault.
Baseball was the only thing that saved my brother from completely going off the deep end. He wasn’t allowed to fight on the field, and once he started pitching, he was like a whole other person on that mound. It was the only place he felt like he had any control, and he was always something to watch.
Jack used to confide in me that he was terrified one of our parents would come back around one day, wanting money or to be a part of our lives if he got drafted. When I asked him what we would do if that ever happened, he always said, “Nothing. Just like they did for us.”
“Come on. Don’t I deserve lasagna?” Jack turned toward one of the girls still pawing at his bicep. “You think I deserve lasagna, don’t you?”
“I think you deserve whatever you want,” the girl said, and then deliberately ran the tip of her tongue over her lips.
I wanted to ask what the hell was wrong with all these chicks, but stopped myself. There was no point. When it came to my brother, they simply didn’t care what it took to get him, even if they knew it wouldn’t last longer than one night.
When Jack cocked an eyebrow at me, I pointed at his cell phone on the table. “Then you ask Gran.”
“She’ll tell me no. But she won’t say no to you, Dean. You’re her favorite.”
I choked out a laugh and raised my eyebrows, pretending to agree with him. “That’s because I’m nicer than you are.”
It wasn’t true, though. Gran didn’t have a favorite.
Jack frowned, considering. “Will you ask her to make it tomorrow then? For after my game?”
I huffed out a dramatic exhale. “Fine. That I can do. But if she says no, you’re out of luck.”
“Love you, little brother.”
“Yeah, yeah. I love you too.” I smiled as I snagged another slice.
• • •
The next afternoon I entered the student union to find Jack with his harem of girls right at the entrance. He flexed his muscles for a couple of them, who screamed when they grabbed his bicep. “Hold on,” he said as he lifted them into the air before putting them down again.
There were days I couldn’t believe I was related to him. Maybe Melissa was right.
“Show us your pitching motion again, Jack!” one of the girls said with a squeal, and he showed off his moves in slow motion, much to the girls’ pleasure.
I looked up and noticed Cassie and Melissa watching the spectacle with disgusted looks on their faces. Without a second thought, I walked over toward their table and leaned down close to Melissa.
“Hi, Melissa.”
“Oh . . . hi, Dean.”
“Would you mind if I sat with you?” I smiled at Melissa’s soft and sweet response, and kept my eyes locked onto her beautiful baby blues.
“No. We’re much better company than your brother’s table, anyway,” she teased as she poked me in the ribs.
Glancing in Jack’s direction, I shook my head and placed my food on the table before I sat down. “It just gets old sometimes, you know?”
I stretched my hand across the table and reached for Cassie’s since we hadn’t been introduced yet. “Hi, I’m Dean.”
“I’m Cassie. I’m Melissa’s roommate.” She took my hand and squeezed with a small smile. “It’s nice to—”
“Dean! What are you doing over here?”
Jack’s voice echoed throughout the student union, and I suddenly was sorry I’d come over here. Both of these girls seemed to hate Jack, and my presence only drew him over. When I mouthed sorry to Melissa, she just shrugged as if she’d been expecting it.
“Oh, Kitten. I see you’ve met my little brother.” Jack winked at Cassie before placing his hand on my shoulder and squeezing.
“Thank God he seems nothing like you,” she said. “I might actually be able to tolerate him.”
Cassie tilted her head and smiled tightly before taking a bite of her sandwich, and I fought off the urge to laugh. I noticed Melissa and Jack sharing an amused glance, and I didn’t like the idea of them having some sort of inside joke.
“You need me to work some of that aggression out of you?” Jack offered with his typical smile that usually worked on all the ladies. Must be the stupid dimples.
“I’d rather eat dirt,” Cassie mumbled, her mouth filled with food.
This time I did laugh. The girl was funny as hell.
Jack chuckled. “I almost want to see that.”
“You would. Go torture someone else,” she said before looking away.
Not a bit fazed, he grinned and moved to sit in the empty seat next to her. “But I like torturing you.”
“Uh, no!” she shouted before throwing her bag right where he was about to plop down.
Jack stopped short and stood back up. “Why so angry, Kitten?”
“Why so annoying, jackass?” she said, mimicking his tone, and I shot Melissa an amused smile.
Jack bent over to bring his face close to hers. “You’ll come around; you’ll see. You can’t resist me forever.”
Cassie inhaled before she choked a little, and swallowed hard as Jack walked away, smiling.
“Sorry about my brother.” I forced a smile as I defended Jack. I liked Cassie, and could tell he liked her too. “He isn’t really a jerk.”
“He just plays one on TV?” Cassie said before coughing into a napkin.
“Something like that. Don’t take him too seriously. He’s just having fun with you.”
She half smiled. “I’m not having fun.”
“But you are. And he knows it,” I added, knowing damn well that a girl like Cassie enjoyed the verbal jousting match she seemed to have with Jack every time they spoke.
Jack walked back over to our table and shoved a napkin into Cassie’s hand without saying a word. I watched him walk back to his table, wondering what the hell he’d just given her when she crumpled it up and tossed it into her bag.
“What was that?” Melissa asked.
Cassie swallowed hard. “His phone number, I think. I didn’t really look at it.”
“H-he gave you his number?”
Shock rolled through me. My brother didn’t give his phone number to any girl. Ever.
“I think. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ll look at it later.” Cassie’s cheeks turned pink, and I frowned.
Melissa turned to me, her brows drawn together. “What’s with the face?”
“He doesn’t give out his phone number. There’s no point with him.” I moved my gaze from Cassie to Jack’s table as I tried to read his mi
nd.
“He has a cell phone, right?” Melissa asked.
“Yeah?” I squinted at her, not seeing her point.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying, caller ID.”
I shook my head. “His number is private. It doesn’t show up.”
”Really? Who does that?”
“Someone who had to change his phone number fifteen times in high school because it never stopped ringing.” When both girls looked at me with amazement, I added, “Or pinging with text messages.”
I thought back to those high school years when girls posted his phone number on all the social media sites, or included him in group text messages so everyone else in the group could get his number. Whenever Jack’s number got out, he not only got calls from the girls at our own school, his phone blew up from girls all over.
Jack had been the subject of more than one national article on baseball and its future rising stars. He wasn’t only well known in our hometown; he was well known in the entire baseball community. And apparently the cleat chasers, aka baseball groupies, started early.
“Fifteen times?” Cassie said loudly, and everyone around our table turned to stare at us.
I shrugged. “It might have been more, but it was insane. Girls would post his number online, and his voice mail would fill up within a day. And then they’d all start calling my phone, looking for him when he didn’t answer.”
What I didn’t tell them was that I had to eventually change my number as well for the same reason. Not that those girls wanted to talk to me, but when you were a freshman in high school, you tended to believe the things that girls said. I learned my lesson about being used pretty early when it came to girls lying to get what they wanted.
“Holy shit, that’s bananas!”
Melissa broke out into laughter, but I didn’t join in. This was the story of my life, and it really wasn’t funny.
“That’s why it’s weird that he’d give you his number.” I frowned at Cassie, wondering just what game my brother was playing. “He doesn’t give anyone his number.”
“Well, like I said, I could be wrong,” she said quickly.
Melissa gestured toward her bag. “Then get it out and read it now.”
“No. Not in the freaking student union while he’s right over there. Later.”
Cassie grabbed her things and pushed back from the table to walk toward the trash cans. Jack jogged over to her and they exchanged words, their body language resembling that night at the frat party.
“Come to my game tonight!” Jack shouted as she stomped away and opened the glass doors.
“I don’t think so,” she snapped back.
“Don’t you want to see me pitch?” he asked, his voice cocky.
She paused, holding the door open with one arm. “I saw you pitching earlier. In slow motion, remember? I think I got the gist.”
As Cassie left, I turned back to Melissa, who was frowning.
“Well, this oughta be fun,” I said with a laugh, but she shook her head.
“Fun for you, maybe, but there’s no way this is going to end well,” she said sadly. “He’s going to wear her down, and she knows it.”
“I honestly think she likes him,” I offered with a shrug before taking another bite of pizza.
Melissa watched as Jack stared after Cassie.
“I think so too,” she said. “And that’s what worries me.”
Baseball Is Life
“Gran, are you almost ready?” I yelled from the living room where I waited with Gramps.
“Don’t you know better than to try to rush a woman, son?” Gramps looked at me over his glasses.
I glanced at my watch as I paced the small living room. “I don’t want to be late for the game. And you don’t either.”
“No. That’s why I let you yell for her, so I don’t get in trouble.” He shot me a devilish grin, and I rolled my eyes.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Gran shouted from their bedroom.
The smell of lasagna filled the entire house, and my mouth watered at the thought of digging into it later. Jack knew Gran would make him whatever he wanted, but he always made me ask anyway.
“Dinner smells amazing, Gran,” I told her when we finally headed outside.
She snorted. “It better. I spent all morning making it.”
“No one does it better than you do,” Gramps said with a smile as we piled into their car, an aging Honda that flipped over the odometer long ago.
Gran buckled up in the front seat and narrowed her eyes at us. “You two stop buttering me up. What do you want?”
“I don’t want to be late,” I said from the backseat.
“Then you’d better get going.” She smacked Gramps’s shoulder as he stepped on the gas and pulled away from the house.
Thankfully we didn’t live too far from campus, so the drive there was quick. I hated missing a single pitch when Jack played. Watching him was one of the coolest things ever. He had a presence on the mound that you couldn’t teach, and it filled me with pride every single game.
From the moment he stepped onto the field, Jack was all business. Screaming girls shouted his name from the stands, many of them wearing jerseys with his number on them, but none of it mattered. All he saw was the catcher’s glove sixty feet away from him, and all he focused on was hitting the pitch that was called.
We’d spent too many nights to count talking about baseball and his love for it. It actually made me a little envious sometimes, and I wished I loved something as much as he did. I often reminded Jack how lucky he was to be great at the one thing he wanted to do for a living.
Many amateur athletes loved the sport they played and wished for a future in it—a career—but it would never happen for them. That was just how life worked. It wasn’t enough to want something; it had to want you back.
And baseball wanted Jack. He not only excelled at the sport, he exemplified it.
Gran, Gramps, and I made our way to our regular seats above the dugout. I glanced to my right once I was comfortable and noticed Cassie and Melissa arguing before taking their seats.
The sight made me smile. Cassie had come to see him pitch after all. I made a mental note to let my brother know she had shown up. Jack never paid attention to anything or anyone in the stands during a game, so he wouldn’t have a clue if she was here or not.
I smiled to myself, happy that she was here to watch him. He liked her; I knew that much already just by the way he acted around her. Cassie might be a challenge for him, which was always attractive, but his interest in her seemed to be something more than that.
Jack wasn’t used to being told no by a girl, but it also wasn’t in his nature to waste time on one. There had to be a reason he couldn’t leave her alone whenever he saw her, why he chased her.
Gran leaned forward, scanning the stands. “There’s a lot of people here to watch him tonight,” she said, probably not even aware of her hands twining nervously in her lap.
The scouts were out in full force tonight. It was always a spectacle when Jack pitched, but each game drew more and more of them.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I told her. “His crowd seems to get bigger every time.”
“I always get so nervous when he pitches,” she said with a sigh before resting her head against Gramps’s shoulder. He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.
I waved a hand as if the pressure were no big deal. “Don’t be. Jack’s not.”
But I understood her anxiety. I felt it too each time he pitched. You couldn’t help it when you cared about the person and knew their hopes, dreams, and fears. I wanted the best for my brother, and each time he took the mound, I wanted the same thing for him that he did—to get drafted this June. And to do that, he had to impress the scouts in the stands each and every time he pitched.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Fullton Field!” The announcer’s voice filled the air as the screaming fans slowly lowered their volume. “He
re to sing the national anthem is our very own Fullton State student, Laura Malloy!”
Cheers filled the stadium as Laura smiled nervously before closing her eyes and singing the opening words beautifully.
I glanced over at Melissa, but was distracted by the camera in front of Cassie’s face instead. It looked complex and professional, and she actually seemed to know what she was doing. She leaned forward, adjusted the lens, and clicked the shutter multiple times before placing the camera back on her lap.
“We have a sold-out crowd tonight, folks, and we all know why! Taking the mound against our rivals from Florida is the one and only Jack Carter!”
The announcer spoke Jack’s name like he did every Friday night when Jack pitched—reverently, as if Jack was all that mattered. Thankfully, Jack knew it took a team to win ball games, and he never let it go to his head, or acted like it was all about him. Off the field, he was a different beast altogether, a cocky campus stud, but on the field, he was the consummate professional.
I leaned over Gramps and poked my grandmother in the arm. “Hey, Gran, want to see something?”
“What?”
“See that blond girl over there with the giant camera?”
Gran squinted as she tried to find Cassie. “Oh yes, I see her.”
“Well, your grandson harasses the living shit out of her every day at school,” I said, finding pleasure in ratting out my brother.
“Dean! Language!” She scowled at me, and I bit back a smile. “And which grandson might that be?” She waggled her eyebrows at me as Gramps leaned over to check out Cassie too.
“The baseball-playing one,” I said, then added, “I like her friend.”
“Hmm,” was all Gran said about my revelation before turning away to face the field.
Gramps elbowed me. “I’d date ’em both,” he whispered before casting a quick glance at Gran to make sure she hadn’t heard him.
“Now taking the field, your Fullton State Outlaws!” The announcer paused for a few seconds before continuing. “And now taking the mound, Jack Car-terrr!” He dragged out our last name, just like one of those wrestling announcers on TV.
