Perfect Catch

by Sierra Dean

  “Uncle…Kevin?” Olivia tried to look around but winced and lay still, watching the two of them imploringly.

  Alice glanced in the direction of Kevin’s bed. He hadn’t stirred since the accident, but the doctors assured her there was no reason to worry. He ought to make a full recovery.

  “Uncle Kevin is fine. Everyone is fine.”

  “I’m really tired.” Her voice sounded whiny, but for once it didn’t bother Alice in the least.

  “You can go back to bed. Sleep all you want.”

  “Are you staying?” Olivia asked, her wide eyes focused solely on Matt.

  “For a little while.”

  “Until I wake up again?”

  “Yeah, honey. I’ll stay until you wake up. I promise.”

  “’Kay.” Liv’s eyes closed, and soon soft, even breaths came from her mouth, announcing her sleep.

  “Promises, Matt? I didn’t know you knew how to make those.”

  “No. You just didn’t know I knew how to keep them.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  At first Alex thought she was avoiding him.

  Then after two days of no messages, of not seeing her around town, he started to think something else was up. He didn’t want to be the guy who creeped around asking after a woman, but he was beginning to worry. Even when he’d been in another state, she’d texted him almost every day. He knew he hadn’t done anything to upset her. So it had to be something else.

  He debated what he ought to do for an unhealthy amount of time, then finally called the diner where she worked to see if she was in. He thought it was mildly less creepy than driving by her house a hundred times.

  They were the ones who told him about Olivia’s accident.

  A chatty woman filled him in on all the details, explaining Alice hadn’t been to work since it happened, and no one was certain when she’d be back. Did he want to leave a message?

  Alex hung up.

  It didn’t feel right going to the hospital—there was no way he could show up without her invitation. He wanted to be supportive, but he was uncomfortable butting into a family matter. Flowers weren’t the way to go, either. What child wanted flowers? Or maybe they did. Alex didn’t understand kids.

  After several agonizing hours, he gave up trying to think of what he should do and just texted her. Heard what happened. Hope you’re okay. Let me know if you need anything.

  Maybe it wasn’t the best thing he could do, but he had to do something.

  Two minutes later he got the first reply from her. Coming home tomorrow. Talk soon?

  Whenever you’re ready.

  With no Alice to occupy his present, he needed a distraction. He still felt like he ought to be doing something, but nothing he came up with seemed to be a good idea. He couldn’t help Alice, so he might as well try to help himself.

  He’d already played an afternoon game that day, but he had a lot of pent-up energy to burn off. Before learning about what had kept Alice distant, he’d hoped she might help wear him out, but now he’d have to take matters into his own hands.

  And somehow, jerking off didn’t feel like the best use of his time.

  He returned to the ballpark, where an indoor batting cage was set up in case inclement weather kept the players from being able to participate in outdoor batting practice. After loading the throwing mechanism with balls, he retrieved his helmet from the equipment room along with one of his bats. His gloves were in the locker room, and when he went to collect them, he passed an aging security guard half-asleep in the hallway.

  “Hey, boy. You supposed to be here?” the old timer asked.

  “Not too sure where I’m supposed to be, but if you mean am I allowed here, then yes.” Alex showed him a security pass.

  “Whatcha doing here so late after the game? I usually have this place to m’self.”

  “Just gonna hit some balls. Practice a little. Promise I’ll clean up after.” Alex smiled to himself, imagining how this might interfere with the guard’s plans for napping and scratching his nuts.

  In the cage, he tried to get loose, taking swing after swing. The familiar crack of the ball coming off the wooden bat and the vibration of it through his hands and arms was a wonderful thrill. It was a comforting sensation that lulled him in the same as a song might send a child off to sleep.

  He loved the swing of the bat, but he could tell something wasn’t right with the way the ball was moving. Alex was a left-handed batter, and his hits—when he used to get them—typically went to left field. In the batting cage it was harder to tell what direction a ball might go, but his seemed to be hanging right.

  And low.

  It meant even though he was hitting for power, his hits were staying in the park and angling themselves directly where they could be caught.

  Which meant if he wasn’t striking out, he was going to be thrown out on offensive plays.

  What was he doing differently now than he was the previous season? His arm strength hadn’t faltered. If anything he had more bulk, more raw power. He should be doing better not worse. He ought to be hitting more home runs, and instead he sucked so bad he’d been shuffled down to the little leagues.

  Adjusting his stance, he tried everything he could think of. He choked up higher on the bat. Lower. He put more weight on his front foot then shifted it to the back instead. He angled his body towards the plate and when that didn’t work, he angled it away. He went through every stupid, wacko stance he’d seen other batters use in the hopes something might click, but nothing did.

  The balls refused to gain the appropriate height, and though they sounded beautiful when the initial contact was made, nothing went high enough.

  “Yer hittin’ it wrong.”

  Alex jumped and pivoted. The old guard was standing outside the cage, his thumbs jammed through his belt loops. He was chewing on something, but Alex suspected it wasn’t bubblegum.

  Once he’d caught his breath, Alex muttered, “Yeah. That’s kind of the problem.”

  The guard grunted. “I seen a lotta guys come through here. Lotsa swings, y’know? You ain’t bad. Just ain’t hittin’ it right.”

  “I’m open to suggestions.” Alex rubbed his nose and prepared for the next swing.

  “Fer starters, yer swing is fine, stop playing around with it. It ain’t the bat that’s the problem. It’s you.”

  Alex swung through with his usual arc. He made contact, but the ball drove down yet again. “Well, your profound wisdom is obviously helping me a lot. Thanks, old man.”

  The guy snorted and seemed to consider spitting something on the floor but thought better of it. “Yer not listening, kid. Problem ain’t here.” He tapped his arm. “It’s here.” Then tapped his forehead. “Yer timing is all off. Either you swing too early or too late. Like yer thinking about something and you forget to move the bat.”

  “And what do you propose I do to fix it?” He swung again, with the same flawed result.

  “Gotta clear your mind. Get all that garbage out.”

  “If you say be the ball I swear to God…”

  “Nah, boy. Don’t be the ball. Just grow a pair.”

  Chapter Twenty

  After three days in the children’s wing of the hospital, the doctors declared Olivia in suitable condition to go home. Kevin, still recovering in the adult ward, would be required to stick around a few days longer. Alice didn’t want to be grateful to Matt for covering Kevin’s hospital bill—she didn’t want to thank him for anything—but as the days added up and the tests and treatments were piled on, she was happy she didn’t have to worry about paying for everything.

  Matt didn’t stick around long. He stayed true to his promise and held out until Liv woke up the second time, and remained through a full day, but by the time her second day in the hospital dawned and they moved her into the children’s area, he announced he had to get back to New York.

  Mets were playing the Phillies. God forbid he miss it.

  In true Matt fashion, he left
with a flourish. He went out and got a brand new iPad, loaded it up with games and kid-friendly movies and presented it to Olivia with his apologies.

  Poor kid. How was she supposed to treat him like a villain when he kept twisting her little brain up in knots and convincing her he wasn’t such a bad guy? Alice saw the gesture for what it was—a buyoff—but let Olivia brag to all the nurses who came in about the gift her dad had bought her.

  “How nice,” the ladies would coo. “He must love you very much.”

  Alice kept her mouth shut, at the risk of breaking her jaw from gritting her teeth so hard.

  If that was love, she didn’t want to know.

  Liv was still playing on the iPad when Alice pulled the Acura into their driveway and killed the engine. It took some maneuvering to get Liv and her bags into the house, especially since the kid wouldn’t put down the gadget or look up from it for more than a couple of seconds.

  Inside, the house was dismal and silent. It felt strange not to have Kevin around, even if it was just to snipe at him about his messes. Alice still had no idea how she was going to deal with what he’d done. In the hazy gaps between drug-induced sleep and his painful lucidity he had apologized to her dozens of times. He’d cried and begged for her forgiveness.

  And she’d told him everything would be fine. She said she forgave him. Anything to chase those tears back because she didn’t want to be one more thing hurting him right then.

  The truth was, forgiveness wasn’t such an easy commodity for her to distribute. He’d done something terrible, and Olivia’s life might have ended in one flash of stupidity.

  Alice’s life would have ended too had anything happened to Liv. But at the same time, she would have never recovered if Kevin had been gravely injured either.

  She did forgive him, in a sense. But she couldn’t forget what he’d done. It would be impossible to look at him from then on and not be reminded of how close they’d come to losing everything.

  Whenever she thought about it, she became angry. Tears had long since stopped falling. Now it was bouts of sheer, blinding rage she fought against. After Matt left, her rage started finding its focus on Kevin. And when Kevin was in too much pain to bear her rage, she focused it on herself.

  By the time she got Liv tucked into bed—there were protestations because the sun was still up—and pried the iPad from her hands, the familiar nagging sensation of anger had begun to bubble up inside her again.

  What was Matt thinking, getting a nine-year-old such an ostentatious gift? Clearly he was overcompensating for what a dismal father he’d been and continued to be, but now Alice looked like the cheapskate parent.

  She was pissed at Matt for being…well, for being Matt. And she was mad at Kevin because he was so mired down in his own hopelessness he’d forgotten how to behave like a human. In turn, he was starting to drag her down too. The honest truth of it was Alice was terrified if she didn’t find something to buoy her to the surface, she was going to sink to the bottom, and soon she wouldn’t know how to find the easy joy in life the way she once had.

  Sitting down at the table, she stared at the empty space of her kitchen, motes of dust floating in the air to remind her how long it had been since the house had had a proper cleaning. There were still dishes in the sink from days earlier, with a crust of food on them that would need a lot of elbow grease to scrub clean.

  For a good ten minutes she sat motionless, assessing the damage her absence had done. A mental list of calls piled up in her mind, and the menial household chores she and Kevin typically split up that would now need to be done by her alone. Even basic things like taking the garbage out—easy stuff she tended to make Olivia do—would fall to her for the time being.

  When the list got so long it defied mental tabulation, Alice stared at the fridge. Inside was a half-full bottle of cabernet that was practically beckoning to her. She could let herself have some. Sit at the table and drink the remainder, and send herself to bed in a half-woozy state. She’d surely wake with a nasty wine hangover, but maybe it would be worth it to have a nice feeling of fluttery nothingness for a few hours.

  She got the wine out and poured some into a glass, resisting the urge to empty the contents into one of her big-bowled red wine goblets and drink it all in one sitting. She stared at the glass as the coolness of the liquid made condensation fan out over the surface.

  Who drank cold red wine?

  She did the dishes, leaving the full glass untouched.

  Do this and you can have it.

  An hour later the wine had warmed to room temperature. Alice had cleaned the kitchen, dumping out the rotten produce that had accumulated during the week. She threw in a load of laundry and made the bed in Kevin’s bedroom, smoothing out the sheets and fluffing the pillows to give the space a welcoming quality when he came back.

  When all that remained was the vacuuming, which would wake Liv, she sat back at the table with the tepid wine in hand.

  Now.

  Instead she pulled out her phone and called Alex. She hadn’t thought about doing it until the phone was already in her hand. His name, so thoughtful in its alphabetical orientation, was among the first to greet her in the contact list. The line was ringing before she had a chance to hesitate or second-guess the gesture.

  Only when he answered did she take her first sip from the glass. “I’m home,” she informed him.

  “I’m on my way.”

  It had begun to rain by the time Alex pulled into her driveway, the early evening made darker from the presence of the looming clouds. Though the blue Sierra truck was unfamiliar, she knew it had to be him.

  Waiting in the doorway, she watched as he ran from the driver’s side through the sheets of cold rain and up her front steps. In spite of the short distance, he was still soaked by the time he came through the front door.

  Something about him being there, coming so quickly, and the way his skin and hair glistened in the dim hallway light, made Alice keenly aware of him. The smell that made him distinctly Alex was lost in the rain, but he seemed much bigger and more real than she remembered him.

  He was the kind of thing that could keep someone anchored.

  She reached out and touched him. The gesture wasn’t meant to be a come-on. She only wanted to know if he was real, like any moment he might vanish into the ether, leaving her in the deathly quiet of the house, alone with her miserable thoughts.

  Her first instinct when he proved to be tangible was to start crying. Yet the tears wouldn’t come. It was possible the trials of the last several days had bled her dry, leaving her with nothing more to come out.

  “You’re here,” she said instead.

  “Of course.”

  “You’re really, really here?” Her hand was still on his chest, the dampness of his shirt under her palm creating a bizarre adhesive that wouldn’t let her release him.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t come?”

  She shook her head, not sure what she’d expected at all. It was hard for her to believe he was standing in her hallway again, when he was supposed to be on the opposite side of the country. They were never meant to be back in such close quarters like this. She’d written him off, told herself nothing would come of it and not to waste foolish hope on a guy like him.

  A guy like him.

  After two days with Matt, remembering what had soured her against ballplayers in the first place, she’d steadily begun to realize there were no guys like Alex. Just because he had the same job as Matt didn’t mean he was the same person.

  Matt had bought Olivia off with a tablet. Alex had given her a day at the ballpark. Being a baseball player wasn’t what made Matt an asshole, that was just his natural state of being. Alex would still be Alex if he was a car salesman or a professor. For ten years Alice had told herself anyone who played baseball for a living was, by default, a schmuck.

  Now she knew she’d been the stupid one for her prejudice.

  And knowing she almost threw everything away with A
lex because of her stupid notions? She was all the more surprised to find him standing in front of her now.

  “I’m glad you’re here.” Instead of crying, she tried something she hadn’t done in a while. She gazed up at him and smiled.

  His brown eyes, previously wary and full of concern, now shone with warmth and a twinkle of that mischievousness Alice had come to understand was a part of him at all times.

  He pulled her close, and the bulk of his arms and chest surprised her. He was built like a linebacker, a solid wall of muscle wrapped around her in a crushing hug. Beneath his wet T-shirt his back was corded with the same muscle, and she wondered what had happened to the nearly chubby man she’d been introduced to a year earlier.

  How much focus and energy had been required to transform him into this? Or had this man been lurking in there the entire time and she hadn’t known it because of his stature? He didn’t look muscular at a glance. He still retained the same stocky frame as before. But there was nothing fat about him.

  She wouldn’t have cared if there was. Maybe it was a cliché to think it would just be more of him to love, but she thought it anyway. Every inch of Alex, especially the inches surrounding her now, was something to be grateful for. She didn’t know where this man had come from, or how he’d stumbled so gracelessly into her messy life, but she was elated to have him.

  Stupidly, she wanted to tell him again how glad she was he had come, but when she lifted her head to say the words, her lips were covered. His mouth claimed hers, stealing away the syllables of appreciation and replacing them with a surprised oh, which she breathed over his lips.

  Her surprise was short-lived because the kiss was relentless. His mouth and hands pleaded with her, his fingers digging into her waist as his tongue sought a union with her own. She groaned against the heat of it, letting him back her up to the wall so she could feel the rain-soaked weight of him against her. His body was like a blanket she might snuggle into on a cold winter night, but the comfort she wanted from Alex now was something wholly different than basic warmth.

  He kissed her the way she imagined long-lost lovers might. Men and women torn asunder by war or great misfortune, reunited after torturous decades of loneliness.