Perfect Catch

by Sierra Dean

  The pitch came in lower than the previous one had, and again Matt saw it coming a second too late. He turned to avoid it, but it got him hard in the ribs, and Alex heard the breath whoosh out of the other man’s lungs. Matt grunted from the pain and doubled over. Once he caught his breath, he straightened and chucked his bat in the direction of the visitor dugout.

  “That’s it.” He pointed to Miles. “You’re gonna regret that, kid.”

  Alex had assumed Matt would understand where the call had come from and turn his rage behind the plate where it belonged. Instead he was aiming it in the direction the ball had been thrown from.

  Matt charged the pitcher’s mound like a bull running the streets of Pamplona. Miles froze for a moment, and in that slim span of time it seemed like Matt was the only person in motion.

  Then both benches emptied and the crowd swelled to its feet, shrieking with the bloodlust of professional wrestling fans. The pitchers in each team’s bullpen were on the field, running in from farthest reaches of the park, and Alex knew what was going to happen.

  Logic told him to hang back.

  But logic had never been a part of a brotherhood like that of a baseball team.

  Alex pulled his mask off and raced after Matt, hot on the batter’s heels as he gained on Miles. The young pitcher backed off the plate, saying, “Man, you do not want any of this.”

  As Matt got closer, Miles dropped his glove in the dirt and met the charging player full on. Matt leapt at Miles, and the younger man grabbed him by the front of the jersey and used his momentum to flip Matt on his back in the dirt.

  What could have ended right there escalated when both teams reached the fray at the same time. Matt, with the help of his teammates, regained his footing and went for Miles again. He hauled the young man off his feet, and with a hard left hook to the cheek, knocked him to the ground. Before Matt could start pounding on the kid, Alex got in front of him and threw a punch of his own, sending Matt sprawling backwards into a wall of groping, swinging hands.

  Soon it was impossible to tell who belonged to which team or who was coming out on top. Bodies piled on top of each other, and men were slapping, elbowing and clawing at each other, desperate to get a small piece of the action.

  The brawl was over in a minute, but in that time both dugouts had emptied and all the umpires and managers were working to break things up.

  When the dust settled and everyone was pulled apart, Alex, Matt and Miles were the worse for wear, all three bloody and scuffed. Matt looked like he had a broken nose, but the kid had gotten the roughest end of things. He lay in a heap where he’d been thrown, letting out a harsh, ragged yowl.

  Emmy, with little sense of self-preservation given how high tempers were raging, shoved her way through the masses and came to Miles’s side. She gave Alex a cursory glance and asked, “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Honestly, he felt like he’d been run over with a freight train, but he was in better shape than Miles. His wounds could wait.

  Emmy crouched next to Miles and touched his arm. The young man wailed.

  At the sound, everyone seemed to take a collective step backwards, and all residual squabbling came to an abrupt halt. Dead silence replaced the yelling and roughhousing that had ruled moments earlier.

  Jasper joined Emmy on the mound, and they whispered in hushed, worried tones to one another.

  “Miles, you think you can stand?” Emmy asked.

  “Ye-yes.”

  She helped him to his feet, but when Jasper went to help him on the other side, he whimpered and shied away.

  Fuck, Alex thought, once he understood what had happened.

  Miles’s arm—literally the most important part of his job—was broken.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Wait, what’s happening?” Emily asked, trying to see over everyone’s shoulders. “I can’t hear. Can someone turn it up?”

  “Shhh,” scolded Jane.

  All five sisters and most of the active staff of the diner were crowded around a small TV that had been pulled out of the break room and plugged in beside the coffee maker on the front counter. What few other patrons apart from the Ross sisters who had been in the diner were now sucked up into the excitement of the game, and everyone had relocated to the stools. Even those who admitted to having no interest in baseball were crowded together watching the game unfold on the tiny eighteen-inch television.

  “I can’t see,” someone complained. “Who got hit?”

  Alice, standing with a few of the line cooks on the staff side of the counter, had one of the better views of the set, but all she wanted to do was look away. Hell, she wanted to run away. Instead she watched the mayhem unfold with one hand clapped over her mouth and her eyes wide with a mix of stunned surprise and absolute horror.

  First Matt got thrown to the ground, then the cameras had a hard time pinning down an obvious angle on the melee that followed. But the Fox Sports crew had no difficulty getting a perfect shot of Matt chucking Miles down in retaliation before getting punched himself.

  By Alex.

  Her ex, getting hit by her ex.

  Everyone gasped collectively when Matt wobbled under the hit and stumbled back flat on his ass with a wall of arms ready to push him down or help him up.

  “Turn it off,” Alice whispered.

  “No, what?” There was a chorus of complaints from the crowd, but Alice was having none of it. She didn’t want to see anything else.

  That hit hadn’t just been part of a simple baseball brawl. The camera had a great view of the look on Matt’s face when he squared off with Alex—pure venom. And ditto the way Alex had smiled with dark triumph when Matt toppled like a poorly constructed Jenga tower.

  Their fight had been personal, and she had a good idea of what was at the crux of the vendetta. Alex knew about Matt because she’d admitted all the gory details herself.

  But now, thanks to the widespread gossip mill that was the Internet blogosphere, Matt would also know about Alex.

  About her and Alex.

  She didn’t want to think so ill of Matt as to believe he would get on Alex’s case about the relationship, but she also wasn’t naïve enough to think it was impossible.

  Or had Alex goaded Matt?

  Either way, one of them must have overstepped the invisible line in the sand, and it showed itself with flying fists on the field.

  She turned off the TV as Miles was led to the dugout, his face a grimace of pain. The feed cut to a shot of Matt’s earlier smug home run, and the announcers began to speculate it was the obvious cause of the fight.

  Maybe it had helped, but Alice knew there was a secondary reason behind the real violence. Most bench-emptying scuffles—once quaintly called donnybrooks—were all for show. Guys would stand around and hurl insults at each other while the manager would turn a new shade of red screaming at the umpire. They very rarely resulted in actual injury. This one had been the Sunday Bloody Sunday of baseball fights.

  She was at the root of the worst baseball fisticuffs of the whole damned season. They’d be showing clips of this game on SportsCenter and ESPN right up to the postseason, and she’d get to live with the reminder of her messy love life every time she checked sports stats or watched a Felons game.

  Oh God. Liv had been watching the game.

  Alice didn’t even question the likelihood. A game featuring Matt and Alex both? Of course Liv would be glued to the couch with Kevin, excited to see her two favorite players squaring off against each other.

  And now she’d seen her father get punched out on national television.

  Alice felt the bottom give way on her stomach, and she braced herself against the counter, trying to catch her breath and resist the urge to throw up all at the same time.

  So much for keeping drama out of her life.

  “Excuse me.” She moved towards the kitchen.

  All the silent patrons waited for her to vanish from sight before someone whispered, “Can we turn it back on?” A mo
ment later the Fox sports announcer’s voice returned, discussing the likelihood of suspensions and what they thought the status of Miles’s injuries might be. Alice went into the dish pit so she didn’t have to hear anything.

  Removing her phone from her apron, she speed-dialed the number for her home phone. It rang once before Kevin answered, “Uh, hey?” He sounded uncertain of how a phone should work.

  “Did she see it?” Alice already knew the answer, but she was hoping for some random miracle that might have saved the inevitable questions.

  “I tried to convince her to change the channel after he got hit the first time, but she wasn’t having any of it.”

  “Did you…?” She had no idea what she wanted to ask. Why he hadn’t turned the TV off? Why he hadn’t changed the channel? “How’s she dealing?”

  “Talk to her.”

  Before Alice could protest—since she had no idea how to respond to any questions Liv might have—the phone was handed off to her daughter. “Mom?”

  “Hey, baby.”

  “Is Daddy okay?”

  “Yeah, he’s fine.” It would take more than a punch to bring Matt down for long. He’d be bragging about the bruise for a week, knowing him. Making himself into some kind of martyr.

  Skanky baseball groupies would eat that sort of thing up, coddling him with oh, you poor baby and offering to nurse him back to health. Alice swallowed back the bile swelling up in her throat.

  “Is Alex okay?”

  That question took her by surprise. She’d been expecting Liv to immediately vilify the other man and pin the blame on him as easily as Alice had. Instead Liv cared as much about his wellbeing as her father’s.

  “I…I don’t know, baby. I think so.”

  “Is he going to get in trouble?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is Daddy going to get in trouble for hitting that pitcher?”

  “Maybe. But not a lot. He got hit first.” How to explain the politics of baseball suspensions to a kid was not something Alice was prepared for. She knew, generally speaking, how much trouble the guys would be in for. Alex, Matt and even Miles would all be facing suspensions, but the length would depend on the severity of their involvement. Matt, in spite of his assault on Miles, would probably get off lightest since he was seen as the injured party.

  Miles…well a lot would depend on how badly hurt he was.

  “They’ll have to sit out a few games, that’s all,” Alice added, when the silence spread too long and she was worried about scaring Liv.

  “Can we call Dad?”

  Alice fought against the lump in her throat. “Yeah. But not tonight. He’s going to be too busy tonight.”

  In the quiet that followed she thought she’d avoided the question she feared the most, until Liv spoke again. “Can we call Alex?”

  The lump returned tenfold in size. Alice tried to say no, but the word didn’t come out. She sucked air in through her nose before she tried again. “We’ll see. Honey, are you okay? Did the fight scare you?”

  “No.” It sounded like she was already distracted by something else. “I was worried about Dad and Alex, but they’re okay. So it was kind of cool.”

  “Olivia. Fights are not cool.”

  “I know…”

  “No, no I know. No exceptions.”

  “Mom, I know.”

  “Okay. Now tell your Uncle Kevin it’s time for bed.”

  “But the game isn’t over,” Liv insisted.

  “It is for you. Unless you don’t want to call your dad tomorrow.”

  Liv sighed, showing painful signs of the teenager she would soon become, which terrified Alice to the core. The unstoppable wave of time making her baby get older every day was in motion, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it.

  “Love you,” Alice said.

  “Love you too.”

  “Love you more.”

  “Mooom.”

  “Kiss your uncle good night for me.”

  “Okay. Night.” Liv hung up.

  Alice turned to go back into the restaurant and face the music but almost smacked into Ricki.

  Alex’s sister looked just as grumpy and fearsome as she had in the booth, but she uncrossed her arms and tried to put on an impassive face. When that failed, she shrugged at her own attempt and finally spoke up. “I love my brother.”

  “I love my brother too.” Alice wanted to say she loved Ricki’s brother, because she did love Alex. But if she couldn’t trust him, that love was meaningless.

  “So you understand anyone who might hurt my brother isn’t my favorite person in the world, right?”

  Alice thought about everyone who questioned her sanity for leaving Liv with Kevin after what had happened. She thought about all the nasty comments people had made, calling him crazy, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “Yes. I understand.”

  “And you get I just want him to be happy?”

  “I do.”

  “So here’s the thing. Here’s what we came here to tell you, and I figure maybe if I say it, you’ll buy it, because I clearly don’t like you, and I honestly kind of want to punch you in the ovaries for hurting him, got it?”

  “Um…”

  “Alex would never have let that story slip. I know you thought he might be behind it, but you’re looking at the wrong person. All any of us has heard since he met you in February is Alice this and Alice that, and I have never seen Alex this excited about anyone. That was Olivia on the phone, I’m guessing?”

  Hearing her daughter’s name out of Ricki’s mouth set Alice on edge. “Why?”

  “He’s told us all about her. I think the only chick he talks about more than you is her. I never figured him for a dad type, but you should hear the way he talks about her. Man.” Ricki shrugged again. “I guess my point is, he…loves you. He loves you. And he loves that kid. And he wouldn’t do anything to fuck that up.” Alex’s sister stared at her, then recrossed her arms.

  “I’m not sure what to say,” Alice admitted.

  “He loves you,” Ricki repeated, like Alice hadn’t heard her. “And he wouldn’t do anything to fuck that up.”

  “Okay,” Alice whispered, her voice shuddering.

  “And neither should you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Kevin was still up when Alice got home, and the look on his face told her she wasn’t done having serious talks for the night.

  Before he could speak up she interrupted with, “Can it wait until tomorrow?”

  “I think you might want to hear it now.”

  She dumped her purse and apron inside the door. The air conditioner in her car was broken again, and even with the windows down the ride home had been hot and miserable. Her uniform shirt was sticking to her, and all she wanted to do was have a cool shower and get into bed.

  “Will it make my day better or worse?”

  He contemplated her question seriously. “I really don’t know. But I’m guessing worse.”

  Alice heaved a sigh. “Fine. Hit me with it.” She was expecting…well, she didn’t know what to expect. That he was having issues with his meds? That the hospital had called to say the payments hadn’t gone through for the insane bills from the accident? There was any number of things he could have said to make her day worse.

  “After you called, the phone rang off the hook. Lots of people asking for your comment on the whole fight.”

  Alice was rankled. Her number was listed. She’d never thought about being a target for harassing phone calls before. Even after the Alex story had broken they’d petered off pretty quickly. Was she going to have to change her number now?

  “That’s not it,” Kevin interrupted, probably seeing her cheeks redden in frustration. “I took the phone off the hook after the second one. Didn’t want them waking up Liv after I got her into bed. But, um…well, I listened to the messages.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I erased most of them, but there’s one you’re going to want to hear.”


  “Why?” Was it from Alex? No, he would have called her cell. So would Matt, though the chances of him reaching out were slim to none.

  “Just listen to it.” He walked her over to the answering machine where the message light was blinking with a red “1”. Once Kevin hit play, he stepped backwards, as if wanting to leave her alone with the message.

  “Hi, this is Carmen Murphy from Sports Insider Daily. Misty, I’m wondering if you had any sort of insight on what happened today? We’d love to do a follow-up piece. If you had something we could use, we’d offer you the same bonus as last time. Give me a call, you have my number.”

  Alice was frozen in place, her hands shaking.

  “Did she…?”

  “Yeah.” Kevin assured her she hadn’t imagined things, but even still, Alice hit the play button again.

  “Hi, this is Carmen Murphy from Sports Insider Daily. Misty—”

  Alice hit play again.

  “Hi, this is Carmen Murphy from Sports Insider Daily. Misty—”

  She didn’t need to hear it again. Alice had a generic voicemail—she’d long ago removed the one of her and Liv after reading a report that some burglars would target the homes of single women. Now a computer-generated voice informed callers no one was available.

  There would be no way for Carmen Murphy to know it wasn’t Misty’s house she was calling.

  Misty.

  Alice’s own goddamn mother.

  She turned to look at Kevin, and the expression on her face must have been one of intense rage because Kevin paled at the sight of her. “Jesus, Al.”

  “That fucking bitch,” Alice snarled.

  She’d known her mother wasn’t the most loving or supportive person, but she’d never thought Misty would literally sell her out. But it all made sense now. Misty had been staying with them when Alice started seeing Alex again, and though she’d made a point of telling Alice she didn’t approve, she was clearly seeing dollar signs in the whole thing.

  Misty knew.

  Misty had known all about her relationship with Alex, and she’d known when Alice would be out and when she’d be expected home because Misty had been looking after Liv those nights.