Quit Your Pitchin'

by Lani Lynn Vale

  And, even though Wrigley shut the door on me with a smile on her face, I had a sense of foreboding the entire time I’d been away from them.

  The entire drive to the complex had my gut tightening further and further.

  Something bad was about to happen.

  I could feel it.

  ***

  It was four hours later, and I still felt like something was gnawing at my guts.

  My head wasn’t in the game. Not even a little bit.

  My mind was still back in Longview, with Wrigley.

  Why hadn’t she called me back? Was she watching the game? Was something wrong?

  A loud crack had me jolting back into the game, and I surveyed my surroundings.

  By the time I realized the ball had been hit, I was already moving in the direction I thought it’d gone.

  I shouldn’t have been able to catch the most uncatchable hit ever.

  One second, I was in my usual position, staring at the batter with questions rioting through my head, and the next I was running.

  I leaped and caught the ball, taking the metal bar to my ribs moments later as my gloved closed.

  It took me a moment to realize that I was practically face to face with a person. I blinked.

  “Melanie?”

  “Holy shit!” she gasped, surprised.

  The crowd roared, and someone beside Melanie pointed.

  I turned to look at the jumbotron, that was replaying the catch, and grunted.

  That ball had been millimeters from hitting Melanie directly in the face.

  She’d been talking to someone beside her and hadn’t realized how close she was to peril until I’d bumped into her.

  She never saw it coming.

  Melanie squeaked, causing me to turn.

  Upon seeing what I had done on the jumbotron above her head, she threw her hands around my shoulders and pulled me in tight.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, then kissed me.

  I’d gone to turn my head, hoping to hear her better over the crowd, but then ended up just giving her access to my mouth instead of my cheek like she’d intended.

  She blushed and apologized profusely, and I waved it off.

  “It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re okay,” I told her honestly.

  Melanie nodded. “That could’ve been really, really bad. Thank you.”

  I winked and let her go, turning back to jog into the game and back to my position.

  What I didn’t realize was that halfway during that scene there was a commercial break due to a thunderstorm warning back home. Meaning when the show came back on, the only thing replaying was the kiss. Oh, and Wrigley’s stupid ass brother letting everyone know about the new budding romance between Lumberjacks star player, George Hoffman, and the cute little deaf girl yearning for his heart.

  Wrigley didn’t miss any of what she was able to see, either.

  Which was the fucking problem.

  A huge, gigantic fucking problem.

  ***

  Wrigley

  The thunder from the storm boomed, and I looked over at my son, who was saying one word, over and over.

  “Thunda! Thunda!”

  I rolled my eyes as the dish went out like it always did when a cloud crossed over its path.

  This time, though, I knew it wouldn’t come back on for a few minutes as the rain started to pound the roof.

  “You love that song, don’t you?” I teased, pulling out my phone and putting on “Thunder” by Imagine Dragons.

  Micah bopped his head to the beat, singing along when the man said, ‘thunder’ in his high-pitched tone.

  I grinned and walked to the kitchen, refilling my cup with tea.

  Just as I was walking back, the TV channel came back into view.

  The weatherman was on the screen pointing out the storm system that was currently pounding East Texas.

  I waited patiently until they cued back into the game and then felt vomit surge up my throat as I watched my husband kiss another woman, as people all around him celebrated the win of the game.

  Melanie. The same woman that had caused me to get pissed just before Micah’s accident.

  “Daddy!” Micah cried as George pulled away from the woman.

  He was so excited to see his daddy that he didn’t pay attention to his mommy’s heart breaking into a million tiny pieces. All the fuck over again.

  “A lovebird celebratory kiss, off in left field where Furious George, number seven, made the game-winning catch that tied the series up, three to three. Did y’all see that catch by George?” Dodger, my asshole brother who sounded happier than a pig in slop, crowed. “And that kiss! Could this be a new love interest for poor Furious George?”

  I flipped the TV, and my brother, off.

  “They were seen out at a party several weeks ago before George’s son, Micah, was hurt in a car accident. The pair sure does look cozy out there in left field, don’t they?” the announcer on the left, an older man with white hair and a bushy beard said.

  “Sure do,” the other announcer, a cute African American man with a bald head and a pink bow tie said. “It’s nice to see George’s smile after what happened to his son. The Lumberjacks sure have missed him these last few weeks. And he picked a wonderful time to come back to the game!”

  I turned the game off after the fourth replay of the kiss and tried to breathe through the tears.

  I didn’t jump to conclusions just yet, though.

  Nope.

  I waited until the game was over, seeing the message from Sports Center alert on my app that they’d tied the series three to three, and then gave it an hour.

  I then gave it another thirty minutes before I calmly picked up my phone and called him.

  He answered on the fourth ring, and he was laughing and carrying on.

  “Hey, Wrigs,” he answered gleefully. “Did you see the game?”

  I looked over at our son and blew out a breath as I tried to get my worry under control.

  “Yeah,” I croaked, then cleared my throat. “I did. You did awesome.”

  “Thanks,” George replied. “How’s Micah?”

  I looked over at where Micah was lounging in the recliner, Lucy snuggled up next to him helping keep the back part of it reclined enough so that he wasn’t sliding out of the chair.

  “He’s good,” I said. “He fell asleep during the fifth inning.”

  The lie tasted bitter on my tongue.

  But I couldn’t very well tell him that I turned the damn game off when they kept replaying his fucking kiss all goddamn night.

  Hell, I’d even gotten a goddamn Google update on it.

  Fuck!

  I really needed to take those Google Alerts off my phone when it came to George.

  “That’s too bad.” He sighed. “Are you…”

  “Hey, George!”

  I tensed at the cheery, female voice.

  “Hi, Mel,” he said. “I’m on the phone, could you give me a minute?”

  “Yeah, I’ll just wait for you over here,” she said.

  I was fuming inside.

  “Sorry about that,” he said.

  “Mel?” I practically snarled.

  “Yeah, Melanie. The girl that you met at the banquet?”

  I knew who fucking Melanie was.

  “Yeah,” I said. “The one that you kissed on national television tonight,” I said through a lump in my throat. “The one you took out on a date.”

  He hesitated. “I didn’t know that was captured.”

  “Oh, yeah. It sure was. And then Dodger let everyone in the United fucking States know that y’all were the newest sports world ‘it’ couple,” I continued, fuming all over again.

  If he could see my eyes right now, he’d know how freakin’ pissed off I was.

  “Wrigs, it didn’t mean anything. I saved her from taking a ball to the face.” He sounded worried now. “I promise. It
was never like that. The only reason I went out with her as I did was to make you jealous. I just wanted you back, and I tried everything. I was desperate. I know now that I shouldn’t have done that, but Melanie means nothing to me. We don’t even see each other. And today was just a fluke.”

  I ground my teeth, but my anger cooled minutely.

  “I’m sorry. It was just hard to see over and over again,” I admitted. I looked at the clock on the wall. “I have to go to bed. I have a board meeting tomorrow, and then I have a conference to attend that’s about an hour and a half away. You’ll be here for that, right?”

  He grunted in agreement. “I’ll be there.”

  Minutes later we hung up the phone, but despite his assurances that there was nothing going on with this Melanie girl, I couldn’t help but think that I was missing something. That there was this shoe ready to drop, and I was about to get clobbered in the interim.

  Chapter 21

  Is it possible to kill someone by just looking at them? Because if it was possible, you’d be dead right now.

  -Wrigley to George

  Wrigley

  I woke up that morning still not feeling well.

  My heart was heavy, and I felt like some large cloud was hanging directly over my head.

  But, with things to do today, I didn’t doddle.

  I was rushing around, trying to slip into my coat, when I felt hands on my belly, slipping under my shirt.

  I giggled and pulled away, laughing at George.

  “I’m so late it’s not even funny,” I told him, rushing into the bathroom.

  He followed me as I bent over the sink and started to brush my teeth.

  Watching me, he checked out my ass in my skirt and waited.

  Once I was finished, I questioned him.

  “Can I ask you a really big favor?” I bit my lip.

  “As long as it doesn’t involve me taking photos with the press corps, I’ll probably agree,” he teased.

  I felt my heart flutter at his words, once again being reminded of what kind of animals followed him around on a daily basis.

  They weren’t all bad, but quite a few of them didn’t understand personal boundaries…like my brother.

  I bit my lip and wondered how I would word this without him immediately saying no.

  “Well…”

  “Just spit it out,” he ordered.

  I grinned.

  That was the man I knew and loved.

  “There’s a victim’s assistance program that I would like to help fund, and I’ve raised quite a bit of the money. However, I’m short by about a hundred grand,” I said.

  A hundred grand was a lot…but I knew that what I had planned would probably pull in twice that.

  Twice that meant that I could help hundreds of women find better lives. Find lives that meant something to them, and would help them get back the confidence they needed to move on and put their best foot forward.

  And to do that, I needed George to bite the bullet and do something he didn’t like doing. A charity pick-up baseball game.

  “And you want us to play a game,” he guessed, knowing me better than I sometimes knew myself.

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  “When?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  Oh, God. His muscles bulged in all the right ways when he did that.

  “After the playoffs. I wouldn’t want to risk any of y’all getting hurt before any big games…so probably in a month or so?” I offered.

  He grunted. “I’d do anything for you, Wrigs. Just name the time and place, and I’ll find the guys.”

  I threw myself into his arms.

  “You won’t regret this,” I told him as I pulled away.

  He sighed. “I already do.”

  I laughed and swiped up my keys—which were in the bathroom of all places—and headed for the door. “Call me if you need anything.”

  That, however, was one of the only things that went right for me as I went through my day.

  I made it through the board meeting with my grandmother. I made it through my conference.

  And I even made it half the drive home.

  But I had to pee, I needed a cup of coffee, and honestly, I just wanted a goddamn Snickers.

  Which was why I stopped for one, and then happened to catch the TV playing in the corner of the diner that I stopped at for the coffee.

  And then saw the replay of the kiss last night, making me grimace.

  It wouldn’t be soon enough for that picture and film to stop rolling across the screen.

  Then what came on next absolutely dropped me to my knees.

  “The baseball world’s new ‘it’ couple, George Hoffman and his absolutely adorable new girlfriend, Melanie Nickel, have become an overnight sensation. Why you ask, is that? Because last night Melanie was seen kissing George Hoffman, at game six of the semi-finals when he saved her from being hit in the face by a fly ball. Melanie is the daughter of Gary Nickel.”

  “Gary Nickel,” I murmured. “Why is that so familiar?”

  “Gary Nickel is the porn star with the fourteen-inch dick,” a man helpfully supplied from the bar stool next to the register.

  My stomach rolled.

  Surely not.

  But, that was confirmed moments later when a picture of Melanie rolled over the screen as she attended last year’s Puntang Awards with her father.

  Gross.

  She didn’t look happy to be there at all, and honestly, who would be? That was her father. Not her boyfriend. I wouldn’t be caught dead there.

  But that was none of my business.

  What was my business was when fucking George rolled across the screen with Micah in his arms. Micah had sweatpants stretched out over his casts and a loose sweatshirt that looked like one of the ones I’d bought him for next year. The same exact outfit that I’d set out for George to dress him in this morning.

  And beside Micah and George was Melanie, who was walking Lucy. George had his hand on her back, and he was laughing about something with her.

  She was looking at him like he hung the moon and the stars.

  Which pissed me the hell off, because an hour ago, George, I thought, hung my moon and stars!

  Oh, hell fucking no.

  I dropped five dollars on the counter and left without my coffee, fuming now.

  I didn’t call him, though.

  I needed to have this out face to face.

  I would have an explanation.

  I would figure out what was going on.

  And I wouldn’t freak out.

  At least, that was what I kept telling myself the rest of the drive home.

  I hadn’t expected her to actually be in my apartment, though.

  Kissing my husband.

  I opened the door and froze, staring at what used to be my world, breaking into a million tiny pieces.

  George looked over at me just as Melanie pulled back from her tippy toes, and smiled at me.

  “Get out.”

  Melanie’s brows lowered.

  “Wrigs…”

  “Both of you.”

  “Wrigs…”

  “I swear to God,” I said. “If you don’t get out of my house, I will fucking lose it. Just. Get. Out.”

  Melanie reached for her purse and started toward the door, and I stepped aside even though I wanted to throw my shoulder into her and knock her into the door frame.

  She passed me and I turned to find George still standing exactly where he had been.

  “Wrigley…”

  “I need you to leave.”

  “Wrigs, I just…”

  “I need you to leave, and I need you to do it now,” I repeated.

  He tried again, and again, and again, and soon I just couldn’t stand it anymore.

  I needed him gone, and I needed him gone now.

  I’d seen all that I needed to see.

  There was only so m
uch you could take, so much you could understand when your ex-husband/lover/soon to be fiancé/whatever the fuck we were was caught kissing another woman. Two fucking times.

  I wasn’t stupid.

  I wouldn’t do it anymore.

  I wasn’t dumb. I could read the writing on the wall.

  And I was fucking done.

  George frowned at me, stared at me so hard that I wanted to squirm.

  Would’ve squirmed, in fact, had he not picked up his jacket and walked out the door moments later.

  He didn’t stop to say a word, just walked past me and left with a quiet snick of the door closing behind him.

  That was when I dropped to my knees.

  I cried.

  I cried for what felt like hours but was only likely around thirty minutes.

  Then Micah woke from his nap, and I was forced to pull my shit together.

  I received seventy-two phone calls from George. Twenty-two text messages. And eighteen voicemails.

  Instead of answering them and letting him know that he’d broken my heart for the second time, I turned the phone off and ignored everything but my son.

  Chapter 22

  I plotted your death in my sleep.

  -Unsent text message from Wrigley to George

  George

  Pissed off and hurt that she would do this to me again without asking for clarification, I did the only thing I did well.

  Lash out.

  Oh, and I invited my new friend to come while I did it, even though she and I meant nothing to each other. I even seated her in my ex-wife’s seats—the one that she used to sit in that I owned the season tickets for.

  The move was calculated on my end, and desperate on Melanie’s.

  She could care less about me, and everything about Gunner, my teammate—though Wrigs wouldn’t know that because she wouldn’t fucking listen.

  Gunner was young than me, but his eyes didn’t look young. They looked old as fuck and haunted.

  I knew the look well—and had for a very long time.

  But, for the time being, this served both of our purposes.

  I pissed off Wrigley, who really had fucked me up, and she grabbed the attention of the Gunner.

  Win-win for both of us. Right?

  Wrong.

  I should’ve known that Wrigley wouldn’t stand for it.

  I knew, eventually, she’d get over it and allow me in, but for the time being, it sucked that she didn’t trust me.