Knowing how baseball took over Sawyer, how lost in his head he became, she’d known instinctively this could happen.
And she had risked it anyway.
She’d barely slept a wink last night, worrying about what that hug from Sawyer had meant. She’d felt love, she’d felt desperation, she’d felt need… but there had been something else that scared her. Something that kept her clinging to him as much as he was to her.
Fear. Knee-shaking, heartbreaking fear that something magical was coming to an end.
And now this text.
Was he reaching out to bring her in, or was he simply going to escort her out?
What should she do?
She exhaled slowly, inhaled deeply, and exhaled again.
Her phone buzzed in her hand before she could respond.
Come over, babe. Please?
Erica swallowed hard. Heaven help her, she wanted to go to him, no matter what the outcome of all this was. She loved him, in spite of his being lost in his own head, despite his alienating her, and even though he was breaking her heart.
She loved Sawyer Bennett, and he had asked her to come.
Maybe there was hope. Maybe this would end, and they could move forward together.
She smiled and texted out a quick response. Absolutely. Be right there.
She pushed out of her chair and dashed into her apartment, changing her clothes and running a brush through her hair. Then she was in her car, heading down to his apartment in Mesa, trying to calm her frantically racing heart.
Before she had fully prepared herself for whatever was coming, she was standing before his door and knocking, suddenly feeling too much like she had when she was sixteen and preparing to ask Danny Little to their high school homecoming dance.
Danny had said no.
She hoped Sawyer wouldn’t.
The door swung open, and Sawyer stood there looking as though he’d just come from bed or he desperately needed to go there. Gray Belltown sweats and wrinkled blue Belltown baseball tee, hair in complete disarray, and messy scruff. His eyes were a faded shade of his usual blue, and his smile didn’t reach them.
“Hey, beautiful,” he murmured, opening an arm hesitantly.
Erica’s heart broke a little, and she immediately moved into his arms, squeezing gently. “Hi, handsome.”
Sawyer exhaled roughly as he held her, then pressed a kiss to her neck. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes filled with hot tears, and she blinked them away as quickly as she could. “For what?” she quipped sarcastically.
He chuckled against her and pulled back, the smile reaching his eyes this time. “I love you, and I especially love your sarcasm.”
She shrugged. “I was born with it. Decided to improve it as I got older.”
Sawyer stroked her hair, running a thumb across her cheek. “You did good.” His smile faded, and he sighed, searching her eyes.
Erica looped her hands around his waist. “What can I do, Sawyer? What do you need?”
“Can you find my baseball skills?” he asked, trying for the teasing air he usually had. “I used to have them, but I don’t know…”
“Stop it,” she urged softly. “You’re okay. A couple of rough games doesn’t mean anything.”
Sawyer shook his head slowly before she finished. “It’s more than that, hon. My head and my heart aren’t in it, and I can’t seem to figure out what went wrong.”
“That’s just pressure, babe,” Erica insisted, keeping him fixed to her when he gently tried to break away. “Nobody expects you to be both you and Hanks. Jess said they’re just going to pull Marty over to starter instead, and that’ll work fine. It’s a shot for him, and that’s good, right?”
“It’s great,” he assured her, putting his hands on her upper arms. “Fantastic. Marty’s great, and he deserves a shot. That’s not it.” He tried again gently, but very firmly, to separate from her, succeeding this time, and moving over to his windows, folding his fingers behind his head.
The action made his shirt ride up, and the base of his spine and the lower sides of his torso were visible to her. Muscular, trim, attractive… She smiled softly, finding it strangely funny that she could notice and appreciate his appearance even when she suddenly felt this horrible sinking feeling in her stomach.
“What happened to Hanksy could easily happen to me,” Sawyer admitted, his back still towards her. “Easily. To any pitcher. We know that, every one of us. But seeing it up close, and to a friend… It shakes you.”
“That’s understandable,” she murmured as she sank onto the arm of the nearby couch. “Anyone would feel that.”
Sawyer shook his head, his hands moving to grip his neck instead. “I’m afraid to pitch, Erica. It’s all I know, it’s what I do, and I’m afraid to do it.”
Erica gaped at him, though he couldn’t see it. “Why?”
“Why?” he repeated. He whirled to face her, the exhaustion transformed into a frantic energy. “Because if I go down like Hanks, I don’t have a backup. If I lose my arm, I have nothing. I’ve been up every night studying, finishing assignments, killing myself to make up for the fact that I’ve completely screwed up my life.”
“What? Sawyer, no. You’re not going to go down like Hanks. And he’s not finished forever; you heard the report yourself. He might be ready before postseason!” Erica got up and came over to him. “Stop, stop. You’re exhausted and overworked. You’re not thinking clearly.”
He ran his hands through his hair, then pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I know. I know, I know, and I realized that about two in the morning.” He exhaled shakily. “I’ve been watching film to improve my game, and I’ve been doing exercises and treatments with Doc and Kayla to keep my arm healthy. Add to that my schoolwork, and…”
“It’s too much,” Erica whispered, rubbing his arms and pulling his hands from his eyes. “You can’t do everything at once, babe. One step at a time, and it’ll all come together.”
Sawyer nodded, leaning forward to press his lips to her brow. “I need some time.”
“Sure you do,” she agreed. “There’s lots of time.”
He slowly shook his head, pulling back to look at Erica more fully. “Erica, I need some time. From us.”
Erica’s heart stopped in her chest. He didn’t want time with her. He wanted time from her.
“What?” she breathed.
He immediately cupped her face in his hands. “I’m in the middle of a mess, and I don’t want to hurt you. I need to focus on untangling it. I need to focus on baseball and get my game back for my team, for my future… For our future. And for me.”
Erica swallowed, blinking. “Why do I feel like I already know this speech?” she asked, not bothering to keep the bitter edge out of her words, wrenching her face out of his hold.
“No, no!” he insisted. “This is different! I love you, I do. I just can’t think right when you’re around.” He winced even as he said it.
She shook her head, moving back to the couch to grab her purse, sniffling but refusing to let the tears fall while he could see them. “What kind of relationship do you expect us to have if I can’t be around?”
“Erica,” Sawyer pleaded, and she could see his torment, which only made hers worse. “I don’t want to lose you. I just need time.”
She managed a pained smile. “Good. I don’t want to lose you either. But this feels like I already have.” She blinked rapidly and opened the door, letting it slam shut behind her as she hurried to her car, the tears rolling freely down her cheeks.
CHAPTER 12
“Look at that release. What a mess, absolutely no follow-through. What is that?”
The tape skipped forward, and another pitch was analyzed.
“No, no, no… You call that a change-up? Disgusting.”
Again, the tape moved ahead.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Where do you think the strike zone is? Where?”
There was no answer from the empty team
room, and Sawyer didn’t expect there to be. He was analyzing his last game, miserable as it had been, and facing every single pitch from that night. He hadn’t watched any of the sports coverage on TV this time, not needing to hear from anyone else how horrible his performance had been.
He knew full well.
The last few days, he’d devoted himself to his own analysis, forgoing even his coursework until he could at least get baseball back in his good graces, or get himself in baseball’s good graces, whichever the case happened to be. He was careful to only throw the specific number of pitches he was supposed to on his off days, and he did preventative rehabilitation with the athletic training staff daily.
He ran more than he probably should, but running cleared his head.
Well, in theory it did.
His head was so muddled these days he couldn’t think straight most of the time, and running tended to get rid of a few snarls here and there.
He’d taken a step out of his usual pattern to sit with the bullpen for a game or two, mostly to work on technique with the others and to chat with Damien about his own pitching and get some ideas for his improvement. Tomorrow he would pitch again, but it was a split-roster game, so he didn’t feel the same sense of pressure. His arm felt good, but he hadn’t analyzed the details of Arizona’s batters yet.
It always tended to ache in anticipation after he did that.
Sawyer looked down at the pages of notes, trying to find a common theme.
There was none.
He rubbed at his eyes and looked over at the clock on the wall. Eleven in the morning, which meant he’d been at this for four hours. The team would be showing up in an hour for warmups before heading out to the game, and he’d already gotten in some good cardio, some weights, and his rehab.
He turned a few pages in his notebook to the schedule he’d laid out for himself. The morning was designated for pitching film, then tonight would be prep for tomorrow’s game. He needed to get good sleep the night before he pitched, so he would take that seriously.
He had to.
“Whoa, what’s this? No one told me it was movie night.”
“It’s not even lunch,” Sawyer replied, pressing Play on the film again.
Mace grunted. “Right. Let’s try that again.”
Sawyer didn’t look, but he could hear retreating footsteps. “Oh, good, he meant that literally.”
The footsteps came back. “Whoa, what’s this? No one told me it was movie brunch.”
“Probably because you weren’t invited,” Sawyer replied, watching what was possibly his only good pitch of that game.
Mace came into the team room completely, coming to stand behind Sawyer and watching film for a second. “Oh, I’ve seen this one. There’s a really great play in the seventh, and the guy singing ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’ forgets the words.”
“How exciting,” Sawyer said dismissively, adding the pitch he’d just watched to the illustration of the strike zone he’d drawn on a page of his notebook.
The two of them watched the next pitch in silence, and Mace chuckled darkly to himself. “I couldn’t believe he called that one a ball. It was low, but not that low, and I felt the heat. It’s been a while since you’ve pitched that hot, bro.”
Sawyer grunted and pressed pause. “Well, it doesn’t matter if it didn’t count for anything, does it?” He pushed up from his chair and moved over to the lights, flipping them on and squinting faintly against the brightness of them.
Then he really looked around. Remnants of his breakfast sat to one side of his chair, papers that had fallen from his notebook had scattered on the floor, his backpack had tipped over and his textbooks had started to slide out, and the sweatshirt he’d been wearing this morning but removed some time ago lay six feet away, where he’d tossed it.
The place was a sty.
“Uh, wow,” Mace said as he took in the whole picture, whistling to himself. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”
“Shut up,” Sawyer muttered, picking up the folding chair and putting it back with the others on one side of the room.
“Sorry,” Mace replied with a laugh. He gestured around as Sawyer began to tidy up. “What’s all this? Were you doing homework?”
Sawyer paused in the process of picking up his backpack. “Something like that.”
“Uh-huh.” Mace sat down on one of the wide leather couches in the room, crossing his size-seventeen shoe over one knee. “And you got distracted by film? There are better games to watch, if you’re wanting to really get distracted.”
“Trust me, I’m well aware.” Sawyer zipped up his bag, then began picking up the papers. “But watching good games isn’t going to help me get out of this mess, and it’s not going to help me improve.”
“Hold the phone,” Mace ordered, his voice turning almost cold. “And back that up. Mess?”
Sawyer gave him a dubious look. “As if you didn’t know. As if anyone on the team didn’t know.”
Mace blinked, his brow furrowed, dark beard hiding his mouth completely. “You’re going to have to enlighten the dumb idiot on the couch, Skeet. Spit it out.”
“I suddenly suck at baseball,” Sawyer reminded him, eyes wide with disbelief. “Can’t pitch to save my life. Bat like it’s T-ball. It’s all they can talk about on ESPN.”
“Seriously?” Mace shook his head. “You know better than to watch that after a bad game. That’s being judged in the court of public opinion, and you don’t need that crap.”
Sawyer laughed once, without any humor whatsoever. “Bad game. If only it were just a bad game. How about two completely craptastic games in a row for me? How about two weeks of horrible practices? How about suddenly forgetting how I’m supposed to hold a ball for a two-seam when I could have thrown it blindfolded in my sleep before?”
Mace tilted his head in a question. “Why would you need to be blindfolded if it’s in your sleep?”
Sawyer shoved the small stack of papers into his notebook and dropped that on the floor in frustration. “Great. Just great. Go ahead and make a joke out of it. Laugh it up, this is so hilarious.”
“Knock it off, Skeet,” Mace said, losing his teasing air. “You’re reading way too much into bad games, and it’s messing with you. This is beneath you.”
“Apparently not,” Sawyer shot back as he picked the rest of his things up from the floor and moved to set them on the couch opposite the one Mace occupied. “I can’t have bad games, Mace. I can’t get sent down.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Mace insisted. He sat up, holding his hands out like he was calming a wild horse. “Who’s talking about sending you down?”
Sawyer dropped himself onto the couch, flopping one leg up onto the cushions and rubbing his hands over his face. “It’s only a matter of time, isn’t it? Sarge is going to want pitchers who deliver. If Marty does well and Hanksy gets back before postseason, they’ll send me back down instead of Marty, and I’ll never get out of there. I’ll have blown my shot.”
“That’s not gonna happen,” Mace told him firmly. “You’re in a rut. It happens, and it happens all the time. You’ll get out of it.”
“Until I blow out my arm like Hanksy,” Sawyer rebutted. “And then I’ll be out of commission until I recover, and I may never be like I was before. Not that it would make any difference now. I suck as it is.”
“All right, that’s it.” Mace pushed up from his couch and came to stand before Sawyer. “If you’re done with your epic pity party for one, I’d like to talk to my teammate for a second.”
Sawyer glared up at him, but nodded once.
Mace folded his arms, looking every inch the intimidating powerhouse he was. “You need to get your head out of wherever it is and back on your shoulders. This right here”—he gestured to Sawyer in general—“this can’t happen. You’re sabotaging yourself and, by extension, your team. Stop feeding the spiral. Step back, take a look at everything, and get back in the game.”
“There’s
no time to step back in preseason,” Sawyer reminded him grumpily, shifting in discomfort.
“I was being metaphorical, moron,” Mace snapped. He exhaled slowly, shaking his head. “What does Erica say?”
Sawyer winced and looked away.
Erica. He missed her so much he couldn’t stand it, and she was only twenty minutes away. He knew he had to do this, and he knew she hated it. There was no winning here, but he didn’t know what else to do.
“Please tell me you aren’t that much of an idiot.”
Sawyer swallowed, glancing up. “To do what?”
Mace stared at him with round eyes. “You broke up with her?”
“No,” Sawyer retorted defensively. “No. We just… I just…”
“Does Erica know you didn’t break up with her?” he asked. “Or is she just as confused about that as you are about everything right now?”
Sawyer shook his head. “She knows. I told her I needed space and time. To focus, to get my head right, to… I don’t know. It was harder with her.”
“Oh, and you feel so much better now?” Mace scoffed loudly. “You’re so worried about your position on this team, and not letting the team down, and your performance on this team, and yet you’re forgetting your most important teammate. You’re a world-class idiot, Skeet. Fix it.”
Mace left the team room before Sawyer could respond to that statement, but he wasn’t sure what he would have said anyway.
He was an idiot. He was a jerk too, but mostly an idiot. He was rapidly losing control of his carefully juggled life, and struggling to remember how to do anything he once managed so well.
Moderately well, anyway.
He might not be able to get everything squared away perfectly right now, but he could certainly try to make sure he and Erica were okay.
He needed her. He knew that and always had known it.
But what if…?
He shook his head and pulled out his phone, texting her quickly before he could talk himself out of it.
Miss you, babe. Late-night breakfast after the game? Love you.
She would be at work now, but she would respond eventually.
Hitching the Pitcher Page 14
