Hitching the Pitcher

by Rebecca Connolly

  She’d been following his games and his numbers and had been pleased to see things improving for him, but there had been some moments of doubt.

  He was playing better now that she was gone.

  Just like he had at Belltown.

  Thankfully, her better sense kicked in, and she reminded herself that she had nothing to do with Sawyer’s ability to play baseball. She had respected his every boundary and had been nothing but supportive. He had played well before they had gotten back together, and he had played well while they were together.

  The only change had come when Hanks had been injured and Sawyer had needed to refocus.

  Maybe now he had.

  Then why hadn’t he called her?

  “Erica.”

  She turned towards the house, where her mom stood on the porch waving at her. She waved back.

  Her mom laughed and waved again. “No, silly, come over here. I need some help with the pies.”

  “Since I’m so good at that,” Erica muttered to her dad and brother.

  Bryant laughed loudly. “Have fun, sis. Don’t ruin anything we can sell.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him as she headed towards the house, though he really did have a point.

  Their mother was the one gifted with pastry. Erica hadn’t inherited that gene, and she hadn’t put in enough effort to learn the skill appropriately.

  This wasn’t a chance to help her mother with the pies themselves.

  Her mother wanted to talk.

  Erica smiled as she walked into the house—really almost a log cabin in its appearance—and the spacious front room, the kitchen sprawled across the back of the house but entirely visible. She took off her scarf and unzipped her quilted vest, shrugging that off and hanging it on the hook by the door. “Okay, Mom, I’m here,” she called as she stepped out of her boots.

  “Oh good! Hurry back here. I really need you.”

  She rolled her eyes and walked towards the kitchen, pausing to scratch the ears of their old basset hound, Sammie. The dog moaned groggily in response, making her smile. She moved into the much warmer kitchen, eying the dozen pies on the table. “Wow, Mom,” she murmured. “You have a bake sale coming up?”

  Her mother, currently in the process of removing another pie from the oven, gave her a look, closing the oven door with her hip. “As a matter of fact, yes. Kennedy High is having one, and they asked if I would mind donating.”

  Erica gestured to the table. “A dozen pies? Is anyone else donating, or just Moore Farms?”

  “Erica Anne,” her mother scolded playfully. “Only four are going to the school, considering I don’t have a student there anymore. The rest are for the farmers’ market tomorrow. We sold out last week, and I don’t want to do that again.”

  “Makes sense to me.” Erica leaned against one of the chairs, watching as her mom placed the fresh pie on the table with the others. “So what am I doing to help?”

  “Make up some boxes for the cooler ones, will you?” Her mother smiled pleadingly, batting her eyes in a teasing way.

  Erica laughed and walked over to the pile of boxes waiting to be assembled. “Just for you, Mom. And I like the new design, by the way.”

  Her mother hummed as she returned to the counter, where yet another pie was nearly ready for the oven. “Your sister came up with it. I don’t know why the simple berry-and-evergreen pattern bothered her, but it did. This doesn’t seem that much different, but what do I know?”

  “Meg has very particular tastes,” Erica pointed out, sitting in a chair and beginning to assemble one of the boxes. “No doubt she’ll make over the website too.”

  “Oh, she is,” her mom laughed. “That’s been her wish all winter, and now that the tree sales are done, she has time.”

  Erica widened her eyes meaningfully but said nothing.

  “How was Arizona, sweetie?” her mother asked, her voice much softer and more tentative. “You’ve barely said a word about it.”

  “Warm,” Erica told her, focusing on the lid of the box. “The museum was really cool, though. Beautiful exhibits and artifacts. They designed the museum itself like a lot of the art. Very cultural, and it absolutely fits in with the surrounding area. And the people that worked there were so awesome. Lots of locals who know the traditions for themselves.”

  Her mom nodded, laying the top layer of pie crust carefully over the filling. “Good, I’m so glad. I wasn’t asking about work, though.”

  That Erica already knew, but she wasn’t going to offer that information up without a fight.

  “Oh, the food out there is amazing,” she gushed as if that were what her mom was looking for. “Seriously, I may never be able to go back to Mexican food outside of Arizona ever again. Totally not the same. I should have picked up some local recipes for you to try, but I didn’t think of it, I’m sorry.”

  “That would have been great.” Her mom continued to nod as she pinched the edges of the pie. “Still not what I want to know.”

  Erica sighed with reluctance, setting aside her first completed box. “Well, Mom, you’re going to have to be very direct about what you’re looking for, then. I’m not a mind reader.”

  “No, but you’re also not oblivious,” came the reply, just as direct, but gently bestowed.

  That was also true, but it didn’t change the issue.

  Silence filled the kitchen but for the sounds of a turning pie pan on a counter and the folding of paper boxes.

  “I see Sally Bennett almost every Saturday at the market, you know,” her mom informed her, now tracing a pattern on the top surface of the pie with a knife. “I know more than you think.”

  “I suspected as much,” Erica murmured, folding her next box. “There are no secrets in Belltown.”

  That earned her a look. “Don’t be bitter about this. We’re not gossiping about our kids to the entire market.”

  Erica nodded once. “I know. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

  “About Sawyer?” her mom pressed. “Or about your leaving Arizona without him?”

  “Both.”

  Her mom waited, pretending to look over the pie carefully.

  There was no avoiding this, and it would be better to get it over with.

  “Sawyer is wonderful,” Erica admitted at last, sighing with longing this time. “He’s just as funny and charming and sweet as he was in college, only he’s more mature. Just as good-looking too. It was so easy to pick up as if no time had passed, and it all happened so fast. I fell so hard so fast, Mom. And then… I don’t know, he got caught up in his head about too many things, and I got dropped.” She frowned, shaking her head. “No, that’s not right. He loves me, I can see that, and I know it. He’s just lost, Mom, and he won’t let anyone help him. Especially me.”

  The oven opened, and Erica watched as her mom slid the next pie in with ease, shutting the door and setting the time. “Well,” her mom said as she turned back to her, taking an open seat, “I imagine it’s been hard for him to come into real adulthood without his dad. Charlie understood Sawyer so well and was very much his mental coach, if you remember. Never tried to advise him on baseball, but kept his head on straight. When he lost that coach, he must have felt he was all on his own. Maybe he wasn’t ready for that.”

  Erica hadn’t remembered that, as it happened. She had spent so much time wrapped up in Sawyer himself that the supporting characters in the picture were a bit blurred in recollection.

  She hadn’t thought about Charlie in years, but with the reminder came faded memories. Sawyer looked almost exactly like his dad except for his eyes, which were exactly like his mother’s. Charlie had been a calm man, but with an impeccable sense of humor. He wasn’t easily riled but was quick to celebrate even the smallest victories.

  It would be a poignant loss for anyone to have such a person disappear from their life.

  For someone with a position and demands like Sawyer, it could be devastating.

  Her heart ached a little more for t
he man she loved, and it took all of her strength and conviction to avoid pulling out her phone to call him right at that moment.

  “I miss Sawyer, Mom,” she whispered, the box folding growing more difficult as her eyes filled with tears.

  A warm hand reached across the table, covering hers. “I know, sweetheart. And I know how happy he can make you. I won’t tell you what to do, and in this, I can’t. You have to listen to your heart here, and sometimes that seems impossible. As much as you want to take care of him, make sure you take care of yourself as well.” Her mom smiled very gently, the quintessential loving-mother smile that never failed to encourage more tears. “It sounds to me like you both might need each other, if you can figure this all out.”

  “Would you like to tell him that?” Erica managed to laugh, wiping at her eyes.

  Her mom grinned and winked. “Pretty sure he’s figuring that out now. But if he takes too long, I’ll put a call in to Sally or Rachel. They can make some noise for you.”

  Erica laughed harder and sat back, letting her hand slide out from under her mother’s and returning to her box. “Make some noise. You know, I think the two of them could make a lot of noise for Sawyer, if they put their minds to it. He might actually hate me for siccing them on him.”

  “I’m quite sure he’d forgive you,” her mom assured her. “And pretty darn quickly too.”

  Erica wasn’t so sure.

  She wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she jumped, fishing it out of her back pocket. She looked at the screen in disbelief, blinked once, then pushed up from the table quickly and moved to the sliding glass door of the great room as she hit the Answer Call button. “Mace? What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

  CHAPTER 14

  “The Six Pack had an amazing week, John. All across the board, no exceptions.”

  “They really did, Dan, and that’s saying something with the Knights.”

  “The Knights were a mess; there is no question there. How this team got to the World Series last year is beyond me.”

  “True wild card, that’s for sure. And when you trade your top three infielders for draft picks, you’re destined to have a slump.”

  “Grizz McCarthy saved this game, John. Hands down. Even his old buddy Ryker Stone couldn’t get home safe and clean, but it was a close call.”

  “Close calls at the Black Racers’ game, too. Sawyer Bennett coming back into baseball, ladies and gents. I mean, look at this catch, right off the bat of Gavin Lyons, and quick shot to Jim Calvin at first. Boom, boom, two outs down. Welcome back, Skeeter.”

  The TV winked off, and Sawyer stared at the screen where last night’s game highlights had just been. They would undoubtedly go on to talk about the other games the Six Pack had, but he had no interest in going over those. He’d barely wanted to hear about his own game, but curiosity had gotten the best of him.

  He was back in the good graces of the sports world.

  Hooray.

  That just left the rest of his life to figure out. Baseball, when he stopped thinking about it, was all muscle memory. He knew how to zone in enough to perform, but without any real motivation behind his own performance, everything was instinct and habit. He didn’t need to outshine anyone, and he didn’t need to prove anything. He needed to meet the level of his teammates and keep the game moving.

  That was it.

  He could do that. He’d done that his entire life.

  It wasn’t fun, but it would do.

  Last night he’d even ventured into the online forum for his Museums and Culture class to check out new assignments and discussions.

  He’d lasted only five minutes.

  Erica was getting more involved in discussions and suggestions, taking a more active role in the coursework with her students. It didn’t surprise him one bit. She had always been more of a hands-on instructor, and if she had been given the real platform of a campus classroom, she would have been an extraordinary professor.

  She was already the most active online professor he’d ever had.

  For the fiftieth time in two days, he fiddled with his phone, toying with the idea of texting her.

  He wouldn’t do it. He hadn’t yet.

  He didn’t know how.

  How could he apologize for letting her leave? How was he supposed to explain just how much of an idiot he was? How did anyone find the words to describe to the person they loved that life was less livable when they were gone?

  Not impossible. Not unbearable. Just less livable.

  Nothing was fun anymore.

  He couldn’t even bring himself to pretend to enjoy the group text with the Six Pack, much as that usually amused him. His teammates were leaving him alone, which was great, and he was able to quietly go about his routines, rehab, and life without much interruption.

  Routine, monotony, and boredom.

  That was his life now.

  The most exciting thing that had happened to him this week had been finally reaching the baseball chapters in his History of Sport textbook, when he’d decided to delve back into any educational pursuits that didn’t involve his estranged girlfriend.

  Was she estranged? Did it count as estranged if he’d been the one to completely neglect their relationship? When she was the one giving everything and he’d barely even existed, wasn’t he the estranged one?

  Could only one of them be estranged?

  It was a ridiculous series of questions, but it wasn’t the first time he’d asked them. Nothing in his life seemed to work right now except baseball, and he wasn’t sure it counted as working when he was just going through the motions.

  Especially when he’d pushed her away for the sake of baseball.

  Again.

  There was no making up for that. There was no coming back from that. There was absolutely no way in the world he could make her see that she was first priority when he had clearly made her less than that.

  He’d have to take an Incomplete in her course. There was no way he could actually finish it while she was the instructor, not like this. He had no doubt she would grade his work fairly and according to whatever rubric she needed to, but he couldn’t do it. Every assignment and exam would remind him of her, and he’d wind up imagining her grading it and wondering if she missed him or if she had to remind herself of her code of ethics to avoid failing him outright.

  They’d left things so unclear when she went back to New York, and that had been his fault. He couldn’t bear to give it a name, to question it, or to even try to define it. She’d said she loved him even as she got into the car.

  How could she when he’d given her no reason to stay?

  Even if she couldn’t have stayed, he could have given her a reason to consider it.

  He’d practically put her on the plane himself.

  For all that he’d told her this was different and assured her that he was not the man he’d been in college, he had done exactly the same thing and possibly inflicted even more damage. He had followed the same damaging pattern, the inclination to shut everyone and everything out and avoid facing whatever truth was in front of him.

  What a winner he was.

  Welcome back, Skeeter, indeed.

  The phone in his hand vibrated, and he waited a moment before even turning it over.

  Did he want to know? Did he care enough?

  He finally turned it over, then frowned and pressed the answer button. “Hello?”

  He sat up at once. “Really? What are you…? Yeah, sure. I know it, yeah. Okay, give me ten. See ya.”

  He hung up and stared at the phone again. What were the odds?

  Ten minutes later, he was sitting in a booth in Casa Dea, a diner-slash-Mexican-themed place near the airport, tapping his phone almost anxiously against the table.

  “Hey, Sawyer, thanks for meeting me.”

  Sawyer looked up and rose to his feet at once. “Todd. Yeah, no problem. Glad I was free.”

  The older man sm
iled and removed his jacket, which amused Sawyer, given that it was Arizona and at least seventy-three degrees outside. “Me too. Wish I had more time so I could actually catch a game, but working with airlines kinda restricts me to airport meetings only, and I have to hit up Dallas before I can get back home.”

  “Yikes,” Sawyer murmured as he slid back into the booth, wondering if he should remove his cap. What was the protocol for dining with your mother’s boyfriend? No one had ever told him the rules here.

  Todd took a seat and pulled out the menu. “I’ve heard the omelets here are phenomenal. The question is which one… Or two…”

  Sawyer grinned and eyed the menu himself. This was a guy he could relate with, no question. “Well, don’t ask me for halfsies. I’m not sharing.”

  “Please,” Todd scoffed, raising his eyes from the menu to look at him. “Half. My daughters aren’t here, and neither is your mother. I can pound two.”

  “Okay, go ahead. No judging.” Sawyer smiled at the young waitress as she came over and gave his order, and Todd did wind up getting two omelets, though time would tell if he would actually finish both.

  Sawyer might actually judge the man if he didn’t.

  Once they ordered and the waitress left, Sawyer sat back, staring at Todd without shame, and Todd stared back.

  After a minute, Todd smiled. “Who’s going to blink first, Sawyer? My eyes are going to water soon.”

  Sawyer chuckled and held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, man. Sorry. I just… Why are you here? I get that you had business, but come on. What’s up?”

  Todd’s smile spread briefly. “Oh, I didn’t fool you, huh?”

  “Not even a little bit.” Sawyer shook his head firmly. “Come on, what’s going on? Did Mom tell you to come check on me?”

  “Of course,” Todd answered, snorting softly. “She’s convinced you’re not eating and avoiding talking to her and probably falling off the edge of the planet.”

  Sawyer’s mouth curved. That sounded like his mom all right.

  “But I wanted to see you, too,” Todd continued, leaning his folded arms on the table. “We don’t really know each other, and I regret that. Particularly since I’m crazy about your mom.”