“Reins?” Chiasson yells from his office, our pitching coach behind him with a look of disappointment.
Shit.
Groaning, I make my way into the office and stare at the wall with my dad’s picture. He went to ASU until he was drafted his sophomore year to Seattle. Sometimes I wish I would have taken the offer I got from three different teams before I even graduated.
But the fact that I’m sitting in this office lets me know I’m not ready for the big leagues.
“What was that about?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?” Luis, or Chiasson as we call him, is the head coach here at ASU. He played three seasons in the majors with the Cubs, and if you know anything about making it to the big show, you understand just how talented he is.
Most people who watch the game will never understand what it takes to get to the majors. Just because you’re signed with a team doesn’t mean you will ever see a major league game. And if you see even fifteen minutes in the majors, you’re a great baseball player. Maybe even exceptional.
My performance tonight? Not exceptional. Nervously, I chew on my bottom lip, my knee bouncing.
Chiasson stares me down, his voice similar to Kevin Costner’s. You know what I’m talking about. A distinct, rough growl that when he’s talking, you fucking listen. Too bad he didn’t tell me who his daughter was before I fucked her. Would have been helpful. But he mutters, “What happened to the kid throwin’ 105?” as if to throw it up in my face that I didn’t do that tonight.
My jaw tightens and my heart kicks up. Here’s the problem with an exceptional performance in the bullpen. You’re expected to do that in a game. So many variables are at stake there though. Like your ex showing up and tanking your game.
I run my hand through my hair. “I don’t know what you want me to say here.”
“Some nights you have it, some you don’t,” my pitching coach adds, crossing his arms over his chest. He knows I work hard.
I meet his eyes and then back to Luis. I wonder if he’s going to bring up his daughter again, but he doesn’t. His chest expands with a breath. Disappointment, maybe, or a bit of regret that he’s put so much effort into me and I’ve struggled this year.
Chiasson nods to the door. “Get tonight’s game out of your head and focus on tomorrow.”
Nodding, I stand and leave. Ez finds me soon after. “You sleeping with me tonight?”
He’s talking about me sleeping on his couch, but his comment earns a side-eye from one of the rookie backup pitchers. One who’s so stuck up he might as well be wearing a cardigan over his shoulders.
Noticing the attention, Ez winks at him and runs his hand suggestively over my shoulder. By the way, he’s fucking buck-ass naked. “You should stretch tonight, baby.”
I shove him away from me. “Knock that shit off.”
Laughing, he catches himself against the lockers, sweeping his hair wet from his shower. “You know you love it, Reins.”
Fucker.
He grabs me by the arm and points to our center fielder, Mazzie, who’s walking around with his cock hanging out. Believe me, nobody in a locker room is modest. It’s a lot of cock and balls, on and off the field. “His fucking dick looks so angry.”
“I’m not looking,” I point out, trying to avert my eyes.
“It’s hard not to. It looks… angry, man. Like a cobra ready to strike.”
Sighing, I walk away from him. Not only is Ez superstitious as fuck and burns just about everything he cooks, including popcorn, but he loves to make you uncomfortable.
Somewhere between leaving the clubhouse that night and running into Brie outside, I think about something my dad told me last year before the college world series. He’d heard it somewhere, I’m sure, but I can’t recall where. “Don’t let the success or failure of your last pitch affect this pitch right here, right now.”
I did though.
Leaning against my car, I bury my hands in the pockets of my shorts. I stare up at the night sky that’s still rumbling from the storm earlier. Brie stands in front of me, tears in her eyes. “I didn’t show up to throw you off.”
I nod, but I don’t know if she’s telling me the truth. This girl, God, she’s everything I thought I wanted in the future, but she couldn’t see that before it was too late.
She blows out a breath, swallowing as she fidgets with the phone in her hand. “I should get going.”
I hate the thumping of my heart and the pain that follows. “Did you wait around over an hour after the game to tell me that?”
Her eyes linger on my face. “Yes. Why?”
I exhale in an over-exaggerated way. “Bye, Brie.” I reach for the handle of my Jaguar, wanting to be anywhere but this conversation with her. We’ve been here too many times over the last three months. Do you want to know when I found out she fucked Baylor?
Christmas Day. She told me on Christmas Day. “Merry Christmas, I sucked your best friend’s dick.”
Okay, she didn’t say it like that, but the point was made. She’d left me for my best friend, and here I was, pine tar, stuck like glue to a girl who no longer wanted the life I thought we had planned out. The one where we dreamed of me in the majors and her by my side. The one where after college, she studied to become a pediatrician, and we eventually started a family.
And then I think about what went through my mind after the game and my dad’s words ingrained in my head. “The game usually gives you what you deserve, good or bad.”
Had I deserved what she did? Had I treated her badly? I’m not sure I ever asked the question. I think I’d been so caught up in the betrayal between them that I didn’t ask any questions.
“Why him?”
Brie lets out a soft laugh, though I’m not sure why, and her blonde hair falls into her face with a breeze around us. I’m hit hard by her scent and the realization that I’m to blame for some of this. “Cason, you’re explosive on a mound. Absolutely breathtaking to watch shut down some of the greatest hitters in baseball, and I have no doubt that talent will take you as far as you want it to.” She smiles a sympathetic smile and then looks down at her phone once more. “But as far as being in a relationship with you, you’re a completely different person off the field.”
I see the truth in her words, but it doesn’t exactly sit well with me. “And he’s different? Because the last time I checked, and I know Baylor pretty fucking good, he has the same mindset.”
“He’s different. He makes time for me, and I never have to question who he’s with.”
The words hit me in the chest. Brie actually believed I had been fucking around on her because her roommate told her so. That’s the maturity I was talking about earlier. She never stopped to ask me what happened at that party, and instead, believed what she heard.
“Whatever.” I open the door to my car. “Doesn’t fucking matter now.” Closing the door, I leave her standing in the parking lot, much like the night we broke up. Only I’m the one leaving this time, and hopefully she’s left with emptiness.
A hard-hit line drive.
SYDNEY