My fingers rolled from seam to seam, trying to decide if I wanted to use the same pitch or mix it up. I nodded at the catcher when he signaled where my pitch would land and rolled my fingers to their position.
I threw and watched him swing, then pound his bat on the plate. I turned so he wouldn’t see my smile.
I threw again, and Morris’ face grew even redder when he came up empty once more.
Nodding at my catcher, I wound up for the third pitch. As soon as it left my hand, I knew I’d screwed up. Morris swung and connected, the ball barreling back at me like a lightning bolt flashing from the sky. I twisted and stuck out my glove. When the ball hit my palm through the leather, it felt like a battering ram barreling through my arm. The ball popped out of my glove, the impact sending it straight up in the air.
Without thinking, I dove, my mind on only one thing — catching that damn ball. When my glove closed around it, it was the greatest feeling in the world. But then I hit the ground, and it felt like something ripped in my shoulder. My left shoulder. The air gushed out of me when my chest hit the ground.
Rolling to my back, I held my glove up, and the crowd went wild as I tried to assess my shoulder and get some air flowing back into my lungs. The roar died, then turned into a collective gasp when I didn’t get up.
This wasn’t good.
Not good at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Whitney
Damn traffic!
Back home in Indiana, it was unusual to have more than three cars stopped at a traffic light, and if there were more than that, everybody complained about the “traffic.”
I’d never seen so many cars in my entire life as there are on this little peninsula. Why did they even call it an island, I wondered, when it clearly wasn’t? And why did they think they needed to fill every speck of it up with concrete? Damn thing should sink at this rate.
I checked the time and cursed under my breath. “Can we go any faster?” I asked the driver.
“Sure, let me pull the propeller out of my trunk, and I’ll fly you away to your favorite destination.”
I narrowed my eyes at the back of his head. New Yorkers were also more sarcastic than the farmers back home. I sat back in my seat in a huff.
I just didn’t want to be late. I didn’t want to miss a moment of Calvin’s pitching. I didn’t want to miss anything, not anymore. We’d been given a second chance, and I wanted to take advantage of each moment.
Finally, I could see the stadium, but traffic was even worse there. Everyone on the east coast must be coming to the big game. “You can let me out here,” I said and thrust Cal’s credit card to the man.
He ran the card and gave me the receipt. Eighty-four dollars! I looked again. And twenty-seven cents. I snarled at the amount and pushed the door open, glad I’d worn low-heeled sandals.
Ten minutes later, sweat was streaming down my temples and down my spine, dripping into the crack of my ass. Reason number one hundred and sixty-four to hate New York. The humidity. How did people stand it out here?
I took a deep breath. I was being bitchy again, I could feel it oozing out of my pores. I exhaled and reminded myself of the most important reason for me to start loving it here — Calvin. I would start looking for other things to love here too. I laughed and looked down at my eight hundred dollar sandals. Things that wouldn’t bankrupt Calvin in the process.
“Whitney!”
I’d just stepped into the parking area surrounding the stadium, ready to hike across the acres of concrete when my name was called again. I whirled around to see Holly, driving a car I didn’t recognize, but it made me drool the moment I saw it. A BMW. My dream car. And the top was down, my friend sitting behind the wheel, grinning like a fool.
“Hop in!”
“Nice car,” I said, running my hand over the leather seat as I shut the door.
If it was at all possible, her grin got bigger. “I know. I love it. Ace bought it so I’d have something to drive when I’m in town.”
My jaw dropped. “Are things getting more serious between the two of you?”
She rolled her eyes before she slipped on a pair of sunglasses and pulled away from the sidewalk to drive me the few hundred yards to the VIP parking area. “We have fun, and that’s that. It’s how we both want it. No strings. No emotional attachment.” She gave me a wink. “Just lots of sex.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I’m just afraid he’s going to hurt you, or at the very least give you some raging STD.”
She raised her fist in the air and sang, “Trojan man!” at the top of her lungs. I burst out laughing, wishing I was as carefree as my friend. In her words, she “Gave up giving two shits a long time ago,” even though, deep in her heart, I knew that wasn’t true.
Holly had it rough growing up, the daughter of a mean alcoholic who turned meaner after her mother died. She spent her childhood cleaning up puke and staying quiet. In high school, she got mad — ragingly pissed — at the hand life had dealt her and went through an emo period that I thought would end with her suicide.
But she was tougher and smarter than that.
She found an outlet for her anger in the form of an oven and learned, all by herself, to bake. So when she was mad... she baked. Sad... she baked. Happy... she baked then too. She taught herself to create these amazing confections, and her icing became real works of art. A neighbor asked her to bake her daughter's birthday cake, and soon, everyone wanted one. She paid for college that way. When she had a whisk in her hand, it was as if nothing her father — or anyone — said could take her happiness away.
“Don’t you have feelings for him at all?” I finally asked her, still trying to figure their relationship, or non-relationship, out.
She lifted a shoulder and tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel as she waited for the entry gate to open. “Sure, I guess. I like him and…” she laughed at my wrinkled nose. “What?”
“I just don’t see how you can like a womanizer. He’s drunk half the time, and after your father…” I trailed off, knowing I’d just stepped over the line.
She didn’t seem offended. “That’s because you see only the surface Ace, the man he wants you to see. Nobody in his life has tried to dig any deeper, tried to understand what pushes him to act like he doesn’t give a damn.”
I tried to see her point. “You mean there’s actually something deeper to him? Are you sure it isn’t just tequila pumping through his veins?”
She ignored my sarcasm and pulled into a parking spot. “Yeah, I think so. It’s carefully hidden away, but I know it’s there.”
“Have you asked him about it?”
She scoffed. “No. I don’t know him well enough for that. I mean, I’ve known him for a couple months now, but we haven’t actually spent that much time together since I’m bouncing back and forth between here and home.”
I suddenly felt like the worst friend in the world.
“I’m sorry.”
She pushed a button to make the rag top come up and glanced at me. “For what?”