Heart of the Game

by Rachel Spangler

  “Yeah, he had so much fun he doesn’t want to get out of the trunks now, and I really do have to get going.”

  “Of course.” Molly felt a little twist of disappointment in her stomach that she quickly shook off. “Joe, will you help Charlie get dressed while I walk Duke out?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Thanks for today, Duke. I had fun.”

  “Me too, bud.” She extended her fist, and Joe tapped it with his own several times in a choreographed routine ending with explosion noises.

  “We have a secret handshake now,” Joe explained to Molly.

  “I see.”

  “I bet you’re jealous,” Duke teased.

  “Totally.”

  “See you later, Batman.” Duke kissed Charlie on the head, but he turned and threw his arms around her neck. He had to be soaking her clothes all over again, but Duke never pulled away. “You give the best hugs, cuddle monster.”

  Molly’s chest expanded with emotion. Charlie did give the best hugs. He threw his whole self into them, but she doubted anyone else would have ever called him a cuddle monster, because outside of Molly or Joe he’d never slowed down enough to show that side of himself.

  Duke set him down and headed for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  “Wait.” Molly caught up with her in the living room. “I know you have to get going, but I just wanted to say thank you. You went overboard today.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “It is something. You not only took great care of the kids, you cooked, and you cleaned up after yourself.”

  “Joe said Lauren was coming over tonight.” Duke looked at the floor, then the kitchen, anywhere but Molly’s eyes. “I didn’t want you to come home from a long day at work to find a messy house, then have to juggle two kids and dinner.”

  “I do those things every day. That’s my life. I can handle my own responsibilities. I’ve been doing it for years.” Her familiar argument flowed easily from memory but failed to gather steam in the face of Duke’s easy smile and sparking blue eyes. She would’ve found the expression maddening if she weren’t so endearing. “What? Why are you so happy?”

  “Because you’re right. You’re perfect. You amaze me even more after spending a full day with the kids. I see how hard you work, how much skill and energy it requires to do what you do, but you do it all so beautifully and without complaint. You had to deal with so much so young, and you’ve excelled. I know you didn’t need any of the things I did today. I know you don’t need me at all, so I did everything to say thank you for letting me hang around anyway.”

  “Duke…” No more words would come. She thought she’d experienced everything another person could make her feel. She’d fought every fight and countered every judgment, but she had no response to Duke’s version of her.

  “I’m in awe of you, Molly,” Duke whispered. “I wish I were more like you.”

  “No.” She blinked back tears and reached up to cup Duke’s cheek in her hand. “Don’t ever say that again. Don’t ever wish to be anyone but you.”

  Duke’s lips parted and Molly’s did the same as a sharp breath escaped. Painfully aware of their proximity, the intimacy of their bodies brushing together, the feel of Duke’s impossibly soft skin under her fingertips, a rush of heat flooded her chest and she stepped quickly back. “You, um, had some tomato sauce on your cheek.”

  Duke lifted her hand lightly to the spot Molly had touched, but made no attempt to brush anything away.

  “I just”—Molly sighed—“thank you.”

  Duke continued to stare at her, eyes wide with confusion, or maybe something more. “Molly—”

  “It’s okay. You better get to work.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “Right. Work.” Duke shook out her arms as though trying to make sure all her limbs still functioned, then, with one more smile, turned and left.

  Molly closed the door behind her and rested her forehead on the cool wooden surface, grateful for something steady to hold on to while she wondered what’d just happened.

  *

  Molly had come to no more conclusions about her moment of connection with Duke several hours later. If she closed her eyes and cleared her mind, she could still feel Duke’s skin under her fingers, so she didn’t close her eyes or breathe too deeply or do anything to center herself for fear the spark of heat would spread through her once again. Instead she stayed busy with the boys. They built a fort out of sheets and couch cushions, then climbed inside to talk about their days and read books until Charlie decided he was a monster. Joe and Molly were still fighting valiantly to defend the castle when Lauren knocked on the door.

  Glancing around quickly Molly realized, too late, the house was no longer in the pristine shape Duke had left it in, and she’d forgotten to reheat the lasagna.

  “Damn, I mean darn.” She jumped up and gathered the sheets in her arms. “Run these back to my room please, Joe.”

  He scrambled to obey her, but she noticed the look of disappointment on his face. She couldn’t help but wonder if he resented Lauren for interrupting their family time or if he just resented her, period.

  Lauren knocked again.

  “I’ll be right there,” she called, running to the kitchen and sliding the pan of lasagna into the oven. Then straightening her shirt and hair as much as she could without a mirror, she opened the door. “Hi.”

  “Good evening,” Lauren said, holding out a bottle of wine. “I thought you might need this tonight.”

  The comment tweaked Molly’s natural defenses, but Lauren’s sweet smile helped soothe them. “Thank you, but it’s actually been a pretty nice day.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Nothing. You’re looking a little, um…windblown.” Lauren pressed her lips together, but they curled upward anyway as she lifted her eyes to Molly’s hair.

  Lauren reached up as if to touch her hair, but Molly stepped back. “Sorry, I was sort of wrestling with the boys.”

  “It’s okay. Windblown looks adorable on you.”

  The compliment was nice, but it did little to stem Molly’s self-consciousness. “Thanks. Come on in and make yourself at home. I’ll be right back.”

  Ducking into the hallway bathroom, she looked in the mirror to see her dark curls piled in a haphazard mop atop her head. Clearly the fort wasn’t the only thing to suffer surface damage in the great battle of Charlie. She finger-combed the mess of tangles back into something resembling presentable, then added some lip gloss before mumbling, “That’s as good as it gets.”

  Stepping into the hall, she heard Lauren talking to Joe and paused out of sight to listen.

  “Right, but don’t you want to do anything other than baseball?”

  “Not really,” Joe said, a slight hint of exasperation in his voice. “Baseball kind of has everything important already wrapped up in it.”

  “It’s just a game.”

  “It’s not,” Joe protested. “Baseball has math and physics. It can teach history and storytelling. It’s about playing fair and how to overcome challenges and how to work as a team or push for a personal best. Oh, and it can teach people how to learn from mistakes and make adjustments.”

  Molly’s chest swelled with pride that her nine-year-old son had such a firm grasp on so many intersecting concepts most adults never fully connected. Sometimes she wondered if she should encourage his one-track mind about baseball, but when he talked like that, he made it clear it wasn’t really a singular focus, but rather high-level critical thinking. Of course, when he talked like that, he also sounded exactly like Duke. Some of Joe’s comments there were direct quotes from his hero.

  “But don’t you ever think about what you want to be when you grow up? Baseball isn’t a way to make a living.”

  “I want to be a sportswriter, like Duke.”

  “And he doesn’t have to worry about making a living yet,” Molly cut in, not at all liking the conversation. “I like that he’s passio
nate about something. If he turns his passion into a career, that will be wonderful, but even if he doesn’t, the ability to believe in something bigger than himself is a good capacity for a young man to possess.”

  Lauren regarded her with an unreadable expression before her features softened. “I would’ve pegged you for more of a pragmatist.”

  “Does that disappoint you?”

  “Not at all. You’re full of wonderful surprises. It’s one of the many things I love about you.”

  Love? The word hit Molly like a blast of cold air, and she excused herself quickly. “I’d better check the lasagna.”

  Did Lauren say something about love? No, not quite, she reasoned. Surprises, Lauren loved surprises, and Molly surprised her. A coincidence. Surely every person had some characteristic any other person could love about them without loving the actual person. For instance, Lauren had so many good qualities about her. Molly certainly liked her gentle manners and her soft demeanor. She liked that she didn’t push her. Liked, not loved. Were those the kinds of things a person could like enough to love, or were they simply pleasant? Lauren was beautiful, without a doubt. She looked the part of someone Molly would want to love. But could physical attraction build the basis of love? Or only lust?

  What did she even know about love anyway? Of course she loved her children, but she hadn’t loved their father, not in any all-consuming way. She’d never been in love with a woman, either. Would she even recognize it if she felt it? Lauren was exactly the type of person she should fall in love with, the type of woman she wanted to fall in love with. Wouldn’t that happen as they got know each other better?

  “Hey, are you okay?” Lauren asked quietly.

  “Yes, of course. Why?”

  “You seem a little distracted tonight.”

  “I’m sorry. I got frazzled. The house is a mess, and dinner wasn’t ready on time.”

  “I didn’t expect to be waited on. Honestly, I sort of expected this place to be a wreck since Duke had the kids all day.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. She seems like a great person and good with the boys, but she’s more like a big playmate than a responsible adult.”

  “That’s not true.” Defensiveness roared to the surface so quickly she didn’t have time to consider the fact that it wasn’t stirred for herself or her boys, but for Duke. “She did an amazing job today. I came home to a clean house, clean kids, and dinner. She made the lasagna, not me. Duke was perfect. I lost track of time.”

  “Okay.” Lauren looked like she didn’t know what to say. “Everybody makes mistakes. I would’ve bought you all dinner if you didn’t have enough time or resources to get things done.”

  Now the defensiveness was hers alone. “We didn’t need someone to rescue us.”

  “No, of course not, but no one can do everything.”

  “I can do everything where my family is concerned. I’ve done everything for years.”

  “Why won’t you let me help?”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “Then why accept it from Duke?”

  Molly opened her mouth to retort, only to find she didn’t have one. She hung her head.

  “I’m sorry,” Lauren said. “I didn’t mean to push you.”

  “No, it’s a fair question. I just don’t know the answer.”

  Lauren shifted from one two-inch heel to the other, seemingly weighing whether or not she wanted to continue down this path. “You don’t know the answer, or you don’t like the answer?”

  Molly’s chest tightened. “I’m sorry, Lauren.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.”

  “Maybe not, but I am sorry. I wanted things to work out between us.”

  “But they aren’t, are they?”

  “No, and that makes me sad.” Her limbs felt heavy. “You made me feel hopeful for the first time in years.”

  “But?”

  “But the hope of something more never turned into something more.” She covered her eyes. “That sounds so stupid.”

  “Not stupid.” Lauren summoned one of her polite smiles. “Vague, maybe.”

  “I know. I wish I could figure it out. You’re smart and polite and beautiful. You’ve been patient and understanding, and you’ve let me set the pace. I like talking to you. I like you as a person.”

  “But you don’t feel a spark?”

  “I want to, I really do. But I don’t. It doesn’t make sense. On paper you’re everything I want in a woman. But, much like baseball games, relationships don’t unfold on paper.”

  Top of the Fourth

  Keep Your Eye on the Ball

  “Hey, Coop,” Duke called. He was leaving the locker room as she headed in.

  “Hey, Rook. Better hurry or I’ll scoop you.”

  “Yeah yeah. You might have beaten me to the quote this time, but my blog will still be up eight hours before your column goes to print.”

  “Blogs, tweets, Internets.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s not real journalism unless it leaves newsprint on your fingers in the morning.”

  “And lines litter boxes by afternoon?”

  “Ouch, kid. You’re getting cocky here in the big leagues. You better be careful or someone will give you a little chin music.”

  She shook her head and laughed. No one was likely to hurl a fastball under her nose. What would that even look like in the blogosphere?

  The players were in their usual state of disarray, or at least that was how the locker room always appeared at first, guys half-dressed, some eating, some playing cards, others sprawled on everything from leather couches to trainers’ tables. Duke opened the electronic notepad feature on her tablet and scanned the list of players she hoped to talk to. The pitchers were already taking batting practice, so she’d have to approach them later, but the first round of position players should be killing time before their turn in the cage.

  Spying Cayden Brooks in the corner, already fully dressed in his warms-ups, she decided to start there.

  “Hey, Cayden. How you feeling tonight?”

  He regarded her more suspiciously than he had a month ago, his dark eyes narrow. “Fine.”

  “Fine?”

  “Yeah.” He chewed a little harder on his pink wad of bubble gum.

  Something seemed off. She’d given him no reason to clam up on her, and he’d done nothing to warrant defensiveness as far as she’d seen. He might not have performed up to the club’s hype for his rookie season, but he hadn’t been terrible either, with a .270 batting average and solid defense in center field. “You got anything specific you’re working on in batting practice?”

  “Quick hands.”

  “Opposing pitchers do seem to be busting you inside lately.”

  “They think they’ve got the book on me.”

  “What do you think?”

  “They got nothing.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Go ahead.” He lifted his chin defiantly. “Print that.”

  “Cayden…” She tried not to seem motherly, but even to her own ears the tone sounded similar to the one Molly used when Charlie was about to do something he knew he shouldn’t. Cayden, much like Charlie, clearly wouldn’t heed the warning.

  “I told the same thing to every other reporter in here. If you don’t print it, someone else will.”

  “Okay.” If he wanted to piss off the guys hurling ninety-mile-an-hour heaters his way, that wasn’t her fault. If she got her blog posted early enough, he might even see one of those fireballs up close tonight.

  She made a note to publicize the comments in her headline or first paragraph because they’d be sure to pique the interest of readers and opposing pitchers alike.

  Her phone began to vibrate along with the opening strains of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

  She accepted the call quickly, but not before a few of the players smirked in her direction. “Duke here.”

  “Hey, Duke. It’s Simon Beach.”

  She grim
aced. Her editor didn’t call her often. They mostly communicated via email or text message. “Hi, Beach. Gimme a sec. I’m in the locker room.”

  She pushed open the large metal door and then walked quickly down the tunnel toward the field where she’d have more privacy and better reception. “What’s up?”

  “Not too much. I just wanted to check in with you.”

  “Uh-huh.” She didn’t buy that. Editors never called to chat.

  “How’re you doing?”

  “Fine.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yup,” she said, then remembered how suspicious these one word answers sounded when Cayden had given them a few minutes earlier and added, “I’m great, trying to do the pre-game round-up so I can post my report in time.”

  “About that.” Simon cleared his throat. “You ran kind of late yesterday. By the time we got the blog edited and up on the website, the national anthem was almost over. Not so much pre-game as an in-game report.”

  She hadn’t actually cut it that close, but she didn’t bother arguing since she had in fact been late. “I apologize for putting you under the gun. I got hung up before getting to the park, but it’s no excuse. Won’t happen again.”

  “No, I’m sure it won’t,” he said amicably. “I wouldn’t have even mentioned it this time, but one of the interns pointed out you also made some weird tweets yesterday afternoon, and the two things combined made me wonder if something happened.”

  Weird tweets? She flipped open the cover to her tablet and tapped the Twitter app. She scanned through her post-game tweets from last night, all the way up through the pre-game before she found anything out of the ordinary, but sure enough at around one o’clock yesterday afternoon there had been three back-to-back tweets of pure gibberish. They would’ve been utterly baffling if not for a fourth and final one that simply had 140 letter C’s. Her memory flashed to an image of her finding Charlie under the dining room table holding her phone in his tiny fists. She asked if he’d hit any buttons, but he’d only whispered, “C says Charlie.”