All of Me

by Jennifer Bernard

  An angry growl came from Hamilton’s direction. Sadie stole a glance at him. His face was so red, it looked like it might explode right off his shoulders. He wore a Wade’s Hunting Gear T-shirt and loose shorts. “That’s not how it happened, Donna.”

  “Oh yes it is. She dumped you and you couldn’t take it like a man, so you started smearing her good name. That’s not something a man does. That’s something a coward does.”

  Jared stepped closer and took hold of her ankle. “You better shut your mouth right now, Donna MacIntyre.”

  She kicked his hand off her ankle. “Or what? I got a hundred witnesses right here. And Todd’s probably got his fingers all set to dial 911. Am I right, Todd?”

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Todd said loudly. But from the way his eyes darted back and forth, Sadie knew he was freaking out. Everyone in Kilby knew you didn’t mess with the Wades. They’d get their revenge sooner or later. “Donna, take it easy,” he added.

  “Don’t you tell me to take it easy. I’ve been watching my friend suffer because of these assholes long enough.” She tossed her head so her red hair flowed over her back, like some kind of Amazon queen. “The Wades didn’t use to be so low-down. Must be the next generation that turned into a bunch of sniveling, rotten losers.”

  Someone brushed against Sadie’s back and she stumbled forward, bumping against Jared. Blindly, he thrust an arm behind him to keep her back. She ducked to the side or it would have hit her cheek. All the Wades and their friends looked furious enough to hit something. She didn’t want it to be her.

  The person she’d bumped into steadied her. “What’s going on?” said a low voice in her ear. She glanced behind her to see Mike Solo. His usually mischievous face looked serious, and he kept glancing up at Donna, as though unable to believe what he was seeing.

  “I think Donna’s defending my honor,” she said, with a catch in her voice. “But she’s going to get herself hurt.”

  “Not if I have anything to do with it,” Mike said grimly. “Stay here.”

  With a huge sense of relief, she edged to the side to let him squeeze by. Even though the Wade crew was made up of big, beefy guys, he had enough of the athlete’s command to work his way through the crowd.

  “Come on, guys,” he said once he’d reached Donna’s side—or the side of her legs, still resting on the bar stool. “No need for a scene. Why don’t you all just move along now?”

  “Who are you to tell us what to do, Catfish?” Hamilton said belligerently. “I’ve seen you here, with that pitcher.”

  “The criminal,” added Jared.

  “Excuse me!” Donna said loudly. “He’s not a criminal. The Wades are the criminals and my friend Sadie proved it. So watch what you say, jerks.”

  The tension in the bar rose another big notch. The waves of body heat coming off the enraged Wades fanned against Sadie’s face. Desperate and panicked, she looked around for help. Maybe Todd had called 911. Maybe the police were here. But instead of blue uniforms, she caught sight of someone completely unexpected. Crush Taylor stood watching the unfolding scene, arms crossed over his chest, alert and still.

  With him were several other members of the Catfish. None of them held drinks; maybe they’d just arrived and hadn’t even seen a waitress before spotting the crazy confrontation at the bar. A wild-haired redhead versus a gang of beefy good ol’ boys. Sadie tried to get Crush’s attention—maybe he could call the cops—but he didn’t seem to notice her. He turned his head to say something to the big, tattooed Sonny Barnes, who in turn bent way down to whisper something to T. J. Gates and Lieberman, the little shortstop. Trevor was there too, his almost otherworldly handsome face set in wary lines.

  For a moment the memory of Caleb in this place nearly brought her to her knees. They’d danced here. They’d talked and flirted, and he’d held her in his arms. And now he was gone.

  The Catfish team members shook their heads and turned away, probably deciding to take their business elsewhere, away from the local madhouse.

  “She should never have made that tape!” shouted Hamilton. “Big mistake.”

  “Which tape?” Donna asked. “The one in which you run your fool mouth, or the one you just had to drag out of the archives again? You’re so predictable, Hamilton. When in doubt, bring out the sex tape. You should be ashamed.”

  Oh fireballs. Sadie wanted to sink into the floor and die. Sex tape? Had Hamilton sent it to Caleb? Is that why Caleb had been so upset?

  “Shut up, Donna!” Hamilton yelled.

  “Is that all you got, big guy? You’re just a bully, Hamilton Wade.”

  Mike Solo was now standing in front of Donna, his arms spread wide, using his body to shield her like a bodyguard for a celebrity. He seemed to have given up on getting her to stop talking.

  “And everyone here who believed what Hamilton said about Sadie and never even asked if it was true, yeah, I’m talking to you guys over there, I see you LucyBelle, I see you Alison and Manny. You just let him badmouth her and no one said a thing. You let him plaster a private moment all over town. Two people were on that tape. Why’s Sadie getting all the blame, instead of the asshole who leaked it? Is the entire city of Kilby really so scared of the Wades that they don’t have the guts to say when they do something wrong? Well, that’s bullshit. Wake up, Kilby!”

  A sort of roar spread across the packed room. The band faltered and came to a stop. Dimly, Sadie heard the singer say, “We’re going to take a short break. You might want to step outside for some fresh air.”

  But if anyone stepped outside for fresh air, twice as many crowded toward their end of the bar. The scent of fight was in the air, electric and wild. More bodies pressed against Sadie’s back, trapping her in the same little patch of floor. Maybe she could drop down and crawl out of there. That would be her only option for escape. But she couldn’t leave Donna. Even though she wanted to whisk her away and yell at her that she was being stupid and reckless, there was no getting off this train now. Until it crashed off the rails.

  “Kilby doesn’t need you, Donna MacIntyre. Or your slutty friend Sadie,” Jared was yelling.

  “More name-calling! That’s all you have, isn’t it? You call people names and intimidate them so you can get what you want. You’re a bunch of bullies. Wake up, Kilby!”

  Good Lord, Donna sounded like some sort of rabble-rouser trying to get a union going.

  “You want us to do more than call you names, we will,” snarled Jared. “Come down off of there.”

  “She’s not going anywhere,” said Mike firmly, pressing his back against Donna’s legs. “That’s enough, y’all. Just step back, take it easy. What are you going to do, hit a woman? Let it go, guys.”

  For a moment Mike’s voice of reason seemed to work. Jared stepped back and none of the other cousins said anything.

  Then Hamilton raised his voice. “Are we going to let some baseball player tell us what to do? This is our town. To hell with the Catfish. He doesn’t even live here.”

  A rumble of agreement swept through the group. Sadie’s nails dug into the palms of her hands. How far would the Wades go in a public place like this? They weren’t generally stupid. But Hamilton had never felt the sting of being publicly mortified, the way she had. The bullish look on his face, the way even his forehead was turning as red as roast beef, made her extremely nervous.

  He caught her looking at him, and something flashed in his eyes—a maddened, reckless cruelty. Over the temporary lull, Hamilton called to her.

  “Hey, Slutty Sadie!” he shouted. “You’re fucking a Catfish. Tell his friend to get out of our business.”

  Heads swerved toward her. Waves of heat and cold rippled across her body. The moment crystallized around her like a drop of hot sap hitting cold water. This was it, right here and now, everything that was wrong with Hamilton and everything that was wrong with her life. She took a deep breath and called back, in as loud and even a voice as possible.

  “My private life is none of
your business, Hamilton Wade. You keep your dirty, nasty, low-down insinuations to yourself.”

  “You tell him, Sadie!” Donna applauded, bringing her hands together over her head. “Tell him, girl!”

  “She’s just trying to get me back,” Hamilton said to his smirking friends.

  “Think what you like, Hamilton. But you’d better stop slandering me or I will sue. What you did is wrong. Just because I didn’t want to be with you anymore doesn’t mean you had the right to spread lies about me.” Oh, this was dangerous. Hamilton was bigger, stronger, had more friends, and a lot more testosterone. But she couldn’t stop now that she’d started. “I should have sued you long ago, but I was too naïve and I didn’t know I could. But I know a lot more now, so you better watch yourself, Hamilton Wade.”

  For a moment a flash of shock crossed his face. Then he must have remembered that he was a Wade, and Wades never paid for their misdeeds. They paid people off, or they paid for expensive lawyers, but they never paid where it counted. “Dream on, Slutty Sadie. I’m not going to pay for shit. You’d have to pay me to fuck you again. You weren’t worth the—”

  “Hey boss,” shouted Mike Solo. “Have we had enough yet?”

  Sadie jerked her head around. Crush Taylor was only a few feet away from her, his body vibrating with tension.

  “Yep, I’ve reached my limit. One more word against Sadie Merritt and you boys will regret it,” he called crisply. “I’m a born-and-bred Kilby resident, and I don’t think much of this kind of behavior.”

  “Crush,” Sadie hissed. “No. What are you doing?”

  He ignored her, keeping his gaze fixed on Hamilton. “I think you and your friends should go home now.” He nodded to the two men who had appeared behind Hamilton—Sonny Barnes and Dwight Conner, two of the most intimidating guys on the team. They each took one of Hamilton’s arms.

  “The hell with that!” Hamilton went wild and tried to rip away from the two Catfish players. He didn’t get far with that, except to get dragged back a few inches. “You sleeping with the whole team, Sadie? You got all of them doing your dirty work now? Jared!” He jerked his head toward Mike Solo.

  Jared drove his fist into Mike’s jaw. Since he still had his arms spread apart to shield Donna, he couldn’t protect himself. His head snapped back. Donna gave a little shriek and kicked Jared in the cheekbone with her high heel. He stumbled backward, snarling. Donna leaned down to whisper something in Mike’s ear while he rubbed his jaw.

  “Oh my God, oh my God,” Sadie began chanting under her breath. “This is bad, this is very bad.”

  But no one else seemed to see it that way.

  “That’s it, team!” Crush roared. “Remember that thing I said about behaving yourselves and not getting into so much trouble? Well, forget about that! This one’s on me, kids! Let her rip.”

  All hell broke loose, as if a dam had burst. The Catfish players seemed to materialize out of nowhere, popping up behind the Wades and their friends. Hamilton managed to free one arm and drove his fist into Barnes’ stomach. Dwight Conner drilled Hamilton with a left jab, and the three of them started whaling on each other gleefully.

  Mike and Jared went after each other in a whirlwind of fast punches and grunts. Donna took off her shoes and stood on the bar, then whipped a shoe right at Jared, opening up a cut over his right eye. Blood poured down his face.

  “Stay back!” Mike Solo yelled to her.

  “This is my fight!” she yelled back, scanning the melee, brandishing her other shoe. She caught Sadie’s eye and waved enthusiastically at her. “Sadie! Throw me your shoes, girl!”

  But Sadie was being buffeted every which way by the surging, yelling bodies around her. Lieberman jumped onto a Wade cousin’s back and tried to cut off his air supply from behind. Ramirez and T.J. Gates used their bodies to form a barrier to protect the onlookers. Trevor Stark actually bonked two guys’ heads together, the way she’d only seen in old westerns. Crush was magnificent, wading like an avenging angel into the crowd and plucking members of Ham’s entourage out of the mess.

  Sadie stumbled forward, then ducked to avoid an elbow. She nearly lost her balance and grabbed onto someone’s shirt. Red and green plaid, she noticed. Very Christmassy. Then something hit her hard in the back and she fell forward just as a fist slipped through from somewhere and slammed her in the face, and then everything swirled into a red and green kaleidoscope.

  Desperate, she clung to the plaid shirt, trying to stay on her feet, but whoever it belonged to lunged forward and the shirt slid from her hands and then all she saw was the black-painted, filthy floor as it zoomed toward her face. Still she clung to a last shred of consciousness, knowing she couldn’t stay on the floor, that she’d get trampled and crushed and . . . a brilliant stab of pain in her leg pushed her over the edge into the black void.

  Chapter 28

  CALEB HAD CALLED Sadie six times, left three messages of apology, and sent five text messages. He’d gotten zero response to any of them. The sickening truth was starting to sink in—he’d lost her with his idiotic behavior. Not only that, he deserved to lose her. How had he let Trevor get into his head like that? If he was on the mound, he would have known the dude was trying to psych him out. That’s what batters did.

  “So, do you have a plan?” Tessa asked as he drove them to the airport.

  “Yes. My plan is to call her until she gets sick of me and picks up the phone. Then I’ll apologize over and over and over until she gives in.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’ll . . . tell her I love her.”

  A big smile danced across Tessa’s face. “You’d better.”

  He’d tell her more than that. He’d tell her that he’d never let anyone so close to his heart. He’d never trusted anyone enough, not since the disillusionments of his mother, stepmother, and Bingo. His automatic impulse to mistrust had kicked in at the worst possible moment.

  “She’ll understand,” he said aloud, as if trying to convince himself. “She loves me, she has to forgive me. Doesn’t love mean never having to say you’re sorry?”

  “I don’t even know what that means, but it sounds like something a man would say.”

  After dropping off Tessa and the boys and returning the rental car, he hopped in a Town Car, which took him to the stadium. The Friars were playing an afternoon doubleheader against the Giants. Sadie would call him back any minute now. She wouldn’t hold a grudge. She’d told him she loved him. That wouldn’t change because of one fuckup, would it? As long as he apologized enough?

  Walking into the Friars clubhouse, which could have been the Taj Mahal compared to the Kilby clubhouse, made him feel a little better. The locker room was a picture of spacious luxury. The lockers ringed the perimeter, while a seating area with leather couches and blond wood coffee tables took up the center of the room. Separate rooms contained a whirlpool, spa, gym equipment, along with a dining room and kitchen, where a chef cooked for the team.

  This time around the sheer level of luxury didn’t throw him, as it had last time. Something had shifted inside him, so he no longer doubted that he belonged in this world, with these masters of the game. He scanned the names on the other lockers. Carlos Quentin. Huston Street. Joaquin Benoit. And then there was his. Caleb Hart. It looked like it belonged.

  No one else had arrived yet, and the clubhouse attendant looked surprised to see him. He stopped folding freshly washed towels long enough to offer Caleb some coffee.

  “Nah, I got it,” he said, and stepped into the dining area where a coffeemaker gurgled in the corner.

  “Want a paper?” the attendant offered, coming in with a selection. “We have the San Diego Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times.”

  “That’s all right. I know we won last night, that’s all that matters.” He winked at the wiry Latino man.

  “You got that right. Well, let me know if you need anything.” Halfway out the door, he paused. “You just came up from Kilby, right?”

  “
Yup. I was a Catfish until a couple days ago.” Even the name Kilby gave him a sharp jolt of sadness.

  “You hear about the big brawl they had down there?”

  “No. Did it start with a brushback? That’s how it usually goes.”

  “No, this was off the field. The Catfish were out celebrating a big win, and they got into it with some locals. I don’t know what it is with that team, they’re a magnet for trouble.”

  “No kidding. I guess I missed out on all the fun.” Caleb gestured toward the newspapers. “Is the story in there?”

  “I don’t know. It happened late last night. I saw it on ESPN. You want the papers after all?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” Caleb took his mug of steaming black brew and the armful of newspapers to one of the couches in the clubhouse. God, the couches were comfortable. Perfect way to kick back after a tough game. The major league life . . . oh yeah, definitely for him. A quick leaf-through of the newspapers showed nothing about any brawl, and he wondered if the attendant had gotten it wrong.

  Except that it sounded like something the Catfish would do.

  “I think they’re showing it again.” The attendant turned on the overhead television and switched the channel to ESPN. A grainy, blurry video filled the screen. Caleb couldn’t tell what was going on, except that arms were flailing and bodies colliding. He squinted, recognizing the downhome interior of the Roadhouse.

  “Jesus,” he said. “I think I’ve been to that place. Turn it up, would you?”

  The reporter’s voice filled the room. “The San Diego Friars are still not commenting on the late night brawl that involved most of their Triple A farm team, the Kilby Catfish. Several team members are still being examined for injuries. Catcher Mike Solo has three broken ribs and Trevor Stark may be put on the injured list with a sprained wrist. But the most serious injury was sustained by a bystander, a local woman who was trampled underfoot. Her name has not been released to the media, but we’re told her condition is serious. As to what started the melee, Crush Taylor would only say this.”