The Seduction of Dylan Acosta

by Nia Forrester

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not laughing at you. I know you worked hard on this . . .”

  Dylan cried for a few moments, her face pressed into his chest, until his words penetrated. She pushed him away and looked up at him.

  “This isn’t just about the dinner!” she said.

  Mark froze, looking confused. God, if she had a dime for every time she’d produced this exact reaction from him. She was a basket-case seventy percent of the time; it was a wonder he didn’t decide she was emotionally unstable and run from her as fast as he could. Or maybe he had. Maybe he was running . . .

  “Then what . . ?”

  “Where were you?” she blurted. “Why was this trip so different? You never even go as far as the Bronx without telling me exactly where you’re going. But this time, you told me nothing.”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Mark said quietly.

  “Why not?” she demanded. “You said. No reason to doubt. That’s our rule. And I’m doubting right now, Mark.”

  He looked surprised. “Where do you think I was?”

  “I don’t know!” she said. “We’d just spent five days cooped up in the apartment getting on each other’s nerves. You weren’t talking to me. And then I go to work one day to give you space and you tell me you have to fly out of the state within hours of the airport re-opening. What am I supposed to think?”

  “Exactly what I told you. That there was something I needed to take care of. You have to trust me, Dylan.”

  “I can’t, okay?” she admitted. “I have issues with that. There. That’s the ugly truth.”

  “Have I ever given you any reason not to tr . . .?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Dylan said, pulling away from him. “Chalk it up to my shitty childhood. Not being breastfed, not having a father. I don’t know, Mark. But it’s just something I need to work on. And so I . . . don’t trust. Not anyone, except for maybe Ava.”

  “Even Ava only gets a ‘maybe’, huh?” Mark said, sounding awed.

  “Yeah. Even Ava only gets a maybe,” Dylan said, looking at him.

  If he ran now, she couldn’t say she’d blame him. This was Dylan Sanger, warts and all. It had been so strenuous pretending; it was almost a relief, letting all the crazy hang out.

  “So I guess I have to tell you where I was,” Mark said, thoughtfully.

  “I guess you do,” Dylan agreed. She wiped her face.

  “Sit down,” Mark said indicating her stool.

  Dylan took a deep breath and resumed her seat, closing her eyes for a moment, bracing herself. When she opened them, Mark was watching her.

  “So when you moved in,” he said slowly. “My plan was to have you be here, live with me here until after the first season and then we’d see, y’know?”

  Dylan didn’t see, but she nodded nonetheless.

  “I always have a game plan, and I almost always stick to it. But almost as soon as you got here, I realized . . .” he paused.

  “Just say it,” Dylan sagged in her seat, steeling herself for what was to come.

  “It’s just not . . .”

  Dylan gripped the edge of the center island.

  “. . . enough,” he finished.

  Dylan looked up at him, not sure she understood.

  “Living together,” he said, shrugging. “It’s not the right thing for us. We should be married.”

  Dylan blinked, not sure she’d heard correctly. She leaned forward as though craning to hear better.

  “I went to Arizona,” Mark explained. “To see your mother.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t feel I could ask you until I’d at least met her, talked to her, let her know at least a little bit about who I was so she could feel comfortable that . . .”

  “That’s where you were? In Arizona seeing my mother?” Dylan asked incredulously.

  Mark nodded slowly.

  Dylan started crying again. “You’re proposing to me?” she asked between sobs.

  “I’d planned on doing it this weekend at my family’s house,” Mark said nodding. “I leave next week, so I wanted to . . .”

  Dylan threw herself at him and he lifted her off her feet so she could wrap her arms about his neck.

  “Dylan,” he said. “What am I going to do with you? How many times do I have to tell you, you don’t have anything to worry about?”

  She kissed him with all the bottled up feeling she’d held inside for so long. It was as though a dam inside her had broken open.

  “You want to marry me?” she asked again.

  “Yes.”

  “Even though you’ve only known me for a few months? And even though you tell me you love me and I say nothing?”

  “Yes,” Mark said looking her in the eyes. “Even then.”

  “But how?”she asked, serious now, despite her excitement. “With all that . . . and me not saying ‘I love you’ back . . .”

  “Dylan,” Mark said shaking his head. “I know you love me. I’m only human and sure, I get jealous sometimes and insecure, but I know you love me. And I know you’ll say it. When you feel ready.”

  God. His faith in her, more than she had in herself, was humbling. He was so sure of them and she was not. She could pretend she was, but she wasn’t. As far as she was concerned, it had seemed a much more likely outcome that he’d been about to dump her than propose.

  And he was insecure? That was news to her. Even when he was going ballistic about her talking to Ray Hernandez, she’d never for a moment interpreted it as insecurity. Possessiveness maybe, but Mark and insecure just didn’t seem to go together. Someone like him, who had been assured all his life that he was loved, how could he be insecure about her?

  “You know I love you?” she asked, as he lowered her to her feet again.

  “Yes, I do,” Mark said, and then he smiled. “I mean, I do want to hear it. But I’m willing to wait until . . .”

  “No,” she shook her head emphatically. “You don’t have to wait anymore. I love you, Mark. I love you so much. I . . .”

  Now that it was out, she wanted to say it over and over again, but she couldn’t because Mark was kissing her, and she was closing her eyes and relaxing in his arms feeling completely safe.

  9

  It hadn’t even been a day after they told Mark’s family about their engagement that a paparazzo had snapped a picture of them having brunch in a café near the apartment. Mark had raised her hand to his lips to kiss it and that was the moment the shot had captured, through the window, her new ring glinting in the sunlight. It had been one of those tacky New York Daily News headlines, in bold, sensationalist type and read: Off the Market?

  The story went on to describe how Mark Acosta, the brand new Mets acquisition had made a “surprise proposal” to longtime girlfriend Dylan Sanger, a law student and Brooklyn native. The details were wrong—by no measure had Mark and Dylan been going out for a “long” time, and she was not from Brooklyn, nor did she live there at the time of the engagement and the law student part was decidedly not true. But New York tabloids were not ones to let little things like facts stand in their way—close enough was sufficient for them to go to press.

  Mark had been incensed about the story because it meant that someone who knew at least one of them even tangentially had spoken to a reporter. She’d heard him on the phone with Corey the next day, as if the poor guy could do anything about it. She didn’t catch everything but the gist was that he didn’t want her and his family to become targets of the press. Dylan knew he was really pissed, because he transitioned into Spanish without realizing it.

  “¡Esta es mi familia!” he said. “¿Entiendes? ¡Mi familia!”

  When Mrs. Acosta heard they were considering getting married at the courthouse instead of in a church, she’d cried for the entire day, so that essentially put an end to that plan. So the revised plan was to do it in the middle of spring training. Mark would fly back for a weekend, and return to camp on Monday. There would be no honeymoon becaus
e his schedule wouldn’t permit it.

  We could wait until after the season , Dylan had suggested. It doesn’t have to be right away. How could he be so sure he wanted something this permanent so soon? Maybe he was doing the same thing he’d done with Patricia, holding on to something familiar just because he was moving into a scary new phase of his life.

  I don’t want to wait, Mark had said right away. Why? Do you?

  Everything with him came in such absolutes. He made a choice and he stuck to it. But he’d chosen Patricia at one time and that hadn’t stuck. That was only an engagement and far easier to get out of than a marriage. What if he rushed this and wanted out later on? That would be far more painful than letting him go now. But she couldn’t make herself raise the issue so she’d simply smiled.

  No, she said. I don’t want to wait.

  So Dylan would plan the entire thing with Ava, Mrs. Acosta and Miri, and without his input. Her mother wouldn’t do much since she was in Arizona. And she was still reeling from Mark’s visit. When she and Dylan had finally talked about it, she said that he’d called her out of the blue and asked if he could come by and take her to dinner. Apparently, until that point he hadn’t contacted her to let her know that he was planning to fly out. And from the sound in her mother’s voice as she described the dinner, Mark had apparently overwhelmed her, just as he had Dylan.

  Before she had even grown accustomed to wearing her engagement ring, Dylan was helping him pack to fly down to Port St. Lucie with the rest of the team. The night before, there had been four inches of snow; and while Mark slept next to her, his arm heavy across her abdomen, Dylan lay awake hoping the weather would mean a delay or even cancelation of his flight. She hadn’t even had a full week to enjoy being his fiancée and he was leaving. She’d lifted his arm and turned so she was on her side facing him, watching him sleep. He looked so at peace in sleep, so confident even in repose, as though he knew precisely who he was and that he was in his correct place in the world. She had never known that kind of certainty about anything, not even about their engagement. The ring—a five-carat diamond surrounded by pavé in a platinum setting—was heavy on her finger and felt unfamiliar, as though it belonged to someone else, someone more deserving.

  Now, Mark was tossing things haphazardly into a large sports bag that could only hold a week’s worth of stuff, if that. And there were all his athletic shoes, underwear . . .

  “This isn’t going to work,” Dylan said dumping everything onto the bed. “You need a suitcase.”

  Mark emerged from the closet they shared.

  “What?” he pulled his ear buds out of his ears.

  She hated when he wore them around the apartment, as though he was blocking her out. She knew that wasn’t his intent, but for heaven’s sake, he was leaving in less than four hours; one would think he could live without Dominican rap music for that long.

  “This bag isn’t big enough,” she said. “You need to take the suitcase.”

  “No. I only need a few shorts, some sweats, a few t-shirts. And I don’t want to check anything. I want to carry everything on.”

  Dylan sighed and began repacking everything.

  “Why’re you so cranky?” Mark came out of the closet and wrapped his arms about her waist.

  Dylan turned to look up at him. Wasn’t it obvious?

  “I’ll miss you too,” he said.

  But he said it cheerfully. She was glad one of them was excited about spring training.

  “Before I leave, there’s something I have to tell you,” he said pulling her close again.

  Dylan waited a moment and when he said nothing, she turned in his arms to look up at him. “So here’s a tip. When you begin that way, you probably don’t want to pause for too long before going on.”

  “Okay, but I don’t want you to get upset,” Mark said.

  Dylan pulled completely away this time and sat on the bed.

  “You’re making it worse.”

  “It’s no big deal, really,” Mark said, suddenly becoming busy with folding socks and stuffing them into his bag. “Cindy Hernandez invited us to dinner a couple nights ago, that’s all. And I told her we were busy.”

  “Well . . . were we?” Dylan tried to think of what they’d been busy with. All she could recall was hanging out in the Bronx at his parents’ house.

  “That’s the thing,” Mark glanced up at her. “I lied to her. Anyway I told her to call you next week and gave her your number.”

  Dylan shook her head. “Wait. I don’t understand. Why did you . . ?” And then it came to her. “Mark. Really?”

  “The whole dinner invitation thing was probably his idea in the first place,” he said quickly. “I mean, Cindy’s never met you. Why would she be so eager to have dinner with us all of a sudden? I’m telling you, that was all Ray. And it wasn’t me he was excited to see again, I can tell you that.”

  “Okay maybe so, but I wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms at Pedro Lima’s house. So I would have loved to meet Cindy Hernandez.”

  “She’s going to call you next week.”

  “When you and Ray are conveniently away at spring training,” Dylan said shaking her head. She smiled. “You’re such a baby.”

  “I’m trying really hard to like him,” Mark said. “But if I saw him all over you again like he was at Pedro’s, then . . .” he let his voice trail off into silence.

  Dylan smothered a smile and turned to help Mark with the rest of his packing. Nothing beat a good old-fashioned display of jealousy to lighten a girl’s mood.

  “And before I forget,” he said, going over to the dresser and found an envelope that he handed to her. “Take this.”

  Dylan opened it. Inside was an American Express card; the Centurion card.

  “You might need stuff,” Mark explained. “For the wedding or whatever.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Okay."

  “I really wanted to bring you breakfast in bed,” Ava said as she entered the bedroom, bearing two mugs of coffee. “To cheer you up. But I couldn’t figure out how to open your crazy space-age refrigerator.”

  Dylan rolled over and rubbed her eyes, yawning as she sat up. She’d slept surprisingly well but was glad that Ava was there to help her fill her weekends since Mark left. She took the mug of coffee and groaned in pleasure at the first sip.

  “What do you mean you couldn’t open the refrigerator?”

  “There are like, no handles on the doors.”

  “Oh yeah. I’ll show you how later.”

  Ava sat cross-legged on the bed next to her. “Am I the luckiest girl in the world or what?” Dylan laughed. “Why are you the luckiest girl in the world?”

  “Because my best friend is loaded. Like Gayle and Oprah, I’ll get the benefits of you being rich

  without all the pressure!”

  “I don’t have any pressure,” Dylan said. “Mark has all the pressure. And I’m not rich because

  we’re engaged, not married yet.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Not quite. But I did get a blessing from on high . . .”

  “What’re you talking about?” Ava took a sip of her coffee.

  “Ray Hernandez’ wife is going to call me.”

  “So you can do lunch?” Ava said in a bad imitation of a British accent.

  “I guess Mark blew them off for a dinner so she’s supposed to get in touch.”

  “She’s always in the papers helping foster children and stuff like that. But so weird, she’s always

  wearing these five thousand dollar purses and she’s at a frickin’ shelter feeding the homeless.” Dylan shook her head. “I’m going to have to try to get along with her though. Since our husbands

  are co-workers and everything.”

  “Co-workers. Yeah, like they’re on a Ford auto assembly line,” Ava said dryly. “And don’t think I

  didn’t hear how you called Mark your husband right then.”

  Dylan laughed. “Husband, fiancée, same diff
erence.”

  “Okay, you promised me we’d go shopping,” Ava said losing interest with the subject. “So finish

  up that coffee and chop-chop.”

  They were in Macy’s later that afternoon when Dylan’s phone started chiming and she reached for

  it in her pocket-book. The caller was a 212 area code from a number she didn’t recognize. “Is this Dylan?” the voice on the other end asked.

  “Yes it is.”

  “This is Cindy Hernandez,” the caller said. Then she paused as though waiting for a reaction. It

  took Dylan a moment to process the name.

  “Oh! Hi! Yes, Mark said you might be calling. Nice to hear from you, Cindy.” She made a face at

  Ava.

  “And nice to hear your voice as well, Dylan. I hope you know Ray and the rest of the guys are so

  excited to have Mark onboard. I met him awhile back and he is just adorable. And such a talent.” “Thank you,” Dylan said. “I think he’s adorable as well.”

  Cindy Hernandez laughed, a delicate tinkle of a laugh. “Well, I just wanted to call and formally

  welcome you to the Mets family and see whether you might be interested in getting together and

  meeting some of the girls.”

  “I would love to,” Dylan said, mustering up all her enthusiasm. “I feel like Mark and I have been a

  little inaccessible . . .”

  “Oh god, don’t worry about that,” Cindy Hernandez said. “You’re newly engaged and besides,

  just before they have report for camp we all try to keep our men close. No need to explain.” “Well, now that he is at camp I’m wide open. I would love to meet everyone.”

  “Fabulous. Is tomorrow too soon?”

  “Tomorrow,” Dylan repeated. “What do you have in mind? I have a friend visiting so . . .” “Bring your friend. It would just be something casual at my place—we’re doing steaks on the

  rooftop deck, that kind of thing.”