The Other Game

by J. Sterling

  “Drive safe,” Gran said before giving me a quick hug and a shove.

  “Jeez. You don’t have to push me out of the house, Gran,” I grumbled as I grabbed my borrowed duffel bag and slung it over my shoulder.

  Once outside, Jack loaded up his truck, which thankfully had the hard top on. It must have killed him to put it on, but I didn’t even want to imagine what a long road trip would have been like without it.

  “Why were you in such a rush to leave?” I asked as he took my bag from me.

  “I just—” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to cry, okay?” When I just stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say, he growled, “Get in the damn truck,” and then hopped in.

  “Thanks for putting the top on,” I said as I pulled the door closed.

  Jack turned the key in the ignition and the radio almost blasted me out of my seat. He reached for the volume and turned it down.

  “Shit, sorry,” he said with a sheepish glance my way.

  We both looked toward the house where Gran and Gramps stood on the front porch in their matching robes, waving at us. Gramps held on to Gran as she wiped away the tears on her cheeks. Jack and I leaned out the windows to wave back at them.

  Jack shot me a glance before he put the truck in gear. “Besides, I figured that seven hours was too long of a drive to attempt without the shell. We’d both be sunburnt and blown to hell by the time we got there.”

  “Not to mention the fact that our throats would have been sore,” I said, and we both laughed at the memory.

  We’d driven to San Diego once in high school for a concert, and Jack had left the top off. For the whole drive, we couldn’t hear each other speak, and we had to shout over the sound of the wind ripping through the car. By the time we got back home, we barely had voices and our throats were killing us.

  Jack pulled onto the freeway and I settled back in my seat, intent on getting comfortable for the long ride. “You already have a place, right?”

  “Yeah. Marc and Ryan helped hook me up with a player who was already renting a house and had two extra rooms. I guess the other guys living there got moved up.”

  “Nice. How’s Cassie?”

  He inhaled a quick breath. “Good. She cried on the phone this morning, but that’s only because she didn’t know when we were going to see each other again. But fuck if it didn’t kill me to hear her crying like that.”

  “I bet. So what’d you tell her?”

  “I told her I’d fly her up as soon as I got settled. Hell, I’d ask the girl to move in with me and live with me forever, but she never would.”

  I smiled. “You mean that, don’t you?”

  He looked at me for only a second before looking back at the road. “When I think about the future, all I see is her and baseball. And when there’s no more baseball, I still see her. You know? I’ve never felt this way about anyone. Never knew I could.”

  “That’s huge coming from you.” Actually, his revelation blew my mind. Jack had never given his heart to anyone before he’d met Cassie, not even a small piece of it.

  “Well, we can’t all be like you, Dean.”

  Frowning at him, I asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He glanced at me and reached out to punch my arm. “You know. Perfect.” Refocusing on the road, he said, “Nah, I just mean that you’re willing to take a chance on love. You find a girl and you get attached.” He coughed and said under his breath, “Funsize.”

  “I’m not attached. There’s nothing to be attached to.”

  I looked out the window as the city flashed by, but was lost in my thoughts, not really seeing anything.

  “You like her,” Jack said. “She likes you too. I see the way she looks at you.”

  Frustrated, I waved my hand and said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  When it came to girls, he and I couldn’t have been more different. Everything about the opposite sex came so easily to Jack, but I always had to make sure any girl I was interested in genuinely liked me for myself, and wasn’t just using me.

  Back in high school, I had my heart handed to me when I fell for a girl who was only using me to get close to my brother. When the truth came out, I felt like such an idiot for thinking that someone like her could be interested in me, but I didn’t know any better.

  Despite all that, I was still far too trusting, especially considering how fucked up both Jack and I were over our mom abandoning us. I tended to believe the things girls said to me, and for that, Jack would call me a sucker. I probably was.

  “Fine,” Jack said. “But you’re hung up on her is my point. You refuse to date anyone else because there’s a possibility that Melissa might like you back, and you don’t want to miss out on that.”

  I stared at my brother in shock, wondering when he’d gotten so damn good at reading people.

  “Am I wrong?” he asked.

  I shook my head reluctantly. “You’re not wrong.”

  “Then I think you should date someone else. See if it pisses her off. Try to get a rise out of the girl.”

  “Seriously? Make her jealous? That’s your big plan?”

  “Maybe it’ll knock some sense into her for once,” he said with a laugh.

  I stared out the window and couldn’t believe I was actually considering it. Maybe it would work. If Melissa had expressed even an iota of jealousy, then I would know for sure that she was interested, no matter what she tried to say.

  “It might backfire,” I said, my attention focused on the mountain range in the distance.

  “Backfire how?”

  “Maybe she’d date someone else then too. And I’d be pissed.”

  “Well, maybe that’s what you both need.”

  I shook my head, not wanting to hear any more.

  “I have a question that actually matters,” I said, changing the subject and trying to pretend that I couldn’t care less about Melissa. We both knew that wasn’t true, but Jack humored me.

  “Shoot.”

  “I was thinking about asking Marc and Ryan if I could intern for them, but only if you’re okay with it. What do you think?”

  I really hoped Jack wouldn’t think me being around his agents was weird, but I wasn’t sure. We were family, but sometimes people didn’t want to mix family with business, and this was definitely Jack’s business. If he told me no, I’d have to respect that.

  Jack glanced at me, his eyebrows raised underneath his cap. “You think you want to be a sports agent?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I’d like to find out.”

  Hell, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life when I finally grew up, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try new things. Maybe it would be nothing like I thought and I’d end up hating it, but I’d never know if I didn’t try.

  After thinking it over for a few seconds, Jack nodded. “I think it’s a good idea. You care about people, and that’s important. I wouldn’t have signed with Marc and Ryan if I didn’t think they cared about me and my future, you know? If I was just another paycheck to them. I didn’t want people like that in my corner. I could find assholes like that on the street.”

  He reached for the glove box to pull out a pack of cinnamon gum and put a piece in his mouth before offering me one.

  I took it begrudgingly. Who loved cinnamon-flavored gum besides my brother? I didn’t hate it, but the flavor lasted all of ten seconds before disappearing and leaving you with that weird metallic aftertaste. But for him, I chewed the damn thing anyway.

  “Do you want me to call them and put in a good word?” Jack offered as he snapped his gum.

  “No, I got it. Thanks, though.”

  Reaching out to them was something I needed to do. If I wanted to work for them, I had to be man enough to ask.

  We drove along the deserted freeway, the sound of the music from the radio and the wind the only sound for a while. That was how it was with Jack and me; we never needed to fill the silence. If it was quiet, we were cont
ent with it being so.

  We could also talk to each other about anything, and there wasn’t any big decision I’d made in my life that I didn’t discuss with him, not that there had been many yet. He wasn’t just my brother; he was my best friend.

  Jack reached for the volume button on the radio and turned it down a notch. “You gotta watch out for Cassie while I’m gone, okay?”

  Déjà vu hit me, making me ask, “Watch out for her how?”

  “Just make sure she’s okay and stuff. Check in with her. Don’t fucking let her walk anywhere alone at night,” he added, his voice turning bitter.

  “Jack, I’m not her bodyguard.”

  He shot me a murderous glare. “I know. She keeps telling me I’m crazy, but I’ll never fucking forget what that guy did to her. Or to you. I can’t stomach something like that happening again.”

  “It won’t,” I said, trying to reassure him, but that particular topic was a lost cause.

  “It can’t.”

  “Don’t worry. Just because you’re gone doesn’t mean that I’m never going to talk to Cassie again. Hell, she’s the only person I do want to talk to.”

  “The only person?” Jack’s anger bled out as quickly as it had come, and amusement glinted in his eyes when he cut them at me.

  “Well, her and Melissa, okay? We hung out with them all semester. Why would that change?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m just saying don’t go crazy or anything, but make sure you make time for Cassie. She loves you. And I’d feel much better if I knew you were around.”

  I scoffed. “Of course I’ll be around. I’ll be so around they’ll think I moved in,” I said, hoping to get a rise out of him.

  “Watch it, little brother. I’ll still find someone to kick your ass if I can’t do it myself,” he shot back, but I didn’t believe him.

  Not one bit.

  New Digs

  Jack followed the GPS’s directions, and a few hours later pulled the Bronco to a stop in front of a two-story house. It looked brand-new, and a hell of a lot nicer than our house back home. Not that Gran and Gramps’s place wasn’t nice, it was, but it was just a lot older and smaller than this one.

  “This the place?” I asked through my shock. I had wrongly assumed that he’d be staying in some shithole with his teammates, and this was anything but.

  “Apparently,” Jack said with a shrug before cutting the engine.

  I gathered the mountain of empty fast-food wrappers we’d accumulated during the drive in my arms and walked them to the trash cans on the side of the garage.

  “Looks really nice,” I said as I walked back toward the truck.

  Jack scratched his head. “It does.”

  The front door opened and three bare-chested muscular guys in baseball caps walked out, each holding a beer.

  “Hey! You must be Jack,” the tallest one shouted, and Jack dropped his duffel to the ground before walking up the pathway to meet them.

  “Yep,” he said, reaching out to shake hands. “This is my brother, Dean.” He indicated me with a nod.

  “I’m Tyler, and this is Nick and Spencer. We’re glad you’re here, man. We’ve heard a lot about you,” Tyler said before walking over to me and extending his hand, and I gripped it tightly. “Nice to meet you, Dean.”

  “Yeah, you too.” I smiled. He seemed pretty cool. “What position do you play?”

  “I catch. Nick here’s our first baseman, and Spencer’s a pitcher.”

  “Nice,” I said with a nod.

  “I’ll show you to your room,” Tyler said. “After you get settled in, come meet us out back by the pool.”

  “You have a pool?”

  I couldn’t help but be a little jealous. I’d always wanted a pool growing up, but Gran said there wasn’t enough room. As a little kid, I believed whatever she told me, not knowing any better. I knew now, though, that there was plenty of room in the backyard for a pool, but they most likely couldn’t afford the upkeep and maintenance, let alone the cost of putting one in.

  Gran always hated telling us that they couldn’t afford to buy us things, so she made up creative reasons as to why we couldn’t have them. I loved her and Gramps for it, and for all the sacrifices they made in order to raise us. It had never hit me until this moment just how much they’d had to give up when Jack and I moved in. They never went away on vacations together, and the only ones who got new things in the house were me and Jack.

  Jack slapped a hand on my shoulder. “You okay? You look weird all of a sudden.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, ducking out of his grasp. “Just thinking, is all.”

  “Come on. Grab your shit,” he said before following Tyler up the cobblestone walkway.

  I pulled my duffel from the Bronco before hustling to catch up. When we walked through the front door, I was awed by the house’s features—vaulted ceilings, wide crown molding, and hardwood floors. No four guys should be living in a house this nice.

  “This house is ridiculous,” I said, and Tyler laughed.

  “No shit. We got super lucky. Jack, your room’s upstairs, first door on the right. I’m gonna hit the pool. Come down when you’re ready. There’s beer in the fridge.”

  Jack took the stairs two at a time, and I unconsciously mimicked him the way I used to when we were little kids. He pushed open the door to a simple guest room with a pair of twin beds, a dresser, and a nightstand.

  “You’re so lucky you didn’t have to furnish this.” I couldn’t imagine what a pain in the ass that would have been, moving every single thing he owned. Then I shuddered at the thought of his room at home being empty.

  “I know.” He tossed his bags on the bed closest to him and unzipped one to pull out two framed photos that I recognized from his room. One was of Gran, Gramps, Jack, and me under the big oak tree, and the other was of Jack and Cassie that Gramps had taken.

  He placed the two pictures on his nightstand and turned to me. “I can unpack the rest later. Want to go out back and look around?”

  “Definitely.” I dropped my bag on the other bed and followed him down the stairs to the kitchen, which looked like it should have been featured in a magazine.

  Jack opened the fridge, pulled out two beers, and handed me one. “After a long hot car ride, we deserve this,” he said before twisting off the top and clanking his bottle against mine.

  We stepped outside into the yard and were hit with giant nonstop streams of water to our chests without warning. I looked down at my now soaked shirt as Spencer sat floating on a green alligator raft, clutching a Super Soaker while he laughed hysterically.

  Jack and I glanced at each other with a silent promise that we’d get him back, and then continued our self-guided tour. The yard was ridiculous. Expensive stonework and lush vegetation lined the pool area. Everything was perfectly manicured and super nice, much like the rest of the house.

  Even though it felt like a thousand degrees outside, we found Tyler sitting alone in the hot tub.

  “Are you cold or something?” I asked, wondering what the hell he was doing.

  He downed the rest of his beer before opening up the one sitting next to it. “My muscles are sore as hell. The heat helps.”

  I nodded in understanding, remembering that Tyler was the catcher on the team. In the same way that pitching could be hard on your shoulder and arm, catching was hard on your knees and legs.

  I took a swig of my ice-cold beer. Damn, it tasted good. A yell yanked my attention back toward the pool, where I assumed that I was about to get shot with the damn water gun again. Instead, Nick came flying down backward on the built-in slide that I hadn’t noticed before. This pool was freaking insane, and I was definitely jealous.

  “Can I move in? Just for the summer,” I asked Jack, and he laughed. “I’m not kidding. I want to live here. In this backyard.”

  “I don’t care.” Jack clapped my shoulder. “But then who will keep an eye on my girl? And who will make sure Funsize doesn’t have
a summer fling if you’re not there to stop her?”

  I practically growled, torn between my dream summer and my dream girl. “Fine. But can I come visit?”

  He grinned. “As much as you want.”

  “Are you guys coming in or what?” Spencer asked, still holding on to the water gun and his alligator raft. His head looked hilarious pressed next to the giant painted eye of the gator.

  “Hell yes!” I shouted like a five-year-old before running upstairs to change.

  Jack came upstairs a few seconds later, and pulled out his phone to type a quick text.

  “Cassie?” I asked.

  “Gran. I wanted to let her know we’re here. And Cassie, because I fucking miss her.”

  “Does Gran actually text you back?” I asked with a laugh.

  “Not usually. But I know she reads the ones I send her. That’s all that matters,” he said before tossing his phone on the bed and pulling off his wet shirt.

  “How are we going to get Spencer back?” I asked with a sly smile, reminding Jack of our ambush as we walked outdoors earlier.

  “I was just thinking about that.” Jack smiled back. “He’s already in the pool, so getting him wet seems counterproductive at the moment.”

  “We could steal his alligator. Make him swim without his little floatie?” I suggested as Jack’s phone beeped from the bed and he dove to grab it.

  As he read the text, his face formed a love-struck smile with those trademark dimples that all the girls loved. “Goddamn, I love that girl,” he said as he typed something quickly before dropping the phone and pushing up from the bed. “Let’s go.”

  We trotted back to the yard and Jack jumped into the pool, right next to Spencer, and the giant wave he created almost knocked Spencer off his gator. Almost.

  So I leaped from the side, grabbing my knees with both hands in perfect cannonball form, aiming for the same vicinity. Not only did Nick fall off his precious floatation device, the force of my wave sent it flying far enough away from him that Jack could snag it and hop on.

  I spat out some of the water that had entered my mouth before I realized it was a saltwater pool and not chlorine, and laughed when Spencer whined, “Hey! My gator.”