Reckless Romance

by Maggie Riley

  “Looks good on you,” he said as we settled into our seats.

  It was a beautiful day. Not too hot, with a great breeze flowing through the stadium. My new cap shielded my face from the sun and the beer was nice and cold. But it wasn’t the weather, or the food, or the new clothes, or even the game that I was enjoying the most. It was the look on Josh’s face.

  He was happy here.

  “So whose jersey did you get me?” I asked, trying to look over my shoulder for the name printed on the back.

  Josh had grinned when I pulled it on right away, not even bothering to take the tags off.

  “Number Seven,” he said, pushing his baseball cap back. Dark hair fell over his forehead, making him look boyish and adorable. “Mickey Mantle.”

  “Is he playing today?” I squinted at the field.

  When Josh didn’t answer, I looked back to find him staring at me, slightly bemused.

  “I can’t tell if you’re joking,” he said. “Mickey Mantle isn’t playing today. He died in 1995.”

  I stared down at the shirt. “Why did you get me a dead guy’s jersey?”

  “Because,” he said, patiently. “Mickey Mantle was one of the best ball players of all time.”

  “Was he a pitcher like you?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, adjusting my jersey for me. “He played center field. But I appreciate you associating me with him in any way—even though it only highlights your lack of baseball knowledge.”

  “Well,” I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. “I’m always willing to learn.” I squinted at the field. “Ok, where do they score the touchdowns?”

  I heard Josh sigh and I patted his leg.

  “I’m just kidding,” I told him. “I know that’s soccer.”

  JOSH

  I hadn’t been to a baseball game since I stopped playing. My parents, my sisters, everyone had tried to get me to go. But I hadn’t wanted to. My love for the game—and for anything else I had previously cared about—had disappeared. Everything inside of me had felt dried up. Withered and old and dead.

  But now things were different. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this good. It was as if I had been wandering around half asleep for months and I was finally waking up. Finally existing in the world again. It felt incredible. Everything seemed strangely brighter and more vibrant. Or maybe that was just because I was seeing the world through Reagan’s eyes.

  I looked over at her, looking adorable in her baseball hat, her glasses slipping down her nose as she leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, to watch the game below. She seemed to be having a good time, even though I could tell she really didn’t understand the game. It didn’t bother me. I liked being with her, being near her, and the longer we spent together, the less bitter and broken I felt.

  The crowd cheered as the Yankees pulled ahead, and so did Reagan, though she was always slightly behind everyone else, one final yell as the sound of the crowd died out. That didn’t mean she cheered any less enthusiastically. I couldn’t help but smile at the way she completely threw herself into the act.

  My phone buzzed and I pulled it out to find part of the source of my bitterness calling me once again. Kelly. He hadn’t gotten the message when I had ignored the last dozen calls he had made. I knew I had to talk to him eventually. But I really didn’t want to—especially not now.

  I frowned at the phone and hit ignore—probably more aggressively than I should have. Reagan’s attention was redirected towards me. She glanced at the phone in my hand, and then took in what must have been a rather stormy expression.

  “Everything ok?” she asked.

  I ran a hand over my face. “Yeah,” I lied, hating how I let it bother me.

  Reagan leaned back. “You don’t look ok,” she said.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. If I had learned anything about Reagan, it was that she tackled things head on. And clearly expected me to do the same. Not that I blamed her. I wanted to be with her. And even though I didn’t have a lot of experience with relationships, I knew that sharing shit like this was a big part of what made them work.

  “My former manager keeps calling me,” I told her.

  “Oh?” she raised her eyebrows.

  “He kind of screwed me over,” I felt a twinge in my shoulder, one that I was pretty sure I was imagining. A phantom pain brought on by stress. Annoyance. “Lied to me.” I clenched my fist.

  “What happened?” Reagan asked.

  I sat back in my seat. “I basically fucked up my rotator cuff. It’s something that has the potential to heal if you take it easy, if you take time off, but Kelly knew that the more time I spent on the bench, the less attractive he was as a manager.”

  “Kelly?” Reagan asked, a strange look of relief in her eyes.

  I nodded. “We had been friends since we were kids—we both loved baseball, but I had the arm and he didn’t. He was a good manager—or so I thought. He convinced me to get back on the roster before I was fully healed. He had some big names lined up and he needed me to be on the mound, for me to be making news for him to snag new clients.”

  “I can’t believe your doctors allowed that.” Reagan looked appalled.

  “They advised against it,” I admitted. “So Kelly took me to another doctor. One that he said specialized in shoulder injuries. Because I wanted to pitch again, I believed him. Didn’t do my own research. Because I didn’t want to be on the bench any more than Kelly wanted me to be.”

  I hung my head, remembering how arrogant I had been. And if I was honest with myself, part of the reason I didn’t want to talk to Kelly was because I’d have to confront my own role in my injury. I had known something wasn’t right, but I ignored it because I wanted to believe him. Wanted to play. Thought I was strong enough to overcome anything. I didn’t even consider the possibility that I could hurt myself permanently.

  “I played, even though I was in pain. I let Kelly’s doctor give me shots of adrenaline to make it through games.”

  “Until you couldn’t anymore.” Reagan looked up at me with those big, brown eyes.

  I nodded. “This time when I was in the hospital, Kelly wasn't anywhere to be found. It wasn’t until I was recuperating that I found out the entire time I had been pitching with my injured arm, Kelly had been lining up new clients. My replacements.”

  Reagan put her hand on my arm. “I’m so sorry, Josh,” she said. “That must have been awful.”

  “Yeah.” I rolled my shoulders, remembering how bad it had felt to find out that my best friend had ruined my career to further his. “It’s all the lying that really stung. Learning how much he had kept from me.”

  Reagan was silent.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, taking off my hat and running a hand through my hair. “We were having such a nice time and I went and piled all my emotional baggage onto you.”

  But Reagan shook her head. “You did nothing of the sort,” she said, leaning in and giving me a kiss on the cheek. “I’m glad you told me.”

  I let out a breath. “That’s what I like about you.” I put an arm around her shoulder. “You’re so honest and open.”

  She didn’t say anything, but gave me a smile. Not as bright as her usual smile, but it still warmed me. I pulled her closer, breathing in the sunshine smell of her hair and for the first time in months, allowed myself to enjoy a baseball game.

  We were about to head out of the stadium after a nail-biter of a game—with the Yankees finally pulling out a victory—when my phone rang again. This time it was someone I was happy to talk to.

  “Hold on a moment,” I told Reagan, who was gathering up the remains of our beer and hotdog feast. I hit accept and held up the phone so Emily could see my face.

  “Uncle Josh!” she practically screamed. She sometimes forgot to control her volume when it came to using phones.

  “Hi there, Emy-bean,” I said, trying not to wince.

  “Where are you?” she demanded. “It’s not all dark and sad like your apa
rtment.”

  My niece, the world’s tiniest therapist. With no subtlety to be found.

  “I’m outside,” I told her. “At the ballpark, actually.”

  Emily had plenty of experience at baseball games. She had loved coming to see me play and whenever I could, I’d take her to games. She could shout and jeer with the best of them. A real pair of lungs on that girl.

  “Who is that?” Emily demanded, her attention now focused elsewhere.

  I realized that I had turned to get a shot of the field and ended up getting Reagan in the frame instead. She waved.

  “Hi Emily,” she smiled.

  “You remember Reagan,” I reminded Emily. “She was at Aunt Allie’s wedding. And she showed you all those puppets when we visited New York.”

  Emily’s eyes lit up with recognition. She waved, using her whole body to do so.

  “Hi Reagan!”

  Then I saw her narrow her eyes briefly before smiling wide.

  “Piglet!” she declared.

  It wasn’t anywhere near an accurate description, but I was pretty sure that no woman appreciated being called a piglet.

  “Emily,” I said warningly. “That’s not very nice.”

  But Emily didn’t listen.

  “She’s Piglet,” she insisted. “She’ll help you find your tail.”

  “My tail?” Finally I made the connection. “Piglet like the character?”

  Emily nodded. I turned back to Reagan who didn’t seem to be offended. Rather, she looked incredibly amused by the whole conversation.

  “Emily thinks I’m Eeyore,” I explained. “From Winnie the Pooh.”

  Understanding dawned in her eyes.

  “That’s a very good comparison, Emily,” she told my niece.

  “Hey!” I argued. “I’m not that bad.”

  Both Emily and Reagan gave me an identical look of disbelief.

  “Why do you think I’m Piglet?” Reagan asked, looking into my phone at Emily.

  “Stripes,” she said, pointing.

  It was true. Reagan had been wearing a striped shirt under her jersey, which was now unbuttoned. Sure, it was black and dark gray stripes, but it was still striped.

  “Good eye,” said Reagan. “And just so you know, Piglet was always my favorite character.” She looked back at me. “Though, I have a soft spot for Eeyore as well.”

  I got a warm feeling in my chest, and suddenly it didn’t seem that bad to be Eeyore.

  “We should probably go, Emy-bean,” I told my niece. “I’ll call you later this week, ok?”

  “Ok!” she said. “Bye Uncle Josh. Bye Reagan!”

  She sent us both air kisses and they were returned before I hung up.

  “Sorry about that,” I said, shoving my phone back in my pocket. “She’s a bit of a handful. Even from a few thousand miles away.”

  “She’s adorable,” Reagan said, her baseball cap sliding down on her forehead.

  I pushed it back, revealing her face to me.

  “Like someone else I know,” I told her, pulling her in for a kiss.

  Reagan blushed, but kissed me back, her fingers sliding into my hair and nearly knocking my own baseball cap off.

  “Come on, Piglet,” I told her, resituating my hat. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

  “Whatever you want.” She took my hand in hers and grinned up at me. “Eeyore.”

  Chapter 27

  REAGAN

  The next few weeks seemed to go by in a wonderful, exciting blur. All day, I worked on the play, running through rehearsals with my extremely talented cast, and in the evenings, Josh and I would explore the city together. Whenever I had the energy to go out, he always seemed to be able to find the perfect spot. Places I didn’t even know about. We went to late night jazz clubs and hidden speakeasies and twenty-four hour diners. Or, when I was tired, we went back to my place, tumbling in bed and losing ourselves in each other until the morning.

  Life had never been so perfect. And maybe it was that happiness, that joy, that inspired me to send an invitation to my parents for the opening night of our production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was Shakespeare, I told myself. Shakespeare was respectable. And even though we were avant-garde, we were getting a fairly good reputation in the theatre world.

  I didn’t tell anyone except Joanna. Because Josh didn’t know about my parents. I knew I needed to tell him. Especially if they came to the show. Especially after everything that he had confessed to me at the ballgame—I didn’t want there to be secrets between us, but I was so happy that I had very little desire to talk in detail about a time in my life when I wasn’t.

  “Do you think they’ll come?” Joanna asked me after our first tech rehearsal.

  “I don’t know,” I told her. “Probably not.”

  Joanna just nodded. “Do you want them to come?”

  “I really don’t know,” I admitted. “Part of me still wants their approval, as ridiculous as that seems.”

  “It doesn’t seem ridiculous,” said Joanna. “Remember who you’re talking to—I basically do everything to hold on to my parents’ approval. Sometimes I wish I could just cut them loose. Sometimes I wish I had. Especially after—” she trailed but I knew exactly what she was talking about.

  I still hadn’t told her about Lincoln, even though we were moving forward with plans to involve The Hole in the Wall. When had I become the keeper of so many secrets, I wondered. It wasn’t like me at all.

  “Are you doing anything for your birthday?” Joanna asked.

  We had one night free before previews began, and as luck would have it, it fell on my birthday. A birthday Josh was more than happy to celebrate.

  “Josh is taking me out,” I said. “He won’t tell me where we’re going.”

  “Things are going good with him, then?” she wanted to know.

  “Yeah,” I felt a blush spread from my throat to my cheeks. “Things are going good.”

  “I hate you,” said Joanna without any malice.

  I opened my mouth to tell her about Lincoln, but closed it before I could say anything. It wasn’t the time. But I had to tell Josh about my parents. About my background. I’d tell him before we went out for my birthday, I decided. I’d tell him and it would be out in the open and then we could forget about it and go celebrate. That’s what I was going to do.

  JOSH

  When I had been at the top of my game, when I would take women out, I’d always take them to the best places. Fancy restaurants, hip new clubs, I’d pull out all the stops. Because that’s just what you did when you were in my position. When you had money and even a little bit of fame, you used it.

  I hadn’t done that with Reagan. With the exception of our occasional “luxurious” cab rides, we went to dive bars and restaurants with sticky floors and torn menus. Places that I liked to go. Places that Reagan seemed to like as well.

  But for her birthday, I wanted to pamper her. Spoil her. Pull out all the stops. I did research like I had never done before, even calling my sister to ask if there was anything special Reagan had been wanting to do, had been talking about.

  “Wow, so, I really misread your intentions, didn’t I?” Allie asked when I called.

  “It’s never too late to say you’re sorry,” I teased her. Between the remodeling Shane and her were doing on their apartment and the upcoming play, I hadn’t had much of a chance to see or talk to her.

  “I still maintain I was making a logical assumption based on your previous behavior,” she commented.

  I let out a low whistle. “If stage managing ever falls through, I think you’ve got a future as a lawyer for sure.”

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered, quickly and nearly under her breath. “It’s nice to see Reagan so happy.” She paused. “And you sound pretty good, too.”

  “Thanks.” I felt a swell of pride at knowing I was giving Reagan something in return.

  “I never would have put the two of you together,” Allie mused.

  “
Except you did,” I reminded her.

  “Not intentionally!” she argued. “I take no responsibility for this.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Now that we have that out of the way, any ideas on what I can do for Reagan’s birthday? Something special.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure there’s not a theatre nerd alive who doesn’t want to go see Hamilton,” Allie told me. “But those tickets are hard to come by and expensive when you can find them.”

  “Hamilton?” I racked my brain. “Is that a play?”

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” I could hear Allie typing away on her computer. “I’ll send you some information—some people you can call. And some less pricey shows you can take her to as an alternative.”

  “Hamilton will be fine,” I said.

  “Ok,” she let the word out slowly and then paused. “You really like her, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I responded.

  And as I did, I realized that it might be more than that. I like Reagan. I might even love her. The thought hit me like a baseball to the solar plexus. I felt dizzy. Dazed. That had never been an emotion I ascribed to anyone other than family. Love. Just thinking about it made me feel like I was standing on the pitcher’s mound my first time pitching in the minors. Excited, terrified and pretty close to throwing up. It was an overwhelming feeling and I sat down, feeling winded. Allie was still talking but I only heard her vaguely, her voice coming from a faraway place.

  “I gotta go,” I told her, pretty sure I had just interrupted her in the middle of a sentence.

  If she minded, I didn’t hear as I hung up, letting the phone drop to the floor. I ran a hand through my hair, trying to sort through all the emotions bouncing around my brain. My chest hurt, as if I had run several miles and I was still trying to catch my breath. Love. The thought was terrifying.

  But then I pictured Reagan’s face. Her smile. The way she looked at me. How her hair felt in my hands. How warm she was in my arms in the morning. And suddenly I wasn’t terrified. I was exhilarated.