by Sierra Dean
She hadn’t realized how much she depended on those messages until she didn’t get one.
Maybe he wasn’t okay.
Alice Googled him on her phone—something she’d done often enough the search bar now remembered his name—and checked for recent news stories that might suggest his injury had been more severe than it looked. Nothing came up.
So he was ignoring her.
She rebooted her phone, wondering if perhaps it was a problem with the signal causing her to miss a return text. When nothing new came from that¸ she sent herself a test message to ensure she was receiving them okay.
She was.
With each passing minute she didn’t hear from him, her concern and anxiety began to transform into anger. What was worse, when she realized her anger was totally irrational—she was mad at him for doing literally nothing—she got upset with herself, ratcheting her fury up to new levels.
Soon the phone was taunting her, as she imagined the message notification light flashing. She turned it facedown on her comforter, then after a moment of phantom vibrations, flipped it back over to see if she’d missed anything.
“Fuck.” She kicked her sheets off and lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling in the hopes her light fixtures might distract her from her mounting irritation.
Instead she noticed a crack in the stucco.
Her phone buzzed and she ignored it, assuming she was imagining things still.
Then it buzzed again. And again.
Not a text alert, but the sound of someone calling.
Alice fumbled to grab the phone where it had gotten tangled up in her bedding and almost threw it off the mattress, but she answered before it went to voicemail, though she missed the caller ID.
“Hello?”
Her voice must have sounded exhausted because the caller began with, “Oh shit, it’s really late there, isn’t it?”
Alice pulled the phone back to look at the ID screen, wanting to confirm her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her.
Alex.
He never called. It was always a quick text here or there, and usually only if she sent him something first. A phone call was…well, it was outside the norm for them.
“Are you okay?” she asked immediately.
“Huh? The mask thing, you mean?”
“I mean, you’re calling me at two in the morning. Are you okay?”
“Oh.” Like he hadn’t considered where her mind would go when someone phoned her at this hour. Had he never met a mother before? “Yeah…I guess so?” He phrased it like a question, as though he wasn’t sure if he was okay or not.
“What’s wrong?” From the tone of his voice, Alice could tell he was off somehow, but she couldn’t put her finger on why exactly. He sounded distant and distracted. She might not be an expert on his phone voice, but it didn’t seem right.
Her annoyance was gone, and the pit it left behind was filled with the kind of worry only a mom could muster up at such short notice. At some point she’d sat upright in bed and had begun scanning the room for pants, like she might be thrown into action at any moment.
“Alex?” His lack of response made her wonder if he was still there.
“I’m…well, I’m coming back.”
Her heart seized, at risk of stopping altogether when the words finally processed. “Coming back…here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” She was torn between wanting him to say it was for her, and being terrified he might. What kind of idiot would abandon their career to make things work on a long-shot relationship?
Especially when she’d told him she didn’t want to try.
“I shouldn’t have called you this late, I’m sorry.”
“No, I was awake. Tell me what’s going on.” Alice nestled back into her pillows, trying to calm down. Alex was fine, physically anyway, so she had no immediate cause for concern. Her head bumped against the wooden headboard.
“Got called into the manager’s office today after the game. He’s not too impressed with my results so far this season.”
She bit her lip. She hadn’t commented on his average up to that point out of politeness, but it didn’t take a baseball expert to know he wasn’t doing well.
“It’s still early, though,” she offered, not refuting his unfortunate stats but hoping she might make him feel better regardless. She’d learned this particular skill with Olivia. No matter how perfect she thought her daughter was, the kid wasn’t going to be good at everything. In Liv’s case her shortcomings were due to her awkward stature, making her an impossible dancer. But still, Alice told her how well she’d done and continued to pay for dance lessons. That was just what she did.
With Alex, she wouldn’t tell him he was stinking it up because it wouldn’t help him to hear negative feedback. And he hadn’t called her for brutal honesty; he’d called her for…for what? Comfort? She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
“They’re sending me back to Lakeland.”
That stood to reason. Shuffling a player back to the minors was standard when they were struggling. The logic being a high-level player would thrive among the less-skilled upstarts. It was an effort in rebuilding confidence as much as skill.
But Alice lost her train of thought quickly when she realized what it really meant. Alex was coming back. Sure, he’d said as much twice already in their conversation, but it was only now beginning to click.
“You’re coming back.”
“Yeah.”
“For how long?” Toying with the corner of her comforter, she awaited his response with a held breath. There was no way it would be a permanent reassignment. That would be the kiss of death for a player in Alex’s position. And as much as guys would say they played for the love of the game, none of them wanted to be stranded in the minors for the rest of their careers.
Who would want the constant reminder of what they’d once had? It was just cruel.
“Sounds like two weeks. To start.”
“Two weeks,” she said back to him, wanting to hear how it sounded. It wasn’t a lot of time, not nearly what they’d been given during spring training, yet it was something. Two weeks more than what they’d had when the season started. A knot formed in Alice’s gut, and she debated whether she wanted to say anything else or let him finish what he had called to tell her.
“Guess I thought you might want to know I was coming back.”
“Thanks.”
Uneasy silence clouded the line between them, making the distance from Florida to California feel like they were in different worlds, not just different states.
“You staying at the hotel?” she asked, needing to fill the void with something. Anything.
“Yeah. I get in tomorrow morning… Today I guess. Heading to the airport in a couple of hours.”
Jesus, they hadn’t wasted any time, had they?
“Do you need a ride?”
Alex paused so long she wasn’t sure he’d heard her. Then he said, “No. I’m renting a car. But…”
“But?”
“Can we…? Can I…? I mean, maybe I could see you?”
“Tomorrow?”
“While I’m there.”
Her internal dialogue exploded. No, said the smart, logical part of her brain. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes, cried the part of her that had missed him in an unapologetic fashion since he’d left.
Don’t fuck it up this time, they both said.
“Okay.”
“Good.” He still sounded tired, but now she could hear the faint smile in his voice. It made her feel good to know she’d had a hand in cheering him up.
Snuggling lower in her bed, she pulled the sheets up. It was already too warm for her to be using the comforter, but she liked having it around. With the absence of someone to hold her while she slept, she made do with a nest of pillows and a blanket to wrap around herself like a hug.
Tonight, with Alex’s voice in her ear and the bedding tucked around her, she could almost pretend he was there with her.
All that was missing was the smell of him, and the way his arms felt when they held her.
If she wasn’t careful, she might forget his stay was temporary.
She wanted to pretend she wasn’t in danger of falling in love with him, but as he whispered a raspy, “Good night, Alice,” into the receiver, her conviction faltered.
She could pretend all she wanted, but her logical brain told her everything she didn’t want to admit to. You stupid woman, you’re already done for.
Chapter Seventeen
The late-night phone call set Alice’s whole morning off in the wrong direction. She was late getting up and almost missed getting Olivia to school on time. As it was she made the run in her sweatpants with her hair in a mussed ponytail, not exactly her most elegant parental ensemble.
She returned home to change into jeans and a white shirt—something she could wear to the diner later—and grabbed her big duffel bag for the afternoon game. It would be a busy day, too busy to think too much about what Alex’s return might mean for her. For them.
She poked her head into Kevin’s room before she left. “Can you pick up Liv after school?”
Her brother was still in his pajama pants, laptop open on his stomach, lying in the wrinkled sheets on his bed. “Huh?” He pulled some ear buds out of his ears and glanced at her. Kevin hadn’t shaved in nearly a week, and his patchy facial hair made him look more like a hobo than a decent citizen. Alice was half worried the school might call the cops on him if he showed up to collect Olivia, but she didn’t have much of a choice.
“I need you to get Liv after school.”
“When?”
“Today.”
He rolled his eyes. “When?”
Did he actually want to know when school ended for the day? Alice stared at him like he might have hit his head on something because it was the only logical reason he would ask her such a stupid question. “You’ve picked her up dozens of times, Kev. Three thirty, it’s always been three thirty. It was three thirty when we went to school, and it’s still three thirty now.”
“Jesus, don’t get your panties in a twist, Al, it was just a question. I dunno, she could have had practice or something. Doesn’t she like…do stuff?”
“Do stuff?” Alice was stymied. Kevin spent more time on a daily basis with Olivia than even Alice did, yet he was acting like he’d never met the kid. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Nothing. Fuck off, man. I’ll get her. Don’t freak out.”
Before Alice could freak out, which she wanted to do with great drama and lots of yelling, Kevin put his ear buds in and turned his attention back to the laptop screen.
If she didn’t love her brother so much and didn’t know he wasn’t quite…right, she might have murdered him in his sleep a dozen times over since he’d moved in.
But then who would watch Olivia?
She was stuck between a rock and a hard place, with trying to help Kevin but needing him to help her. Depending on him became progressively harder and harder the more he withdrew from her and into his own dark, insular world. She used to know how to bring him back out, but it seemed over the last several years he no longer wanted to be helped.
He wanted to be left alone, but to what end?
If she let him drift off into his solitude, would she be proving him right when he said no one gave a shit about him? Or that no one should give a shit about him? But he had begun responding like a bitter toddler when she did try to help him. And while she had once believed she had infinite patience for her brother, she was starting to feel frayed around the edges. If she didn’t find a way to coexist with him, he was going to pull her apart entirely.
She arrived at the park five minutes late, and all thoughts of Alex had been driven out by her worry for Kevin. Thankfully she was still early for the game itself, just late getting her uniform on and going through a briefing with Donovan.
The older man gave her a stern look when she came into the crew office, but he didn’t browbeat her like she knew he was capable of, and she was grateful. She was worn thin by her morning, and though she figured she could handle some growling from Donovan, she also might have burst into tears at any moment. It was best to avoid weeping in front of the rest of the guys.
“You’re on second,” he told her.
Alice hated second. She had to dodge throws from home plate to second base on a regular basis, and what made things worse, the catcher for Lakeland would now be Alex and not the usual guy. Maybe it was best she was at second instead of home plate. She just needed to be on the ball tonight, rather than tuning out like she sometimes could at third.
On any other day she might have let her mind wander to thoughts of Alex—as was her usual course throughout the day—but now that he was actually here, somewhere in the same building as her, those “harmless” fantasies no longer felt safe. As if Alex might be able to read her mind and would somehow be able to tell precisely how unwholesome her designs towards him were.
She also had other things on her mind that afternoon.
Her discussion with Kevin—if it could be called a discussion—had left her feeling grumpy and hostile, certainly not emotions she wanted to express when she saw Alex for the first time in weeks. Her rapidly fouling mood made her feel bad for her coworkers and ever so slightly for the players who would need to endure her calls throughout the day.
The game went smoothly though. No one argued with her, play was smooth and free from any contentious calls, and Alex didn’t try to catch her attention across the field once.
He also didn’t play very well, which she feared might be due in part to her presence on the field. But it was obvious he, like her, had a lot more on his mind than when they would be able to see each other again.
It was after three when she left the park, and she made it to the diner on time for her three thirty clock in.
At four ten her phone buzzed in her apron pocket. She ignored it, continuing to take her table’s order, but when it was still vibrating by the time she got back to the kitchen, she knew she couldn’t keep putting it off.
The caller ID showed a local number she didn’t know.
Alex’s hotel, maybe?
She’d need to give him a lecture on incessant calling, but she was warmed he would call her so soon after the game had ended. Perhaps he wanted to invite her to dinner. Before she answered, she’d already begun to mentally flip through her wardrobe for possible options.
“Hello?” How much of a girly schoolgirl did she sound like? If her voice was capable of tossing its hair, it had done so just then.
“Mrs. Darling? Is this Mrs. Alice Darling?” An unfamiliar female voice came through the line, stern and joyless.
Alice didn’t bother to correct her incorrect use of Mrs. There were too many insane possibilities going through her mind, and none of them involved a hot date.
“Yes.” Her voice trembled. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but her brain was way ahead of her. Something had happened. There was something wrong with Kevin. Or…Jesus, with Liv?
She never should have yelled at him that morning.
Oh God. Oh God.
“I’m calling from the Lakeland Memorial Hospital. There’s been an accident.”
“Oh God.” This time it was spoken out loud, and one of the line cooks raised a brow at her.
“I don’t want you to panic, Mrs. Darling.”
“It’s too fucking late for that,” Alice wheezed.
“Everyone is in stable condition.”
Stable condition. What did that even mean? Didn’t it just imply no one was on the verge of immediate death? Stable wasn’t the same as perfectly healthy.
“Wh-what happened?” Alice leaned against the dishwasher, and now all the cooks had stopped what they were doing to stare at her. One of the other waitresses had come in to scold them for the food being slow but stopped mid-rant when she saw everyone watching Alice.
Alice had no clue when she’d started crying, but her
cheeks were wet and the front of her shirt had begun to soak through.
“There was a car accident. We have your husband and your daughter here. As I said, they’re both in stable condition.”
“My husband?” For a moment, the statement made her think they must have made some mistake. A different Darling child was in the hospital, because she had no husband, so these victims couldn’t possibly belong to her. “I don’t have a husband.”
The sound of paper shuffling was followed by the uncertain question of, “Kevin Darling?”
It was like getting the same bad news twice. Her short-lived relief was gone, replaced with double the amount of dread as before. “M-my brother. What happened?”
“Do you have someone who can bring you down here? We don’t suggest driving in…stressful situations.”
“O-okay. But they’re okay?”
“They’re both stable.”
“Stop saying stable,” Alice screamed, her mounting anxiety suddenly unable to stay contained.
“Mrs. Darling, I’m going to need you to be calm, please. They’re both fine. We do need you to come down to the hospital, though, and fill out some paperwork.”
As if Alice might have had better plans? Somewhere else to be right then?
She hung up before the woman could say anything else about insurance cards or papers. The whole kitchen was watching her in rapt silence.
“C-can someone dr-drive me to the hospital?”
She didn’t need to ask twice. Her manager angled her out of the kitchen, shouting back, “It’s not a goddamn sideshow, people. Back to work.” He didn’t even ask her what was wrong, having watched most of the conversation as it occurred.
Fifteen minutes later he pulled up to the emergency room entrance and dropped her off. “You let me know if you need anything, okay, hon? Seriously. Anything.” Normally it might have come across creepy, her sixty-year-old boss calling her hon, but all she felt right then was a kind of paternal worry she wouldn’t have gotten from anyone else. If she’d stopped crying—which she hadn’t—his concern would have started her going all over again.