Swing

by Adriana Locke

  I might be coming out of shock. I don’t know. Things are starting to fill the void that seemed too deep to get across until now. I can only make sense of some of it if I block out what the media is going to say and the articles that will be put out as soon as this comes to fruition, one way or the other.

  Swallowing this is so bitter I can barely manage to deal. How did this happen to me? I was king of the world only a few months ago. How did I fall so far so fast?

  Taking the money the Arrows offered would be a joke. It would make me a joke. I think I make more money than that off of Graham’s investments every year. A player like me can’t play for that; I wouldn’t be taken seriously. No one would hire me as a spokesman. My jerseys would stop selling. It would be one, big disaster. They know that, which makes it even more humiliating that they even bothered to offer it.

  San Diego is the only answer. Not one I like and not one I want to make, but I don’t have another choice. The money is generous and maybe they can build something around me. I grin, thinking about how awesome that would be—to win a championship with another team. One that didn’t really exist before me.

  Pulling into the driveway and jumping out and locking the door, I’m in the foyer before I know it. “You here?” I call out.

  She comes around the corner of the kitchen in a pair of yoga pants and a red t-shirt. “How’d it go?” she asks cheerfully. Her smile drops. “You okay?”

  “I’ve been better.” My keys drop into a little dish on the table. I take her hand and pull her into the living room and onto my lap as I sit on the sofa. She returns my embrace and I take a deep breath, letting her settle over me and calm the turmoil within.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “I got traded.”

  She stiffens in my arms, but doesn’t pull away. I go over the numbers, and still, she doesn’t respond.

  “How do you feel about San Diego?” I ask.

  She pulls away. Then stands, straightening her shirt. “Why do you ask?”

  Her voice is eerily calm with just a hint at the end of something vulnerable. It’s the Danielle I met in the hallway: a tough front with a sweet interior she works hard to protect. But why now?

  With a dose of unease, I say, “Because that’s where we’re going.”

  Her back turns to me, her head bowed. “I’m not going with you.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not going.”

  Scrambling off the couch, my brows pulled together as my heart misfires, I stand behind her. “I . . . But. . . . Dani?”

  “Don’t go, Landry.”

  The way she says my name, like a plea that she has no faith behind, hits me like the third strike. It wallops me. Breaks me. Leaves me looking and wishing I could do something different, but I can’t because that pitch has been thrown.

  “I told you,” I say carefully. “I have to. San Diego is where it’s at right now.” When she doesn’t respond, I feel panic setting in. “I have to go where the work is. I’m not a carpenter or something with ten jobs to choose from and another forty years to work. I have maybe five years, Dani. Five years to do what I do. Baseball is what I do. You have to understand that.”

  My trembling hand cups her shoulder, and with the care I’d give a wild grounder, I turn her to face me.

  To my surprise, there are no tears in her eyes. Just a steely resolution that feels like a bucket of ice water.

  “I do understand,” she says evenly. “I understand better than you’ll ever know.”

  “Good,” I sigh, relieved. “Then come with me. Let’s do this together. Let’s pick out a house, on the beach if you want. Let’s—”

  “Landry . . .”

  “What?” Irritation nudges ahead in the battle of my emotions. Why is she making this so hard? It’s not like I want this, so why is she acting like I have a choice? Taking a deep breath, I try again. “Let’s start over. New city. New relationship. Think about it.” I reach for her, but she takes a step back. My hand hangs in the air.

  The tears I expected earlier fill her eyes as she takes another step back. “I have thought about it. I’ve thought about it before I even met you,” she sniffles.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This,” she laughs through the tears trickling down her face. “Your passion for the game is what makes you so incredible, both on the field and off. You’re right, Landry. You have a handful of years left and you should play. Absolutely. And if that’s in San Diego, then it is.”

  “You know I’d rather be here, right? I love Memphis. And it would be so much easier on you to just stay here. I hate even fucking asking you to leave, baby, but there’s no other way. I have to play. It’s who I am.”

  She nods, wiping the tears off her face. “You’re right,” she chokes out. “It’s time for new beginnings. Go to San Diego, Landry.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  She turns her back and covers the distance to the front door faster than I can process it. The cool, wintery air is gushing in the house when I reach it and Dani is almost to her car.

  My heart in my throat, my blood soaring through my body, I race through the open garage door and make it to the side of her car as she slides in the driver’s seat.

  “Dani!” I call, wedging myself between the door and the frame. “What are you doing?”

  Her face is soaked, her lips trembling. “I’m going home.”

  “Why? I don’t understand.”

  “Let me ask you one question.” She looks at me, taking a deep breath, steadying herself. “Are you going to San Diego no matter what?”

  “I have to,” I whisper.

  She nods and seems more confident in her decision, which terrifies the fuck out of me.

  “My father is the General Manager of the San Diego Sails.”

  My world is twisted on its head and spun a hundred miles an hour. Nearly dizzy, I grab the doorframe. “What?”

  “Yeah,” she smiles through the tears. “My dad, the one and only Bryan Kipling, is your new boss.”

  As I try to process that, she continues talking.

  “It’s why I knew this was coming. I’ve seen baseball take over his life. Take over my mother’s. It’s their love for the game that trumps any love for me, Landry. If it can be that way for a parent, there’s no way it won’t be that for a boyfriend. I knew this before I met you, so I can’t blame you.”

  She tries to shut the door, but I don’t budge.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?” I ask, still in disbelief. “That motherfucker is the GM? Of San Diego?”

  “What do you want me to say? Everyone loves him. He’s on television, smiling and playing Mr. America. Of course it’ll look to you like I’m some kind of weirdo . . . unable to even win my parents’ love.”

  My heart cracks, breaking in two jagged pieces. I reach for her. She swats my hands, but eventually relents and lets me pull her into me as I kneel by the side of the car.

  Her body racks with tears as her life comes full circle again. Tears lick at my lashes too because, without a doubt, this is nonnegotiable for her. She won’t go with me. This will be the end of us.

  As if she reads my mind, she pulls away and gives me a soft smile. “Go, Landry. Go play ball.”

  I plead with her without words. I can’t ask her to go near her parents, not to the people that hurt her so badly. I can’t even figure out how I’m going to do that, but I also can’t think about going without her.

  “Lincoln,” she says, the ring of my first name, the one she never uses, pierces the air. “This was always going to be the way this ended. I knew it before it started.” She wipes away a tear. “I’ll always be thankful for the time we did have together, and I’ll always root for you.”

  “This doesn’t have to be the end.”

  “No, it does. You live a life I can’t,” she says, a hint of a laugh in her voice. “If you’re ever in town . . .”

  “Dani, don’t
leave,” I say as she shuts the door. The car lurches backwards as she puts it in reverse. I pound frantically on the window because when she’s gone, she’s gone. My throat tightens and I fight myself from screaming in the middle of the fucking driveway. “Roll down your window. Please, give me that.”

  She looks away, like it pains her to look at me before she concedes. Her eyes flicker to mine, and we both smile at the same time.

  “I need to say something,” I say, a break in my voice. “I don’t know what it is, but I need to figure out how to rewind the last few hours and stop this from happening.”

  Her hand falls over mine on the ledge of the window, her thumb stroking the side of my hand. “If you think of it,” she says, “mail me the pink mug you bought me. I’d like to keep it as a reminder of you.”

  “I can bring it to you. I won’t leave for a week or so.”

  Her head swishes side to side. “I can’t see you again. It’ll make it worse.”

  She’s right. This isn’t a girl I can be friends with. It’s a girl I want to fucking crawl inside and never leave. It’s all or nothing with this one, a grand slam or a strike out, and right now, I’m watching the ball hit the catcher’s mitt.

  “Goodbye,” she whispers, her eyes filling again as the car rolls backwards.

  Panicked, I jog alongside it. “I love you, Dani. Okay?”

  “Okay, Landry,” she chokes out. Her chin bowed, she hits the road and drives right out of my life.

  Lincoln

  THEY JUST TALK. I DON’T even think they know what they’re talking about. Their mouths move and shit spills out.

  “Let’s be fucking real,” I say to the television hosts, lifting a bottle to my lips. “None of y’all played ball. Of any kind.”

  This beer tastes as bland as the first ones. Plural. Lots of plural. Well, it tastes way more bland after the seventh-inning stretch of whiskey I added to the mix. I’ll feel this tomorrow.

  Tomorrow. The chorus from some play my mom took Ford and the girls and I to one summer rings through my memory banks and I find myself humming the tune. How do I even remember this?

  My laptop glows in front of me with housing options in San Diego. I hate them all. I even try to convince myself that the beachfront bungalow is everything I’ve ever wanted. That it probably comes with beachfront bunnies. That the beach equals no clothes and lots of girls.

  I fail.

  Every house I find, I think about stupid shit. Like Dani. And how she won’t be there. And how much that fucking burns right now. Blisters my heart. Poisons my soul. Then I drink more. Maybe eventually it will drown out. Or I’ll pass out. I’m good with either option.

  Something catches my attention but I can’t focus on it. I’m in a lovely state of buzz, a muddy, fuzzy warmth that sort of bubble wraps everything. But it’s there. Something is, anyway. When I reach over to put my drink on the table, my ass lifts off my phone and I hear it ringing.

  “Aha!” I say, nearly falling off the couch. Stabilizing myself, I answer it. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Linc,” Graham says.

  “Hey, G! What’s happening, man?”

  “Well,” he says slowly, “I called to see how your meeting went and to ask you a question. But after hearing you, I have a brand new set of questions,” he chuckles.

  “Did you say you needed to ask me something? You need advice? I didn’t drink that much, did I?”

  “No advice. I’m not that fucked,” he laughs. “I wanted to know if you knew Mallory Sims. But that can wait.”

  I try to remember the name. “Mallory Sims. Should I? Because I really don’t associate anything with that name.”

  “She’s a friend of Sienna’s.”

  “She must not be hot because I got nothing.”

  Graham laughs, clearly amused. “Okay, moving on. What the fuck is wrong with you tonight?”

  “With me?” I ask, swaying a little.

  “You drinking tonight.”

  “Fuck yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . .” I say, my eyes sinking closed. “Oh! Because I got traded to San Diego.”

  “Really? Wow. How do you feel about that?”

  “Drunk. I feel drunk, G.”

  “When do you guys move?”

  My ass tumbles off the sofa and I land on the ground with a thud. For some reason, I find it hysterical and nearly drop the phone as I laugh.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Graham asks.

  “I fell off the couch,” I say, catching my breath.

  “Shit, Linc. Take it easy.”

  “There’s nothing fucking easy about this.” I hate the way my voice wavers and sounds weak. I’m not weak. I’m Lincoln Fucking Landry.

  So why do I feel like crying?

  “You don’t like the trade?”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck about the trade,” I say, more coherent than I anticipated. “Less money. New city. Opportunities. It’ll be fine. But Dani won’t go.”

  The line stills. I give Graham a second to really feel that . . . and myself a second to get back on the couch again. This time, I lie down and secure the phone against my ear with a pillow.

  “Why isn’t she going?” Graham asks.

  “She hates fucking baseball. I told you that a long time ago. Remember?”

  “But that’s not enough of a reason.”

  “And her dad is the fucking GM.”

  The sound of understanding slips by his lips and he sighs. I sigh too because I can. Because I don’t know what else to do. Because it’s not crying and is acceptable.

  “I’m sorry, Linc.”

  “Me fucking too.”

  “There’s no way to make this work? Did the Arrows offer you anything?”

  “Basically, no. I mean chicken scratch. Just a little more than average. How can I take that much of a cut, G? My entire stock, my brand, goes down if I accept that.”

  “True.”

  “I just . . . you know . . . ugh.”

  Graham takes a long minute. “The real problem—is it the trade? Or Danielle?”

  “She won’t go,” I say, sadly.

  “And you have to go.”

  I’m not sure if that’s a question or a statement. So I don’t respond.

  “You can have a job and a girl, Lincoln,” he says. “But sometimes you can’t have the job and the girl.”

  “But I want both. I need both,” I insist. “Baseball is who I am. It flows through my veins. It’s how I define my life. But she makes me feel so alive, so much more than a ballplayer,” I say, struggling to find the words through the haze of the alcohol. “I love her, Graham. I fucking love her.”

  “Then you might have to let the job go.”

  “Ah!” I yell through the room. The only light comes from the television and the blabbering idiots on the screen. It’s late. How late, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters right now except the pain stinging every aspect of my life.

  “Why don’t you sleep off whatever you’ve been drinking and see how you feel in the morning?” he suggests.

  “I’m going to feel like shit,” I sigh. “I need to go back to Arrows headquarters tomorrow and let them know which way I’m leaning. If I’m going to San Diego, they need to get the paperwork going.”

  “You okay tonight?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “We always have choices, Linc.”

  “Take that philosophy minor and shove it up your ass,” I laugh.

  Graham chuckles and releases a heavy breath. “Call me if you need anything. Or if you just want to talk.”

  I scratch my head. “You wanted to ask me something?”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” I yawn, stretching out on the sofa. My eyes get heavy, the voices on the television mute. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

  My phone tumbles to the floor as I fall in a deep, nightmare-filled sleep.

  Danielle

&n
bsp; The blinds are open. I know this without opening my eyes. I’m hesitant to do that because I can already feel that they’re swollen. My back aches from sleeping on the sofa in a wine-induced decision.

  How much wine did I even drink?

  My stomach sloshes and my head pounds in what can only be a red-wine staccato. It’s enough to be labeled as a verifiable hangover, one reason why I never drink too much. I hate this. Yet, it’s nothing, not a scrape, against the pain in my heart.

  Forcing a swallow to hopefully somehow make the tickle in the back of my throat go away, the tickle that comes right before the burn between your eyes that lets you know the tear maker is firing up. That one little movement, the bobbing of my throat, sets off a riot inside me and suddenly I’m alive and feeling every ounce of horror I expected and then some.

  As if someone set a weight on my lungs, I can’t breathe. Struggling to sit upright and not puke or press the headache into a full-fledged migraine, I battle to drag air into my body. It shouldn’t be a problem. I feel hollow.

  “Damn it,” I cry, battling the agony that is swelling up and overwhelming me. I touch my eyes. They’re swollen and so are my lips. This is an ugly cry. This is what it feels like to lose, what I’m sure, is the love of my life so he can have his.

  Still dressed in the clothes from the night before, the wine still heavy on my tongue because I apparently didn’t brush my teeth, I sit on my sofa and watch the sun come up through the bay window. There’s no beauty in it. The colors are lifeless, dull. Peace doesn’t come with the new day either and I wonder how long it will take to not wake up and think about him.

  The clock tells me it’s too early to find Pepper and I’d feel like a jerk if I woke up Macie. It’s just me. Alone. And damn it if it doesn’t feel unbearable.

  I miss his arms around me and the way he tugged me closer to him. The way his eyes looked when he woke up and his sleepy, sweet smile. The smell of him. The feel of his breath on my cheek. The way his laugh made me feel like the world was splashed with a rainbow.

  The tears come, dripping off my chin. With each drop comes a new flurry of despair and I feel myself starting to fall off a cliff. My phone is on the table in front of me and I pick it up and call Macie.