The Pitcher's Swing and a Kiss

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Cassidy

“You should always go to other people’s funerals, or they won’t come to yours.”

Yogi Berra

Two Months Earlier …

Nobody teaches you how to grieve when your world ends overnight.

If they did, I doubt the manual would include: Make sure your waterproof mascara can handle a full-body breakdown, or Schedule a content post between sobbing fits.

But this was my life now—heartbroken, exhausted, and standing in front of my camera because the algorithm didn’t care that I was grieving.

GRWM for my father’s funeral. My voice barely cracked as I hit record.

“Good morning, everyone!” I said to my phone, recording a video for my Cassventures page.

My social media page started out in college with things my friends dared me to do.

It was created for adventurers and then turned to authentic parts of my life.

How life was chaos but you could make it more fun.

My followers were young men and women at first, but then my following shifted to all ages.

Then, it doubled and tripled, and now I had a following large enough that it’s my full-time job.

Most days, it was amazing, but when dealing with grief, it was hard to be a content creator with a smile.

I hadn’t posted in days, and my finances were taking a hit.

“Today is a big day for me. If you’re following along, you know my dad’s funeral is today. I’ve had a lot of comments saying I seem too happy, or I’m making this up for views. Let me assure you: smiles and dark jokes are not a sign of happiness.”

I paused the video and bit back tears. There were none left that morning, so this bout of them annoyed me.

My poor eyes could only handle so many tears.

I had cerulean, blue eyes, which often worked in my favor with men and my job, but crying?

Oof. The whites turned bright red, and it looked like I’d been smoking for days on end.

I wished that did something for me. Maybe it’d help with the crushing pain.

“Today, I’m going for a neutral foundation but with some contour and highlight to make it look like I haven’t been holed up in a closet crying for the last two weeks. I have. Ask my man, Mathias. I haven’t seen the light of day in days.”

“Don’t bring me into this.”

Mathias stood out of sight in my kitchen, his familiar grumble making me roll my eyes.

My fans loved Mathias, yet Mathias did not love my fans.

He made his opinion on my career very clear, yet he’d occasionally let me film him because he knew I loved it.

We’d been together for two years, and the idea of marriage seemed more and more likely.

Hell, I thought he was going to propose last month, but then my dad died suddenly, and it derailed everything.

“Oh, Mathias, my lovely, handsome man. For those of you watching at home, my ever-so-supportive boyfriend is wearing an Armani tux—all black, with a Sedona red scarf in his pocket. You all know my dad’s favorite thing in the world, besides me, obviously, was the Arizona Gila Monsters.

So today, we’re all wearing a pop of Sedona red in his honor. ”

I flashed the camera to Mathias, but he jumped out of view.

Weird. He normally pushed me in front of the camera and always wanted his face to be shown.

“Anyway, as I cry and put on waterproof makeup, let me tell you the best thing about my dad. My favorite memory was the first time he took me to the Gila Monsters Ballpark…”

My video had millions of views and thousands of comments by the time we arrived at the cemetery.

Back when I started, the thrill of a notification could last me hours.

Now it was a business, and none of it touched the hollow ache in my chest. The instant gratification of a like felt shallow, not enough, and I missed the early days when everything felt new.

The church service was short—mercifully so—but the crowd surprised me.

I expected a handful of people, maybe the same few who’d checked in me right after the news spread.

Instead, the place was packed. Strangers in worn baseball caps and sun-faded polos came up to me with tears in their eyes, calling my dad “one of the good ones,” “irreplaceable,” and “the heart of the stadium.” I smiled and nodded, assuming they were just die-hard fans who recognized me from my channel, but the grief in their voices was real.

They weren’t here for me. They were here for him.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I was too numb, too tired.

But later, I’d wonder about all those faces I didn’t know—and the version of my dad they did.

They didn’t know him as the single dad who did everything in his life to make me happy, the guy who didn’t blink twice when my mother left when I was barely one years old.

It still didn’t seem real that he’d crashed his car and died.

It felt like someone else’s life, not mine.

Like it was a horrific joke without a punchline.

When I went to his condo, he still had a mug of coffee on the table, like he was going to come home and warm it up in the microwave.

He always warmed it up instead of making a new cup, and it was repulsive.

He loved the bitter, acidic taste of coffee after it had been sitting for hours.

Once, he made a pot of coffee on a Monday and tried to warm it up for me on a Wednesday.

I snorted, and Mathias glanced at me. “My dad was weird.”

His tight smile didn’t reach his eyes, but he patted my hand. “Yes, but he was a good man.”

That he was, through and through.

The April sun warmed my face as we stood outside the burial plot we’d chosen for my dad.

Birds chirped, and there was a light breeze that ruffled my hair.

I loved the shift from Phoenix’s version of winter to summer, where the sun was stronger.

My dad would drag me to spring training games with a bingo sheet of all the things we’d see.

The smell of fresh-cut grass and sunscreen would always remind me of him.

It didn’t smell like memories now, though. It smelled like dirt and almost like … whiskey? What? I frowned and leaned closer to my boyfriend. “Do you have a flask?”

He was always in control and drinking in public was not normal for him. Something was very wrong.

He sighed and pinched his nose, a tell-tale sign he was stressed.

He’d supported me a lot the last few weeks, being my rock, and a wave of appreciation washed over me.

I ran a hand down his arm and leaned into him.

He’d be a great husband, a great partner one day. “Thank you. I love you so much, and—”

“I can’t do this anymore, Cassidy.” He removed my hand from his arm and stepped away from me. My gut tightened with unease. I knew this was hard on him too, and I’d been so caught up in crying that I hadn’t been a good girlfriend. I’d turned inward when he needed me too.

“I know this is hard. You loved my dad too. I can … finish this myself. Do you want to wait in the car?” I swallowed down the annoyance.

All we had to do was lower the casket into the ground, and I’d toss a baseball in there with him that I signed.

So the fact Mathias couldn’t hold it together for ten more minutes felt silly and selfish.

But that was him—he bailed when things got heavy.

When I was stressed, when my dad was sick, when anything required him to sit in the discomfort for more than a minute.

I used to tell myself it was just how he coped, that his calm detachment balanced out my chaos.

But standing there, next to the open grave, it didn’t feel like balance anymore. It just felt like being alone.

“I don’t mean the funeral.” He rubbed his lips together as his large brown eyes met mine. They were wet and pained. “I mean with you.”

“We’re gathered here today to say goodbye to Jackson Calloway, a devoted father, friend, free spirit, business owner, and avid baseball fan…”

The words of the priest trailed off as Mathias ran a hand over his face. My emotions had been all over the place as of late, but there was no way he was breaking up with me right now surrounded by all these grieving people.

My dad was about to be lowered into the green earth and he was breaking up with me. This was real. Not a dream.

“Jackson wanted everyone here to know that his love is forever, and you can find it at a baseball game, where the smell of popcorn and the sound of the bat hitting the ball are him reminding you he’s near.”

Pretty sure my heart stopped beating as my stomach plummeted into the ground.

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to do it here, but things have been off, and you always ask for honesty from me, Cass.

I’m not happy anymore.” Mathias shoved his hands into the pockets of the suit I bought him four months ago.

We made out in the dressing room, and he told me how much he loved me as he kissed down my neck.

Could someone be unhappy that fast? Did life work that way?

He cuddled me and rubbed my head until I fell asleep last week. He made me dinner and fed me when I was so sad, I couldn’t get up. Was that fake? Was he pretending?

“I love you, but I don’t want to be with you anymore. I wish I could’ve done this better, but there wasn’t a right time. I’m sorry for the timing—”

“Jackson asked for everyone to place a dollar or coin near his casket, so he can use it to buy into a poker game in the next life, where he plans to school God’s ass in Texas Hold’Em.”

While my life imploded around me, my brain acted out in the only way it knew how—social media posts.

You think you can hurt me? My boyfriend broke up with me as my dad was being put into the earth.

Get ready with me to pick out the outfit that would be the final goodbye to my dad and my partner.

Outfit of the day: Does my black suit hide my destroyed heart?