Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Olivia POV
Sunday Morning
I tightened my grip on the baked goodies I'd driven several miles to procure. An extra stop on top of the food run for the temporary male roommates I'd acquired. I swallowed and knocked on Hilda's bedroom door. Waited in my stewing, acidic whirlwind of 'I don't want her to be mad at me. But wait, why is she mad at me?' It went round and round and round again. I knocked an extra time.
“I don't want to talk to you.” Hilda's voice traveled through the door.
“But I brought coffee,” I entreated. “And a chocolate croissant. Your favorite.”
The door opened. Greedy hands snatched the peace offering from my grip. The door shut again. “Really?” I shouted and slammed the flat of my hand against the door.
It wedged open. “Fine, you can come in. But you'll listen first.”
Hot and cold washed over my skin, but I put on my game face. “Yes ma'am,” I said as I moved into her room. I sat on the end of her bed.
“There is a man in your room.”
I gasped and felt my face burn. “What do you?—”
“He is flesh and blood. A human person. He was born a helpless infant. Raised, cared for, loved by his parents. He lives, now, but will, like us all, die someday.”
A burning feeling swallowed my stomach whole. The air buzzed around me.
“He is not just some baseball player. Like superheroes who don’t have kryptonite. He's injured. It could be serious, Livia, if he doesn't take adequate care, and get the time he needs to recover.”
“Yes, but?—”
“Your brain leaks out of your ear every time you're around this stupid sport. You can't think of anything else! And it is getting tiresome, chica. Your whole existence revolves around nothing but baseball. And I don't get it.”
I studied my hands. How could I explain it? When my whole world fell apart, when I was so afraid . . . When my mom got tired and left us behind, Curt and I had baseball. “It's my med school, I guess.” I didn't really understand what drove her so hard to be a doctor, but I was nothing but proud of her.
“No.” She shook her head. “It isn't. Because we're taught to help people. What are you doing, Liv? What are you really doing ?”
Tears pricked my eyes. I blinked and shoved the emotion aside.
“You chase this dream of what, scouting? Does watching other people play a sport really bring meaning to your life? They chase their dreams, while you sit on the sidelines. What, judging? Is that what really lights you up inside?”
My chest squeezed. I wouldn’t look at her.
“Your brother played , Liv. He saw his dream to fruition. He helps others achieve goals similar to his. But you?” She gestured with her hands in some overly dramatic fashion. “You chase after your brother and father while they scream at you to do something else. Anything else. And the more they say: go be who Olivia Milline is, find your own path and your own dream. The more determined you are to just adopt their leftover shit as your life's treasure.”
The anxious churning inside me froze—from my stomach all the way to my throat.
“My parents only want me to follow their path. But you.” She shook her head, eyes cast down. “You have everything I wish I could have. You're not on scholarship or work study. I'm mortgaging my future with loans.”
“Right.” I pressed my lips together and locked my retort inside. You lived in a house on my same block and your dad bought you anything, everything, you wanted.
“Your father wants you to choose your own career. Mine only wants me to take over his restaurants.” She paused and looked at me, those hazel eyes changed from the ones I'd known for years into a strangers’ eyes. “And here you are.”
I stood. My game face splintered, I straightened my shoulders. I didn't hide my tears, and I didn't disguise the contempt she deserved. “Yes, here I am. Pursuing a dream no one wants me to achieve. That the world out there says is next to impossible.” I pointed at the door. “Pursuing a goal no one in my family seems to understand. I thought we had that in common,” I sneered and picked up my bag from the floor. “I didn't realize how wrong I was.”
I spun on my heel and stormed out, throwing her door shut behind me. I left them all behind: Hilda, Coop, Antonio. I left and didn't know where I was going.
But I left before I screamed, sobbed, threw things, said something I would regret.
All of the above.
With no destination in mind, I walked. In the chilled November morning air, hoody clutched close, a baseball discovered in the side pocket of my backpack. My feet carried me across campus to the open practice field.
No one would be around on a Sunday morning, which was . . . exactly what I needed. I had a habit most people didn't know about. Only my brother knew that when I was anxious or pissed off, I would pitch.
There was something altogether perfect about pitching. I could understand why my brother had fallen in love with it. Although I'm sure he had to get away from the anger-fueled power at some point.
Or maybe he didn't, and that was his problem.
I couldn't pitch like him. Hell, I could barely pitch reasonably close to the speed a competitive fourteen-year-old boy could. But the power let me work through the anger.
And then the desire for control would take over, forcing my brain into a more logical space. When I achieved the command over my pitch that I wanted, that's when I knew I was 'better'. I was past the surge of emotional upset, could think and see at least somewhat rationally, again.
I only had one baseball and a backstop, but I could make do. “I need to get my own bucket of balls to keep, somewhere.” Wouldn't have helped right now. I stretched and loosened my shoulder, arm. Air ruffled the neck of my shirt. I stood with both feet on the rubber. A deep breath in, I stepped and raised my arms toward my shoulder, lifting my left leg at the same time. I balanced for a brief instant, went back to starting position. I really needed to get back into the habit, I was rusty. And after I'd spent so many years perfecting my curveball . . .
I breathed, raised my arms, drawing up my leg at the same time. I didn't think, just stepped long, whipping my arm through the air to deliver the pitch. It was stupid high and absolutely horrible. It clanged against the backstop and dropped.
I jogged to pick it up, then back to the mound.
Setup. Eyes closed as the wind swept across my cheeks. Hilda's face swam before my eyes. I snarled as I wound up, stepped and threw. Retrieved the ball. I shouted as I released the pitch. High and outside.
Again.
I went through my mechanics, until it was almost as natural as breathing. The windup, the grip. My step. The release. And in between it all, I shouted and screamed and raged—at Hilda, Schorr, my father, the universe. Coop.
And then it was there. That crystalline moment of clarity. I threw and watched it break across the strike zone. Threw again and hit the low outside corner.
Hilda was right about Coop, but she was wrong about me. And no matter how Coop, Breslin, had treated a reporter named Liv Milline—he'd been rude and abrasive, no lie. But when we had just been strangers, and even when I was hurting, he'd been kind.
The truth was: I wanted to know him. Not just stats about some amazing ballplayer, but who Breslin was.
I wound up and threw a sweeper. It dropped low and exited the strike zone before it crossed the plate. Damn.
“That was a solid break, Miss Reporter. Dropped a bit low, but the mechanics are there.” A deep voice materialized behind me. I spun around and found: “Tanner Meyers.”
A strange, lopsided smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Liv Milline. We have met before.”
I forced a laugh. “It's Sunday. Aren't you supposed to be resting the arm?”
“Resting is relative. But you know already know that.” He tugged at his ballcap. “I don't think I've met anyone, aside from a coach or a scout, maybe? Who knows so much about all the aspects of the game.”
I squirmed inside my own skin. “Thanks?”
“Catch a few?” He threw me his glove.
I held up the well-worn black leather pitcher's glove. “I'll pass. I like having all the bones in my hand, you know, unbroken.”
“I just need the mobility work.” He rolled his left shoulder in widening circles. “I won't hurt you.”
I shrugged. “You did your warm up already?”
“While watching your pitching exhibition? Sure did, coach.”
My face burned and I was one hundred percent positive I was a tomato. “You can just call me Liv you know.”
He grinned and tapped the rim of his cap. I hurried over to home plate, picked up my ball and turned. I couldn't help but feel a teensy bit giddy. I hadn't played catch since my internship ended, months ago. I'd watched, “judged” even, but not picked up a ball in so long.
He pitched from the stretch. Left foot on the rubber, facing first base. His movements crisp and powerful, he went through his delivery, but held back on his extension. I winced. Something about it was wrong. But he didn't ask for pointers.
He threw a handful more, no more than a dozen total pitches. I met him on the first base line and handed back his ball and glove. “This was enlightening, we should do it again sometime.”
I shrugged. “You should probably ask someone with a catcher's mitt. I was never that good at fielding.”
He nodded and adjusted his ballcap on his head. “Can't blame a guy for trying.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Depends on why he's trying.”
“Does it?”
“To me?” I zipped my baseball into my backpack. “Yeah, it does.”
“Fair enough. You did all your research on us, I figured I'd do a little on you.” He squinted in the direction of the sun, then dropped his gaze.
“Oh yeah?” I kept my game face frozen in place. Even as my stomach dipped low, out of the strike zone. “How'd that turn out?”
“A little surprising.” He tilted his head from side to side. “A little not wholly unexpected.”
“No? Well, now I'm intrigued. You didn't find out that I was a terrible outfielder in third grade did you? Rode the bench most of my playable softball years before switching to track. Oh, whoops.” I pulled my backpack over my arm.
“I bet you were cute at that age. Long braids and missing teeth.” One eyebrow lifted. “Or was it pigtails?”
“Braids all the way. But certainly my cute days aren't all in the past.”
“Fraid so.” He shook his head. “You grew up. Nothing cute about a woman like you.”
I sucked in a breath. “Oh, so you really did do your homework.”
“Quite the baseball pedigree you have for a reporter.” He crossed his arms. “And you pitch like your brother.”
“He taught me, sure. But no one pitches like him.”
He cleared his throat. “The style's the same. I see the similarity in mechanics. I study.”
Clearly, that was no exaggeration.
“Shame he couldn't make it back.”
“He says it happens. His recovery didn’t go as well as the doctors’ hoped. But, I don't think he should give up.”
His mouth curved. “Seems kinda strange to me that you don't tell people. Coach knows who you are. You could keep it to your brother as a legacy.”
“Which inevitably leads to his IML career and Silver Arrow win. Followed by injury, early retirement, and inevitably, his role as a scout.”
He nodded. “Sure would make being a baseball reporter easier, though, right?”
I shrugged. “It's not like I hide it. You all know my name. And Google knows all.”
“Reporters are a necessary part of the baseball world. Y'all capture our greatest moments for posterity.” He ducked his head. “But you're not in the game.”
“Until I find another thirty miles an hour on my fastball and lose a portion of a chromosome, I'll never be in the game. That's how the world works for a woman born into a baseball family.”
He grinned. The bastard had the nerve to give me some brilliant, winning smile that made me consider whether I could get away with smacking him.
“I should, ah, get back, got some stuff to catch up on.”
He caught my elbow before I could get away. I wished I still had his glove so I could use it as a mild weapon. He leaned over my shoulder. “I like this. Knowing your secret. Having your attention. You're always so focused on Coop.” His lip curled up. “That volatile, unprincipled?—”
I turned to face him. “Don't talk about your teammate that way. You both need to get over your rivalry, put on big boy pants and get along. If you think scouts don't pay attention to what kind of team player you are, think again.”
“I'd love to know more about what baseball scouts are looking for. In future major leaguers.” His eyes appeared almost golden in the mid-morning sunlight. I held my breath as he regarded me with a heavy-lidded stare.
“I'm not. I don't?—”
“Got time for lunch tomorrow?”
I opened my mouth to tell him—Oh God, what did I need to tell him?