Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
COLBY
I’m tired of hiding.
Everyone knows now. I mean, I guess it was obvious before, and everyone knew then.
So obvious it disrupted an entire ballclub.
Apparently. But now that I’ve been reprimanded and tucked into the abyss of Sweetwater, working with the black sheep of the team and the catcher’s son who has a massive chip on his shoulder, I might as well have a sign on my back that reads: Fucked Around and Found Out. Literally.
“What can I get ya?” Daisy slides a napkin toward me, and I pull my gaze away from Jayden at the other end of the bar to meet her warm smile.
“I want the cheap stuff that tastes like the expensive stuff,” I say.
She chuckles and nods, pulling a mug from beneath the bar and pouring me a cold one.
“On the house,” she says.
I quirk a brow and pull the beer toward me, taking a sip as I eye her over the rim.
“Oh-kayyyyy?”
It’s not my birthday, so the only other feasible reason for this gesture must be the sad-sack look on my face.
“Haven’t you heard?” she says.
My stomach sinks. Information I get like this tends to blindside me in a bad way.
“Nope.” I set my beer down and draw a line down the frosted side with the tip of my finger.
“What was it that they called her on SportsCenter?” she hollers down the bar to Brooks, who is sitting with Jayden and a few of the other guys.
“Bat whisperer!” Brooks raises his mug to me, so I return the favor as my brow pulls in and my gaze shifts to Daisy.
“What the fuck is that?” I laugh out, taking a drink and pulling out my phone.
“I guess that one’s brother was doing one of those in-game interview things and said something about you unlocking his swing when he was down here for a stint. And the reporter guy said you sounded like a bat whisperer. Hon, wear that with pride. There are a lot worse things to be called.”
She’s right. And I guess Coach Bastion has called me some of them. Maybe even under his breath and to my face.
I sift through a few posts on my phone until I find the clip of Adriel with the in-game guys last night, and I turn the volume up and press my phone to my ear.
“You’ve been seeing the ball a lot better since your brief stint down in Triple-A.
Tell us, did getting suspended scare you into shape or was it something in the farm system that worked you back into shape?
You weren’t there very long, so I have to think fear more than anything.
” The guy speaking chuckles, amused at himself.
“Ha ha, yeah, you might be onto something with fear. But no, no . . . nothing like that,” Adriel says.
I’m about to abandon the clip, figuring my mention is so minor it didn’t even make the edit, when Adriel keeps going.
“Actually, there’s this coach down in Sweetwater, Coach Kessler,” he says.
My arms cover in goose bumps, and my heart is racing. I’m nervous about what he’s going to utter next.
“Right, there’s been some news about that, hasn’t there? Her dad was your high school coach or something like that?” The guy is being nice, not delving into the exaggerated rumors and less positive side of those stories.
“Yes, the other Coach Kessler,” Adriel says through a laugh.
I catch myself smiling, and hold my fingertips to my lips.
There’s a hint of younger Adriel in his voice, the big brother I wanted him to be.
He has no idea, but I spent an entire summer trying to swing like him when I was in junior high.
Turns out baseball swings and softball swings have some small but very key differences.
“Well, the Sweetwater Kessler got a lot of her dad’s brutal honesty, and she told me some sh—” The guys laugh as Adriel catches himself.
“Sorry . . . stuff that I really needed to hear about my mental game. You know, Colby Kessler had quite the college career. This league might be sleeping on a gem down there, because she fixed more about my approach at the plate in an afternoon than some of these guys did in a season.”
My mouth hangs open. I can’t believe the words that left Adriel’s mouth. No ego. I am blindsided. Shocked.
“She sounds like a bat whisperer,” the commentator says.
They all chuckle.
“Yeah, I guess in a way she is.” Adriel’s stint on-air ends with that.
I lower my phone and scroll through the hundreds of comments.
There are the usual assholes noting me being a woman, and him just trying to impress me, though they say it in a far crasser way.
But for the most part, the feedback is positive.
I even spot one of my former Ole Miss teammates commenting about how I was an exceptional leader my senior year.
“Was I right?” Daisy quirks a brow as I push my phone back in my pocket.
I shrug and take a sip from my beer. But my smirk lingers, and she nods and raps her knuckles on the bar top.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she says.
A few of the guys walk by and call me bat whisperer as they leave. For some of them, it’s funny. But a few of them genuinely believe my new endorsement.
Tired of sitting alone at the bar with only Daisy keeping me company, I decide to take the rest of my beer to the other end, taking a seat next to Brooks.
I glance over my shoulder as I sit, partly to see if Coach Bastion is watching me the way he seems to always be.
His gaze is waiting for me, so I raise my beer to him, and then, because I’m feeling a little bold, flip him off and take a drink.
“Whoa, what’s gotten into you?” Jayden chuckles as I spin around to face the bar and the giant television mounted up high.
“Haven’t you heard? I’m the bat whisperer?” I wink at him, and his mouth pulls into a telling smirk.
The three of us make small talk about the UFC fight going down on the TV, and Brooks shows us a few photos of his daughter, who is maybe the sweetest little girl I’ve ever seen.
He leaves Jayden and me alone after about fifteen minutes, and even with an entire stool empty between us, I feel the heat of assumption pouring off of the faces of everyone else in the room.
“Nobody cares, you know,” Jayden says.
I chuckle and give him a sideways glance.
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re the male. And the player. I’m . . . what did I hear someone call me the other day? The chick coach. Yeah, the rumor that you and I hooked up hits you differently than it does me.”
Jayden puts his beer down and turns to face me, leaning one arm on the bar.
“Did you basically just tell me I’m rubber and you’re glue?”
I hold his gaze for a fraction, then we laugh.
“Yeah, I guess I did,” I admit.
Jayden looks to his left, scanning the back of Earls.
“You know, Coach never said we couldn’t be a thing,” he says, rolling his neck and returning his focus to me.
“No, he said it’s a distraction, and it clouds my judgement. And then he told me it’s probably best I work with the two guys who need the most help, and we both know neither of them is going to get their shot anytime soon.”
I say that second part a little quieter because I really like Jake, and it’s not his fault he’s fighting for a spot in a really crowded position.
He also lives in a really big shadow, and it’s hard not to see the ways being Roddy McKinney’s son weighs on his playing.
If he just let go of whatever it is he’s trying to prove, perhaps there’s a really talented ballplayer waiting to break free.
“Fuck it,” Jayden says, slipping from his seat to the one directly next to me.
I straighten my spine, and he chuckles, urging me to look out at the room again.
“See? Nobody cares,” he says.
For the most part, he’s right. But Coach Bastion is still glaring at me, and he leans into the pitching coach and nods my direction to make sure he’s not the only witness. The two of them chuckle.
“The people who have a say about my career notice,” I say, slipping from my seat and dropping a twenty on the bar for Daisy.
Jayden knocks back the rest of his beer and sets his glass down next to mine.
“So, how long should I wait before I follow you out of here?”
I hold his gaze for a beat, my chest tight with frustration.
We’ve been taking turns at each other’s place for the last two weeks.
I don’t like the way any of this makes me feel.
I don’t like keeping us a secret, but I also don’t like the idle stares.
And yeah, Jayden is probably right. Most of it is in my head, but some of the judgement is real.
And I can’t help but feel stuck career-wise.
“I think maybe I need a night on my own. I’m not great company, I’m afraid,” I say.
The skin around his eyes smooths out, his dimple disappearing as his mouth straightens. Seeing him like this feels awful, so I loop my fingers into his. May as well give the audience something to look at.
“Are you mad that I said something to Adriel?” He quirks a brow, and I roll my eyes.
“I figured he didn’t come up with that all on his own. What did you have to promise him? A kidney?”
Jayden shakes his head, his smile faint, almost as if he’s holding back something.
“I didn’t promise him anything. I just asked that he give credit where it’s due. And to be honest, I didn’t think he’d actually listen to me,” he says through a harder laugh. His gaze drifts off to the side for a beat, and when it comes back to me, his expression has grown a little more serious.
“Those were his words, Colby. He meant them. You should know that. He meant them. And you . . . you are really fucking good at what you do.”
I fill my lungs and hold the air in for several seconds as I swim in Jayden’s attention.
It is nice in here. I like the warm glow of the way he looks at me.
It’s partly what makes me so angry that we still have these rules placed around us.
It isn’t fair. We’ve both waited so long to simply be honest with one another, and to give in to the way we feel.
And now that we have, we’re supposed to just, what . . . not express it?
“I’m heading to Chicago,” he says, and everything in my world rocks.
I blink wildly.
“I’m sorry. What?”
Every muscle in my body is calcifying at once, and the earth is shaking under my feet. I didn’t hear that right. No way I heard that right.
Jayden blows out what appears to be an entire week’s worth of tension, then stands up so we’re toe-to-toe.
“There was an opportunity,” he begins.
I shake him off, though, because I’m not buying it right out of the gate.
“Please say you aren’t leaving to make this easier on me.”
He squints and licks his lips as his gaze dips for a minute, and I know from years of staring at this exact expression that he’s bluffing. I push his chest, and he catches my wrists as our eyes lock.
“Jayden, I can handle whatever happens. If I get booted back to college softball, fine,” I grit.
Jayden glances around us, then nods toward the exit. “We should take this outside.”
I let my head fall to the side and my lip snarls. “I thought people didn’t give a shit about us.”
He blinks repeatedly and shakes his head with a faint grin.
“They don’t. But everyone loves a good fight. And I feel like you’re about to kick my ass.”
I stare at him for a solid handful of seconds, ignoring the playful smirk he put on, then spin around, snagging my phone and wallet from the bar top before storming out to the busy parking lot and humid night air. Jayden is right on my tail, though.
“Are you seriously asking for a trade? Now? Right now? When we just . . .”
Tears prick the corners of my eyes, and every stress needle that’s been chipping away at my outer shell breaks through at once.
Jayden cups my face, steadying me, and holds his forehead to mine. His hair is still damp from his post-game shower, damn it! If he goes to Chicago, how will I ever feel the cool touch of his wet hair? Smell the soap on his body? Feel the pounding of his heart under my palms?
I push my hands against him, but he holds me in. I give in quickly, my hands moving up the back of his team hoodie. I tug at the fabric.
“Can I keep this?” I say.
He chuckles and nods, dusting my lips with a soft kiss.
“Yeah, you can keep it. But I have to say, Colby . . . I don’t think you’re going to need Mavericks gear for long.”
I roll my eyes at him and flop my head into his chest.
“Why, because I’m still getting fired?”
He laughs and kisses the top of my head, then coaxes my face out of his chest and lifts my chin so I’m staring into his perfect brown eyes.
“Because what Adriel said was real. And because you deserve every shot they’re going to give to you. It’s a good thing you never got an apartment, Colby. I think you’ll be heading to Texas soon.”