Finding Us (2 page)

Goals are great things to have.
When I was ten, my goal was to be the next Eminem. Uh, guess the music industry only had room for one white boy rapper. When I was fifteen, I made a goal to start as a freshman on the varsity team, which I succeeded in doing. At eighteen, I’d made a goal to bench press 225 pounds and met it. And in college I had a goal to strike out three batters a game. I met it too. So other than my failed music career, I’d achieved each and every goal I made.

My goal now was to get El back. And I was going to meet it no matter what it took.

After I realized she’d left, I called her cell and left a message telling her that it wasn’t over, it’d just begun. I hoped she knew I was serious because I was not used to losing at anything and I was not giving up. Not that she was a game. I just knew what I wanted and what I wanted was her back.

The rest of that day has now become blurred in my mind. I do remember showering because I smelled like I’d marinated in bourbon for the past ten hours, which I
guess I practically had, and I couldn’t stand the stench anymore. I remember sitting on the bed afterward with a towel around my waist and staring at the wall for an hour. I remember Alessandra banging on my door wanting to talk to me, but not answering because I didn’t want to deal with the bitch any more than I had to.

And
I remember my phone ringing and me running into the living room scrambling around to find where I’d left it, stubbing my toe on the coffee table in the process, and cussing out God, underwear models and agents who screwed up everything. I also remember answering the phone, “El!” only to have it be one of my coaches telling me we were having a meeting in the morning.

Fuck.

But everything else about the rest of the day is a big black hole. I don’t think I ate anything. I don’t even think I bothered getting dressed. And how I ended up in bed, I have no idea. I just know I missed her, and I fucking hated the empty space beside me where she should’ve been.

The next day, I remembered I had
balls and sucked it up and went to the team meeting.

“Dude, you look like hammered shit,” Logan said
from where he sat when I walked into the clubhouse.

I shot him a
don’t fuck with me
look and he grinned. Bastard.

“You guys get shit worked out?” he asked without looking up at me as he oiled his catcher’s mitt.

I clenched my teeth and sat down, not wanting to draw attention to myself. Rodriguez, the third baseman, narrowed his eyes at me as if trying to figure out what was wrong. Then Baxter, another catcher who’d just walked in, turned to stare at me too.

“What?” I
hissed, glaring at both of them, daring them to say one fucking word.

As
Rodriguez went to sit down, he put his hands up out to the side in surrender letting me know he wasn’t going to get involved which was a good damned thing. But Baxter still stood there and kept staring.

“
What?
” I asked again, this time clenching my fists. He wanted to mess with me, I’d give him whatever fight he wanted.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

I grunted out a half chuckle, pissed that he was getting all up in my business. “Nothing,” I replied as I looked back at him.

“C’mon, man. You’re always in a good mood and now you’re not. What happened?”

“Leave it alone,” I warned.

“I’m just trying to help,” he explained.

“Look, if I wanted your help, I would’ve asked for it. Leave it the fuck alone.” I leaned back in my chair pulling my cap down over my eyes and crossing my arms over my chest showing him that I was finished with the conversation as several of the other players came in.

“Jag, I’ve been married for ten years. I know that look. If you—”

And I’d had it.

I jumped up out of my chair and walked over getting up in his face. “I said, leave it the fuck alone! I need you
r help, I’ll fucking ask. Christ!” I walked out, heading down the hallway that led out to the field. Once on the field, I walked out to the pitcher’s mound, turned to face home plate, and closed my eyes taking in all the sounds and smells around me. I swear, that was the only place where I truly felt as if everything was okay.

I’d heard other pitchers over the past year talking about how nervous they got when they approached the mound, wondering how they’d perform that night, but I’d never felt that way. The mound was the one place where I felt totally at ease, as if I was born to do this. I know it sounds cheesy, but othe
r than the times I was with El, it was the one place I felt real.

God
. I didn’t need to get into my problems with any of those guys. Dumbass Baxter with all his wanting to share bullshit. What were we, a couple of chicks? Next thing I knew, he’d be wanting to have sleepovers and talk about our feelings as we painted each other’s fingernails.

“Jensen!” I heard echoing out of the ramp to the clubhouse.

I opened my eyes to see my pitching coach standing there. “Yeah, Coach?” I hollered back.

“Get your ass in here! Team meeting in five!”

Now that I could deal with. Another man yelling at me as if I were a man, not wanting to get cozy and shit. I walked off the mound then jogged over to the ramp to go inside for the meeting.

“Hey, I wasn’t trying to get
in your business, kid. Just wanted you to know that if you need anything, I’m here for you.” That was Baxter after the meeting being nice to me after I’d acted like a total dick toward him.

I got up with a sigh and walked over to him. “Sorry, Bax. Just got a lot of shit going on right now and didn’t feel like talking.”

“I understand.” He looked at his watch. “Got time to get a beer? Amanda’s at one of those Mommy’s Day Out things and my folks have the kids.”

This guy did not give up. But I realized he was just trying to help. “Sure, why not?”

We walked together out of the clubhouse to the parking lot.

“Follow me. That is if you can keep up.” He grinned at me as he pointed his
key ring at an Ruf RT 12, unlocking the doors with a beeping sound.

“That’s yours?”
I asked looking at him in shock. I’d seen it in the parking lot once before, having had total car envy when I did, but didn’t think to ask whose it was, and he was the last guy I’d think owned it because of his quiet demeanor.

He grinned bigger then. “Hell yeah.
Gotta have something to play with other than my four kids.”

I raised an eyebrow. Damn. “Four kids and you’ve been married ten years?”

He shrugged, still grinning. “Amanda loves my di—uh, she loves kids. What can I say?” He cracked up at the look on my face which I’m sure was one of even more shock at his candidness.

Hm. I liked this guy. I’d only talked to him a couple times before, but nothing serious, just ball.

“We’re going to Zeb’s,” he said, giving me the address before getting in his car and revving the engine. Oh, yeah. Total car envy going on with me now.

Before I even got
in my Camaro and started it, he was out of the parking lot. Yep. Definitely had to get me something like that.

“It’s a trip, kid,” Baxter said
as he wiped the foam from his beer off his mustache.

I nodded as I took a drink then s
et my bottle on the table. We’d been talking a little about his family. He had three boys and a girl between the ages of two and nine.

“How do you do it?” I asked, meaning maintaining a relationship along with playing ball.

“Lots of patience. Lots of compromise. I’m telling you, the first year in the majors, Amanda was ready to leave me, which just about killed me. Made practice shit. Games shittier. She was two months pregnant with our first boy, which I didn’t know about yet, when she tried to leave me. We had to find the balance. Think that’s probably what you’re gonna have to do.”

I sighed, peeling at the label on my bottle. “I think it’s too late for that. I’ve tried calling her at least ten times since last night and she won’t answer.”

He took another slug from his bottle, setting it down then asked, “She worth it? Like, she the one? Or is she just the one right now?”

My head shot up and my eyes sliced to his quickly
, ready to answer defensively in the affirmative to the first part, in the negative to the latter, but when I saw that the look on his face wasn’t challenging I calmed down and thought about what he was asking.
Was
El the one? I’d always thought she was. I mean, I never thought of us ever being apart, but Baxter was sitting across from me being so patient, waiting while I thought his question over, so I took my time to run some things through my head.

I loved her. That I knew.
I hated her not being here, that I also knew. But was she the one?

I took a deep breath then said, “I always
thought she was, well, since we started dating. We’ve known each other since we were little and she’s always been in my life; I’ve never even thought of
not
having her in my life in some way.” I looked him right in the eye when I said the next part. “I love her more than I ever thought I could love someone.”

H
e nodded as he looked down and now peeled at the label on his beer.

When he sat there for a minute not saying anything, I grew impatient.
“What?” I asked.

“That’s good,” he
replied cryptically, nodding some more. “Now, tell me what happened.”

Since
I’d begun to feel comfortable with him, figuring out that he really was just trying to help, or at least I hoped that was the case, I spilled my guts. Scratching the scruff on my cheek for a couple seconds, I began telling him everything that’d happened, from the first commercial with Alessandra to when I came home from the party, which led to our fight, which ended with El’s leaving.

When I finished, h
e sat there looking pensive then took another drink before holding his bottle up at the waiter, the signal for him to bring us another. “Sounds just like Amanda and me when we first started out.”

I raised my eyebrows at him
actually feeling comforted knowing that I might not be the only asshole who’d gone through this.

“Yeah, it was
touch and go with us there for a while,” he explained looking perturbed with himself. “But our story’s a little different from yours. I, uh, cheated on her.”

This got another eyebrow raise from me
and a pulling back of my head in surprise. Wow. I guess I
really
wasn’t the only asshole who’d gone through this.

T
he waiter brought us our beers then he continued. “Yeah, I’m a dumbass, I know. But I’m sure you understand where I’m coming from. I mean, here I was, twenty-two, a millionaire, and a pro baseball player almost overnight. Talk about an ego rush. Hard to know at that age what to do with that shit.

“
Amanda and I met in college our sophomore year, University of Oklahoma. She was the gorgeous sorority girl who came from money, and I was the poor kid on a baseball scholarship just trying to keep my fucking grades up so I could play ball. The minute I saw her, I was struck dumb.”

I chuckled at that remembering how my teeth had almost fallen out when I’d seen El
at her house that day my senior year and realized she’d grown up to be so beautiful.

“
Think you get what I’m talking about, yeah? Anyway, she wouldn’t give me the time of day. I tried everything just short of stalking her. Actually, I think what I ended up doing probably would translate into stalking,” he stated with a laugh. “Now, don’t get me wrong. She wasn’t a snob or anything. She did fundraisers for charities, worked at the food kitchen during the holidays and was a big sister at the local boys and girls club, so she was anything but a rich bitch. But she had a boyfriend, some fucking Poindexter, who’s probably making more money than I am now. And the girl’s anything if not loyal, so it took an act of God to finally get us together.”

I
was curious now, asking what he’d done to win her over.

“
Well, I pissed her off but good one night when her sorority was having some kind of mixer. I got invited by a girl from my high school who I was good friends with who knew I had the hots for Amanda. She’d tried talking Amanda into giving me a chance, but she’d have nothing to do with it. Like I said, loyal. So I approached her at this party, telling her that I was gonna go pro some day and could keep her fine ass in diamonds and pearls and all that she was used to having, thinking that’d impress her, and then I added that she should drop her boyfriend and give me a chance. I’ll tell you, the look she gave me made me feel about this tall.” He held his hand up, his thumb and finger about a half inch apart. “So I realized money wasn’t the key to getting through to her. I’m sure you can guess what I did next.”

At the same time, we both said, “Became a big brother,” and we both laughed.

He took his cap off and with the hand holding it, rubbed his head with the heel of his palm then with a hand on the back and one holding the bill put it back on. “Pretty smooth, huh? You’d better be taking notes, boy.”