Playing the Field: A Diamonds and Dugouts Novel (29 page)

The catcher chewed on his idea and grinned. “Skywriting. You could tell her sorry or that you love her or something with a big message in the sky.” He looked questioningly at his woman. “That should do the trick, don’t you think?”

Lorelei smiled weakly and patted his shoulder. “Sure thing, baby.” To JP she shook her head as she spoke, green eyes round with warning and then silently mouthed, “No.”

Yeah, he didn’t think so either. “I’ll keep that suggestion in mind.”

He could tell Mark really liked his idea. “You should, bro. Even if you don’t use it this time, there’s bound to be others.”

Not if he could help it. One thing JP didn’t do was make the same mistake twice. “Will do.”

Lorelei spotted the tray filled with coffee just then and practically leapt off Mark’s lap for it. “Hot damn, there’s coffee.” She rubbed her hands together and said to him, “If you tell me that one of those is a triple-shot then I promise to name our first born after you.”

The woman really wanted that coffee. “There’s a triple-shot mocha in there. It should be marked on the side if you look.”

Snatching a cup, she read the side and smiled like a woman reunited with her long lost love. “Oh, dear coffee, how I love and have missed you.” Turning the topic back to Sonny, JP said, “Mark does raise a good question, Lorelei. Do you think she would respond well to an overblown gesture?” It wasn’t really his style, but he’d give it a shot if there was the chance it would win her back.

She considered while she sipped her triple-shot mocha. “I don’t know, honestly. I’ve only been around her a few times, but she didn’t strike me as the over-the-top kind.”

JP agreed. “She’s not.” Sonny was natural and sweet and simple in the best way.

Lorelei inhaled the rich aroma and sighed dreamily. “Then maybe you should consider it.”

What? Wait. Why would he do it if Sonny wasn’t that kind of woman? She wasn’t Mark’s sister Leslie. “Back up there a ways. You think I should do something big and overblown to win her back?”

She replied, “Do you think anyone ever has for her?”

Good point.

Mulling it over, JP was about to stand when Mark spoke up. “Mostly, dude, you just need to be honest with her. Let her know what your motivations are so that she doesn’t continue thinking that you were just being an asshole.”

Right. Okay. Not an asshole and big gesture. Got it.

There was just one tiny little problem. He grimaced. “I was kind of an asshole, though.”

Mark shot him a look, one eyebrow arched. “Aren’t we all sometimes, man?”

Lorelei held up her hands. “Amen to that.”

The catcher snagged her around the waist and pulled her in for a kiss. “That’s what makes us so great, sugar. If a guy isn’t an asshole once in a while then it’s because he’s a pussy.”

JP had to agree with that assessment. “Sounds like you’re saying that I shouldn’t let that stop me.”

“I didn’t let it stop me.” Mark pointed out. “Do you see where I am now?”

Yeah. In a plush-ass condo with a beautiful fiancée. It didn’t suck to be Mark Cutter.

Didn’t suck to be him either. He just needed to work on the whole getting-Sonny-to-forgive-him thing.

“Well, thanks for letting me crash your pad, Mark.” It was time to get going so he could think on what was said.

“Anytime, brother.”

About to stand up, JP felt the phone in his pocket vibrate and frowned. He didn’t remember turning the volume off. Reaching into a front pocket, he pulled out his phone and saw that he’d missed a call. He was about to put the cell away when he noticed the number.

It was Sonny.

The woman hadn’t spoken to him in two weeks and he’d been calling regularly. Looks like she’d finally decided to talk to him. Maybe she was already starting to forgive him.

JP glanced at Mark. “Do you mind if I check a message? Sonny just called.”

Lorelei waved a hand. “Of course not.”

Quickly connecting to voicemail, JP felt the leap in his pulse at the announcement that he had one new message. Maybe she wanted to talk. The important thing to note was that she’d broken her silence and had reached out. That meant something.

Placing his free hand over his exposed ear, JP strained to listen as the message began to play. What he heard took him by surprise. It wasn’t Sonny. It was Charlie.

What he heard made his heart sink. “I thought we were friends.” The boy started angrily and defiant. “You said you were my friend and that you wanted to be in my life, but you’re nothing but a liar.”

JP frowned and continued listening. “You told me you would come to my game. You
promised.
I looked for you the whole game and you never showed up.”

The kid took a breather and he thought the message was ending, but then it went on. “We were supposed to be a team. Isn’t that what you said when you told me about you and my mom? That you wanted to be a part of our team? I believed you.”

The pain in Charlie’s voice made his chest ache and grow hot. “You were my role model, you know. Now you and Mom don’t talk, so you don’t want to see me.” The boy’s voice began to waver, crushing him. “Well guess what, JP? I don’t want to be like you anymore.”

There was rustling and shuffling and then in the background came Sonny’s voice, and it was the last straw. JP broke. Tears burned the back of his eyes and he pressed his lips together hard as he listened. “Have you seen my phone, Charlie?” the love of his life asked. And then the line went dead.

JP lowered the phone from his ear, stunned. Swallowing around the lump in his throat, he blinked the tears back hard as clarity came to him in a painful epiphany.

He had blown off and dumped a ten-year-old kid.

God, he really was an asshole.

That ball game he’d promised to go to had obviously meant everything to Charlie and he’d forgotten all about it because he had been so wound up over the fight earlier that day with Sonny. And then because he and Sonny weren’t talking he hadn’t made any attempt to talk to Charlie. Why the hell hadn’t he realized that his relationship with Charlie was its own thing? That he couldn’t just walk away from it if or when things didn’t work out with his mom?

The kid deserved better than that.

Taking a deep breath, JP looked over to find two worried faces watching him carefully. Now he had two hurt people to win back.

“Is everything okay?” Lorelei asked, her voice colored with concern.

Not in the least. “I need to do that big gesture.”

Compassion softened her green eyes. “I’m sorry.”

So was he. For a lot of things. His brother was right. He really was cocky. And it had hurt the people he loved very much. Knowing that made him feel terrible. He didn’t blame Charlie for going off on him the way he had. He had deserved it. But just because he deserved it didn’t mean he was going to leave it this way. Hell no.

Resolve began to flicker to life in his gut. He was going to make it up to them. He was going to make everything right. They needed to know that they hadn’t put their trust in the wrong man.

Mark stood up and walked to the glass doors that led out to the balcony, saying as he went, “You need to think of the one thing you could do that would show them how much you care. Something important that they would recognize.” He glanced over his shoulder at JP. “You’re a ballplayer. What’s your superstition?”

Not following the catcher’s logic, he thought about it anyway and came up with an answer after a few minutes. He wasn’t the most superstitious guy around. “I never wash my ball cap during the season.”

Mark shook his head. “No one does that. Give me something better.”

Did he have something better? “I use a different deodorant for away games than home ones.”

“Nuh-uh.”

Crap. This was hard. JP knew that there were lots of baseball players with really far-out-there superstitions, but he wasn’t one of them. He didn’t wear the same underwear for months or refuse to shave. He certainly didn’t abstain from sex like some players he knew. Those guys swore the sexual frustration improved their game, but he thought they were just dumb.

There wasn’t really anything he was weird about. The closest thing he could think of was his walkout song.

JP went still. His walkout song.

Bingo. He had his big gesture. “I’ve got it.”

A memory came to him of a conversation he and Charlie had had on one of their drives about game songs. It had happened during the ride over to Mark’s house for the game recap. Charlie had asked him if he could change the station.

“I really like 95.7 The Party,” the boy had said. Grinning at JP, he’d found the station and cranked the volume. “It has the best music.”

JP completely disagreed. “I don’t think so.”

Charlie looked at him, eyes all round and earnest. “It’s true! They even play my favorite song on there lots.”

JP reached over and ruffled the kid’s hair. “What’s that?”

“If I tell you, you got to promise not to laugh. None of my friends at school like it, except Sam, so they tease me.” Charlie slid a glance over at him. “No teasing, ’kay?”

JP’s chest went tight. Of course he wouldn’t tease him. “I promise.”

Charlie hesitated. “I got to trust that you won’t.” He held up a hand. “Shake on it?”

Eyes full of innocence looked up at him, and his heart tripped in his chest. “Deal.” JP held out his hand and felt Charlie’s small one slide into his. “Now tell me.”

The boy leaned across the seat and whispered the song in his ear. JP’s eyebrow shot up at the title, though he’d never heard the song. He was just playing along. “Good call.”

Charlie grinned sheepishly. “Yeah?”

JP nodded. “Yep.” He had no idea honestly, but was already planning on Googling it when he got home.

Leaning back in his seat, Charlie had resumed playing with the radio knobs. Then he stopped, turned to him and said with feeling, “I really like you, JP.”

His chest went tight again. “I really like you too, kid.”

Now he remembered Charlie’s favorite song with a sinking feeling. But this was about winning back the hearts of the ones he loved. There was no room for sissies. Still, he flinched. He couldn’t help it. This was going to be painful.

But it was time to go big or go home.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“T
ELL ME AGAIN
what happened so that I get the big picture, Sonny.” Janie leaned back in her seat at the kitchen table and pulled off the top of a blueberry muffin. Popping it in her mouth, the pregnant woman waited for Sonny to answer.

She grabbed a muffin out of the bakery box on the table and went in search of a plate. “I’ve told you most of it.”

Around a mouth full of carbs her best friend replied, “I know, but I want to hear it again. With every telling of the story new information comes to light.”

What was there to recap? It was over with JP. So much for her short-lived jaunt into relationship-land. “I’m not sure where to even begin.”

Janie pointed at her with a piece of muffin top. “I’m still confused about why you blew up at him so bad over him telling Charlie. I mean, I get that it was wrong and all. He shouldn’t have done that without talking it over with you first. But to have lost your shit like that and not give him a chance to at least try and explain confuses me.”

Sonny picked at a blueberry imbedded in the top of her pastry. “Does it matter? He stood up Charlie at his ball game. That’s inexcusable.”

Her best friend put a hand on her rounded belly. “Is it? Ben’s missed stuff of the kids’ and I haven’t left him over it.”

A bird landed on a tree branch just out the window and Sonny watched it. When it began to sing she looked back at the brunette. “That’s different, though. For one, you two are married. And that means that he did a lot of stuff really right at the beginning or you wouldn’t have gone down the aisle with him. So when he screwed up later he’d already earned himself some street cred.”

The bird kept singing, the sound drifting toward them on a rose-scented breeze. Janie looked confused. “Have I never told you about the time he messed up with Michael when we were first dating?”

Umm, nope. “I think I would remember if you had.”

Her friend nodded. “I think so too.”

Sonny stood up and went in search of some glasses for water. “What happened?”

With a hand still on her belly, Janie wiggled her bare toes on the braided rug. “We’d only been together about three or four months. I’m not sure. But, I do recall that we’d been together long enough that I had felt comfortable asking him to pick up Michael from basketball practice after school. I had something come up and couldn’t make it in time.” She took another bite and chewed. “I got a call from the coach an hour after practice had ended asking me why I hadn’t retrieved my son. Poor Michael had been sitting outside in front of the school building waiting for Ben.”

That must have been terrible for the boy. “That’s awful. What happened after?”

Janie took a sip of water. “I was livid by the time I had picked up Michael and got a hold of Ben. I reamed him a new one and promptly broke it off.”

Seemed about right. “I get that. I mean, he let Michael down.”

Her friend nodded. “He did, it’s true.”

“So then how did you forgive him?” That was what she really wanted to know.

“I forgave him because I remembered all the good things he had done, too. I didn’t let one failure override all the successes.” She ducked her chin and gave Sonny a pointed look.

Okay, she got it. “I hear you. Really I do, but what JP did with Charlie was a big transgression.”

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe something important came up?”

Of course she had. She wasn’t heartless. “I did.”

Janie reached for another muffin. “And? Did you ask him?”

Why would she go and do that? That would have been the mature thing to do. Sonny wasn’t winning any points in that category lately. “We haven’t spoken about it, no.”

“Why not?”

“Because he hurt Charlie. What’s there to talk about? He can’t take it back and unhurt my son. Even if he could somehow rewind the clock, he’s still a celebrity. Where he goes, a camera soon follows, and I hate it. You saw that picture. It’s invasive and feels like such a violation of my privacy when I’m with him and some paparazzi starts snapping away.” She squared her shoulders, resolved.