The Changeup (Men of the Show) (19 page)

He knew he had to get himself under control. It was affecting his game and his health, but whenever he let himself think about it at all, he felt empty and drained, a vacant shell of his normal self before a fresh surge of hot fury washed through him.

Something had happened when he was on the road and he wasn’t sure what made him angrier—the fact that Maddie wouldn’t tell him or that she jumped ship at the first chance she got. He fully intended to talk to her about things, but he just couldn’t get himself to face her. He was too hurt and pissed. He didn’t know what he was going to do about it, but he had to do something before his career crashed down around him before he could stop it.

When he finally felt he had some restraint, Chase took a deep breath and grabbed his glove. Putting it on, he walked over and stood on the mound with his glove held out in front of him.

“Let’s go, Bucky,” he said to Matt. “Throw me the ball.”

“Are you sure, man? We can take a break.”

“No, no break. Let’s go.”

“If you say so.” Matt tossed him the ball and went back into a crouch, pulling his mask back over his face.

Before Chase could prep himself, Coach Smith called out his name. Turning, Chase saw him standing with Coach Brooklyn at the back of the bull pen and he immediately tensed up further.

“What’s up?” he asked as he approached them.

“What’s going on?” Coach Brooklyn asked.

Chase shrugged trying to downplay it. “Just a slump. I’ll get myself out of it.”

One of Coach Brooklyn’s puffy white brows arched up. “A slump, huh? That’s quite a slump if you can’t even get the ball to the plate.”

Chase glanced at Coach Smith and cleared his throat. “I’ll fix it.”

“We’re wondering if we should pull you for the year, Chase,” Coach Smith said. “Give your arm a break.”

“No,” he said emphatically. That was the last thing he wanted—more time to sit and think. “I’ll work it out.”

Coach Brooklyn sighed. “I wasn’t born yesterday, kid, but you’re right you’ll work it out. You need to learn how to keep your personal shit off the field. You’ll make your next start when we go to Cleveland, but we’re pulling you early if things go downhill quickly. Now get your head out of your ass and get back to work.”

* * *

Sitting in the locker room at the field in Cleveland before the game, Chase sat in front of his locker with his head down. The headache he’d had every day since his breakup with Maddie nagged at the back of his head and behind his eyes, but he wouldn’t allow himself to surrender to it.

He gently tossed a ball from hand to hand as he struggled to concentrate on his game plan. He would try the sinker only if he was ahead of the batter in the count, but if he didn’t have it, they would quickly pull it from the rotation. He would have to rely on his fastball and his slider and hope that he could get a lot of groundouts or fly outs because with the depth of hitters he would be facing that night, it was going to take a lot to get any strikeouts. His body throbbed, as it did usually these days, and he would have to fight to ignore the ache in his arm and his shoulder if he wanted to go the distance and get a win.

Chase tried to forget this would be the first game he would pitch since his blowup with Maddie. It shouldn’t matter, since what happened away from the field needed to stay that way. He couldn’t bring it onto the field with him tonight. When he stepped out there, it was only him and the batter. There was no room on the mound for anyone else to stand up there with him. His thoughts about Maddie would have to wait until he got back to the hotel room that night.

“You ready?”

He looked up and when he saw it was his coach, he stood up and grabbed his glove. “Yep.”

Coach Brooklyn eyed him shrewdly taking note of his pale complexion and the dark circles under his eyes. “You look like hell.”

“Am I here to win a game or a beauty contest?” he asked, not caring to hide the edge to his voice.

A smile twitched at his coach’s mouth. “You’d certainly lose if it was a beauty contest. Get out there and throw a good game.”

Walking down to the bull pen to warm up, Chase forced himself to focus even though the constant hum of the crowd increasingly agitated him. He wanted to tell everyone to shut up so he could have some peace and quiet, and that was when he knew he was getting very close to losing it. The smallest things were pushing him closer to that thin edge and he had to do something before he went over. He couldn’t put things off much longer. He was going to have to talk to Maddie again and try to get some answers, anything to help settle his brain so he could move on. Until he had something concrete that made any type of sense, he couldn’t get past this mess. He would make her talk to him as soon as he returned home from this road trip and he would force her to explain further.

He felt minutely better that he had some sort of plan of action and set to work in the bull pen to ready himself for the game ahead of him. Yet, when the first two pitches he threw landed wildly at the catcher’s feet, he felt his anger and frustration simmer again in the pit of his stomach. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

It turned out not to be that long after all. For the first two innings, Chase worked past his issues and succeeded in striking out three batters while the others had managed to fly out or groundout. He started to fall apart, however, when he faced the first batter in the bottom of the third inning and ended up walking him on four straight pitches. Rather than shaking it off, he felt himself tighten up and his restraint started to falter. Nothing he did helped to relax him. He paced the mound too many times, rolled his shoulders too much and the crowd noise crawled under his skin. Chase knew he should remove himself from the game, make up some injury, before he cost them the win, but he would not claim defeat, stubbornly refusing to give up. When he stepped back on the mound and faced the next batter, setting himself to throw a fastball, he knew he was going to make a huge mistake if he kept going. He wasn’t mentally prepared or in control. His emotions were controlling him and that was not his game.

He shouldn’t have thrown the pitch. As he watched the ball sail through the air, gaining height and speed as it approached the plate, he wasn’t surprised when it cut to the left and nailed the batter smack in between his shoulder blades. What happened next did surprise him, however.

After taking the pitch in the back, the Cleveland Buffalo player dropped his bat and charged the mound. Chase watched as the hitter came at him in slow motion. His first thought was “Oh shit,” but when the player took his helmet off and launched it at his head, that’s when he saw red.

Chase tossed his glove off and ducked before wrapping his arms around the hitter, pinning his arms down. He had some height on the guy and managed to twist and turn him before tossing him to the ground and landing on top. Both benches cleared as all the players rushed the field and into the skirmish, but he saw nothing of it. His total focus was on the body underneath him and his desire to beat on it, making it pay for everything he’d lost. His body cried for this release as all of the pent-up anger and frustration from the past few weeks rushed through him and into his fist.

Just as his arm was free and he was ready to swing, a couple of his teammates lifted him up and quickly whisked him away.

“Get the fuck off me!” Chase yelled as he struggled to break free from their grasps. “Let me beat the shit out of him!”

Jerry pulled him toward the dugout and tried to use his body to break Chase’s view of the hitter. “Back off, Patty! It’s not worth it! Bucky, grab his arms!”

He strained against them. When he could no longer see the prick who had charged him, he turned his rage on Jerry. “Get the fuck out of my way! I need to do this. That fucker threw his helmet at me!”

The wild look in Chase’s eyes and the way his face contorted with rage was shocking. Jerry had never seen him lose his cool in any way and to witness this side of him was stunning. He knew without a doubt if they let go of him, he would put the guy in the hospital. “I know, man, I know, but you’ve got to be bigger than that.”

Something seemed to click in his head, but Chase was still irate. “Bigger than that? Oh man, fuck that.”

He stopped struggling against them, so Jerry nodded at Matt to let go, but kept his own arms locked around Chase. “I know, man, it sucks, but you can’t go beating him to a pulp. I know you want to, I would want to. Besides,” he added quietly, “we know this isn’t all about him.”

Chase closed his eyes before yanking himself out of Jerry’s grasp. “Let go. I’m fine.” When Jerry took a step in his direction, he put up his hands. “I’m fine. Just back off.”

Jerry stayed where he was, but he never left Chase’s side. If he showed any signs of rushing back into the mix, Jerry wouldn’t hesitate to launch himself at him. He was sure Chase was already out of the game, but he wasn’t sure if he would get a suspension or not. He did not need to make things worse by going after the guy again, but Chase didn’t make a move to go back out to the mound.

Chase stood on the third baseline, awaiting his fate away from where Coach Brooklyn was arguing with the umpires. They ejected him from the game along with the hitter, which didn’t surprise him, but it still made his blood boil all over again.

“Come on, son, let’s go,” Coach Brooklyn said as he steered him back to the dugout.

“This is unbelievable! He hurled his fucking helmet at me! What the hell was I supposed to do?” he yelled at his coach.

“I know. Let’s go.”

As his coach pulled him away from the field with Jerry on the other side, Chase yelled over his shoulder at the umpires, calling them any and every name in the book. He was still swearing and yelling as he stormed down the hallway to the locker room. He spent a few minutes throwing anything he could get his hands on, and kicking anything not attached to something, before he finally slouched down on the bench in front of his locker.

Leaning back against the wall, he put his head back and closed his eyes. Somehow, without meaning to, he’d made his life ten times worse, if that was even possible. He knew without waiting for confirmation that he had at least a one game suspension, but he was likely going to miss more. He was losing everything that mattered to him—Maddie, Bree and now baseball. Maybe it was right to question his ability to deal with everything. Maybe he couldn’t have Maddie and Bree and keep his game together. Maybe he was too young to handle it all. Embarrassment and utter humiliation flooded through him as he realized he’d failed. He’d proven everyone right. He’d disappointed everyone who was in his corner and provided the evidence that the naysayers were looking for. He’d messed up his rookie year royally and now he had to figure out how to clean it all up, but he had no idea how to do that because all he could think about was Maddie. He was screwed.

Chapter Nineteen

By some means, Maddie made it through the days after her confrontation with Chase and then Lenore. She was empty, hollow and sapped of life. She went through the motions of her day-to-day activities without any feelings and without any focus. She was a zombie, but she didn’t know how to snap out of it. She had to move on with her life, but she found herself unable and unwilling to do so. She’d even called Mark back and he assured her she still had her job, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Maddie wanted nothing more than to find Chase on her doorstep, demanding them back into his life, and she wanted nothing more than to give in and jump into his arms, but that wasn’t going to happen. She’d pushed him away without any explanation at all and he wasn’t going to be forgiving. He’d made her promise that they’d be nothing but honest with each other and she’d broken that promise at the first sign of conflict.

Bree had asked when Chase was going to play with her and Maddie had tried to explain that he wouldn’t be around anymore. At first, Bree didn’t believe her and insisted he would still come by to see her, but after a while even Bree stopped bringing him up. She understood that something bad had happened between them, and if she held any resentment toward her mother, she was good at hiding it.

Even Karen couldn’t seem to break her out of her funk. She tried to get Maddie to talk to her, to talk to Chase, to do something, but nothing worked. She’d lost her glow, her spunk, but she didn’t care.

Sitting on the couch and watching as Bree flipped through the channels on the TV, Karen tried to come up with anything to snap Maddie out of it, but it was difficult to do these days.

She sat in silence sipping her glass of wine and staring straight ahead, not focusing on anything.

“Is there a good movie on, honey?” Karen asked Bree.

Bree shrugged and then jolted a little when she passed over a channel that was showing the Rockets’s game. Going back to the channel, she hunkered down quietly trying to absorb as much as she could before her mother told her to turn the channel.

Karen saw what Bree had landed on and started to tell her to turn it, but then the camera closed in on the pitcher’s mound and there stood Chase. Even on the TV, she could tell he looked haggard and didn’t have that boyish charm that had always surrounded him. He looked like he was sick and hardened, as if he’d aged significantly overnight. Karen darted a quick glance at her friend to see if she’d noticed yet. Maddie still seemed to be staring into space, but Karen saw the moment when the focus came back and she realized what was she was looking at.

“Bree, please, honey...” Maddie started to say, but then sat up quickly as she watched the scene play out in front of her.

They watched as Chase and the hitter rushed at each other. As they rolled around on the ground, their faces contorted in anger and spite, the rest of the players rushed forward, both benches and bull pens clearing.

“Oh, my...” Karen said quietly.

Chase’s teammates then pulled him off the hitter just as he was getting ready to land a punch, and even though they couldn’t hear him, the camera remained fixed on his face and they could read his lips as he swore and cursed. Maddie stood still, in awe at his rage. He looked like a different person. Someone wild and out of control, the complete opposite of the man she knew and had fallen in love with. Could she have pushed him to this? She didn’t want to believe it was possible, but she knew otherwise. She remembered how frustrated he’d been and how he’d quickly snapped, slamming the front door into the wall when he’d stormed out. The kicker had gouged the wall where it landed.

She’d hoped that even though she was more miserable than she could ever remember being that he’d been able to put it behind him and move on. She didn’t want anything to affect his game and the wonderful season he’d started with, but that didn’t seem to be the case. If anything, he’d gone in the complete opposite direction and his season was going down the drain quickly. She couldn’t help but feel guilty and responsible. She’d already made such a mess of things that if she tried to do anything, things would only get worse. She’d succeeded in ruining both of their lives and she knew he would never forgive her let alone ever want to lay eyes on her again.

Bree turned and snuggled against her mom’s leg, afraid of what she was watching on TV. He continued to yell and scream at anyone who would listen as his coach led him to the dugout. The game announcers relayed that he and the hitter were no longer in the game, and they speculated on how many additional game suspensions each would get. This didn’t sound like the Chase they all knew and loved. Gone was his calm, coolheaded nature and what replaced it was ugly, irrational anger. She squeezed Bree’s shoulders and smiled sadly at Karen.

“I really screwed everything up, didn’t I?”

“Oh, honey,” she said as she put her arms around Maddie. “You can fix this.”

“No. No, I can’t.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“No, I mean I can’t. You know why I did this and why I have to stick with my decision.”

Karen pointed at the TV. “Maddie, look at him! He’s just as miserable as you are. Let him help with this. Why shut him out? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s stupid how stubborn you’re being.”

Maddie looked back at the television, but a new Rockets pitcher was loosening up on the mound. “Because it isn’t his responsibility. It’s mine.” She glanced down at Bree, who was looking up at her with sorrow. Her daughter was hurting just as much as they were, but everything she’d done was to protect her.

Karen scoffed. “So, now what? You walk around miserable and like the dead for the rest of your days?”

Maddie gave a small shrug. “If that’s what it takes...”

“And that’s better? How is it better for her?” Karen asked as she pointed at Bree.

“She’s with me.”

“Right. She’s with someone who walks around wishing the ground would swallow them up. That’s not better, Maddie, that’s sick.”

“You’re not a mother. I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” she said as she wrapped her arms protectively around her daughter.

“No, you’re right. I’m not a mother, but I’ve been around since the day she was born and I love her as if she were mine, so don’t throw that shit at me. You’re not doing the right thing by her, Mad. I know it and you know it. You’re too scared to admit you’re using her as an excuse.” Karen held up her hand stopping Maddie’s retort. “Don’t bother saying anything more. I have to go. Think about it, Maddie. Think about it real hard because you know damn well you could change this with just one phone call instead of moping around feeling sorry for yourself.”

Maddie stared at the empty space her friend had vacated before the sounds from the television came back to her. She sighed as she glanced down at Bree. “Well, I guess it’s just you and me, kid.”

* * *

After the game, back in his hotel room, Chase’s cell phone rang and without looking at it, he knew it was going to be his father. If there was one thing his father had never tolerated, it was when Chase lost his temper. His dad had taught him at an early age to keep it under control, but when it got the best of him, he saw nothing but red heat and that’s when trouble started. It took a lot these days to get him to snap, but everything over the past few weeks had finally caught up with him.

With a sigh, he picked up the phone and sat back on the bed. “Hey, Dad.”

“What the hell happened out there tonight?” his father said dismissing the preliminaries.

“Simple, I lost control of my pitch and he took exception to it.”

“And you wanted to take his head off because of that?”

“He threw his frickin’ helmet at me!”

“I don’t care if he threw his bat, you don’t go after him like he’s killed your firstborn son.”

Chase pinched the bridge of his nose as he took a sharp breath. “I know, I know. I just lost it.”

“So, now what? How many games are you out?”

“I don’t know. We expect the league will rule on it in the next day or so and let me know. I’m guessing two or three games.”

“And if it’s more?”

“Then it’s more. I’m not going to challenge it.”

“What?” His dad sounded genuinely shocked. “Why wouldn’t you challenge it?”

“Because...” He took a deep breath and let it out with a hiss. It pained him to admit it. He hated sounding weak and worn-out, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good to try to convince everyone otherwise. “I could use the break.”

The pain was clear in his son’s voice. “What’s happened? What’s going on?” he asked gently.

Chase was thankful Jerry hadn’t returned to their room yet. It afforded him some privacy, which was difficult to come by on the road. Taking a deep breath, he prepped himself for saying the words aloud for the first time. Just thinking about her, he felt like a knife was being plunged into his chest. “Maddie and I are not seeing each other anymore.”

“What?” His dad sounded genuinely shocked. “Why not?”

He heaved a deep breath. “I wish I could answer that, but I can’t. I don’t know.”

“I don’t understand...”

“I don’t either, Dad, that’s the problem,” he said feeling his ire rise again. “I got back from that two-week road trip where you met her and she said we couldn’t see each other anymore. She wouldn’t tell me anything. Something happened while I was gone, but she won’t say what it is.”

“Do you think she met someone else?”

He’d never thought of that, but even as he pondered it over, Chase knew that wasn’t the case. “No, I don’t think there’s anyone else. She was pretty torn up about it, but she wouldn’t budge. I’m not sure what happened, but I’m guessing she was feeling pressure from someone about us.”

“But that’s not right. You have a right to know what the reason is.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more, but I wasn’t able to get it out of her.”

“So, you’re just going to leave it at that?”

Chase threw his hand up in frustration. “What am I supposed to do, Dad? There’s nothing I can do to make her tell me. Besides, I’m not feeling very charitable toward her right now, so I’m not sure if it’s wise for me to see her. I might say something that I can’t take back...” He trailed off, not knowing what more to say.

“Son, if you cared for her as much as you led your mother and me to believe you did, then you need to do whatever it takes to get her to talk to you and clean up this situation between the two of you. I’m sure once it’s out in the open, whatever it is, you’ll be able to work it out.” When he remained silence, his dad continued. “Look at you. This isn’t you. You have to do something. Whether you try to fix things or get answers, you have to try something. You can’t keep going on like this.”

“What if I don’t know what to do?” he asked quietly. He was ashamed to admit that for the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to do, that he didn’t have the answers readily available.

“You’re a smart man, Chase. I know you’ll do the right thing.”

“I’m not use to it hurting this much, not being able to brush it off,” he whispered, hating the weakness he felt and heard in own his voice.

“I know. That’s how you know it’s the real thing. Don’t let it get away. It only comes along once in a lifetime.”

Chase hung up the phone and collapsed back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling for the answers. Did he know? Was it the real thing? Even though he’d once believed it to be true, he couldn’t help but question it now. If it had been the real thing, would Maddie have been so quick to bail? He wouldn’t have thought so.

At the moment, all he knew was that even though he wanted answers like a man dying of thirst wanted water, the last thing he wanted was to see Maddie—not now or anytime soon—and that pretty much left things at a standstill. Besides, as far as he was concerned, she was the one that should be coming to him and giving him the explanation that he deserved, and since he knew that wasn’t going to happen, they were back to square one.

* * *

Somehow, Maddie felt worse. She didn’t know how it was possible, but rather than her wounds healing with time, they were growing. They were becoming big, open sores that refused to scab over and heal. No matter what she tried to do to get her mind on other things, she always found her thoughts somehow coming back around to Chase and wondering what he was doing and what he was feeling. She knew the game suspensions he’d been given had to be eating away at him.

Desperate for any distraction from her bleeding heart she could find, she grabbed her watering can from under the kitchen sink, filled it and walked out the front door. Her geraniums were in desperate need of some TLC since they’d had little rain throughout August and she’d started to neglect everything, including herself. Intent on her watering, she didn’t hear when Chase quietly stepped up the sidewalk and hesitated a few feet away.

* * *

He took a few moments to study her before announcing his arrival. The decision to come over to see Bree after getting home from the road trip had seemed like the right thing to do, even though it had taken him a few days of going back and forth. He’d convinced himself that he could ignore the emotions storming within if he saw Maddie, but now, standing near her, he wasn’t so sure. She looked pale, so pale her dark hair stood in stark contrast to her delicate skin, and it didn’t hold the glow and vitality it once had, but instead looked dull and lackluster. She’d shoved it into a messy ponytail and wore simple jean shorts with a baggy green T-shirt.

To see the evidence of her misery so obvious in her physical appearance nearly killed him. Chase wanted to yell and scream at her, demanding to know why she was doing this since they were both obviously a mess, but his pride held him back. He wasn’t going to beg for answers anymore. She’d made her decision, without discussing anything with him, and he had to live with that. She obviously hadn’t trusted him, so he needed to read between the lines and move on.

The more he watched her, however, the more he could feel himself swaying. He wanted so badly to tug at her ponytail and pull her into his arms, and that just made him mad. So instead, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and cleared his throat. Her head popped up and her eyes widened in shock. She clutched the watering can to her chest as she continued to stare at him tentatively.