Quit Your Pitchin' (There's No Crying in Baseball 2)

She was wearing a necklace that plunged down into her cleavage—one I’d bought her.

I felt almost proud that she was wearing it.

Then there was the dress itself. It was floor length, long and flowy.

And her fucking feet were encased in those shoes.

The ones that drove me absolutely crazy.

I closed my eyes and breathed in through my nose, then blew it out of my mouth.

“Let’s go,” I croaked.

Wrigley and I left to the sounds of my son’s protests.

“He really breaks my heart when we leave like that,” Wrigley sighed as she closed the door.

I didn’t have anything to say to that.

At least she got to go back to him every night.

Me, I didn’t get to see him sometimes for days at a time. And if I was traveling for a game, it could be almost as much as a week.

Goddamn, it broke my heart to hear him asking me over the phone where I was.

It was torture, that was what it was.

Everything about being separated from the life I was supposed to have was torture.

Being in the car with her, smelling her hair and body lotion, was the absolute worst.

Luckily it was dark, meaning she couldn’t see my straining cock.

Conversation was held at a minimum as we drove downtown, and when we arrived and I handed the keys to my truck over, she still hadn’t said much.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Lights flashed, and I winced.

“Yeah,” she murmured. “This isn’t my favorite thing in the world.”

It had never been mine, either. But my love for the game had helped me get over the bad parts of what came with the game. I.e., reporters, and stupid banquets that I was forced to go to whether I wanted to or not.

“Me, neither,” I agreed.

She looked up at me and we shared a look of commiseration.

“If you had to choose one thing to give up in this world, what would it be?”

“Like, I’m being forced to give it up?” I clarified.

“Yes,” she nodded as I opened the door for her. “You’re being forced to give something up that you love…or you die.”

“Love as in a person, or love as in an inanimate object, or food?”

She sighed in exasperation. “Must you always think things to death?”

I shrugged. “Well, if I’m being forced to give something up that’s a person, I would say who I was thinking of. If I’m being forced to only give up say, a food item, I wouldn’t choose a person…do you know what I mean?”

She groaned. “Yes. It’s a person that you have to give up, or someone of death’s choosing will be chosen for you…better?”

I nodded. “Does this person have to be in my life at present time, or someone that I love, but still don’t have all that much to do with?”

She started to laugh, and I couldn’t help but laugh with her.

We’d always done this.

She’d ask a question, and I’d overthink it. Then we would break out laughing at the way I had to have everything so specific before I answered.

I was not a ride or die kind of man. I had questions. Where were we going? How long would it take to get there? Who was I allowed to bring along with me? Was I allowed to have snacks? What kind of car was I driving? Who was going to be on there when we arrived? Things of that nature.

I’d always been like that.

“One more question.”

She sighed. “It’s to save your grandmother.”

I kept my smile in check as I offered her my arm and we pushed our way through the crowd that hadn’t seemed to figure out that they were actually supposed to go into the freakin’ venue. Not stand outside, milling about, right in front of the doors.

“If I had to choose someone to die—which might I add I think I also need to know how they are killed before I really choose who—then I would choose my brother,” I said, sounding almost as apologetic as I felt. “I’d choose my sister, but it seems unfair to kill a woman.”

That was a hard decision. But there was no one else that I loved—besides my sister since she was tied with my brother—that I would be willing to give up. Not Grams herself. Not Micah, and not Wrigley.

It was a rock and a hard place, that was for sure.

“You love your sister?” she questioned.

I nodded. “Despite her being a raving bitch half the time, I do. She doesn’t realize that she’s acting like that to me. She was raised to be the type of person she is. She had to be selfish. If you weren’t, then you were burned—something I learned the hard way.”

She grunted. “I hate your sister. I also hate your brother.”

I knew that. “Yeah. That’s not something I’m just now hearing about.”

Wrigley never missed a chance to inform me that I was delusional for supporting them.