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

The weatherman was on the screen pointing out the storm system that was currently pounding East Texas.

I waited patiently until they cued back into the game and then felt vomit surge up my throat as I watched my husband kiss another woman, as people all around him celebrated the win of the game.

Melanie. The same woman that had caused me to get pissed just before Micah’s accident.

“Daddy!” Micah cried as George pulled away from the woman.

He was so excited to see his daddy that he didn’t pay attention to his mommy’s heart breaking into a million tiny pieces. All the fuck over again.

“A lovebird celebratory kiss, off in left field where Furious George, number seven, made the game-winning catch that tied the series up, three to three. Did y’all see that catch by George?” Dodger, my asshole brother who sounded happier than a pig in slop, crowed. “And that kiss! Could this be a new love interest for poor Furious George?”

I flipped the TV, and my brother, off.

“They were seen out at a party several weeks ago before George’s son, Micah, was hurt in a car accident. The pair sure does look cozy out there in left field, don’t they?” the announcer on the left, an older man with white hair and a bushy beard said.

“Sure do,” the other announcer, a cute African American man with a bald head and a pink bow tie said. “It’s nice to see George’s smile after what happened to his son. The Lumberjacks sure have missed him these last few weeks. And he picked a wonderful time to come back to the game!”

I turned the game off after the fourth replay of the kiss and tried to breathe through the tears.

I didn’t jump to conclusions just yet, though.

Nope.

I waited until the game was over, seeing the message from Sports Center alert on my app that they’d tied the series three to three, and then gave it an hour.

I then gave it another thirty minutes before I calmly picked up my phone and called him.

He answered on the fourth ring, and he was laughing and carrying on.

“Hey, Wrigs,” he answered gleefully. “Did you see the game?”

I looked over at our son and blew out a breath as I tried to get my worry under control.

“Yeah,” I croaked, then cleared my throat. “I did. You did awesome.”

“Thanks,” George replied. “How’s Micah?”

I looked over at where Micah was lounging in the recliner, Lucy snuggled up next to him helping keep the back part of it reclined enough so that he wasn’t sliding out of the chair.

“He’s good,” I said. “He fell asleep during the fifth inning.”

The lie tasted bitter on my tongue.

But I couldn’t very well tell him that I turned the damn game off when they kept replaying his fucking kiss all goddamn night.

Hell, I’d even gotten a goddamn Google update on it.

Fuck!

I really needed to take those Google Alerts off my phone when it came to George.

“That’s too bad.” He sighed. “Are you…”

“Hey, George!”

I tensed at the cheery, female voice.

“Hi, Mel,” he said. “I’m on the phone, could you give me a minute?”

“Yeah, I’ll just wait for you over here,” she said.

I was fuming inside.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“Mel?” I practically snarled.

“Yeah, Melanie. The girl that you met at the banquet?”

I knew who fucking Melanie was.

“Yeah,” I said. “The one that you kissed on national television tonight,” I said through a lump in my throat. “The one you took out on a date.”

He hesitated. “I didn’t know that was captured.”

“Oh, yeah. It sure was. And then Dodger let everyone in the United fucking States know that y’all were the newest sports world ‘it’ couple,” I continued, fuming all over again.

If he could see my eyes right now, he’d know how freakin’ pissed off I was.

“Wrigs, it didn’t mean anything. I saved her from taking a ball to the face.” He sounded worried now. “I promise. It was never like that. The only reason I went out with her as I did was to make you jealous. I just wanted you back, and I tried everything. I was desperate. I know now that I shouldn’t have done that, but Melanie means nothing to me. We don’t even see each other. And today was just a fluke.”

I ground my teeth, but my anger cooled minutely.

“I’m sorry. It was just hard to see over and over again,” I admitted. I looked at the clock on the wall. “I have to go to bed. I have a board meeting tomorrow, and then I have a conference to attend that’s about an hour and a half away. You’ll be here for that, right?”

He grunted in agreement. “I’ll be there.”

Minutes later we hung up the phone, but despite his assurances that there was nothing going on with this Melanie girl, I couldn’t help but think that I was missing something. That there was this shoe ready to drop, and I was about to get clobbered in the interim.