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

I fucking hated how I handled that.

I’d always been hot-headed. Always.

But, George and I had been together for such a short amount of time that he’d never experienced my zero-to-one-eighty mood swings.

My sister used to call me—and maybe still did behind my back—Whacko Wrigley. My brother used to say that I was a bitch—which I had to admit that sometimes I was.

George had never experienced that, and honestly, at this point, I thought I was doing him a favor by not crawling back. Even though I desperately wanted to.

George had been perfect. He’d been kind. He’d been understanding, and careful with me.

Then I’d gone and ruined all of that by a few nasty comments, and I’d left.

The next day, when he’d tried to come talk to me again, I’d been completely and utterly embarrassed with myself.

I’d been awful. Stupid. And honestly? A moron.

Who left a man like George Hoffman?

That’s right. This moron. Me!

Hurrying toward the door, I stopped right beside all the other terribly returned carts and caught my son up in my arms.

Once he was placed comfortably, I juggled the bags all into one hand.

Today was just bad enough that it’d be my luck that young Candy would likely call the cops on me for taking the freakin’ cart, and I wouldn’t be doing anything else stupid tonight.

Moments later, I walked out of the store, my son asleep in my arms, and headed back to my apartment.

All the while I berated myself for being a dumbass.Chapter 10Say ‘no’ to drugs has always made me laugh. If you’re talking to drugs, it’s likely already too late for you.

-Wrigley’s secret thoughts

Wrigley

I gritted my teeth as I read the article in the Hot Spot Magazine—the world’s top celebrity gossip column.

The column that I found myself starring in over the last eight months, and the downfall of my marriage to star outfielder Furious George Hoffman—the man that everyone loved.

I was the woman who’d left him. I was the woman who’d gotten fat, and George could do a whole lot better than. I was the woman that was a homewrecker, slut, and dried up old hag—all rolled into one.

I was the woman that everyone loved to hate.

Thinking my morning couldn’t get any worse than reading about my slut self in a magazine everyone devoured, I walked into the living room.

Then I saw the destruction.

I gasped in despair at the state of Teeny, the Elf on the Shelf, and panicked.

My automatic panic mode enacted, and I called the only man that I wanted to talk to.

He answered in three rings.

“Wrigley? Is Micah okay?” George asked worriedly.

I realized rather quickly that he was in the middle of practice by the sound of bats cracking against balls. Yet I still didn’t control myself. Still didn’t stop to think that this could be done at a better time.

“The dog ate Teeny!”

He was quiet for a long moment at the sound of despair in my voice, but eventually, he was able to compose himself.

“Teeny the Elf?” he clarified.

I didn’t need to guess what he was thinking: maybe if you hadn’t have put him out two months early—or at all—this wouldn’t have happened.

But seriously, Micah loved finding the Elf. I did it for the last four months of the year…so what?

“Yes,” I hissed. “What do I do? Micah will wake up in less than an hour, and I don’t have an Elf to replace him with! Half of Teeny’s face is eaten off!”

George started to make a sound in his throat that clearly made him sound like he was choking. On his own goddamn laughter.

Shit.

This was stupid.

I know I shouldn’t be freaking out, but I couldn’t help it.

Teeny’s face was missing!

How was I going to explain that to my child?

“I’ll be done at practice in twenty minutes. I’ll run by Target and get a new one.”

Forty-nine minutes later, I could hear my son stirring, and there was still no George.

I calculated the length of time, tops, it would take him to get here, and knew that he wasn’t going to make it.

Twenty minutes, plus the eighteen it took him to get to Target from the practice field, added in however long it took to get into the store and buy it—if the damn store even had the elf at all—meant that he should’ve been here by now.

And he wasn’t.

“Mama!”

I walked with heavy steps toward the door of my son’s room, my feet nearly dragging the entire way when I heard the knock.

I stopped what I was doing and practically ran to the door.

Throwing it open, I nearly cried in relief.

“I only found the girl Elf,” my savior apologized. “The boy Elf wasn’t there. Or at the other stores I went to seeing as the Christmas stuff is only barely getting out on shelves. You can explain this, right?”

I could.

Micah was an impressionable little boy. He wasn’t going to question me about a new Elf being there, or his gender all of a sudden changing. So, I chose to make use of what I had.