That’s all he offers, and the abrupt ending to the conversation makes me realize something I never thought much about before.
“Ya know, I don’t know much about you outside of baseball.”
Jace smirks. “You warmin’ up to me, Two-Three?”
I purse my lips and shake my head. “Oh, not at all. I was just gonna say, that’s exactly how I like it.”
He bites at the inside of his cheek and arches a brow.
“I’m kidding. You just don’t talk about much else.”
Holloway shrugs. “Not much else that’s more important. Not here anyway.”
I nod toward the device buzzing again on the table. “Seems like that might be."
I watch as his jaw tightens, and the skin beneath his thin silver chain turns a shy shade of pink. “Well, yeah, she is. But I mean here, with you. There's not much else besides baseball that we really need to talk about."
I pull back, hit with an unexpected mixture of hurt and confusion.
"I don't mean that in a bad way." Jace sits forward in his plush wheelie chair and sets his forearms on the table of the hotel meeting room we're using for film. "I just—I don't really need anymore friends. When we're doin' this shit, I just want to learn as much as I can from you."
I laugh out loud, my brows high.
"What?"
"Rook, you've fought me on everything we've done so far."
"I haven't fought you."
I tilt my chin down and glare at him.
"Okay, maybe a little. But only because it feels like I should know these things already—or at least act like it." His knee bounces under the table. "It’s a me thing," he adds quieter. "I’m trying, I just—I don't wanna screw this up."
I sit back into the cushion behind me, any lingering annoyance with him settling. "Well, there's your first mistake."
His eyes shoot to mine, and I shrug, resting my elbows on the arms of my chair and clasping my hands in front of me. "You're gonna screw up, Jace."
He rolls one thumb over the other. "You know what I mean.”
I nod. "I do. But you can't go into this thinking every game now is just something to get through without messing up. You gotta enjoy it. You'll make mistakes—you all will—but not being able to move past them is gonna do a lot more damage than a tight pivot or a slow release."
That earns me a smirk before his face softens again. "Baseball's the only thing I’ve ever really been good at, ya know?”
I tilt my chin, contemplating his answer. "I highly doubt that."
He shakes his head. "I'm serious. School, family shit… relationships. I pretty much suck at all of it."
I point to the phone, my brow creased. "It doesn't seem like you suck at the family shit."
He blows out a heavy breath and looks at the screen. "It's not so bad anymore. But I was away for the first three years of V's life—when she really started to bond with people beyond learning names and recognizing faces. My mom got pregnant with her right after I left, and you know how it is. College ball is the same as this, especially if you live away. There's an off-season but not really… not if you want to impress the right people."
I purse my lips in understanding, waiting for him to continue.
"I saw my family, but not enough for her to latch on. FaceTiming and watching me from the stands here and there just aren't enough to build real connections with someone that young. And my parents were busy starting over with a toddler at home. I saw them, and we talked on the phone, but I lost touch with a lot of people when I left…"
His voice fades off as he stares into the distance, either deep in thought or mesmerized by the plain, almost clinically-white walls.
"Well, you're back now, right? Your family's close by?"
