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Prologue
Frank
When I opened my eyes, harsh hospital lights temporarily blinded me, causing me to forget where I was. Without thinking, I tried to prop myself up on the bed and groaned as my right arm and shoulder exploded with pain. Fuck.
It was a real shit thing, remembering that your dream had been obliterated to dust. Yes, I could choose to rehab my shoulder after surgery, but I was out for the rest of this season and most likely part of the next.
When you played college baseball, there wasn’t that kind of time. You didn’t have the luxury of recuperating on the bench for almost two seasons. New players would join the team and pass you by, replacing you on the field, and just like that, you’d be forgotten.
It wasn’t bad enough that the collision at third base had dislocated my shoulder on impact. No, my doctors discovered that I had a torn labrum—cartilage in my shoulder socket—when they assessed the damage. No one knew how long the labrum had been breaking down because I’d kept playing through the discomfort this season, even when my arm felt more than a little sore. I knew better than to do that, but hated admitting that I was hurt.
In all honesty, I’d been lucky they’d even found the tear. It wasn’t something that fixed itself on its own or got better with rest and time. No, a torn labrum required surgery in order to heal, and the prognosis wasn’t good. Most players never recovered from a torn labrum, and I knew it.
In the time it took to throw a baseball or swing a bat, everything I’d worked so hard for as long as I could remember was gone. If I could have snapped my fingers to reiterate the point to myself, I would have.
But I couldn’t.
Because my fucking shoulder was destroyed, and I couldn’t move my arm.
“Hey, Frank.”
My girlfriend’s voice cut through my pity party, and I turned my head to meet her eyes. My relationship with Shelby was brand new, we’d only recently started dating, and I was certain it was about to end as quickly as it had begun.
I expected to find her looking either as sad or as devastated as I was, but she wasn’t. She seemed calm, a small smile tugging at her lips. She was a sweet girl, someone I could fall in love with someday. Well, as much as I could fall in love with anything other than baseball.
But there was no baseball for me anymore.
What the hell was I going to do with my life? I had no backup plan because there was never a reason to. Getting hurt had never crossed my mind . . . all I’d been able to think about was going pro.
Until now.
“How long have you been here?” I tried not to sound like a dick, but my thoughts were focused on life-changing questions like, What am I going to do now? Who am I going to be?
Shelby shrugged, and her long brown hair fell over her shoulder.
“You don’t have to stay,” I grumbled. “I know you have classes.”
She pulled her chair closer to my bed. “I’ve already talked to my professors. I’m going to stay, if that’s okay.”
“Are you sure? You realize my career’s over, right?” I practically barked at her. “You sure you want to hang out with a has-been?” It was irrational and mean, but I was mad and she was the only one in the room with me, so I directed my frustration at her.
She stiffened a little before relaxing, reaching out to rest a hand on my left arm. “I’m sure. I won’t pretend to know how you’re feeling right now, Frank. I can only imagine how hard this is for you and how sad you must be, but I never liked you because you were a baseball player.”
“No? That had nothing to do with it?” Too late, I realized that now I totally sounded like a complete dick.
Shelby narrowed her eyes for a second before letting out a soft sigh. “I like your dedication and work ethic. But that’s a part of your character and it has nothing to do with baseball. I love the person you are, not the person you thought you were going to become. I don’t care if you’re a baseball player or a plumber as long as you’re happy.”
I reached for her hand and squeezed it with my good one because I knew she meant the things she was telling me. Even though I was pissed off about everything I’d just lost, I still had one very important thing. And she was sitting right next to me, refusing to give up on me. I never knew how much I needed that kind of acceptance until Shelby sat there patiently, giving it to me willingly, no matter how frustrated I was.
Over the next few weeks, even my former teammates disappeared. They still had the game, their dreams within reach, and seeing me only reminded them of how easily it could all be stolen away. They stopped asking if I was okay, how I was feeling, and finally, they stopped coming around altogether. That was another blow to my ego, watching them drift away one by one. Guys I’d thought were like brothers just walked away as if I’d never mattered.
But not Shelby. She never left my side.
When I finally declared a new major and switched my focus to business management and finance, hanging up my cleats for good, she encouraged me and told me I’d be great at it. All the days when I didn’t believe in myself, she believed in me enough for the two of us. I don’t think I would have gotten through that time in my life without her.
Funny how things can change.
Wingwoman
Claudia
“Please come with me, Claudia,” my roommate pleaded as she batted her eyelashes at me. “You know I can’t be trusted on my own. I shouldn’t be left unsupervised. I’ll get into trouble. Probably end up in jail, and you’ll have to come bail me out.”
When I didn’t answer right away, she propped her hands on her hips and glared at me. “You know I can’t go to jail. I’m the wimpiest person around. I’ll be someone’s bitch in like two seconds, and I don’t want to be someone’s bitch. Someone should be my bitch, but I don’t want that either. I don’t want a bitch. I don’t like girls in that way. Claudiaaaa!”
I let out a dramatic groan, my mind already made up that I would go. I could use a night out after the day I’d had. It was just far more fun to torment Britney.
“Why are we going there again?” I asked. “And why can’t you be trusted on your own?”
A small scowl transformed her freckle-dusted face. “I really think tonight is the night. He’s been flirting so much more than usual lately. I need you, and I don’t want to miss my opportunity. There’s no way a guy like Ryan stays single for long. He’s probably already taken. I mean, he is breathing.”
Britney was talking about one of the hot bartenders at her new favorite bar, Sam’s. She recently started going there, and claimed that the drinks were, hands down, the best cocktails she’d ever had in all of Santa Monica. I hadn’t been able to go with her yet, so this would be my first time. But since she’d started going, she hadn’t shut up about the three hot brothers who owned the place.
The only downside to her new favorite bar was that it was quickly becoming everyone’s favorite bar. Apparently, the youngest brother, Nick, (yes, I knew all their names—thank you very much, Britney) was responsible for making sure Sam’s was prominent on every social media site, online blog, and regional magazine, not to mention appearing in locally filmed reality shows, which we had plenty of.
To be fair, that’s the only reason Britney found out about the bar in the first place, one of those trashy reality-TV shows. She’d caught a glimpse of Ryan, or maybe it was Frank, and had to go see the place for herself. I had been out of town visiting my parents when she went the first time, but that didn’t stop her from filling me in on every single detail she’d learned and talking about the place nonstop until I finally agreed to go with her.
Hiding my grin, I pretended to still be unconvinced. “It’s Wednesday night, Brit. Who the hell goes out on a Wednesday?”
Britney narrowed her eyes and tossed back her brown ponytail. “We do. We go out on Wednesdays. You’re just messing with me, right?”
It was true; we did go out pretty often when we weren’t exhausted from work. But, to be fair, we were twenty-six-year-old single women with no kids. Of course we wanted to socialize and blow off steam. Plus, it was really hard to meet guys in this town if you never left your apartment. Our only other option was at work, but our male coworkers were either married or too old for us.
Britney and I had met at the bank three years ago, when we were both tellers working our way up the corporate ladder. I now handled all our bank branch’s small-business loans. Nothing gave me more satisfaction than helping people make their dreams a reality. Starting a small business meant taking a giant leap of faith and required a lot of belief in the power of your dreams. I was inspired by my clients at least once a day.
I was also depressed at least once a day. I hated when I couldn’t approve a loan, or the bank turned someone down. Extinguishing their glimmer of hope by telling them their loan wasn’t approved was like a knife in my heart every single time. Part of me believed everyone deserved the chance to make their dreams come true. Some needed more help than others, but did that make them less deserving? I never thought so, but the bank was a business and it didn’t like risky endeavors.
Sometimes America didn’t build your dreams with you; it took them from you and stomped on them and told you that you weren’t worthy of having them.
My mom and I emigrated from Colombia to the United States when I was seven. We came here legally but outstayed our visa, which was illegal. I had never seen my mom so worried as she was between the time our visa expired and when she met my stepdad, Bradley. She was constantly afraid that we would be found out and deported. I didn’t know what that word meant at the time, but I sensed it wouldn’t have been a good thing. She was more worried in America than she had been before we left Colombia, and that was saying a lot.
Mom and Bradley got married, and three years later, she and I became official citizens of the United States of America. Again, I wasn’t sure what that meant, but the end result was that my mom didn’t worry anymore. She was happy, and so I was happy too.
