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“I don’t even know what that means,” he grumbled.
“You need me to spell out what hookers do for sailors on shore leave?” Jasper seemed to sense Alex’s tension ramping up and eased off on the kneading. “I don’t think you can pretend to be that innocent, Alex.”
He wasn’t sure if Jasper was talking about his fumble into the gossip columns or making a statement about his lack of innocence in general. To be fair, if it was the latter, he had a point. None of the guys on the team were angels, and Alex hadn’t been living a celibate life before he met Alice.
Since Alice, though…things were different.
He’d spoken to Violet earlier that morning, and in uncharacteristic advice from a hopeless romantic, she’d suggested he “get back on the horse”. It was better than Ricki telling him he was a poon hound, but still distressing to hear his younger sister advise him to “climb on the next available woman and bang out all your frustrations like she’s a vending machine who won’t give up the candy”.
Under normal circumstances he would have been on board with the logic. Go out, get his dick wet, find a way to get the girl out of his mind. But Alice wasn’t any normal girl, she wasn’t a girl at all, and maybe that was the difference. She was a woman, and a mother, and she’d proven she had no patience for bullshit.
He hadn’t been the one to screw her over, but it didn’t change the fact he was partly to blame. If he hadn’t insisted they get involved, if he hadn’t chased her relentlessly, she would still have her job. He’d thought he’d known what she needed, and like the foolish idiot he was, he’d assumed she needed him. But being with him hadn’t gone so great for her, and now he was left without an awesome lady, with no idea what he should do next.
Holding his proverbial dick in his hand, as it were.
Emmy had suggested he call Alice to apologize for his part in their last fight. She’d even offered to act as a proxy. But Alex had tried. He’d called, he’d texted and emailed, and done everything short of sending messenger pigeons or singing telegrams. If he thought a man in a gorilla suit could make things better, he’d have shipped a fleet of them to Alice’s house.
The unfortunate fact was she didn’t want to talk to him. She’d made up her mind they shouldn’t be together, and even though she’d been wrong to accuse him of talking to the press, he couldn’t shake off a feeling of guilt for getting her axed and for him saying some truly stupid shit.
Move on.
That was what logic, his friends, his family and all the online advice columns were saying. If she didn’t want to talk to him, he couldn’t force her to. Yet in the three weeks since he’d come back from Florida, all he could think of was how to make Alice listen to him.
The only thing he could hope was maybe she was watching him. Every ball he hit out of the park, every miraculous catch he made behind the plate, hell, all the foul tips he took to his mask, he hoped would be the thing to make her notice him. She used to send him texts whenever he did something noteworthy, to sig
nal to him she was out there keeping tabs. He’d liked that, knowing someone on the other side of the country cared enough about him to send a one-line note saying so.
But no matter how much he stepped up his game, the messages didn’t come. He was closing in on a month of no contact from Alice, and the sad reality of the situation was beginning to sink in.
She was never going to text.
His emails were probably being sent directly to her trash bin, like his phone calls went straight to voicemail.
The time had come for him to seriously consider how he was going to move on and leave Alice, Liv and everything he’d shared with the Darling family behind in Florida.
Ramon Escalante wandered into the room, slapping Jasper hard on the back. When he got a look at Alex, he grimaced.
“My friend, why do you look so serious?”
“Just thinking.”
“You mustn’t. You are already so ugly. This serious expression makes you much uglier.” He laughed heartily, his bright white teeth flashing, and punched Alex’s shoulder.
When Alex didn’t immediately counter with his own one-liner, Ramon’s face went serious—or at least as serious as the Dominican first baseman was capable of being. “Have I offended you?”
Alex had to laugh. “You once told me my dick was so flaccid I would never be able to please a woman unless I had stock in Viagra. You think I’m going to be offended now because you think I’m ugly?”
“You can take drugs to work around your flaccid penis. Your face, though. So ugly. There is no hiding that from the world.” Ramon smiled. They shared the type of brotherly friendship that relied primarily on smacking each other, giving high-fives and trading insults so dehumanizing one of them should have been reduced to tears by the end of every game.
It was the kind of bond that often made Alex want to punch the other man in the face.
Out of love, naturally.
Ramon scratched his goatee and sat down in Jasper’s chair, leaving the assistant athletic trainer on his feet, forced to stand while he continued his attentions on Alex as Ramon sat court.
Tannis, one of the physical therapists who typically worked on Ramon, popped her head into the room, a halo of red curls framing her dainty, pale face. “Are you ready?” she asked Ramon.
“I am always ready for you, mi amor, but you keep insisting you will not have me.” He held his hands over his heart and gave her beseeching puppy-dog eyes.
