ERICA

A knock on my hotel door brought me out of my haze. I had Alice take me back to the hotel so I could pack. I needed to get away from everything before the season began.

I wouldn’t break my word to Ren to be there, but with training ending in a few days, I could get back to New York and try to get my head on straight. My emotions were putting everything in jeopardy.

I took a deep breath and opened the door to see Ren with his hands in his jeans, his eyes burning a hole through me.

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” I said, leaving the door open for him and doing quick work of resuming my packing.

“I know this looks bad, okay. But I’ll be back for opening day. I’m not quitting on you, Ren. I just need to take a break.” I brought my eyes to his.

“I’m not leaving you. Not professionally.”

“What about personally?”

“I’m just full of so much shit I’ve never dealt with. I’m just dragging you down, and you don’t need this. Not at the height of your career. I didn’t mean those awful things I said. I’m so sorry. I never regretted us. Never. And I was jealous and hurt, and I can’t seem to stop being anything but jealous and hurt.”

I sat on the edge of my bed and looked up at the ceiling.

“I’ve lost my shit one too many times since I’ve been here, Ren, and in public, this isn’t good for you or for me.”

“I’ll decide what’s good for me. Last time you made that decision you tore me apart.”

I tamped down the tears that threatened. “I’ll always regret it. You didn’t deserve it.”

“Well, you didn’t deserve to see what a mess I made of myself, either.”

“Did you . . .” I swallowed, afraid to ask. “Did you make a spectacle of yourself so I would see?”

He wiped his hand down his face. “I would never intentionally hurt you. But after the first headline broke, I think I was too numb to care. You cut me so deep, I bled everywhere.” He lifted his cap and ran a hand through his hair.

“Once you wrecked my heart, I couldn’t stop trying to wreck everything else. I thank God daily for Andy and Rafe, or I might have succeeded. I never thought I would be that guy, to lose so much control over a woman. But you—” he sighed “—you were everything to me.”

I folded a pair of jeans and stuffed them in my suitcase. “I wanted to come back, but after I saw those pictures, I couldn’t. I didn’t know if you would take me.”

“I would have taken anything you gave me.”

I nodded as I zipped my suitcase. “I wish I would have handled it differently.” I let out an ironic tear-filled laugh.

“That’s an understatement.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” he asked, stepping in front of me and stilling my hands.

“I didn’t want you to look at him the way I did. You were so animated around him, just so happy to know him. And all that talk you did about family. I knew how important it was to you.”

He pushed the hair away from my forehead. “Tell me now.”

“He was a total bastard at home. Demanding, judgmental, as if we couldn’t do enough to please him. It was disgusting. My mother worshiped him, and he was all too happy to offer his feet to her. I honestly thought that was just the way things were until I got old enough to figure it out. He was undeserving.”

“And you thought I was undeserving, too?” he asked in a thick voice.

“You know that’s not true. I loved you with everything in me, but I didn’t want to. Ren, the day we met, I was divorcing baseball and washing my hands of my dad. He demanded I pick my last tuition check from the ballpark, I guess to keep up appearances or boast he had raised a college graduate. Who the hell knows what his agenda was, but I was there to collect my paycheck from being that bastard’s daughter. And I was done.”

“You never loved ball?”

“God, yes, I did. I loved it more than anything until I was old enough to know what it was doing to my family. I mean, I know it was him, but I guess it was just easier to say I hate baseball than to say I hate my father. I wanted no part of the life for myself. I saw what misery it could bring, and then you blew my plans all to shit.”

“But you kept them,” he reminded as he stood towering over me, his eyes inquisitive as his gentle hands cupped the sides of my face.

“I would have married you in a heartbeat if it didn’t chain me to baseball.”

“You think marrying some lawyer who works eighty-hour weeks would make you happier?”

“It was the game, Ren, and your devotion to it. It reminded me so much of him. And, Jesus Christ, look at you.”

“That doesn’t matter, I was always faithful.”

“I know you were. But I felt like I was up against too much. So, what I think is that I was twenty-two years old and out of my mind in love and too afraid to make the same mistake, become and do exactly like my mother no matter how you treated me.” I paused my next words as the fear set in they would only divide us further. Looking at him, loving him, there was no way I could hold back the truth any longer.

“Because while baseball is your life, in a sense it took both my parents away. And if it changed us, you and me, I knew it would break me just as much as it broke her. That’s the mindset of the twenty-two-year-old me.”

Heart heavy with the memory of walking out of our apartment two years ago, I pressed on. “I couldn’t look at you without folding, Ren. I was so far gone, there was no way I could walk away with you there. I took the coward’s way out because I saw it as the only way.”

“I believe that you believe that,” he said in a whisper. “But do you remember what I said to you the day we met?”

I closed my eyes and nodded.

“What did I say, Erica?”

“So, this is where you come in,” I said as a tear trailed down my cheek before he caught it with his thumb.

“And I meant it. I knew it was you the moment I met you. If I can love you for the last three years and only had you for one of them, don’t you think I could love you for three more? And the three after that?”

“You still love me?” I asked, searching his eyes as he stared down at me.

“You know I do.”

“I love you, too.”

“I know.”

“Is there anything you don’t know?” I asked with a slight eye roll.

“I don’t know how this plays out. And I’m fucking terrified you’ll walk away again, but I don’t have a choice because I can’t stop loving you no matter what happens.”

“I couldn’t move on. I missed you too much. Even though . . .” I swallowed, “Even though I saw you with all those women, I couldn’t stop wanting you. And I never will.”

Ren traced my lips with his thumb before he leaned in on a whisper.

“Don’t go.”

“I don’t want to. If you don’t want me to, this time I won’t.”

“I missed you so fucking much.”

“I love you, Ren. I’m so sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”

“I’ll forgive you for anything,” he said, brushing his thumb over my lips again and again as he held me in his hands. “But we have two years to makeup for.”

The butterflies churned in my stomach as he leaned in and brushed our lips together. My clit pulsed as the jolt of our electricity hit me.

“Ren,” I whispered as he closed his eyes and brought his forehead to mine.

His voice was gravel. “I need to know right now what you want.”

“I want you to let me back in.”

He brushed his lips against mine again. “Saying yes to me means saying yes to baseball. You get that, right?”

“I do. I want whatever life that is. Just please don’t—”

“You will never have to worry about your place with me. Ever. You come first, always.”

He paused a moment before his lips met mine. “How’s your head?”

“Better,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“Good, because we’re about to have the best fucking make-up sex in history.” He gave me a smirk, and I returned it.

I raised a brow and trailed my hand down to his rock-hard cock. “What are you waiting for?”

“Fuuuck,” he hissed as he captured my lips with his and then darted his tongue out before sweeping my mouth before he dove in deep. I gasped at the feeling as my body lit up and my flesh burned.

“Oh, God,” I murmured as he pulled back and we shared breath. “Please don’t stop.”

He eyed the bed behind me and gripped my hair in his fist. His mouth came down hard as he pushed us onto the mattress, his arm stretching behind me to clear off my suitcase. In seconds, my dress was on the floor. He pulled off his hat and tossed it. His dark hair spilled in a wave across his forehead as he bent to take my taut nipple into his mouth.

Sighing, I drank him in, hungry, needy, his neon blue gaze full of lust and longing, and the love I’d missed for so long. I swam in it, relished in the feel of it.

He fisted his T-shirt at his back and pulled it off. His body was a piece of paradise, and I mapped it with my fingers, exploring the divots cut in his stomach following the hair that trailed down his naval.

Unbuttoning his jeans, I freed his perfect cock, the plump head beaded with arousal. I held him firmly in my hand and brushed the tip with my thumb. I heard his breath leave him as I began to pump him with my fist.

I sank into the bed as he swept a hot tongue over every inch of my exposed flesh, and I whimpered at the attention he lavished everywhere but where I needed him most. A hot trail of desire blazed its way through us as his gaze commanded mine as he hooked my black lace panties with his fingers.

“I love you,” I whispered.

He paused his fingers and closed his eyes. His hurt was written in his every feature. I lifted myself and wrapped my arms around his neck before I got to my knees and let his scent fill my nose.

I brought us chest to chest as I whispered in his ear, “I’m sorry I forgot about us and let my fear ruin everything.”

I pulled back to look into his eyes. Ren never treated me like a woman in his bed, he treated me like the woman of his life. And I let my own hurt show as he stared at me wordlessly.

We’d both been punished enough.

“Tell me what you want. I’ll give you everything,” I whispered.

“I want my life back, the one you took with you,” he murmured as he kissed my lips softly and gripped me firmer in his hold. “Damn, baby, I thought I lost you.” He pushed me so that I fell on the mattress and followed with his lips before he spread my thighs and slipped two fingers inside. I arched my back as he cursed under his breath.

“Christ, you’re wet,” he said as he twisted them and pressed his thumb to my clit. I bucked under his touch as he pinned the rest of me with his gaze.

“Ren,” I cried out in breathless praise while I rocked into his hand.

“Fuck,” he grunted out, his breath hitting my neck before he took a bite.

I gasped as the wave hit, clutching his hair and pulling it hard while I shuddered beneath him. His name echoed off my tongue as he milked my center and the orgasm lasted for a blissful eternity.

I was still coming when he pulled back to watch my reaction.

“You look so perfect when you come,” he said in a murmur as he spread my thighs wider and made his way down my body in praise before he dipped his head to lick my center.

Moaning at the feel of him, I watched him consume me. His breathtaking blue eyes were trained on me as he gripped my thighs, pushing them further apart while I rode his tongue, eagerly chasing another release. He stopped me at the brink and sucked my clit, teasing me with the promise of more.

High from the feeling of his mouth alone, I shuddered when he slipped his fingers in, playing with the wetness and sliding it over my sensitive flesh. Over and over he coated me with my arousal while he flicked out his tongue and slowly fucked me with his fingers.

Watching my reaction, he dipped in again, his licks low as his nose grazed my clit. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Skilled fingers twisted and teased while his repeating tongue brought me to the edge and pushed me over. I skyrocketed as I burst, my back bowing off the bed as my body shook in ecstasy.

“So fucking beautiful,” he murmured against my skin before he lined his thick cock at my entrance and pushed in.

My breath caught at the feeling of fullness, and I closed my eyes, tightening around him.

“Oh my God,” I said as I scratched the skin on his back.

He hadn’t let up since we got on the bed and I was overwhelmed with pleasure, at his mercy and loving every minute.

“Jesus Christ,” he hissed as he filled me, his breath ragged.

With one hand tangled in my hair, he began to thrust like a madman, our eyes connected as he swiveled his hips, hitting me deep and where I needed him.

He hadn’t forgotten a single inch of me and made sure I knew it.

Bursting around him, I screamed his name until it came out in a desperate rasp. I flew over the edge while he rolled through his own release, pushing in deeper to make sure I took every drop.

Seconds later, he lay on top of me as I ran my nails along his skin.

“I haven’t come that fast since I discovered my first hard on.”

I chuckled as he buried his face in my breasts. “I should be embarrassed, but I’m not,” he said with a sly grin as he propped his chin on my chest.

I would never see anything more beautiful than Ren when he was at ease with me. His smile, the tenderness in his eyes, despite the life he’d lived, was my eighth wonder of the world, and I was done denying it.

“I missed you,” I said carefully, afraid to see any more hurt in his face.

“You didn’t have to,” he said, absently sucking on my nipple.

“That’s kind of part of the job of loving you,” I said, reminding him of the life he led.

“I’m not an idiot, you know, I know what a toll this job takes on a relationship. I just thought, well, I was sure we were stronger than that. Turns out we’re going to have to work twice as hard as everyone else.”

“That’s all I need you to say. And that you think my ass is hotter than Natasha’s.” I gave a soft chuckle as he planted tender kisses below my breast.

“Isn’t the better compliment that I want you forever, and I never wanted her at all.”

“I will settle for better earlobes,” I said pathetically.

“You have a better everything,” he said as he ran a trail of tongue-laced kisses across my belly.

“I haven’t been with anyone else, Ren. Not since you.”

He paused at that and looked down at me. “No one?”

“No,” I confessed easily.

His face was filled with shock. “Not even . . . no one?”

“Oh, I tried,” I said as I looked up at him and he stole my breath. “How I tried. Like a whore on her first night on the corner, I tried.”

“Little too much information, baby,” Ren said as he stared down at me with adoration.

“I tried like the only bottle of lube on a porn set.”

“Erica,” he grated as he pinched my nipple. I ignored the pain.

“I tried like a one-legged woman at an ass-kicking contest.”

He let out a sharp laugh as he turned me on my side and pulled me to him.

“I tried like a—”

“Erica?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not letting you go this time.”

“You won’t have to.”

His soft lips pressed against my shoulder as I pulled the covers over us. We were in for the night even though it was early. But I knew what this night would lead to. Two years of catch up. And I was finally ready to play ball.

“I tried like a Democrat on election day,” I said with a chuckle as his arms snaked around me in a familiar way.

“Erica,” Ren whispered. I turned back to look at him, firm in his hold, his features etched with worry. “We’ll get through this season. I won’t let you forget how good we feel.”

“I never forgot. I’m not leaving again, Ren. I promise.”

“I need you, trust me,” he said before he planted the softest of kisses on my lips.

“I do.”

“No lies. Don’t hold back. We can do this.”

“I know.”

“About the women—”

“Oh, Jesus, one mountain at a time,” I said as I kissed him silent.

* * *

Opening Day

“Play ball!”

I hadn’t attended an opening game for years. Despite my best attempts to stay away from the sport I swore I loathed, I could feel the excitement race through me. From the first pitch, I was in the zone.

I sat next to April and Alice, who had made it a point to be with me at this game. They had turned into friends I couldn’t do without. A support system that I never imagined possible.

When Rafe walked toward the dugout after a solid ending of pitches, I couldn’t help my observation.

“Why does Rafe look like a raccoon? What happened to him?”

April chuckled next to me and addressed Alice who stiffened in her seat. “You have to tell her.”

Alice cut her eyes to April. “I hate you.”

“Come on, it’s hilarious,” she said as she gave me a shit-eating grin.

“Maybe to you,” Alice snapped.

“Okay,” I said with prodding eyes in Alice’s direction. “Now I have to know.”

“It’s nothing,” Alice dismissed, looking toward the field.

“You broke your husband’s nose. I would say that’s something,” April mused.

“You really suck, you know that, April Pracht? Like I don’t even know why I deal with you,” Alice said with a menacing smile before she took a breath and turned to me. “Okay, well, Rafe’s been a little tense lately, to say the least.”

“So, you broke his nose?” I asked, lost.

Alice bit her lip and slunk in her seat on a whisper. “I was trying to get him good and relaxed for the start of the season. And, well . . .”

“Go on,” April said with a chuckle.

“So, we haven’t had a chance to . . . ya know, do it. And well I wanted to spice things up a bit. He came home one day from meetings, and let’s just say I was ready for him.”

“Oh, you were ready all right,” April taunted.

“You want to tell it?” Alice scolded her.

“Oh, no, honey, this one is alllll you!” April replied, her drawl making her tease that much more adorable.

“Anyway,” Alice continued, “I had on some skimpy lingerie, and I put on some . . . porn. You know, on my phone, not like on TV. We don’t have a subscription or anything.”

“Okay,” I said with a chuckle.

“It started out great, he came in and, well, we started you know . . .”

Her animated face was too much, and I nodded, trying to hide my smile.

“I was bent over the bed with Rafe behind me. It was getting heavy . . .”

April’s body began to tremble with silent laughter.

“So, we’re watching this couple go at it while we’re, ya know, and it’s so hot. Rafe was totally into it, and all of a sudden . . .”

I leaned in, on the edge of my seat.

“The screen flashed saying ‘Congratulations, you have just published this video on your Facebook newsfeed!’”

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed, terrified for her.

“Exactly!” Alice continued, “I was so freaked out, I reared back, and head-butted him in the nose.”

April was howling in her seat, tears pouring from her eyes. Alice’s eyes pleaded with mine for understanding.

“Rafe was cursing and bleeding, but I couldn’t even help him because I was too busy fumbling with the phone to delete it!”

“Did it post?!” I asked, horrified.

“No!” Alice said with angry, twisted features. “A few seconds later, the screen flashed again with ‘Happy April Fool’s Day from all of us at Porn Central!’”

April was still hysterical as Alice looked at me with wide, incredulous eyes. As much as I wanted to sympathize, the picture she painted was far too much. I doubled over with laughter as April wiped her eyes and threw her arm around Alice.

“Those bastards,” Alice fumed. “I wonder how many orgasms they ruined that day. I’d sue, but then everyone would know we were watching porn.”

April looked at her with sympathy-filled eyes.

“Alice, almost everyone watches porn at some point in their life. And it’s okay, girl. I’m positive this is an opening day he’ll never forget.”

Alice winced.

“My poor man. He looks so awful. Our daughter calls him Daddy Walrus now because he had tampons up his nose for two days.”

“Andy does the same thing with Kleenex when he’s sick,” April said. “He’s just not bloody from experimental monkey fucking. But kudos on your efforts, girl. We gotta keep them happy, right?”

“Right,” Alice said, biting her lip to hide her smile before she finally let herself laugh. “God, I can’t believe he puts up with me sometimes.”

“It’s because he knows your worth it,” April said with a grin.

I turned to them both with genuine interest.

“Do they make you happy?”

Both women looked at me with concern. They knew the whole story, including the truth about my father. Regardless, I knew they would give it to me straight.

“Oh yeah,” April said. “I mean, Andy’s retired so I’m kind of lucky, but then he gets a wild hair like he did this season and takes us with him. He’s a family man through and through. I’m more a fan of his than I am of baseball. Sometimes I get sick of it, but then I do my own thing. He gets wrapped up, but I never sleep alone. And if I do, it’s with my phone next to my pillow.”

“Same here,” Alice chimed in. “Sometimes ball consumes him, and we have little tiffs here and there, but he’s never missed anything really important. He’s present for Clover and for me even if it’s just a few minutes of FaceTime. It’s a tough balance, but we handle it. I’m lucky, though, since I can travel with him or I can fly anytime I want to see him.”

They seemed truly happy and it gave me hope. I looked back to the field just as Ren took his position behind the plate. God, how I loved him. And he still loved me, despite the fact that we’d hurt each other so much. The anger was dissolving along with the fear as each day passed and I ended each night in his arms. It was then, sitting in those stands with those two women, that I realized how lucky I was. I was a woman who had thrown away true and unconditional love only to be swept back into it by the one thing I was afraid would ruin it.

Baseball.

I was a veteran fan by the time I could walk and talk. And for Ren, because of who he was and what he meant to me, I could be his forever fan. If any woman out there was made to love him and respect his passion and devotion for ball, it was me. But that’s not what he saw when he looked at me. The sport wasn’t our whole relationship. I was the one who put baseball between us. And his love was the tool used to tear down the divide.

And so, for the next seven months, I watched my love play his heart out, keeping his devotion to ball on the field and his promise to put me first once the glove came off. In the future I saw for myself, I’d never wanted to be devoted to baseball or one of its disciples.

But I ended up falling in love all over again, with both.

* * *

Ren- World Series Game 3

“Hembrey’s taken out twenty-six batters,” I warned Valdez who looked uneasy on his feet as he stepped up to the plate. “You’re so fucked.”

He glared back at me before assuming the position and lifting his bat.

“Might want to stick that ass out a little more,” I said as I threw two fingers down between my thighs. Rafe offered me a slight nod from the mound.

Valdez kept his eyes on Rafe as he wound up and fired a dinger into my glove. Valdez caught nothing but air with his swing.

“Ouch,” I muttered just loud enough for him to hear.

We were 2-0 and just a batter away from winning the third game. And Rafe was one out away from being the third in history to pitch a perfect game at the World Series.

Rafe shook out his arms and then resumed his spot on the mound. I quickly looked to the dugout and got the signal. We were all lined up in thought as I turned back to Rafe and threw some more fingers.

Seconds later, a perfect heater came toward us and Valdez popped it toward left field. Our third baseman, Howard, scooped it up and fired it to Hamill on first. He stomped on the bag, causing an eruption in the stands behind me.

As soon as the umpire yelled “out,” I ditched my mask, running for the mound where Rafe waited with his hat over his heart and his eyes closed.

I pummeled him when I reached him. “You son of a bitch, you did it!”

He opened his eyes and clapped my back before he gave me the biggest shit-eating grin. “Eat it up, Makavoy, this was you, too,” he yelled across the players joining us in the huddle.

The stands started spilling into the fields, and Rafe and I were eaten up in man hugs and back slaps. Rafe had just made history and we were about to sweep the World Series, though we were celebrating like we’d already won.

Andy shoved himself inside the huddle and gripped Rafe and me by our jerseys.

“You two, that was fucking epic,” he said with pure pride.

“I can’t believe it,” Rafe yelled as the three of us clasped each other’s shoulders.

“That was unbelievable,” I agreed.

“Fuckin’ A,” Andy said with a watery smile.

On the field, I had a moment in time that no one could ever take away from me. Something special I would never forget, but off the field I had everything. I knew without a doubt there was a woman in those stands who had tear-filled eyes, who was just as anxious to get to me as I was to her. I knew that my future was waiting for me with a new fire in her soul that existed for only the two of us. So, while I celebrated with my family on the field. I knew for certain that woman and I were going to be celebrating again later as a new family with each other, filling in the pieces we’d both been missing our whole lives. Because I was her Tin Man and she had my heart.