Page 65 of Off Limits: The Firsts

“What the hell was that all about?” I grit the words out, clenching and unclenching my hands to prevent me from punching the wall.

“I saw him walking down the hallway toward your clubhouse. I asked him where he was going. When he wouldn’t answer, I figured he was coming to see you. I told him he better not go near you or I’d have him thrown out of the ballpark.”

I stare at my dad, but rage clouds my judgment to the point that I’m questioning whether he’s telling me the truth. And of course he is, he’s my dad, but it’s so much easier to listen to the anger and pick a fight with him.

“You should have let him come at me,” I mutter as I scrub my hands over my face and pace a few feet past my dad, toward the opposing clubhouse’s locker room and then back the way I came.

“For what, Easton? So you can get hurt again and piss the club off because your DL stint just got extended? Nothing good ever comes out of anger. Nothing.” He walks up to me, puts his hand on my shoulder, and squeezes. “I know you’re frustrated. I know it’s taking everything in your body right now to not storm in there and kick his ass. And I know more than anything you just want your norm back. Keep doing what you’re doing, and you’ll be back in six weeks’ time, according to the report that Ms. Dalton gave the front office.”

Six weeks? How did I not know that?

I push it away. The thought. The excitement. Because I was given a return date before and never hit it. A man can’t recover on a clock.

But something else becomes clear. For the first time in what feels like forever, my dad is being my dad, not Cal Wylder. It’s just what I needed right now, even though he might not know it.

“I’m going fucking stir crazy.”

“It’s hard being cut off from what you love.”

I look up to him, meet eyes that mirror mine, and see the concern. “Yeah, well, thanks to him.” I pace back and forth once more. “You know what I don’t get, though, is why? Why take me out? Why hurt me? Why any of this?”

My dad clears his throat and chews the inside of his cheek as he thinks it over. “I just don’t know, Easton. The guy’s bat is on fire. He has a helluva on-base percentage. His arm’s flawless, and no one dares steal with him behind that plate. His style reminds me a lot of yours, yet he’s probably making a third of what you make.”

“You think this is a jealousy thing? There’s no way. I mean, there’s hundreds of us taking the field every night across all pay grades and starting positions. If that’s the case, then why single me out? It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Nothing seems to these days, son.”

“The fucker went three-for-three tonight. What the fuck is up with that?” Drew mutters as he takes a nice long drag on his bottle.

“Bad juju, man,” I mutter, tired as fuck but with zero desire to make it the few blocks down the street back to my place.

“Yeah, but we won, so it couldn’t have been too damn bad,” Tino chimes in with a clink of his bottle to mine. “I think I deserve to get laid for that homer, though.”

“Then go home to your wife,” I say, the same as I do every time we go drinking. It’s innocent enough, I know, because Tino worships the ground his wife walks on, but he never fails to say it.

Almost like a routine.

Pretty much the same as the four of us sitting here after a home game, reliving the highlights, bitching about the ball that wouldn’t drop, or the shitty call that cost us the game, and taking time to unwind for an hour or two before we head home to our non-baseball lives. Tino, his wife; Drew, his three dogs; J.P., his girlfriend; and me to my empty bed.

“I plan on it,” Tino says with a quick grin, “but I was waiting for Gonzo to get here so we could buy him a beer and fuck with him a bit.”

“Yeah. Where is he?” J.P. says, craning his neck around the crowded bar to look for him.

“He’s probably still sitting in the dugout, sporting wood and trying to believe he actually just made his debut in the show,” Drew says, and the image has us all thinking back to that first time and the rush of nerves and adrenaline that lasted for days.

“The kid did good.” I nod. “Real good.”

“Not as good as you, East,” Tino says. “When’re you going to get your ass back on the field?”

“Soon. Four, five weeks. It’s up to Scout to clear me.”

“Ah, the mysterious Scout,” J.P. taunts, but I don’t take the bait. Because fuck yes, I’ve thought about her tonight. When I was sitting at my place watching the game, shouting at the television, and flipping off Santiago every time the camera panned to him, it was her I imagined laughing at me. Even when I came down here to grab our table in the back and wait for the guys, sure, the women who approached were attractive, but all I kept doing was comparing them to her.

I’ve got it fucking bad. Christ. Talk about feeling pussy-whipped when you aren’t even getting any pussy.

“You mean that mysterious Scout?” Drew asks with a tilt of his beer toward the far side of the room.

I look immediately, hating that my heart fucking slams into my chest as violently as confusion does when I see her on the other side of the dimly lit bar.