Page 63 of Trip Through Your Wires

“Yup,” Coach confirms. “That ‘bout sums it up.”

“Holy shit.” I sit back. A degree and baseball?

I’d never heard of any player saying no to their dream of going pro to stay in school. That’s why I always planned to finish getting my degree when I was done. A career in baseball wasn’t forever and I didn’t plan to do all this work for nothing. The fact I will be able to graduate and play pro is too good to be true.

“You don’t have to make a decision yet,” Coach cuts into my thoughts. “There are still a lot of details to work out. They just asked me to bounce the idea off the two of you. Knowing this is scouting season they wanted you to know their interest before the other scouts came calling.”

“What do you think?” I sit back.

“It’s a damn good deal.” He looks at me, then Cruz. “You know I love this game. But baseball isn’t forever. A degree is a great thing to have and being part of a new team…you will be part of history, that’s for sure.”

The three of us are quiet for a moment as his words sink in.

“Well,” he slaps the arms of his chair and pushes up. “I won’t keep you any longer. That’s it for now.”

Cruz and I push up from our chairs, each of us shaking Coach’s hand before we turn for the door. “Have a good weekend. Both of you. You deserve it. And mum’s the word on this to any of the other guys. Don’t want to screw with the mental mojo.”

We both turn and nod. “You got it coach,” we say in unison.

Once we’re outside, we stop at our cars parked side by side and he looks over the hood at me. “Can you believe it?”

“No,” I admit. “It’s ridiculous, right?”

He taps the hood of his car and laughs. “Completely.”

But as he yanks open the driver’s side door of his Jeep and I climb behind the wheel of my 4-Runner, another word comes to mind. Actually four—one of a kind. Sometimes, the universe knows things that we don’t and I can’t help but think we’d be fools not to consider it.

I think about this all the way home and when I rush down the stairs to pick up the phone and call the one person I want to tell the news to first, I remember she’s not talking to me. Apparently, I hadn’t broken all of my habits when it came to Jenica Miller.

Chapter 14

Jake

Later that night I’m lying on my bed, with one hand behind my head and my VCR remote in the other, when Cruz calls. “Hey brother,” he says when I answer the phone. “What’s the word?”

“Well, I’m about to dive into a sausage and pepperoni pizza, watch Die Hard, and if luck is on my side, sleep long and hard until tomorrow. You?”

“Dude…why are you watching a Christmas movie in February?” he answers my question with his own.

“It’s not a holiday movie,” I sigh, and drop the remote to scratch the back of my head. I’m not having this argument with him again. “And it’s March, in case you forgot.”

“Well you got me there,” he laughs. “I have no idea where the year is going. But you’re wrong about the movie. It takes place on Christmas Eve and has Christmas music in it, therefore, it’s a Christmas movie.”

“Uh huh.” I lay my head back and groan. I guess we are having this argument again. Cruz is the only one who thinks it’s a holiday movie. I don’t know where he got the idea. “The story doesn’t center around Christmas. It would be the same movie if it took place in the summer.”

“The hell it would,” he quips.

I can’t help but laugh back. “Explosives work in the summer, just as well as they do in winter, Cabron.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he ignores the point I make every time this argument comes up. “Where’s Marcus?”

“Caught a flight to Seattle,” I stifle a yawn. “I swear he won the lottery because all those last minute trips he’s taken lately have got to be costing him a fortune.”

With the mention of last minute trips, the memory of Jenica rushing up here last month slams into me. I may have given up on us going back to what we were, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still miss her. I did. More than I was willing to admit.

“Why the roll call?” I ask, changing the subject. “Aren’t you supposed to be having dessert?”

“I have a favor to ask.”

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