Page 28 of Heavy Hitter

“Lucky you,” Lacey agrees, “because I’m going to talk you through it.”

“You are?”

“I am.”

“This happen to you a lot?”

“Not nearly as much as it used to,” she says truthfully. “Now listen.”

She does the trick of making him name the things he can see and hear and smell all around him. She does the trick of making him do math problems in his head. She does the trick of telling him the entire plot of all three Fifty Shades movies, which to his credit Toby once did for her when she was in a bad way following a stupid online feud with a big-name YouTuber and sure her career was well and truly finished. She makes him go outside and breathe in the fresh September air. “How you feeling?” she finally asks.

Jimmy seems to consider that. “Better,” he concedes. “Less like I need somebody to scrape me off the ceiling, at least.”

“Well,” Lacey says, “that’s progress.”

“Yeah.” They’re quiet for a moment—not quite the comfortable silences of their earlier conversations, maybe, but not heavy and awkward and terrible, either. “You’re talking,” he notes. “You picked up, I mean. You’re in between runs now?”

“Finished altogether, actually,” she tells him. “At least until Europe.”

Jimmy lets out a low whistle. “Well, damn,” he says. “Congratulations, superstar. That’s some impressive work.”

Lacey grins dopily, grateful he can’t see her blushing at the compliment. “Thank you,” she says primly. “What about you?”

“Oh, I’ve got, like, fourteen concerts lined up in Japan,” he says immediately. “They can’t get enough of me in Yokohama.”

“Funny.”

“I try. Monday off,” he tells her, “then a home game Tuesday night.”

“Huh,” Lacey says, considering that for a moment.

“Huh,” Jimmy agrees, and she can tell he’s doing the same.

Lacey takes a breath, her chest aching with both the pure narcotic relief of talking to him again and the sharp, hungry awareness that it’s nowhere near enough. She missed him globally, yes, but also specifically, all the secrets he murmured in her ear. “What would you do to me?” she asks quietly. “If I was there?”

Jimmy doesn’t answer for a long moment, then: “Lacey,” he says, and his voice is so quiet. It sounds like he’s trying to warn her.

Right away, Lacey’s entire body flushes a humiliated, shameful red. “What?” she screeches, nearly falling off the lounge chair like a cat shoved off a sill. “Are you seriously going to—since when are you shy?”

“I’m not,” he says, sounded a little offended. “I’m not. I just—I don’t want to talk about this anymore, all right? I don’t want to just talk about it, I mean. I don’t want it to be theoretical with you anymore, Lacey, and I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Why would it not be a good idea?”

“For a lot of reasons.”

“Because I’m a distraction?”

“Yes,” he says, no hesitation at all. “Because you’re a distraction. Because I don’t feel casual about you. I don’t know if I’ve got my head on right about this, and I don’t—I just want to be sure that you’re—look,” he tries finally, breaking off and starting again. “I’m at the end of my career. I’m a lot older than you—”

“By, like, five years!” she interrupts, laughing at the absurdity of it. “And also, not to be gauche, but I am already very fucking famous. This isn’t, like, A Star Is Born, where you’re going to hold me back from reaching my potential so you need to hang yourself in the garage—”

“I think he shoots himself.”

“All right, well.” Lacey laughs. “Don’t do that, either.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“Okay,” she says. “Well. What are you worried about, then? That I’m going to ruin your shot at the World Series? Because you called me just now, Jimmy. You’re the one who’s saying you don’t want this to be theoretical. And you’re the one who asked what the point of all this was, back when you were so rude to me on the phone, so—”

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