Page 25 of Pursued by the Player

"You seemed so quiet."

"I was thinking."

"And your frown—"

"I always frown when I think. It's instinctive." The elevator stopped on the second floor, and they stepped out. Jett navigated the hallways, leading her out onto the bleacher seats.

"What were you thinking?" he asked as they made their way through the bleachers.

"I was thinking about how rough you had it as a kid."

Jett pulled away from her and started walking toward the second to last row of seats. "Yeah, well, we didn't have a lot of money, but as you can tell, the staff made up for it with kindness." He moved to one of the seats and motioned her to sit next to him.

"And love." When Jett gave her a sharp look, she explained. "That man loved you back there. You could see it in his eyes."

"Maybe." Jett sniffed and looked away. Truth was he loved Papi, too, but could never admit it. Admitting that he cared about someone was like admitting he had a weakness, one that could be exploited and hurt him. Jett had been hurt enough in his past and went to great lengths so that the pain he felt as a kid would never touch him again.

“He does love you. You were really blessed.”

Jett snorted and toyed with some dirt on the arm rest. “Blessed, yeah.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was blessed all right.” He shook his head. “Papi likes to romanticize what it was like. While the staff was nice to us and wanted us to think of them as a family, we all knew that they went home at the end of their shift to their real families. We were just their job.

“Jett—”

“They meant well. And they sure did try hard, but it wasn’t the same, Mel. You couldn’t’ possibly understand unless you’ve been there.” He cleared his throat as a particularly painful memory flashed through his mind.

“This was where you sat, wasn’t it? When you were a kid.”

“Yeah.” His voice was thick with emotion. He could remember every game as if it was yesterday. “Some of my best memories are up here in the bleachers. Sad, eh?”

“Not sad,” she said, taking his arm. “But sweet.”

He snorted. “They were doing their fucking job, Mel. Punching the clock. Sometimes we could go around pretending that we were family, like when the local team would spring to have us at these games. But the kids always knew that it wasn’t real.”

She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Of course it was real.”

“No.” He took in a deep breath and let it out. “At the end of the day, Papi, Pops, and the rest went home to their real families. We were just charity cases.” He focused on the armrest and picked at a scratch he remembered making as a kid. All we wanted was parents to love us. Clothes and a warm bed to sleep in. The staff did what they could, but the orphanage never had enough money. Often we would wear the same clothes until they were nothing but threads, and in the winter it would get bitterly cold because we didn’t have enough to heat the place.”

“That’s awful.”

“I could have lived with all of that,” he said as he looked out at the sun setting over the outfield. “I could have even thrived, if it wasn’t for the visits.”

“The visits?”

He glanced at her. “Of prospective parents. They would interview us like it was a fucking job we were applying for. They said that they wanted a kid, but what they wanted was a trophy to show their friends.” His eyes stung, and he blinked them back. “None of them knew how to handle troubled kids, and they didn’t want to learn. They were chasing a dream, a perfect dream, and we just got in the way. That’s why I don’t ever have kids of my own. I never had a real father in my life, so I don’t know how to be one. And the thought of having a kid out there that I’m not there for, I could never do that the way my father did to me. I don’t know if he even knows I exist. I figured if I ever changed my mind about kids I’d adopt; I know better than anyone how many lost and unloved kids there are out there that need a family.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Jett sniffed and turned away. “Yeah, well. You wanted to know why I’m such an asshole. You wanted to know why I had the façade back there at Chez Monique. Well, it’s because that’s what people expect of me. I learned at an early age that being an asshole was the only way to get anyone to notice me.”

“But that’s the wrong type of attention.”

“At least it was attention.” He took in a deep breath and focused on the pitcher’s mound—his mound. Although it took several years before he could say that. “Which was better than nothing. There were far too many forgotten birthdays in that place. Far too many Christmases alone.”

“Oh God, Jett. I’m so sorry.”

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