Page 55 of Sideline Play

Tracing the logo patch on my pads, she asks, “I can ask you anything, right Remi? Like you won’t get mad or lash out or something.”

“No Scarlet, you’re safe with me,” I assure. “Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you. There are no secrets with us.”

“The other day you said you’ve never allowed yourself to be this way with anyone, and before that, you were really quick to say you weren’t in love with Chelsea even though y’all were together for two years.”

“Yeah. Both things are true.”

Sighing as she moves to trace the stitching of each pad within my chest protector, she asks, “How were you with someone for two years if you didn’t love her and couldn’t express yourself in bed with her?”

Letting go of her and the ice, I scrub my hands over the stubble on my jaw that’s turning into a closely cropped beard before combing my fingers through my hair and pulling on the short ends. It’s a more than fair question, one I opened myself up to with my comments, but it’s also the last thing I want to talk about. Who I was, and how I was, with Chelsea doesn’t exactly paint me in the best light. At that time in my life, I had no business being in a relationship. I too was afraid of being alone and never having the life my Ma wanted for me to be the best man I could be for a woman. Yet I found myself in one, and worse, I stayed even when I knew she wasn’t my one.

“Remi, if you don’t want to tell me?—”

“No, baby girl, it’s not that. I selfishly don’t want you to think differently of me or look at me differently. The way you see me is intoxicating. I feel invincible when you smile at me or seek me out, and I don’t want to lose even a fraction of that. I mean it’s not as if I treated her poorly?—”

“I saw y’all together; I know you didn’t,” she interjects. “I don’t think you could treat anyone poorly or with anything less than the utmost respect.”

“Mmm, I beg to differ. I let Chelsea invest two years of her life into a relationship that wasn’t goin’ anywhere. A relationship I knew wasn’t goin’ anywhere. That’s not respect.”

Taking the peas off my crotch and murmuring they’d been on long enough, Scarlet pulls my boxers and shorts back up and brings my arm back around her, lacing the fingers of my other hand through her own, softly saying, “Trust me, I of all people will not judge you for what you feel shame over. So tell me whatever you want, Remi. It won’t change how I see or feel about you any more than what changed for you after I told you about what happened when I was in undergrad.”

“You really are such a beautiful and gentle soul, Scar. I’m truly lucky to have you.”

“Even with all the cracks?”

Rolling her so she’s on top of me and astride my hips, I crunch up to cup her face, letting slip, “Baby, your fractures make me love you even more,” kissing her before she can respond.

Pulling free of her, I guide her head to fit under mine, my arms coming around to rest low on her back as I speak over her, the coward I once was peeking out and deciding I wasn’t ready just yet to hear if she loves me too.

“Ma died days after we won the World Series. That whole time in my life was a blur. All of Tennessee was celebrating another championship, and I felt as if my world had imploded. My only parent—the only support in my life outside of the game—was gone, and the world just kept turning as if it hadn’t just ripped my entire life out from under me.

“I don’t know how much you remember, but Colt was the first person I called after I hung up with the hospice nurse. I don’teven think I had managed to actually say she had died before he was in his truck and speeding down the road to Franklin.” Stopping, I look toward the trees and amend, “You probably do remember, because you were with him when he showed up. You had on this white silky looking button down tucked into a skirt—pink, of course—and these gray boots that came up over your knees. I mean it wasn’t as if I was checking you out or anything. I mean you were what, fourteen?”

“Sixteen,” she tartly corrects.

“Fine, sixteen. Still too young. I just remember thinking that you looked far too pristine to be in a house where Death was still lingering.

“I now know that he’s nothing more than a minion of yours sent to collect those of us too weak to keep up with your training.”

Shoving my chest protector, she laughs, “Not you too. Roman is dramatic enough for the entire team. I don’t need you gripin’ too.”

Capturing her hand, I kiss her knuckles and soothe, “I’m just teasin’. I mean you did kick my ass today, but I needed it and probably a dozen more sessions like it before I start truly getting ready for Spring Training.

“Anyway,” I drawl, drifting off for a moment. “He sat with me all morning, into the afternoon, and hauled my ass to bed when night came. All the while you were aflutter in Ma’s house, the heels of your boots clicking over the hardwood floors as you fielded calls, made arrangements, rescheduled interviews, and God only knows what else. Which by the way, thank you Scarlet. I don’t know if I ever said that to you, but thank you.Sixteenyears old and you handled every detail from getting my ma to the funeral home to clearing out the medical equipment to arranging her wake and burial. You were a godsend to me.”

“You needed help and I was able to provide it,” she easily dismisses, as if to this day it’s not something that fixates in my head as a core example of the kind of person Scarlet is.

Strumming my fingers along her spine, I reiterate, “My head was a mess. It was only after Colt came to bail my dumb ass out when I was detained in the drunk tank for public intoxication just before Christmas when I finally started to come up for air. Stupidly, I thought that if I just dove right into how I was before she passed, it would keep me busy and lessen the grief of losing her. And to an extent it did, but only in the way avoidance does, not true processing.

“So when Simpson and his wife asked me to appear as a bachelor for auction at a charity event for one of the foundations they patronize, I said yes. And that was how I met Chelsea—she and Simpson’s wife were sorority sisters.”

“Did she bid on you?” Scarlet asks, as she slips off to my side, turning her gaze up at the clouds.

“Yep. Our first date was to this ridiculously overpriced restaurant. The kind of place that requires men to wear suit jackets in order to sit at their tables and pay for their $100 entrees. A place my ma would’ve worked at because one night could mean $1,000 in tips. Call me a food snob all you want when we grocery shop, but I fuckin’ hate places like that. I mean my God, what I spent on wine alone would’ve covered our grocery bill for two if not three weeks when I was a teenager. But overall, our date wasn’t bad, and when she asked about another one without the charitable obligation attached, I agreed.

“That one date became two, then four, then eight, and before I knew it, we were exclusive and she had claimed half the space in my bathroom, a side of my bed, a section of my closet, and was slowly beginning to redecorate my apartment in the city. We had our differences, but overall things were easy, comfortable. I hadsomeone to call while on the road, someone to miss me and wait up for me, come to games, all the things I thought I had lost.

“Everything was easy with Chelsea. Even missing her was easy because, eventually, I realized I didn’t. We could be on a road stretch for two weeks, and unlike the other guys, I wasn’t itching to get home and see my girlfriend. And she definitely wasn’t as desperate for me as the other girlfriends and wives, making trips out to see us play for a night or waiting at The Nest for when the bus pulled in. The distance didn’t bother us. We didn’t care if three or four days would pass without talking to each other.”

---