Page 6 of The Show

I paused the DVR for the hundredth time as I watched Boomer Jones miss the catch and drop the ball. The third ball he’d dropped this game alone. In fairness to him, he was attempting to make a catch off a Jupiter Reeves line drive, which was never going to happen, but it still didn’t make me feel any better that The Lions were losing 8-1 to the Dodgers.

I’d fallen in love with baseball – the beautiful game – but there was nothing beautiful about this shitshow.

I threw a gummy bear in my mouth, regretting it immediately at the sharp pain stabbing me in the gut, though it was less likely the ever-present ache I’d been carrying around with me the past few months was to do with my sugar intake, and everything to do with the disaster playing out on the screen.

Like watching a car crash, it had been on repeat since I’d stormed out of my grandfather’s office – because every single game The Lions played was the same. A disaster. I still couldn’t bring myself to repair all The Yankees memorabilia I’d smashed up in the drunken stupor I’d fallen into after I’d returned home. I hadn’t even managed to sit in my games room, barely spending any time in there due to its homage to my favorite team.

I wasn’t even sure I could say it was my favorite, now that I owned one of its rivals. Either way, I was being disloyal to one of them. It was like finding yourself in an arranged marriage to a person you’d never met, when the reality was that you were in love with someone else.

Once I’d sobered up, I’d tried to get out of it.

I’d pleaded with my grandfather to let me do anything else, but I hadn’t inherited my stubbornness from my mom’s side of the family. I’d even had Rafe go through all the contracts, but my grandfather employed the best lawyers in the world.

Bottom line: I was fucked.

I spent my time since then watching The Lions slip further and further behind in the league. They were on a current losing streak of eleven games. I’d stayed up countless nights, pausing and rewinding every mistake I noticed, but there were mistakes with everything. In fairness they’d been given a grueling schedule this year; the team was tired and unmotivated. It had been unloved for too long, and they knew it.

I let out another loud groan as Jupiter Reeves ran across the home plate and disappeared into the dugout, but stopped myself from hurling the remote at the wall. I’d only be adding it to the dozens I’d already smashed. I hadn’t been able to buy them in bulk, and it quickly became tedious having to get up from the comfort of the couch to change the channels.

Washing the sugary buzz down with the rest of my beer, I closed my eyes and laid back, trying to ignore the heaviness dragging in my chest. It felt like it had been there so long I’d almost forgotten what it was like without it. Three months in and I was no closer to figuring out what I was going to do.

I was just falling into my daily eleven a.m. nap when I heard the faint click of my front door, followed by footsteps which didn’t belong to anyone I wanted to see; namely Murray or Rafe.

The intruder made themselves known as they rounded the corner into my den – the space I’d moved all my sports watching to – though I should have said intruders.

My day had just gone frompretty shittofuck my life.

I let out another groan.

“How did you get in?” I grumbled to Lauren, while trying my best not to glance over at Lowe, because once I did, it was always hard to tear my gaze away from her.

Lowe Slater. Still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

I’d been five years old when she’d come into my life; an angel with white-blond hair whipping about her face. She’d been eight, and had started in the same class at Lauren’s prep school. Lauren had brought her home one day for dinner and declared Lowe was her new best friend, and they’ve barely spent a day apart since. They became Lauren‘N’Lowe, like it was one word.

Up to that point, my interest in girls was minimal.

I had four very annoying older sisters who liked to pretend I was their baby and dress me up in doll clothes, unless my mom managed to intervene first. They’d also learned that as the youngest – and the only boy - I would get into less trouble than they would. As a result, I dutifully took the blame for them on a daily basis because they would bargain that if I did, they’d stop with their current method of torturing me - like the time my middle sister, Dylan, promised to stop making me wear her dresses if I told the chef I’d sneaked cookies from his kitchen while they were still hot. Or the time Lauren and my other sister, Saffron, washed my dog, Fish, in bubble bath and turned him blue; it took a month before his coat was fully golden again.

Girls were the worst.

But the second I saw Lowe, I’d known she was different.

I stared and stared at her until I realized that everyone was laughing at me and my wide-open mouth. I ran outside and down across the back lawns to my tree house in the giant oak, which stood by the lake at the bottom of my parents’ backyard. There were strict rules for the treehouse – not unlike the rules Murray, Rafe, and I had for our Tuesdays – it was my space and no girls were allowed unless invited. It was a rule my parents made sure my sisters adhered to.

I never invited any of them.

My dad came down to find me an hour later, to check on me. I stopped crying and promptly declared I was in love with Lowe. He could have laughed just like my horrible sisters, but he didn’t. Instead, he sat down next to me and told me that he had two loves; one was my mother, and the other was The Yankees.

Then he asked if I could keep a secret. He would keep my secret about Lowe, and I would keep his.

That was the day he told me about his dream to own The Yankees.

After that, my dad would always make sure that whenever Lowe was over at our house, he was there too; first to stop any teasing from my sisters, and second, he’d always try and help me start a conversation with Lowe before taking me off to play ball, or out for ice-cream. Because since that first time I’d seen her when all my sisters had laughed at me and scarred me for life, any time Lowe was round the house, I became mute.

He did that up to the day he died, and then it all changed.

Lowe would still come over, but she’d mostly comfort my sister in her room. Occasionally she’d be over for family movie night, but I’d sit with my mom on the other side of the room and look at Lowe in the dark instead of the movie. Then Lauren got a boyfriend, and because they did everything together, so did Lowe. I was nearly thirteen by that point, my hormones had kicked in big time, and the worst summer ever was spent listening to my sisters and Lowe with their boyfriends in the pool.

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