Page 2 of Home Run Fiancé
I need to get back to Texas so I can help my little brother take care of her. What good is all that money in my account if I can’t be there to help the woman who gave me life?
My head feels like it’s going to blow with all the bottled-up anger I can only seem to diffuse smashing some balls with a wooden bat or running until the sweat pours out of me. I need to get changed and get to the gym to at least somewhat salvage the day, except Asher is here nagging at me. I just can’t deal with him in my current frame of mind.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a deep breath. I don’t want to lose my cool with Asher, but I think I just need to be alone right now.
“Can we please talk about this later?”
Asher sighs. “Let’s hit the gym and then we can talk later. Good?”
I nod, already walking into my bedroom to get changed.
* * *
“Holy crap,” Asher pants, bent over with his hands on knees, looking like he’s going to puke.
We just did a fifty-foot weighted prowler push across the turf in the training gym open 24/7 to players and staff. It’s nice being the top dog. I can get Asher into the gym with me anytime I want with a grin and a wink. Considering he’s almost as strong as me, we make for good workout partners. But I always smoke him on the cardio.
I slap his butt and move over to the pull-up bar. “Come on, man, that all you got?”
He moseys over, still gulping air, sweat dripping down the sides of his face. “Sorry, not sure if you know, but I’m a sports agent, not an actual athlete.”
When I hit thirty pull-ups, I hop down and gesture that the equipment is all his. While he struggles through a measly fifteen pull-ups, I do burpees to keep my heart rate up.
“Dude, that’s not right.” Asher hops down from the bar and looks at me like I’m some sort of alien.
I just laugh. He’s actually in phenomenal shape, but he’s right. He’s paid to do all my media stuff, not have a body like a machine. This is just what I needed. My mood is a hundred times better after just an hour of sweating it out. I decide to take it easy on him.
“Ready to grab some dinner and celebrate my court win?” I slap him on the back and toss him a fresh towel from a stack on the counter, right next to the bowl of fruit someone always keeps replenished.
“Oh, now we’re celebrating? We couldn’t have done that an hour ago when I suggested it?” Asher mops his face and neck, the grin on his face giving him away.
“Please. You love working out here and getting your butt kicked. Just admit it already.”
“I admit nothing. Chinese or pizza?”
We walk out of the gym into the fading light of a winter day in Los Angeles. I pull my hat over my head and automatically hunch over a bit, hoping to go unrecognizable as we walk to my SUV. The LA fans go crazy for their team and while I love it, I also wish to go incognito sometimes.
I snort. “That stuff’s crap. We should—”
“Please don’t with the Lamborghini analogy. I’ve heard it one too many times. You gotta eat some healthy crap to feed the machine, I know, I know. Where to?”
A smile threatens to hit my face. “How about that organic salad place you said you liked.”
After I unlock my Escalade with a beep, Asher slides into the passenger seat. “I didn’t say I liked it. I said it wasn’t as bad as some of the other organic, vegan, raw, whatever places you’ve taken me to before.”
“I don’t eat vegan,” I bark.
Asher side-eyes me. “Easy, killer.”
He should know better than to say anything to remind me of that woman. The woman I’d actually dated and had feelings for during my time in the minor leagues. She was a broke actress going to auditions for commercials, television extras, basically anything to get her break. I was thinking of asking her to move in with me when Asher confronted me one day, telling me he’d seen her out to lunch with some guy. Being suspicious, he’d followed her and gotten a grainy cell phone pic of them making out in his fancy Jaguar.
Being young and trusting, I hadn’t believed him. I confronted her anyway, wanting a plausible explanation, and she’d admitted she’d been sleeping with a television producer like it was no big deal. Like that was expected behavior in Hollywood. Despite living in LA and eating, sleeping, breathing the goal of making it into the majors instead of the Class-A team in Rancho Cucamonga, I was still just a kid from Texas. That kind of relationship was the exact opposite of what I wanted. We broke up, she hadn’t taken it well, and Asher had to take out a restraining order to keep her away from me.
I’m back to clenching my jaw and trying to hold on to the feel-good endorphins from my workout. That was not a happy time in my life and it goes without saying I don’t like to talk about it. Asher can get away with it, being one of my best friends, but even so, I’m not happy about it.
“You know not all women are out to get you, right?” Asher’s voice is quiet, all teasing gone.
I shake my head and start driving to the restaurant. “I don’t know about that. I’ve run into some real pieces of work. I’m just not sure a person in my position can really trust anyone totally, you know?”
