Page 5 of A Very Merry Matchup
I press the outside buzzer to Yesenia’s apartment as I continue talking to Lucy. “Congrats again. Beau is so yummy. Not yummy. I didn’t mean to say yummy. I meant a different word. I meant...” Why can I literally think of no other word right now exceptyummy? “Just congratulations again, I’m super happy for you, and I’ll talk to you again after I come out of my coma in a few days.”
I end my video message just as Yesenia’s voice sounds through the intercom.“Hola!”
The door clicks, signaling I can enter. I climb the one set of stairs to her apartment like a mountain climber reaching the peak of Everest after running out of supplies four days ago. My entire body aches with exhaustion.
“Yessy, I’m so glad—” That’s as far as I get before amound of heavy-breathing fur lunges through the doorway and knocks me to the floor.
“I got a dog,” Yesenia says in case I hadn’t noticed the fifty-pound mop of golden curls sitting on my stomach and licking my face. “But he can’t stay here. Any chance you can take him with you?”
CHAPTER TWO
Make my wish come true, all I want for Christmas is... true love and a Major League contract
Beau
“You don’t think I’m in over my head, do you?” I ask Carson as we take the corner booth at Sub City, our favorite go-to for lunch in Marshalltown, Iowa. Since he’s already inhaling his meatball sub sandwich like a bearded lumberjack who hasn’t eaten in three weeks instead of three hours, it looks like my answer to that question is going to have to wait a minute.
That’s fine. I bite into my beef brisket sub, enjoying the mixture of heat and tang from the jalapeños and barbecue sauce while Mariah Carey sings about all she wants for Christmas from the sub shop’s speaker system.
Wish my Christmas list was as simple as Mariah’s. I wantboth the girlandthe dream job. “Do you think I rushed into something I’m not ready for?” I ask Carson in between bites.
If anybody will tell me like it is, it’s Carson. One of the reasons I value our friendship so much. We met in Double-A six years ago. When an injury cut his baseball ambitions short, he joined his older brother in taking over their grandpa’s flooring company here in Marshalltown. Ever since I got moved up to playing Triple-A in Des Moines for the Iowa Cubs a few years ago, Carson has given me a soft place to land laying down flooring with them during the offseason.
But I’m hoping and praying I won’t need that soft landing soon. I’m hoping and praying this next season is when I finally make it into the Majors.
At twenty-seven years old, the clock is ticking. If that car accident hadn’t happened in September, I would’ve gotten called up last season. I know it. My bat was on fire and the Chicago Cubs needed a solid third baseman for a shot at the playoffs. It should’ve been me.
Next season, itwillbe me. I’ll do whatever it takes. Which is why I’m a little worried about the huge commitment I just made to the sweet-faced girl who recently captured my heart.
Carson finally comes up for air from his sandwich and wipes his mouth, which is all but hidden inside his bushy red beard. “I don’t know, man. Are you sure this is the best timing? What about when next season starts up? Have youthought about what that’s going to be like for her? All that separation?”
“I know, I know. And believe me, I have thought about it. I’ve been going over the pros and cons for weeks now. Part of me kept thinking I should wait. But the other part of me was too afraid of losing her if I didn’t make a move. Sometimes you just know when you’ve met the one. And dude, she’s the one. I can’t give her up. I need her in my life.”
“Wow.” Carson digs into his bag of Fritos. “You sound like a lovesick fool.”
“I am a lovesick fool. And you’re a man with meatball sauce on his nose.”
“What’s her name again?”
I shove a clean napkin at Carson, then pull out my phone to show him one of the hundreds of pictures I’ve already taken of her. I can’t help it. I’m obsessed.
Her big triangular ears. Her short little legs. Her barrel chest. She’s the entire package. “The breeder said he’s been calling her Pinky Collar because that’s the collar he gave her to tell her apart from the others. Would it be weird if I named her Ivy?”
Carson’s nose is clean, but now he’s managed to smear his left eyebrow. I swear eating with him is like eating with a toddler. “Ivy? After that nurse you’ve been crushing on? Yeah, man, that’d be weird. That’d be real weird.”
“Well, it’s not like I’m ever going to run into the real Ivy again,” I say, tapping my eyebrow and handing him another napkin. “And even if I did, she’s made it pretty clear she’s not interested. She hasn’t responded to a single one of the steamy photos I’ve sent her.”
“Define steamy.”
“My forearm veins.”
“And it just keeps getting weirder,” Carson mumbles, wiping off his eyebrows. “What about that friend of hers? The one Ivy tried setting you up with? You two still talking?”
“Lucy? Funny you should mention her. She actually just called right before I got here. We only talked the one time back in September, so it was kind of weird to hear from her again. But apparently she wanted to thank me for the advice I gave her a few months ago. She said she and her ex-boyfriend got back together right after we talked and now they’re engaged. Then she wanted to know all about my plans for Christmas. When I was getting to my parents’ house. How long I’d be staying. How many bedrooms the house has. Like I said, it was kind of weird.”
“She didn’t say anything about Ivy?”
“No. Killed me not to ask, but I figured if she had something encouraging to say, she would’ve said it. Especially when I told her I was still single. When we talked in September,Lucy agreed that Ivy and I would make a good match. Oh well. Guess it’s time to give up on that dream.”
