I slide a look at the coaches gathered along the third baseline, all of them sporting massive grins.

“He’s great, isn’t he, Max?” Tripp Wilson, the team’s co-owner, calls, while his wife, Lila, co-owner with the greater power here, hides her mouth behind her hand.

“He’s not old enough to drink and he has as much energy as a squirrel.”

“My brother has a pet squirrel. For the record, Diego has more energy than Skippy does.”

Diego grins and taps the bill of my hat. “Slider. Curve ball. Knuckleball. Fastball. All the balls. All the strikes. You’ll give up a run or two. I’ll miss a catch or two. But we’re still gonna be fucking winners. Yeah, Fast Max? Yeah!”

He trots back to home plate, kicking his feet up—kicking his fucking feet up—on the way. “Think I got through, coach?” he calls.

“You nailed it, big D,” our catching coach calls back.

“Yeah! I fucking love this game!”

I’m being punked. That’s the only explanation.

Diego squats.

Signals a fastball.

I throw a fastball and take his fucking glove off. “That’s what I’m talking about!” Diego yells. He pumps a fist in the air while he throws off his helmet. “You show that glove, Fast Max! You show it!”

“Lay off the Red Bull, Estevez.”

“No Red Bull, Fast Max. I’m just living the dream. Hey! Can you wave at my mom? She’s taking pictures.” He points to the stands. “Hey, Mom!”

I’m twitching by the time I hit the showers after practice.

“Dude’s hilarious,” someone mutters.

“Fans are gonna love him.”

“I got a grand on him having a dance-off with Ash between innings before the end of the first regular-season game.”

“And winning.”

“No fucking way. You’re on.”

I strip and stick my head under the shower until they’re gone. I don’t want to hear it.

I don’t want to be here.

I don’t want to fucking be here.

And that doesn’t get better when I leave the shower and find Cooper leaning next to my locker. “Fuck off, Rock.”

“I’m not mad at you.”

I give him a side eye while I rub my hair dry.

“Okay, I’m mad at you, but I’m not mad at you.” He punches me in the arm. “If you’d just fucking believe in yourself—”

“I believe in myself, asshole.”

“If you believed in yourself, you’d be calling my sister right the fuck now.”

“Or maybe I don’t like your sister that much.”

He glares at me.

Dude’s totally fucking pissed at me, and he’s lying to himself if he thinks he’s not.

“Is that really the problem?” Cooper Rock doesn’t do deadly calm. Cooper does happy as a golden retriever. He does arrogant as a lion. He does zen as a goddamn monk, but he doesn’t do deadly calm.

Until now.

“Yeah,” I lie. “That’s the problem.”

“Or is the problem that you’re afraid if you commit to someone as awesome as Tillie Jean for real, you’ll have to face that you can be better than what your old man made you think you could?”

Rossi leaps between us. No idea where he came from too—they don’t start practice for another two days—but there he is. “Enough, Cooper. Back the fuck up.”

“No. No. I’m right, and he knows it. He hides behind thinking he’s worthless so he doesn’t have to be good at anything except baseball. You’re gonna be Trevor Stafford one day, dude. And what the hell are you gonna do then?”

“I said back up,” Rossi growls.

“Let him talk,” I tell Rossi. “I’d have to care for it to hurt.”

Luca gives me the don’t be a dick glare. “So if Tillie Jean said the same thing, you wouldn’t care either?”

I flinch.

“Thought so.” He shoves Cooper. “Let’s go.”

“Friends don’t abandon friends, Max,” Cooper mutters. “I’m still here, even if you’re being an asshole.”

Fuck. “I’m not your friend.”

“You’ve always been my friend, idiot.”

Rossi doesn’t tell him to leave again.

Doesn’t have to.

Cooper’s already gone.

“So why the fuck wasn’t I good enough for his sister?” I mutter.

Rossi gives me another look, this one a classic duh number. “You told him you weren’t enough times that he believed you.”

Jesus.

Fuck.

I did, didn’t I?

And I was right.

I pack up and head back to the complex, declining six dinner invitations along the way, and hole up in my room.

Music doesn’t help.

The email from my therapist asking if I’d like to talk again tomorrow doesn’t help either.

Nor does one more damn knock on my door.

“Go away. I’m jacking off,” I yell.

“Not very well if you can still talk while you do it,” Tripp Wilson replies.

Fuck.

I’m gonna get myself fired.

Maybe that’d be a good thing.

I could just disappear.

Head off to Tahiti.

Make a living setting up umbrellas on the beach.

Be fucking lonely, RAWK! a parrot voice replies inside my own head.

I yank the door open. Fully clothed, for the record.

“Bad time,” I tell the Fireballs’ co-owner.

“You’re not regretting this, are you?” He lifts a copy of Arena Insider with my bare ass on the cover.

Fuck. Fuck. My fingers start tingling.

I forgot that was coming out today, and I’ve been ignoring the calls from my agent.

He tucks the magazine under his arm and leans in the doorway. “Good article. Read it yet?”

I shake my head.

“Made me realize I’m being an ass in pretending I’m not a recovering hypochondriac.”

My shoulders are getting tense. So are my lats. My pecs. My quads. Not about to tell my boss I don’t want to be the guy everyone talks to about their own mental health issues.

Not when I’m cracking myself.

Should’ve had my agent pull the article. I am not in for this.

Tripp hands me the magazine. “You should read it.”

He doesn’t say anything else.

Not about his own issues. Not about mine.

Just hands me the magazine and walks away.

I toss it on my chair and fling myself onto my bed, right under the ceiling fan. Florida’s fucking hot.

That article isn’t about me.

It’s about a guy I thought I was for a month or two this winter.

A guy you wish you still were, RAWK! the damn parrot says in my head.

I snort back at it.

When the parrot’s in my head, reading a damn article won’t help.

Will it?

35

Tillie Jean

“Great job, ladies,” I say on a gasp as I fall back onto my exercise mat. “Way to kick booty.”

“I hate you,” Aunt Bea gasps.

“I didn’t know I still had muscles there,” Mom says between pants.