Catching Tatum (30 page)

“I missed you so much,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. I kept thinking about you. I wanted to call you every day but I was too worried about Parker.”

“Well, it all worked out good.”

“Yeah, I didn't see that coming. Did you?”

“Hmmm, I think I did. I think they're the kind of people that are meant to be together.”

“I think we're that kind of people, too,” he said, tilting my chin up and dipping his mouth to mine. The kiss was soft and gentle, familiar and good. I kicked my legs over and up onto his lap and wrapped my arms tightly around his neck. The kiss deepened until we heard kids running up the path behind us.

“Maybe,” I teased. He nuzzled my nose. I loved him, but I was afraid to say it. He hadn't said it to me and the words were all I had left of my pride.

The next morning, well before the game was set to start, we crammed Derrick and two other players into the back of my car, and drove almost all the way back up to Leavenworth to a little hole in the wall restaurant called Take a Break Cafe. Someone told Derrick they had the best food around. Whoever it was wasn't kidding, and the food portions were gargantuan and filled up all those boys.

It was a perfect night game, too. Our team won and we got to watch their fireworks show. Cole and the other players were allowed out on the field after the game to watch them and he brought me down with him. I lay on my back in the grass next to him, watching colors explode above us.

“Hey,” he said, looking over at me.

“What?” I asked without turning to him.

“I love you.”

“No, you don't,” I said, but that time I turned to face him.

“Yes, I do. I love you, beautiful. I really do. Thanks for being here with me. For giving me another chance ... and another.”

“Hey, we agreed not to go back there.”

“Fair enough.” He leaned over toward me, grabbed me by the waist, and kissed me again.

Everything about Cole and my life revolved around baseball so it was perfect that my game of love had turned into a baseball diamond. And whether I tore up the pieces or not, he remembered the bases and the rules, and planned to follow them.

The season ender came and I was reluctant to let him go, but I knew I had to. I knew it was how it had to be. He had a life and his two families, and Stacy's parents on the East Coast to tend to. I told him I loved him a few days after he told me, but I was still just a girlfriend. I couldn't keep him from all of that, nor could I expect him to leave it all for me. If there were any two people on the planet who understood the need to be free to move and go at will, it was us. Long-distance relationships didn't scare me. I had my parents to model after; I wasn't worried that my love for him would fizzle, and I no longer had a fear of him playing around on me. He was a new man. We'd be OK, and we would figure things out as we went. It was our relationship and we could make it go however we wanted.

The season ended the way it began, with me out on the field with Cole. A men's quartet of retired airmen called the Fly Guys sang the Star Spangled Banner. When they were finished I asked the crowd to give them a hand. As they clapped, Cole ran out from the dugout and took the mic from me and motioned for the crowd to quiet down.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you all for coming out to watch us this year. You have been a phenomenal crowd.” He tipped his hat to them, as did all the other players.

“Because you're so awesome, I'm sure you'll indulge me for a moment, right?” He grabbed my hand and took me out to third.

“You and your bases,” he said, lowering onto one knee. “This is third. You know what I'm going to do, don't you?” He popped the top on the ring box.

“Ohhhh, are you really?” I asked and turned to the crowd, throwing my hands up, making them cheer for us.

“Tatum Rodriguez, I love you ... I want to spend the rest of my life with you ... and play baseball with you, and knock one out of the park with you,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows, “for the rest of my life. Will you marry me?”

I wrapped my arms around his neck as he stood and must have said yes a dozen times between kisses. It was a perfect ending to a perfect season. It didn't matter at that moment that we both had our sights set on careers that would probably have us traveling in opposite directions. All that mattered was our love, a love that had been miraculously given a second chance.

The game ended the way it would, in a happy ending, with a shut-out win for the Patriots. Three days later, before he had to leave for home, we set the date. We would be married the day before opening day of the next year. We would get married on home plate of the Patriots field and begin our first inning together.

The dates and deadlines came and went and half of what we were supposed to have done for the wedding never got finished. Six months into the planning we regretted our hasty wedding date. Because of the game schedule, we would have no honeymoon. All we would get was one night in Seattle.

And then, like a flick of the fingers, it was time. He came over two weeks before the season started to help with last minute details. Our far-away family members flew in; Don and Russ, and the other season ticket holders Cole and I had come to know and love, were notified and formally invited.

My dress was short, white, and strapless. I wanted one no longer than my knees to keep from dragging in the dirt. I wore no panties per Cole's request, but he wore a full-on tux. He was determined for the longest time to wear his hat, but in the end I won that fight, reminding him that I would also be going without something of my own.

We waited to score the first run of our second chance. I demanded it and became more firm in my conviction the closer to game day we got. My mom had been right all those years ago and I was determined to make him wait, even though he reminded me it wasn't waiting if he already knew.

“You knew me when I was a girl. Trust me; you have no idea what I'm capable of now.” I teased.

I knew, thanks to Parker, that I was strong enough to resist the urges and desires rising up in me and, better than that, I knew that Cole loved me and wanted me enough to wait for me for just a little longer. I was evil. I enjoyed getting him as hot as I could and shutting him down, softly, gently, but firmly. He called me a tease and I didn't deny it, but promised I'd be his soon enough. Always, he put up with it ... on the condition I pay him back any way he wanted after we said “I do.”

The day came and all that was left was the ceremony and consummation. It had hit me in little moments all along the way, but as I got ready in the visitors’ locker room with my mom and three bridesmaids I realized that this time around Cole truly had played by all my rules, met all my demands, and had even given me a memory to treasure on every one of the real-live bases. All of it had happened right on the field we were to be married on.

He really believed in second chances. He had to, to relieve his own guilt, and to make some sense out of Stacy's death. It was hard for me to believe he had ever been that boy from the hallway who humiliated me and broke my heart, except for the dimples and golden-flecked eyes. They were wiser the day of our wedding and held a secret only I knew.

Against tradition we saw each other that day ... right up until the dress part. I wanted that to be a secret. I never let him see it. My mom cried when we were getting ready.

“Oh, this is your moment. You know what to do,” she said. She took my hands and looked at me. I pulled her into my arms and we hugged, and both breathed in the memory together; me and my mom, the ladies that loved the traveling men.

Home plate had always been a magical place to me. When I played the game, it was my goal; when my friends, family, or team scored, it was a reason to cheer. Home was always a place of good things and the best thing that ever happened to me, until our little ones came along and ran in their first runs, right there.

He broke my heart, he ruined me, he changed my life; he begged me for a second chance and challenged me; he was my perfect complement and competition. He won me over and made me fall in love with him harder, stronger, and deeper than I ever had before. He made me question my definition of love. Had I loved any of the boys I was sure of or was it all something less? Cole was love; I knew my heart and life were safe in his hands. As I handed my bouquet to my maid of honor and took his hands, I knew that our lifetime of adventures was just beginning.

The pastor, who was also one of my favorite local officiants, asked us the questions and we struggled through them with our usual flair. Instead of saying, “you may kiss the bride,” he shouted, at our request, “PLAY BALL!” We bolted for first, hand-in-hand, while they all cheered. He kissed me and I kissed him back, and we circled the bases together.

It wouldn't be right to tell the whole story and leave out the home run that started us off. It was certainly not our finest lovemaking moment, but it is one of my favorites because it was our first as man and wife. All through the reception, which we had near the concessions booth, I teased and taunted him about how ready I was for him. Then it happened; the music stopped. I ran up to the announcer's box to reset the station and there he was at the bottom, door shut and hungry for me.

“We're doing this, huh?” I giggled, jumping onto him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him furiously while he fumbled with his pants. “Better make it quick, they'll be looking for us.”

“Not a problem.” He laughed between slobbery kisses. Knowing they were just outside made it way more exhilarating than it already was. He was hard and I was wet and ready to receive him. He pulled me up and lowered me, with some effort, kissing my neck. We found our rhythm quickly and he turned us around so I could brace myself against the wall. Everything was quicker, harder, faster that way. I felt him tense and climax inside me and I laughed—victory was ours—for me, for making it to the wedding day, and for him, for finally winning the prize. We basked in the moment only long enough for me to remember the smell of plywood and dirt that always brings me back to his arms that evening. We kissed and readjusted quickly and formulated a plan in between devious laughs at what we had just gotten away with. I would go out first because he was pretty sure no one saw him come in, and he would find me later. We made ourselves believe no one knew what we had done … and if they did, they never said anything.

I couldn't have asked for a better beginning to our second chance at the game of love.

THE END

THE GAME OF LIFE
wasn't what we expected, and Plan B snuck up out of nowhere and took us by surprise. I got pregnant, probably off of that first home run, or maybe later that night in the hotel, and motherhood changed me. I decided I wanted to be like my mom and be home based more than I wanted to travel with a team from town to town rehabilitating injured players. I finished my schooling and hired on with a sports-med facility in Ohio that treated professional athletes. I have built a respectable clientele, and am sometimes commissioned to accompany a client to their various engagements; but for the most part, I stay at home and I like it that way.

We made our home near where my parents retired in Ohio, but we followed Cole to games when we could, and we took frequent road trips as a family, or just the two of us, to keep the wanderlust at bay. Our brood is nothing like my parents’. We have three girls, all with the most gorgeous hazel eyes and dimples a mother could ask for, and they have a father who will defend against philandering boys like he had once been. After five more years of minors, slowly climbing upward, Cole's dreams changed, too. When our oldest daughter, Stacy, started tee-ball, his heartstrings called him home to coach her team. He decided he wanted to be present and available for his girls the way his parents hadn't been for him. He hoped that if they had a present father figure in their lives they wouldn't fall for a guy who treated them the way he had treated Stacy and me.

For a man who never had a Plan B, he fell into it rather nicely. Ever the charmer, he was a natural at sales and eased into a comfortable career at a high-end car dealership, and if he ever resented me or the girls for giving up his dreams of the major league, I could never tell. He still coaches the girls' softball teams and talks to Stacy's parents weekly, and together we help train others in suicide awareness. We have fantasies of running away and traveling the world together, but that can wait until our girls are chasing their own dreams. Until then, we are an all-American family with season tickets to our local minor league field where the girls spend every summer sitting between us and their grandparents and singing every word to the Star Spangled Banner with their hands over their hearts.

Star Spangled Banner –
pick your version

Because I couldn't write a book with a baseball-loving military brat and not hear our national anthem.

I Don't Dance –
Lee Brice

The song that inspired me to write Catching Tatum in the first place. From the very first time I heard it, I knew there was a story to tell.

Meet Virginia –
Train

Dedicated to Tatum over the radio by a boy in a story that never made it out of my head onto the paper, but the song fits her too perfectly to leave out.

No More I Love Yous –
Annie Lennox

Tatum's motto after she says it one too many times with no love in return. Also, though it's not written this way, this is the song I envisioned Tatum playing over and over again on her pitiful run around McChord AFB, and when she cries on her bed, and when both boys break her heart again.