Authors: Kristen Kehoe
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Cora
The first inning is almost over by the time I arrive at Jake’s baseball game with his dad, A.J. and Liam in tow. It’s now the bottom of the fifth and the game is getting more intense by the minute as Jake faces down batter after batter. Mr. Ferrari — Tony, as he’s told me to call him — has barely said a thing since we met him here outside of the stadium, but I notice that each time Jake throws a pitch his breath catches a little and his body stills even more. He’s intent on the game, and it makes me wonder if he’s missed seeing his son play as much as Jake misses being seen.
Every now and then, Tony mumbles something about a pitch call, saying things like, “Throw what you know,” or, “Skimmed the damn plate and we all know it.” When Jake escapes the inning after an intense one-on-one that leaves two batters stranded and keeps the score in our favor, Tony visibly relaxes, sipping lightly from the single beer he’s been nursing all night.
I didn’t know what to expect when I met him today. Three weeks ago, after completing my ninth step and sharing the first intimate conversation with my mother in years, I couldn’t help but think of Jake, as my mind has been doing whether I wanted it to or not lately. He’d pushed me in our relationship, yes, but never in a way that was too much. He’d pushed me to accept him and my ability to feel, just as he had pushed me to trust my feelings rather than run from them, and when I was too afraid to reach out to him he still found a way to get to me. It made me wonder who watched out for him and made sure he got the love he needed.
Our conversation about his father from all those months ago replayed in my mind, and before I could think about it too much, I began tracking down a phone number for his father. After two days and no success, I called Liam to help me which netted me results in under twenty minutes, because apparently he’s far more adept at Google search than I am. Whatever.
My phone conversation with Tony was a surprise for both of us, him because I had called, me because when I said my name he knew who I was. It was easier after that, even when I told him why I was calling: Jake’s last games were coming up, and I wanted Mr. Ferrari to join me at one of them. There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment and I wondered if he was going to refuse me, but then he did something altogether different and asked me a question.
“Can I ask why you’re calling me, Cora?”
His voice was quiet, thoughtful, as if each word he spoke was very deliberate and my heart squeezed a little as I thought of what Jake had told me, that his father had never quite conquered those demons that had driven him to shrink back from life and into his own head. Since I’d already invited him to the game, I also understood that whatever he was, Mr. Ferrari was just as insightful as his son.
“I care for your son very much, Mr. Ferrari, and I know that he might not say it but having you at one of his games would mean the world to Jake.”
The line was silent except for his breathing after that, and again my heart constricted, thinking of the battle we go through every day to do what’s right rather than just what’s easy. I knew Jake’s dad wanted to say yes to me, almost as much as he wanted to say no because going to see his son would be going back to a place that had taken everything from him and given very little back in return.
“I’ll think about it and let you know. When’s the game?”
“Three weeks,” I answered.
“I’ll call you before then. Cora,” he said before I could murmur goodbye and hang up.
“Yes?”
“He’s lucky. Jake — he’s lucky to have you. Thanks for calling.”
He didn’t call me again until this morning to let me know that he’d meet me outside of the stadium. I didn’t know what to expect, but the minute Tony stepped onto the sidewalk I knew it was him. He wears his hair almost as long as Jake and it’s just as dark and thick, with a small sprinkling of gray. Despite the beard and the almost haunted look of his eyes, eyes that are the same liquid brown as Jake’s, the resemblance to his son is uncanny. He’s tall like Jake, with broad shoulders and long legs, slightly thicker through the chest and waist, the largest difference between him and his son coming in the way Tony carries himself. His shoulders hunch slightly inside of the plaid button down he’s tucked into faded Carhartts, and his hands were shoved uncomfortably into his pockets and have stayed that way all game.
Now, I feel him freeze a little beside me as Jake stops before stepping into the dugout, his brown eyes meeting mine before I motion next to me, and then lighting on his father where they widen and stay.
I wonder briefly if I should have meddled, or if the sight of his father will mess with Jake’s focus the rest of the game. My answers comes quickly when Jake gives a small smile and a salute, winking at me before heading inside to his team. I let out a small breath and so does Tony.
“I’m going to get a refill,” he says and I nod, happy when Liam stands to go with him, saying he could use another as well.
“Risky move you’ve made here, Snow White,” A.J. says as the two men disappear and I nod before sipping from my water.
“I know. I just couldn’t not,” I tell her and she nods. “Maybe it’s because after talking with my own mother I finally understand that parents are no different than we are and sometimes they need to be invited, to hear the words before they give us what we need, or because I’ve finally just realized how much I love Jake, and I know he needs this, no matter what he said before.”
“Well, whatever happens next, you’ve done a good thing.”
I look at her and smile. “You’re a good friend, A.J. I’m starting to think you’re one of the best, actually.”
She grins then, full of girlish mischief and pleasure. “Snow White, I could have told you that a long time ago. Just remember it, especially if you’re ever in a place that has you hurting. Understood?”
I nod. “Understood.”
~
Jake’s team wins, scoring three more runs at the top of the eighth. Jake pitched the sixth and was replaced in the seventh, but not before striking out two more runners. When he walked off with his hand in the air, I added my own cheers to those that were already going, smiling broadly when his dad stood and clapped, yelling his name over and over. It was a good moment, and now we’re waiting as the game ends and Jake makes his way over to us, stopping every few feet to say something to his teammates and coaches, pausing twice to sign a foam finger or other item for a young kid.
When he steps up to the bleachers where we’re all congregating, a girl behind me goes crazy, holding out her T-shirt and asking him to sign it. I laugh when I see it asks to “drive the Ferrari for a night”. You have to give her credit for creativity.
He flashes me a grin, one that tells me he’s just as amused and flattered, and then he signs his name with a flourish before handing the pen back. He steps up next to us, holding out his hand to his dad.
“Hey, Old Man, it’s good to see you.”
Tony takes his hand, dragging him in for a quiet handshake/back slap that seems more intimate than either were ready for. Still, I see Jake hold on for a second and then step back, his eyes quickly scanning his dad. Tony’s almost one hundred percent steady, only drinking the two beers all game long, and it makes me happy to see that Jake notices and nods at him in thanks. Tony accepts and then begins to talk about the game, running through the pitches Jake threw each inning and surprising me with his ability to recount every single one. If Jake’s surprised, he doesn’t show it, just banters back and forth, defending his choices with a smile and shrugging off the friendly questions from his father and Liam.
“I need to get changed but then I have some time. Have you eaten yet?”
Tony shakes his head and then declines, sighting an early flight as an excuse. Jake nods, understanding. He can’t change who he is, but he did his best to be here and be sober for his son, and it matters. We say goodbye, and my eyes water when Tony not only hugs me lightly, but releases me and pulls Jake in and holds him for a second before leaning back and clapping a hand on his shoulder.
“Throw ‘em hard, Jake.”
There’s a catch in his voice and Jake nods, waving after him as he walks away. “See you, Old Man.”
A.J. and Liam make an excuse to leave, too, and in the span of a few seconds Jake and I have been left alone, staring at one another as the lights of the field glint off the metal bleachers.
“I’m glad you came,” he says after a second. “I didn’t know if you would when I didn’t really hear from you.”
“I wanted to surprise you. Your dad…” I trail off and shake my head, putting my hand on his arm when he watches me guardedly, like he doesn’t know if what I’m about to say will ruin the moment he just had. “He loves you a lot, Jake. I just thought you should know that.”
When he brings me against him, I go willingly, my arms snaking around his waist, gripping the fabric of his jersey, his circling around my shoulders and holding me so close there’s barely room to breathe.
“Can you take a few hours and eat?” He nods his head against my neck before pulling back. “I’ll wait for you here,” I say and then cup his face. “Congratulations on your win, Handsome Jake.”
He nods again, his fingers sifting through my hair before he turns to walk back to the dugout. Sitting, I look out at the emptied stands and wait for him to come back.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jake
Laken walks out with me, stating that he needs to meet my girl and ask her what her intentions are. Since I know telling him no wouldn’t make a difference, I let him come, grinning when he gets a good look at her a few feet away and whistles under his breath.
“Jesus, Shakespeare, maybe there’s something to this poetry reading you’re doing if you’re pulling in a girl like her. Christ, would you look at her? She’s got nicer tits than—”
He quickly swallows back whatever he was going to say when my eyes cut hard and direct to his. “Right. Off limits, got it.”
Then he’s walking up to her, holding out his hand and running his fool mouth about how much he’s heard about her. I roll my eyes when she looks at me, eventually pushing Laken out of the way so we can leave. “Okay, Chris, time to go.”
“You kids have fun tonight, and be safe, huh?”
Cora laughs and waves as I propel her in the opposite direction, ignoring Laken when he reminds me to use my other hand to give my left arm a break.
“He’s a character,” Blue says as we reach her car and I laugh, throwing my bag in the back before stretching my legs out in the front seat.
“More like he’s an idiot, but a goodhearted one.” I turn my head and smile at her as she starts the engine and heads out of the parking lot. “Where are we going?”
She looks at me out of the corner of her eye and smiles. “I figured you were pretty tired since you’ve been on the road for so long, plus I didn’t know how much time you had, so I called in an order at Javier’s and thought we could pick it up and head for the apartment. How do tacos on the balcony sound?”
I reach over and grab her hand, linking our fingers. “Perfect.”
~
“Thank you, for what you did. I don’t know how you found him, but seeing my dad tonight...” I shake my head and sip from the beer Cora handed me when we walked through the door. “It was a trip. A really good one.”
She smiles, her hair fluttering around her face as the slight breeze pulls at it. We’ve been here for just about an hour on the balcony, eating, catching up on things that have been going on. She didn’t mention my dad and maybe because of that, I know she understands just how much it meant to see him.
“He reminds me of you. A little sadder, a little more unsure,” she adds, “but when you look at him you can see that he’s still got strength buried in there, enough to face a few demons and show his kid he loves him.”
I nod, staring at her, my heart beating a mile a minute as everything I feel climbs to the surface and urges me to let it out. “I think I know a little bit about that.” And then I take a deep breath and plunge ahead, releasing everything that’s been building inside of me since that night nine months ago when I looked up and saw her for the first time. “The last time I was here, you had a lot of shit going on and a part of me was hurt and angry because I wasn’t the one who could make it better for you. I knew you had to do it alone, but still, I wanted to be the one you ran to and asked for help.”
She sighs and brushes her hair back, looking out and over the city that’s both given and taken from her, and I watch her, mesmerized as always by what I see. “I’m going to meetings regularly now, and I’ve finished my twelve steps. When I last saw you… I was scared because I knew I needed to work things out on my own and deep down I knew that if you had been here, if we had still been together, I would have run to you instead of to that club. I would have leaned on you and let you make everything better because when I’m with you it doesn’t matter what’s wrong, all I feel is how right we are.”
There are moments in your life when you finally understand what the writers who came before talked about. I understand the pain and loss and fucking loneliness that so many write about. As I grew from a child to a teen to an adult, I began to understand the physical pleasures that life had to offer, the way that they become addicting because, while you’re in the moment, nothing bad touches you. In college, I understood what it meant to have a family, a best friend even. But not until here and now did I ever truly know love.
“What about now?” I ask her. “Do you still need to do it alone, or are you ready for me? Because I’m ready for you, Blue. I never should have walked away like I did and it only took one day apart from you to realize that I’m more than my past, more than my sport. I’m a man, Cora, and I’m yours. You’re my heart,” I tell her and before I finish she’s rising, shifting so that she’s in my lap and her forehead is pressed against mine, her eyes close as we breathe together.
“Welcome home,” she says and I tilt her head up to take her lips.
Reminiscent of all those nights when we were here just like this, my chest expands until it feels as though I’ll burst if I don’t say the words. “I love you,” I whisper against her lips, then again, as I brush her temple, her eyelids, her cheekbones, down to her lips where I kiss her before standing, keeping her cradled against my chest as I walk us inside and down to our bedroom.
Her eyes are wide and wet when I set her on her feet but, unlike the last time we were together, it’s not because this is goodbye; it’s because we both know that whatever our lives were before, whatever got us to this moment, it was worth it. This, right here, is our beginning.
“You’re so beautiful,” I tell her and she laughs, unexpectedly nervous as I cup her face in my hands and swipe at the small tears that have fallen. “I love you,” I tell her again, and this time, her smile is brilliant, blinding even as the tears continue to fall.
“I believe you,” she says, and then we’re all heat and clashing tongues, her eager hands pulling at my shirt as I grip the low neckline of her barely-there tank top and rip. Her shock comes out muffled against my lips, but I don’t give her time to protest before I’m filling my hands with her lace clad breasts and backing her toward the bed.
We break our kiss as she shoves my shirt up and over my head and I take that as an invitation to move my lips to her collar bone and down, across her belly to her shorts, which I quickly discard, before moving back up the side of her ribs and back to her breasts, yanking down the cups of her bra until I can take one into my mouth.
I hear her moan, feel her writhe against me, and I snake my hand down until I cup her, working until her pants become screams and my name falls from her lips even as she falls from the cliff I was holding her on. Rolling, I shed my clothes and roll on a condom, moving back to her where I begin to touch her all over, ruthlessly driving her until her whimpers are heady gasps and she’s moving beneath me. When I know I can’t wait any longer to feel her, I say her name, waiting until her eyes open and focus on mine.
“I love you,” I tell her and rock inside, thrusting deep until we both cry out. And then I say it over and over, rolling so she’s on top and I’m lost in the glory that is Cora as she rides us both to ecstasy.
An hour later, I’ve had her again, and though it kills me, I’m already past curfew and so Cora and I rise from bed so she can take me back to where the team’s staying. She slips from bed to pull on a shirt and I sit where I am for a moment, needing to see her one last time. When she turns her back, I focus on the thin black scroll that’s now etched to the left of her spine, starting near her shoulder blade and stopping just before the curve of her waist.
Without a word, I stand and walk over to her.
Tomorrow is another day.
Scarlett and Rhett, the love story we all wanted them to finish.
She doesn’t turn around, just stands there while I reach out to touch the words, my fingers tracing them as she once traced mine, the feelings I gave to her on our last night together that she made a permanent part of herself.
“I Googled that quote you left me, then I watched the movie and I realized how perfect these words are, not just for us, but for me. I can’t live afraid that tomorrow is going to be the day that something hurts, or that I fail. I can’t live fearing the future instead of looking forward to it, and part of living for tomorrow is realizing that some love stories don’t have to end, that there’s always the possibility of tomorrow if we can’t be together today.” Now she turns and I let my fingers slide across her skin and rest at her hip even when her shirt falls back down. “I want to live, Handsome Jake and I want to do it knowing that, whatever happens, we have tomorrow together.”
They say that the blues are melancholy. To sing the blues, one has to feel them, to know them. I’ve known the blues of sadness, of anger, of despair; now I know the color blue, the swirling, deep, endless blue that pulled me from the wreckage and loved me. Holding her right here and right now, I know that no matter what lies ahead in my career, the greatest part of my future is staring back at me, giving me the kind of love I could only dream of.
“I love you, Handsome Jake. More than I ever thought possible.”
Bringing her close, I hold her against me and know that no matter how many times I have to leave, I’ll always come back to her. She’s my port in the storm, my light in the dark, and I’m never letting her go.