Double Play (Hit and Run Book 3), page 1
DOUBLE PLAY
HIT AND RUN
BOOK 3
E.M. LINDSEY
Double Play
E.M. Lindsey
Copyright © 2022
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any events, places, or people portrayed in the book have been used in a manner of fiction and are not intended to represent reality. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.
Cover by: Sleepy Fox Studio
Photographer: Wander Aguiar/Model: Philippe
Editing: Sandra with One Love Editing/Cindi Livingston
Content Warnings: This book contains mentions of past toxic relationships, gun violence resulting in permanent injury, drug abuse, and addiction. This book also contains the on-page death of a side character as well as the process of grief, some ableist language, and implications of homophobia in sports. Please take care if any of these issues are triggering for you.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Also by E.M. Lindsey
About the Author
FOREWORD
I wanted to stop and say a quick thanks to you readers for going on this MLB journey with me. While I have adjusted and changed some aspects to the sport and its portrayal, I tried my best to keep the heart of the MLB alive.
I wanted to give a quick shout-out to this book’s sensitivity readers who have worked diligently in helping me keep Hervé’s narcolepsy and cataplexy as realistic as I can. For more information, please visit the Narcolepsy Network. They are not affiliated in any way with this book, but are an invaluable resource for information.
For Ben. Your life was short, but your love and legacy are endless.
Grief never gets smaller, but the container we keep it in gets larger. And one day, we just learned to live without you.
1
“So, what are your plans now? Besides fucking your way through the rest of Europe?”
Orion did his best not to sigh or to punch his brother-in-law, who probably would have laughed while the rest of the family would have his ass thrown in jail for punching a man with ALS. Well, his sister likely wouldn’t. Carey was a smart-ass who probably earned every knock to the jaw he’d ever been given.
But the circumstances were unusual at best. Carey had been his best friend since they were in elementary school and the only person he trusted to love his sister the way she deserved to be loved. They’d gone their separate ways in college—Orion being drafted into the MLB, Carey signing up for the military. And Orion could count on both hands the number of times he’d stood waiting to step up to bat, his mind halfway across the world, worried that he’d be getting one of those calls soon.
The call to tell him that up was now down and left was right and nothing would ever be the same again.
And eventually, it did come, but not in the way he was expecting.
It came from his sister, from their little DC apartment, with words like terminal, not sure how long he has left, and preparing for end of life.
Orion hadn’t known what the fuck to do with any of that, so he told Weber he was skipping the next practice due to a family emergency and spent the afternoon in bed, reading every Google article known to man about what Carey was facing. That sent him down an emotional spiral that turned him into an asshole so bitter and so afraid, he’d almost lost every single one of his friends over it.
Of course, James and Pietro had no intention of giving up on him, and they eventually managed to help him extract his head from his ass long enough to ask for leave. It meant skipping the last few games of the season—which was fine, considering they were nowhere near making it to playoffs that year—and it meant uncertainty for the upcoming season.
He didn’t know what his sister would need or what Carey would want. All he knew was that he needed to get on a plane, fly to DC, and sit around until one or all of them snapped.
It happened on his third week there, after reality set in and Orion finally accepted that there was no miracle treatment and nothing he could do. And being that he wasn’t a man of prayer or faith of any kind, the only option left was to accept the inevitable.
At some point—who the fuck knew when—Carey was going to die, and Orion would have to learn how to live without him.
When that moment hit was when Carey decided to drop the bomb that Orion was no longer welcome in their house. “It’s not that I don’t want you here. It’s that you’ve spent the last three weeks changing diapers and feeding my kid when you could be doing something so much more fun. You need to leave, man. You’ve got time off, so why not actually use it?”
Orion knew Carey well enough to understand it wasn’t about him. Not really. It was about the fact that he’d already dropped a good fifteen pounds and that his fine motor skills were almost nonexistent, and he was reaching that stage where he was choking on his own spit if he wasn’t swallowing carefully enough.
In truth, Carey just didn’t want Orion to see him that way. Not until he’d come to terms with what the rest of his shortened life was going to look like.
Thanks to the current step up in medical science, people with ALS were living longer…but not forever. And not comfortably.
Carey had been frank and almost clinical when he told Orion that he had, at best, five years. “I’m not sure I want more than that,” he’d confessed that first night quietly over a glass of the very rich, very good German beer he’d immediately ordered when Orion showed up. Orion tried not to hear the new slurring to Carey’s speech, but he couldn’t ignore it. “I’d never knock people who fight to live as long as that scientist guy—”
Stephen Hawking.
“—but that’s not for me, you know. It just…I don’t know. It looks like hell.” He took a long drink, then sighed and lay back. Orion noticed how weak Carey’s grip was. And how thin he’d gotten over the span of weeks. Everything he’d read said it was different for everyone else, and he wouldn’t say it aloud, but he was pretty damn sure at Carey’s rate, he wouldn’t get the chance to be that scientist guy.
“Maybe I’ll change my mind and fight harder. Who the fuck knows.”
Orion wanted to say that Nova and Callie were worth changing his mind for because they’d love him until the end of time—and then longer. But it wasn’t his place. He had no idea what Carey and Nova had discussed, and her grief was on another plane of existence from how Orion was feeling.
He was losing his best friend.
She was losing her other half.
Callie was losing her dad before she was old enough to remember him.
Orion was a profoundly lucky man who had only ever lost distant great-grandparents. This sort of thing was new to him and wholly terrifying.
But Carey and Nova had finally been given the discharge date—which was three days away—and Orion knew for damn sure he wasn’t ready to go back to work. He didn’t know how he was supposed to just go on with his day like shit in his world hadn’t just shattered to pieces with no hope of ever putting them back together.
“Listen,” Carey said, interrupting Orion’s thoughts, “I have an idea.”
Orion kicked his foot up on the low coffee table—cheap IKEA furniture he’d come to love in the years he’d been visiting his sister and Carey on whatever base they were stationed at. He was already reclined, his daughter asleep on his chest, and he had one hand protectively on her back. Orion had a moment to realize that Carey probably wouldn’t be able to hold her like that for long.
“That’s a terrifying thought.”
Carey snorted a laugh and elbowed him. “Shut up, fuckface. This is important. I was going to surprise Nova with a month in France, send Callie off with my parents. I booked this cottage up in the northern part of the country. The real deal shit, you know? It’s this little cottage owned by some family who’d been living in the area for hundreds of years. There’s a little village in walking distance, and the neighbors have sheep.”
“I’m not sure if you’re really selling it here,” Orion said with a small laugh.
Carey smiled, but he looked somber as he lifted his hand and extended it. They weren’t really touchy-feely guys, but Orion couldn’t help himself from linking fingers and letting Carey squeeze him as tightly as he could manage.
“If I had my way, I’d disappear into the collective crowd and let people remember me like this. Especially Nova and Callie,” he added, then squeezed Orion’s fingers harder when Orion opened his mouth to threaten him. “I won’t, because I owe them more than that. And there’s not a goddamn thing in the world that would make me walk away from my family.”
Orion bowed his head. “Yeah.”
“But if you want to do anything at all for me—then take this fucking vacation I paid for and get your shit together, then go home and get at least three more rings so you can bury me with one and not miss it.”
Orion’s throat was tight, and his eyes were hot, and he kind of wanted to hit Carey again because fuck this man for making him feel his feelings. “You’re a fuckin’ asshole.”
Carey laughed and let him go. “Oh, I know. Your sister reminds me at least nine times a day.”
Orion looked up at him, and he hated that he could see the toll the disease was taking on Carey. “If I ever meet God, I’m going to punch him in the fucking testicle before he boots my ass to hell.”
Carey grinned. “Get him in the other testicle for me.”
Orion nodded, then blew out a puff of air. “Bro, what the fuck am I supposed to do in the middle of nowhere France for a month?”
“Jerk off,” Carey said. “Go to the village and have a couple of one-night stands with a cougar your mom’s age who smokes those long cigarettes and drinks nothing but cheap red wine. Eat whatever the fuck you want,” he said, then winked. “Gorge on cheese and bread, man. Let it go right to that ass everyone on the internet loves so much.”
Orion flipped him off, and Carey laughed.
“Figure your shit out so your friends stop hating you. You don’t get to use my impending death as a reason to be a bigger dick than you already are.”
Ouch. But touché.
“And then what?”
“Then remember all the dumb shit we did together, and let that be the thing you think about every time someone talks about me. Not this whole mess. Not me like this.” He waved his hand at his legs, which were thin and trembling just slightly. “If you let yourself spiral,” Carey warned, and it was a tone Orion took seriously, “I will haunt your ass until the day you die.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll still haunt you,” Carey said with a small grin. “But instead of flushing your toilet in the middle of a long shit, I’ll be your wingman from the other side. Help you get laid. Help you find the man you can spend the rest of your life with.”
Orion didn’t say that he’d be willing to give up that idea for just a few more years of Carey being here. Instead, he bowed his head. “You better find me a fucking good one, bro.”
Carey snorted. “The best. Trust me. It’ll be some weird romance-movie shit where you’re on the mound and you look across the crowd and he’s just there, watching you. And I’ll be floating my incorporeal ass over the plate and send the ball falling into his lap like it’s goddamn destiny. It’ll be some real meet-cute shit.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Orion said roughly, because if he said anything else, he’d lose control of the tears threatening his eyes, and he owed Carey more than that.
Orion should have known better than to assume that the place was going to be any different than what Carey described. It was small—two bedrooms, stone walls, wood floors, and definitely in the middle of nowhere.
There was an actual claw-foot tub in the bathroom when he finally got around to inspecting the place, and the smallest water closet that barely fit his broad shoulders as he hunched in to take a piss.
He was surprised when he found a running fridge and a stove in the kitchen, but even they were relics, though the kitchen had charm to it. There was a little breakfast alcove next to a window that had the perfect view of the small cherry orchard running along the property’s back wall, and he could easily picture himself living in a place like this.
It was nothing like his home back in Denver.
He hadn’t splurged like some of the guys on his team, but his place was fucking opulent compared to this. Four rooms, a den, a gym, and an indoor, heated lap pool had seemed like so little until he stared around this cozy space. Everything was so small it made him feel like a freaky American giant.
Still, something about it settled the hot, ugly fear in the pit of his stomach knowing that the conversation he’d had with Carey was one of a handful he had left before the guy…yeah. Orion couldn’t even bring himself to think about it just yet.
Carey wasn’t just his brother. They’d been best friends for what felt like forever, and he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to exist in a world where he couldn’t call him up and shoot the shit, knowing that Carey was one of the few people who could make him laugh when everything felt like it was falling apart.
Carey was the one he’d have run to when something like this was happening.
And now, he had to take a back seat because his own pain of losing his friend was nothing compared to what his sister would be going through.
Rubbing his hands down his face, he swallowed against the hot lump in his throat, then went to the furthest bedroom to drop his bags. The only saving grace about the cottage was that it didn’t remind him of his sister or Carey.
Or, hell, anyone he knew.
It was something completely new and unlike him, and maybe that’s what he needed to get over this first wave of grief. He wasn’t quite sure how to mourn someone who was still alive or if he was even allowed to. Nothing seemed fair anymore, and it left him feeling impotent and so angry he wanted to put his fist through the wall.
Which was not the person he wanted to become.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Orion took a few minutes to scope everything out, then moved to the kitchen and wasn’t surprised to find that the cabinets and the fridge were entirely empty. There was a bottle of wine left from the owners and a little note in French that he’d attempted to translate with his app.
It said something along the lines of please enjoy your stay and then directions to the shop where the wine was sold if he wanted more. Which, yeah, he absolutely did. He found a rolling shopping cart and some reusable bags in the bottom cabinet near the stove, and he felt a little bit like a village centenarian trundling down the narrow street toward the center of town, which made him smile.
There were only a few cars here and there, and he passed by several older people sitting on porches with drinks and cigars who gave him suspicious looks. Not that he blamed them, of course. He looked entirely out of place in his Gucci jeans and his Henley, but he wasn’t there to charm some little French town.
He was there to figure out how to live in the world now that this one tiny thing had changed.
It didn’t take him long to find the shops he needed. A little cheese place that had massive wheels covered in wax and was pungent enough he could smell it past the closed doors and heavy windows. The young woman behind the counter found his attempts at French adorable and hooked him up with a couple of mild wedges of something creamy that she promised would go good on a baguette. Then she pointed him in the direction of the bakery and told him he had to get bread with every meal if he wanted the proper experience.
The baker, who spoke no English against Orion’s piss-poor French, managed to get across that he should come back every day instead of stocking up because—and he had to guess on that one—the bread would be stale if he tried to buy it in bulk. He decided to take the guy’s word on it and bought a loaf for dinner and one for breakfast, then swore to come back for more.
He was feeling pretty damn proud of himself as he found the little supermarket, which felt odd because the inside was modern and bright. It was like stepping from the past into present day, and he quickly loaded up his cart with fruit, vegetables, meat, and some boxed pasta because he could at least manage that on his own.
He wasn’t the world’s worst cook, but he was no Ezra or Thierry. And Jesus, he was missing those two delivering meals right then. Mostly he was just feeling lonely, but maybe that was a good thing.
