Chapter Fourteen Jimmy

Chapter Fourteen

Jimmy

J IMMY'S ALONE IN HIS BED WHEN HE WAKES UP THE FOLLOWING morning. He lies there for a moment, watching the sun spill in through the window, taking stock. He's waiting to feel terrible, and he unmistakably does—his hands in particular are killing him, the knuckles swollen and fucked-up looking—but mostly he just feels sort of pleased with himself. Mostly he just feels sort of good. They stayed in bed for a long time last night, him and Lacey, talking and napping and fooling around; around eight thirty they wandered downstairs and he made her dinner, a pasta thing that is one of three meals he reliably knows how to cook, except he usually makes it with sausage and he made it with tomatoes instead. It's better with sausage, frankly, but all things considered Jimmy found he didn't much care.

"Can I ask you a question?" Lacey said, eyeing him across the kitchen—her long hair sex-messy and tangled, the heels of her smooth bare feet banging gently against the cabinets. "Do you make this pasta for every woman who ever stays here?"

Jimmy hesitated. "I mean," he said finally, "not this exact pasta."

"Uh-huh."

"I mix it up a little," he defended himself. "And also, for the record, no other women have stayed here since I met you in New York."

Lacey quirked an eyebrow. "Hooked up with any other women in bathrooms?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Well," she said, "me either." Then she grinned. "When I write my song about you it's going to be called ‘Hookup Pasta.'"

"Double platinum," Jimmy predicted, stepping between her knees and sliding his palms up the long, tan expanse of her thighs. "Record of the Year."

Now he gets up out of bed and pulls on a pair of sweatpants, padding down the stairs in the early-morning light. He can hear Lacey singing quietly to herself in the kitchen, an old ballad by Sam Cooke or the Platters, something he recognizes but isn't able to name. She has a pretty voice, Lacey—and Jimmy knew that, obviously, but it sounds different here in his house, reminds him of the low, unselfconscious way his mom used to sing to herself in the mornings when he was a kid. Singing clears the gunk , she used to say. He tries to remember the last time he heard her sing something, and can't. She got a little hard after Matty died, not that Jimmy blames her. It turned him a little hard, too.

"Morning," he says now, dropping a kiss on Lacey's shoulder. She's wearing his T-shirt again and she looks like one of those old American Apparel ads, tall and gorgeous and half-naked. She smells like his detergent and like sex.

"Morning," she agrees with a smile. "I made coffee. Or I, like, tried to make coffee, anyway. I'm not very good at it."

Jimmy nods sympathetically. "Your many minions usually do that for you, huh?"

"Screw you," Lacey says, but she's smiling. "But yes. In my defense, your machine is a full spaceship." She hands him a mug over her shoulder, then turns to face him, fingertips curling around the edge of the counter. "Can I ask you something?" she says, her expression full of consternation. "Why does one human person need so many bags of baby carrots?"

Jimmy throws his head back and laughs.

They drink their coffee in the pool, floating on their backs in the deep end, the sparrows chatting up in the trees and a playlist from Lacey's phone drifting quietly out across the yard.

"I like this song," Jimmy says, lifting his chin at the speaker. "Is this you?"

"What? No!" Lacey laughs. "You think I'd put myself on a playlist and just casually play it for you, all smooth-like, hoping you'd be into it?"

"I kind of think that, yes."

Lacey rolls her eyes. "If I'm fishing for compliments, Big Man, you'll know it," she promises. "Anyway, no. It's Henrietta Lang."

Jimmy nods, listening for another moment: the contralto voice and the vaguely creepy lyrics, what he thinks might be a tenor guitar. "Are you guys pals?"

"Nah," Lacey says, looking a little bashful. "We don't really run in the same kinds of circles. I love her, though. I think she's brilliant. I was maybe going to go see her in New York the night I met you, actually, but I chickened out at the last minute."

"Why?"

"I told you," Lacey says, her shrug just visible underneath the water. "I can't just pop into other people's shows like that. It would have been a total clusterfuck."

"Really?" Jimmy has his doubts. He doesn't want to, like, mansplain her own life to her or whatever, but it does kind of feel to him like maybe not everything needs to be quite as complicated as she's making it. She's famous, yeah, but it's not like people are actually watching her every second. "Are you sure about that?"

"I am sure about that," Lacey says firmly. "Anyway, I don't want to talk about me anymore. Let's talk about something else instead. Let's talk about baseball."

That makes him laugh. "Just generally?"

"I actually know some stuff about it generally," she confesses, trailing one hand through the bleachy blue water. "I watched the Ken Burns documentary, back when you and I first started texting."

Oh, Jimmy is in trouble with this girl. "Did you really?" he asks, surprised and charmed in equal measure. "Isn't it, like, ten parts?"

"Eleven," Lacey corrects him. "I like to be informed."

"I know that about you." Jimmy smiles. "Well. We made the Wild Card Series," he reports, a little embarrassed by the pride and excitement he can hear in his own voice as he tells her. "Did you and Ken cover what that is, or—?"

"Let's pretend we didn't."

"It's the opening round of the playoffs, basically," Jimmy says, trying not to sound like a pedant as he gives her a quick and dirty primer. "We're the number six seed—which is, to be clear, the worst you can be and still make it into the series—so Seattle, who's third, is going to host us. Whoever wins those games goes to the Division Series, and then the League Championship after that."

"And then the World Series and Disney World?"

"And then the World Series and Disney World."

"You ever made it that far?"

"Not Disney World," he confesses. "The other thing, once."

Lacey nods. "I knew that, too, actually," she admits, looking at him a little guiltily over the tops of her designer sunglasses. "I googled it."

He smiles again, though only for a second. It wasn't exactly a high point of Jimmy's career. "You did, huh?"

"Six years ago, right? You got close."

"I—" Jimmy opens his mouth, closes it again. "Yeah," he says finally. "We got close." Jimmy's never played a season like that in his entire life, is the truth: the pieces clicking neatly into place from the very beginning, a crew of guys he loved like kin. Jimmy wasn't surprised when they made it to the Series—none of them were—and he wasn't surprised when they won the first three games against Miami, either. It felt inevitable that they were going to win it. It felt predestined that it was theirs to reach out and take.

They flew down to Florida for Game 4, Jonesy hitting bombs and Tito zipping all over the outfield and Tuck pitching some of the most beautiful innings of baseball Jimmy had ever seen, sending hitters chasing after pitches hooked just outside the strike zone and catching them looking as his slider dipped across the plate. Two outs at the bottom of the fourth, Jimmy remembers, the O's up by three and a rookie second baseman from the Marlins up at bat. The kid was new as a freshly minted penny, a mid-season call-up eager to make a name for himself, and as his swing connected neatly with Tuck's fastball Jimmy thought for a moment there was a chance he was going to. He remembers the scream of the crowd as the kid dropped his bat and took off around the bases, rounding second as the Birds struggled to get their acts together and crossing third by the time they finally put hands on the ball. Jimmy made the catch just as the kid dove for home plate, desperate and wild—

And took a flying leap into Jimmy's left side.

Jimmy's not deluded enough to think that him tearing his shoulder is the reason the Marlins came from behind and won that night, let alone the reason they swept the next three games and won the Series. Still, he thinks about it sometimes, what might have happened. He thinks about how it all might have felt.

"Anyway," he says now, clearing his throat, "wasn't meant to be."

"That's very stoic of you."

"I'm a stoic guy."

"A regular Marcus Aurelius."

"That's what they call me." He can tell that she knows he's full of shit and he wants to distract her into forgetting, so he backs her up against the edge of the pool and kisses her, sliding his hands up her rib cage and tracing the cheerful white piping on her bathing suit top. "You could take this off, you know."

Lacey smirks. "I could, huh?"

"Just saying." He works the tip of one finger underneath the edge of the spandex, rubbing gently around the very edge of her nipple and feeling it harden up underneath his touch. "There's nobody here."

"My bodyguards are in the pool house, dumbass."

"They're not watching."

"Somebody's always watching," she counters with an ease that nearly takes his breath away. "Always." Then, wrinkling her nose: "Sorry. Is that a total boner-killer?"

"Nah," Jimmy lies, kissing her one more time before pulling away and sitting down on the steps in the shallow end. "Just kind of makes me wonder if I should start waxing my chest."

"Don't you dare."

"Does it get tiring?" he asks, stretching his legs out in front of him. He's supposed to do PT in this pool, theoretically, but in practice he hardly ever does. "Being the entirety of the American zeitgeist?"

Lacey shrugs. "I don't really think about it that way," she says. "I chose this, and there are certain things that come with it. And certain accommodations or calculations that I have to make because of that."

"No topless sunbathing," he says sadly.

"Tits away," she deadpans, and Jimmy guffaws.

Back in the house he makes them a couple of green juices, which is the single healthy habit he held on to from his marriage. "You want to go to breakfast?" he calls over the whir of the juicer as she sits down on the sofa in the great room. "There's a place in town that's got good eggs."

"Oh!" Lacey hesitates, turning around to look at him over the back of the sofa. "Um."

All at once, Jimmy gets it. It's like a record scratch, the moment he figures it out. "Okay," he says slowly, handing her a glass of health the color of ectoplasm and sitting down on the couch beside her, cracking his knuckles and hoping vainly for a little bit of relief. "So this is gonna be a secret, huh?"

Lacey looks sheepish. "It's not that I want it to be a secret," she says, not quite looking at him. "It just gets complicated once it's not."

"Calculations," Jimmy says, nodding slowly. "Accommodations."

"Don't be mad."

"I'm not mad," he says, and he's not, truly; in fact, he's closer to hurt than angry, but fuck him if he's ever going to admit that out loud. "I mean, that's fine. But for the record, I think I could probably handle it. The complications, or whatever." He takes a sip of his grass-tasting juice. "I mean, if you're embarrassed about it, then that's another story—"

"I'm not embarrassed ." Lacey's temper flares; he can see it.

"Okay." Jimmy shrugs. "Well, then. I guess I just don't love the idea of sneaking around like some teenager who doesn't want his dad to catch him breaking curfew, that's all."

"Oh, because historically you've been the king of romantic integrity?"

Jimmy feels his jaw twitch. "I've never tried to hide it when I cared about someone."

"Clearly, which is why the whole world knew when you gave chlamydia to Kit Benedetto."

"To be clear," Jimmy defends himself, "Kit Benedetto gave chlamydia to me."

"Apologies." Lacey rolls her eyes. "There was already a blind item on the Sinclair," she reports.

"I don't know what that is."

"A blind item is when—"

"No, I know what a blind item is." For fuck's sake. "The other thing you said."

"It's a gossip site," she says, and it clicks for him then, the hot pink web page the guys were looking at back in the locker room that day. "And sure, it was vague—the blind item, I mean—but not so vague that my fans aren't going to be able to sniff it out in half a second, so I just want to be sure we're ready. For, like. Whatever happens." She chugs the juice in one long gulp, setting her empty glass on the coffee table and letting out a tiny, ladylike burp. "Excuse me," she says primly. Then: "It might be worth it for you to talk to Maddie. My publicist. About how we'd want to handle it if it did get out."

Oh, Jimmy does not want to do that. "I've been a starting player in the MLB for thirteen years, Lacey. I know how to handle the press."

"My press is different from your press."

"Okay," he says, knowing he sounds sullen and not being able to do a hell of a lot to stop it. Fuck, his hands are killing him. They feel like they're on fire. He shakes them out one more time, fighting the urge to get up and go into the kitchen, open the door to the freezer, and jam them inside. "If you say so."

"I say so." She looks at him for a moment, appraising. "Come here," she says quietly. "Give me your hands."

Jimmy shakes his head. "It's fine."

"I know," she agrees calmly. "You're a big strong sports hero. I said come here."

Jimmy sighs, but he does it, shifting closer on the sofa until he's close enough to smell the sunscreen and chlorine smell of her. He feels annoyed in every direction: at his body for being old and creaky, at Lacey for thinking he's too stupid to handle reporters. At himself for caring either way.

Lacey picks up his right hand and examines it for a moment, turning his wrist this way and that before pressing gently, then with more pressure, digging her thumbs into the meat of his palm. "That okay?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah." Jimmy huffs a sheepish laugh. "That's okay."

Lacey nods and reaches for his left hand this time, pressing at the webbing between his thumb and index finger. Jimmy drops his head back against the sofa, his eyes closing almost involuntarily as she tugs gently on each of his fingers. He's been half-hard since basically the first second she touched him, but it's not until she slides his index finger into her mouth, scraping her sharp white teeth gently over the pad of his fingertip, that he realizes exactly what she's after. "La-cey," he says, cracking one eye open.

"What?" she asks. She's grinning, looking deeply pleased with herself. "What the fuck did you think I was going to do, miraculously heal all your various injuries? I'm not a fucking sports medicine doctor."

"Uh-huh." Jimmy reaches for her, pulling her into his lap and tugging at the ties on her still-damp bathing suit. "Come here."

But Lacey wriggles away. "I'm busy," she informs him, and drops to her knees in front of the couch.

Jimmy lets out a quiet, disbelieving swear. He doesn't want her to feel like—just because they sort of argued—Jesus fucking Christ , he cannot put a thought together at all. "Okay," he manages finally. "Okay, you definitely don't have to—"

"I know I don't have to, thanks," Lacey says, looking up at him with open amusement. She ghosts her nails down his thighs in a way that makes him shiver, then hooks her fingers in the waistband of his swim trunks and snaps it back against his skin. "Do you want me to or not?"

Jimmy hesitates. Of course he fucking wants her to. He wants all kinds of shit he has no business wanting: to get inside her and stay there for the foreseeable future, to hold her down and get her off and be the best she's ever had. "Lacey," he tries again, but she's already working his shorts down over his hips and wrapping her hand around him, swiping her thumb over the liquid at the tip. "Sweetheart—"

"You gotta tell me," Lacey decides, resting her sharp chin on his knee and grinning at him, this hugely tickled, hugely dirty expression on her face. "You want me to do it, you gotta say."

Jimmy growls, he can't help it—how hard he is and how badly he wants her, how shy he suddenly feels. "Please."

"Please what?"

For fuck's sake. "You know what."

Lacey rolls her eyes. "Prude," she teases, then tucks her dark hair daintily behind her ears and ducks her head.

Jimmy groans. He closes his eyes like a reflex, then opens them again, equal parts desperate to watch her and afraid the sight of it is going to end him way too fast. Her mouth is obscenely, heartbreakingly warm. He never brought this up as a possibility, all those nights they talked on the phone together. Never even let himself think about it. Jimmy threads his fingers through her hair as she does her thing, rubbing gently at the back of her neck. He feels scraped raw and helpless, like she could well and truly wreck him without ever meaning to. Like she leaves a trail of destruction in her wake. Lacey watches him from her spot on the floor, no tension or distrust in her face at all as she takes him deeper, sucking fast and sloppy like all she wants is—

"Okay," Jimmy announces finally, reaching down and hauling her to her feet, pulling her into his lap so she's straddling his thighs. "Come up here."

"Oh, sorry," she says, wiping the corner of her mouth with one red fingernail. Her lipstick is, somehow, still immaculate. "Were you not having fun?"

"Fuck off," he says, dropping her bathing suit top on the floor and getting his mouth on her—sucking and biting, rougher than he's been with her so far. "Too much fun."

"No such thing."

"Wrong." Jimmy tugs her bottoms to the side, opening her up with two fingers and groaning quietly when he feels how wet she is. "Oh, I see how it is," he says. "You were having fun, too, huh?"

Lacey drops her head back in pleasure, grinding herself against his hand. "I may have been."

"Good." Jimmy lets her use his fingers for a moment longer, then pulls back and fits himself inside her, holding as still as he can manage while she works herself down onto his cock. She's beautiful like this, her chest flushed pink and eyes narrowed in concentration, wet bottom lip caught between her teeth. Jimmy drops his face into the crook of her neck, momentarily overwhelmed by her; the last thing he registers before she rolls her hips and his brain stops working entirely is her quiet gasp of pleasure, the press of her hand in his hair.