Page 31 of Grand Slam

I stand watching her walk away, my jaw flexing and my hands twitching the entire time. And when she reaches Jerry and leans over on the railing beside him, their shoulders touching I take a step forward.

“Don’t even think about it.” Alizabeth moves in front of me and shoves my shoulder back. “You’re an ass.”

I chuckle and try to wrap my arm over her shoulders but she shoves at me again.

“Sending in Jerry, like I’m some old clothes you’re donating. Take this to the drop-off Jerry, I’m done.”

“You are being a little dramatic.”

Bad choice, I know it the second the words leave my lips.

“I’m being dramatic.” She shoves me, granted I barely move but it’s the point. I grab her hands holding them together in front of her and she tries to wiggle free. “I’m not the one that ran away like a fucking wimp, hiding out while the sister and little lady are shuttled off. You, Kelton James, are not a coward. You have never been, so why now. Why are you running away?”

I stare at her and for the first time since they got here, I see her, I notice her pain. My throat instantly feels raw, my chest aching.

Pulling her in, I wrap my arms around her and she still fights me but I don’t give in.

“I’m sorry,” I say, knowing it will fix nothing. She is hurt and right now, she needs to feel.

“You’ve always been the one person in this life I can count on. Even before Mom died you were my person. My big brother, the one I knew would always protect me and love me even when he hates me. You don’t give up, you don’t walk away and you never deserted me. You can say it’s dramatic, you can say I’m being a baby, but it’s how I feel.”

“I screwed up,” I don’t try to deny it.

“You did,” she says a little less rushed and annoyed. Almost like a defeated sigh.

“I don’t know how to accept being disappointed in you.” Her words are like a punch in the stomach. “It might take me a few days to get over that feeling.”

“You take all the time you need.”

We stand there, me holding her and her allowing me to. When I look up I find Emerson and Jerry both turned around now facing us. They are talking but their focus is on us.

Liz was young when Mom first got sick. She had done treatment, was in the hospital more than she wasn’t, and Brigette, she’s always been so self-absorbed. Instead of stepping in and realizing her little sister needed someone, she grew more distant from all of us. I’m not saying she didn’t care, but if any of the three of us are like my dad the most it’s her.

Liz and I, we grew inseparable and during that time she placed me on some imaginary pedestal. She idolized her older brother, and she will always be the little rugrat I took under my wing. We have a bond, and I’ve managed to put a kink in it.

I hate that.

“Why?” Liz doesn’t say more but I already know what she is referring to; why I took off. She needs me to explain.

With my eyes still locked on Emerson, she offers me a smile and without pause I confess all the things to my sister that I should be telling Em.

“I’m in love with her.” I feel Liz’s fingers dig into my back as she hugs me tighter. “You and I, we will always be linked. It’s hard to tell you goodbye but I know if I call you up tomorrow and tell you that I want you here, you’d be on the first flight, bags packed. Somehow the idea of watching her get on a plane feels so final. Like I’m saying our time has passed and I don’t know if we’ll ever have this chance again. Then I heard you two talking and I felt like the walls were closing in on me. I had to take a drive. Then I left and the next thing I know I’m heading to the field and I know I can’t go back.”

“Why didn’t you just call me?”

“Because I knew you’d talk me out of it,” I confess and she doesn’t deny it.

“Promise me something.”

“Okay.” And I know she won’t give me a promise she can’t hold up to.

“Promise me that you’ll help me get you both back here.” Since the first time since she got here Liz looks at me without anger.“Promise me that when you get back to Chicago the two of you will start putting the work in to finalize your lives there and you’ll work on moving those lives here. I miss having you around and if Gran would move too, I’d be telling her the same.”

“Answer me this.” I nod. “If I get her here, what do you see for the two of you? Do you see a built-in booty call, someone that will be waiting at home when you pop in between away games? Or do you see more?”

I know she is doing what she is best at, protecting those she loves, so I give my sister complete honesty.

“I see a life I want to build, she isn’t convenient, she’s home.”

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