Page 13 of Wild Pitch
Luc: I’m in Back Bay, too. But I don’t know exactly where that is. It’s a brownstone. They’re classic and beautiful, but they all look the same.
Me: I’m going to go to bed. But thanks for checking in.
Thanks for checking in? I cringed the second I sent it.
Luc: Goodnight, beautiful girl.
Ooh, damn. Why did I like that so much?
Me: Thank you, sir.
Where the fuck did that come from? I read back through the text exchange, imagining his deep, gruff voice as he called me his good girl and called me beautiful. Damn.
Luc: You don’t know how happy you just made me.
CHAPTER 8
LUC
Kylie’s text message completely surprised me.
Kylie: Thank you, sir.
Maybe we could have that conversation on the first date, not the second or third? That was making a major assumption that not only would our relationship turn sexual, but that she’d also be okay with something casual.
Casual and monogamous.
I wanted to blame my career and the travel involved as a pitching coach for avoiding anything deeper. But that wasn’t it.
Still, after years of infertility with Skylar, I’d made amends with never being able to have children. What I couldn’t handle was hoisting that fate onto another woman.
It was the unexplained infertility that eventually broke my marriage. My wife, a woman who shone brighter than the sun, faded into a shell of herself.
The tests revealed nothing. So, while there was no blame in the situation, it wouldn’t happen for us.
To the doctors who encouraged us to keep trying? Fuck them. You didn’t need to hold your sobbing wife every month when herperiod came like clockwork. You weren’t there as she obsessively took pregnancy tests five days before her period was due because she had been sure that this month we’d succeed.
I hoped for Skylar’s sake that when she eventually remarried, she would get pregnant. I hoped she could become a mother, even if I weren’t part of it. When I told her I wished her well, I meant it.
While the major wounds from my marriage and subsequent divorce had healed, the scars would always be tender.
As part of healing from the loss of my marriage and resigning myself to the fact that I would never have a family, I realized that if I were to have a future relationship, there would need to be clear boundaries up front. I would be fully committed to the relationship with the understanding that it had a shelf life.
My need for control also carried over into the bedroom, and even if Kylie hadn’t been aware of what she was saying, her responses screamed submissive.
We would need to have this conversation at dinner on Friday night. I already had reservations for an Italian restaurant that boasted privacy. But I needed to put all this on the line before we went too far. I refused to hurt another woman when she realized I couldn’t offer what she wanted.
Kylie had insisted we meet at the restaurant, and I arrived fifteen minutes early. I had wanted to have some say in the table and request a change if I didn’t think it would be private enough for us to talk.
So far, the details have been exactly as I requested. I only hoped she wouldn’t run from the restaurant as soon as I outlined my boundaries.
CHAPTER 9
KYLIE
Between work and preparing for my move this weekend, I’d been able to find any distraction from the excitement for my date with Luc tonight.
I had briefly mentioned my date in the sister group chat and to Lily, but the recent events in Kelsey’s life had taken precedence. Kelsey had been thrown into a whirlwind, with photos of her and Sam splashed across the internet. I briefly scanned the photos. I hoped that if this wasn’t serious for him, she could protect her and Crew’s hearts.
