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I shrug and dig back into my food since Millie hasn’t replied.
“What are you doing today?” He elbows me as if he doesn’t ask the same question literally every single day we’re in a different city.
He knows what I’m doing, especially on days I’m pitching, which have been rehearsed and refined, down to the minute. I get up and make sure to do some type of movement, quick and light workout in the gym or a dip in the pool, then I have a big breakfast before going back to my room to prepare. I listen to music, review the lineup, shower and dress, then I head to the stadium by myself, arriving at two o’clock for an evening game. I meet with the pitching coaches and catcher then grab a snack at 4:30 p.m. I’m in the training room by five to be stretched out, and that’s when the headphones go on. I don’t talk to anyone, and no one talks to me. By 6:15, I’m in the weight room, getting loose, and by 6:30, I’m playing catch for eight minutes—about forty throws, up to 120 feet. Then I give myself the perfected Don’t fuck this up mental speech and head to the bullpen to do the real warm-up. That’s eight minutes to throw thirty more pitches. Ten fastballs, half arm side and half glove side. Ten cutters, half in, half away. Ten changeups. By 7:05, I’m in the dugout and ready to go.
It’s the same every single time.
But today, when Yadi asks, “You want to go sight-see with me?” I actually consider it.
“What is there to see in Milwaukee?”
He bites into an orange to begin peeling it. “Do you never just…walk around and love it?”
I can confidently say the one and only time I just walked around somewhere and loved it was with Millie at the museum. And the thought of her has me checking my phone once more to see if she’s responded. She hasn’t, but there is a text message from Camden Long. I’d saved his and Nico Tremblay’s numbers in a moment of mania.
Hey, man. I’m sure you won’t have a night free for a while but in the off chance you’ve got one coming up, we wanted to officially invite you to poker night. It’s me, Nico, and K-Mark from the Birds.
I assume he’s talking about Konstantin Marković from the Firebirds, the Philadelphia basketball team.
He’s shit at playing and we take all his money. We try to get together once every couple of weeks since we all know how hard it is to stress out about the season.
With Yadi slurping down orange slices next to me and my normally present stress about the game nonexistent today, I find myself replying without thinking about it.
Will be a while before I’ll be able to make it.
Because the next day or night I have to myself, I plan on being buried inside Millie.
Don’t worry about it. It’s chill.
Yeah, thanks for letting me know.
I pocket my phone once more and finish my breakfast, and since Yadi’s a fucking Hoover vacuum, he’s done at the same time.
“You coming?” he asks as we throw away our plates.
I shrug in answer, and the guy throws his arm around my shoulders excitedly. “Really?”
“Don’t be weird about it,” I tell him with a shove, and he laughs with his head tipped back. It reminds me of Millie, how she’s so free with her happiness. And it strikes me that I’m an asshole.
I’ve had an incredible life, have never wanted for anything, and I am paid to play baseball, for God’s sake, yet I am such a dick.
Yadi is away from his entire family, and he’s had to learn a second language. He’s not even twenty-three, but he’s proven to this team over and over that he can handle the responsibility and pressure. And, Millie… She has experienced tragedy after tragedy and has never lost her spark. She is a light in this world, and I am truly in awe of her.
Meanwhile, I am a fucking grouchy dickhead, and I need to do better.
Be better.
Because I want to deserve Millie.
I want to share some of her light.
As we head out of the hotel, Yadi reads off his cell phone, backhanding my arm. “They have a bus to go around the city for two hours. We should do that, huh?”
“Yeah, all right.”
He purchases the tickets online, and we walk down to the meeting point at city hall. With my cap pulled low, I don’t think anyone notices who I am, but then again, they might with the way Yadi stops every five seconds to take pictures to send to his girlfriend. He calls so much attention to himself by requesting strangers to snap a photo of us in different places, as if we’re on vacation together. One person even asks if we’re on a honeymoon. Yadi’s confused by the meaning, so when I explain it, he laughs and smacks a kiss on my cheek.
I’ve never been in the company of very young children, but I imagine wrangling him is like wrangling a toddler, but once I finally relax into our seats on the open top of the bus, I do take a selfie of myself to send to Millie.
