Page 44 of Framing the Pitch (Red Dirt Romance #1)

After the away series in Phoenix, we’re back in Oklahoma City for the first of six consecutive games against the Mayhem—the last six games of the season.

The Firebirds handed us three straight losses, which allowed both them and the Mayhem to move ahead of us in the league standings.

If we want to get back to the number two seed for the championship tournament, we need to have a good showing in these last six games.

And after the way we lost to the Mayhem at the beginning of the season, we’re back, and we’re out for blood.

Our lead-off batter makes it to first on a hard chop to the left side of the field, beating out the shortstop’s long throw from deep in the hole.

Our second batter grounds out on a fielder’s choice play after the third baseman bobbles the ball.

And I knock in my first RBI—run batted in—of the series with a stand up double.

It's a habit—or maybe just wishful thinking—to look toward the seats just behind home plate after I finish my celebration with my team. But Trace isn’t there.

And he won’t be there for the rest of the season.

I had the idea in my head that doing a long distance relationship with him while he’s at training camp would be difficult, but I never imagined how much of a hole he would really leave.

But the pitcher’s movements catch my eye, and I push my thoughts about Trace away. I have to focus on the here and now. Winning this game is all that matters for the next two hours.

Our fourth batter walks, but then both of us get stranded on back-to-back strikeouts. Still, I’ll take an early 1-0 lead, knowing that this game is going to be a battle to stay ahead.

The Mayhem start off in a similar fashion. We manage to throw out the first batter, but their second hitter has wheels and makes it to first, even though we should have been able to get the out.

And then Alyssa Torres comes up to the plate. From where I’m positioned, I can see the cheeky grin she shoots at her sister, who is waiting patiently in the pitcher’s circle.

“Ready for another Battle of the Sisters, Alyssa?” I joke as she adjusts her helmet one last time and steps into the batter’s box. She laughs as she sets up, waiting for Erica’s pitch, but doesn’t say anything back to me.

I’ve been in the league long enough to know almost everyone on all four teams. I’ve had a lot of teammates come and go over the years, and some of my college teammates play elsewhere in the league.

Most of them are a little chatty with me when they come up for their first plate appearances, but Alyssa is laser-focused.

Erica moves into her wind-up, and I shift on my feet, getting ready to move to the ball and frame it for a strike.

Alyssa watches it for a strike on the inside corner of the plate.

She is one of the smartest hitters I know, and watching her in an at-bat is like watching a work of art.

She takes Erica to a full count, fouling off everything that’s close and really making Erica work for this out .

But then Alyssa finds it. The ball Erica leaves hanging over too much of the outside of the plate.

As soon as Alyssa’s bat makes contact with it, I know it’s gone.

And there’s nothing the team can do except watch as it sails over the right-center fence and the runners begin jogging around the bases.

The home plate umpire passes me a new ball, and I throw it out to Erica while our team resets and watches the replay of the ball soaring into the stands on the jumbotron.

Alyssa’s arm is up, pointing to the yellow ball as it sails out of the park, and as she rounds first to thunderous cheers, her fist pumps in the air and she jumps, celebrating the home run.

She twists mid-air to point across the infield to her teammates that are flooding out of the third-base dugout, but when she lands, she stumbles.

And with the next step, she collapses.

Time stops. Every sound in the stadium ceases.

A cry rips from Alyssa’s lips, and it’s that sound of pain that jumpstarts movement on the field. Erica bolts out of the circle, and a trainer in Mayhem green rushes out of the home dugout as the home plate umpire calls time.

I jog up the first baseline to stand behind Erica, who has tears running down her face as she watches her sister cry in pain. The Mayhem trainer holds out her arm, keeping back the Mayhem coaches and players, who had poured out of the dugout to celebrate Alyssa’s home run.

“If you touch her, she’s out,” the trainer reminds the team.

I slide my arm over Erica’s shoulder and hold her while we watch the trainer talk to Alyssa, gentle hands moving over her lower body as she assesses Alyssa’s injury.

“My knee,” pants Alyssa through her tears. “There was a pop when I landed.” Another ragged breath. “I can’t—”

I have to blink back my tears before they fall. No matter how badly you want to win a game, you never want to see another player hurt, let alone one you’ve watched rise to the tops of charts and record lists for years.

“Don’t worry, Alyssa, we’ll take good care of you. We just need to check with Coach to see what she wants to do.”

We all know the rules. If anyone on the Mayhem touches her, she’s out. If they put a pinch runner in for her, it will be marked a single and an RBI instead of the home run it deserves to be.

The trainer stands and moves away to talk to the Mayhem head coach. I let go of Erica, allowing her to step forward and crouch down to where the trainer was moments before. Her words to her sister are quiet, but filled with emotion.

It’s the worst when something like this happens—especially to someone you care about—and there’s nothing you can do until the powers-that-be make the final call.

Ashtyn and Baker, the Storm’s second baseman and shortstop, approach the ring of green-clad coaches. Loud enough for me to hear from where I’m standing near the base, Ashtyn asks, “Can we carry her around the bases?”

My split attention refocuses on my teammates, who have offered to do one of the most honorable things within their power. The Mayhem head coach looks to the umpire, who confirms that it would be legal, before giving the go-ahead to my teammates.

I am a mere spectator, one of thousands in that stadium, who chokes up as Ashtyn and Baker gently pick up Alyssa and carry her the sixty feet to second base, where they lower her enough to tap the bag with her good foot.

The applause starts slowly, but before they get to the base, everyone in the stadium is on their feet .

They repeat the trek to third base, and as they carry Alyssa home, all of the Mayhem players gather around home plate, uncharacteristically quiet for a celebration that usually has players shouting and pointing. When she taps her foot on home plate, the cheers from the crowd become deafening.

Ashtyn and Baker pass Alyssa to two of her teammates, and they regroup in their dugout as the Storm gather in the pitcher’s circle with Coach Golding while the Mayhem head coach sorts out Alyssa’s substitution with the umpire.

Erica’s face is splotchy, and Coach eyes her as she wipes the tears from her face.

“Where’s your head at, Erica? Are you good to keep pitching?”

Erica lets out a shaky breath, but her words are steady. “I’m here, Coach. I can handle it.”

Coach Golding puts a comforting hand on Erica’s shoulder.

“If you’re good, then I’ll keep you in.” She looks around at the rest of the infielders gathered in the circle, her gaze finally landing on Ashtyn and Baker.

“I'm proud of you two,” is all she says, but her expression says more than her words ever could.

“Alright, ladies. This puts them up by one, but the game isn’t over yet. Let’s get back out there and stay on top of things. Routine plays. Routine outs.”

The umpire calls for the end of the time out, and we all jog back to our positions.

The next batter steps into the box, and I watch Erica’s shoulders rise and fall as she takes a breath to clear her head of everything that just happened.

That’s the thing about softball—it moves fast. You have to keep your head in the here and now, no matter what happened in the last at-bat.

I give the pitch sign and settle in, ready to receive Erica’s pitch .

Only it doesn’t make it to my glove. Erica leaves it a little too far over the inside corner of the plate, and the Mayhem batter takes advantage of the juicy pitch, turning quickly and making early contact, sending the ball up the left field line in a hard line drive.

Deja gets to the ball and throws it into her cutoff, and it’s relayed back to Erica. It’s just one hit, we can come back from this.

But we don’t.

After three more runs, we finally get the third out of the inning and head back to the dugout. But the game doesn’t get any better from there.

Coach Golding pulls Erica in the middle of the third inning.

The Mayhem scored five more runs before Coach brought Haven Hylander in to relieve Erica.

As the person on the team who knows her better than just about anyone else, I can see her frustration in the way her shoulders creep to her ears and she rolls her head from side to side as she walks off the field.

It’s like Alyssa’s injury lit a fire under the Mayhem, and they’re playing at the top of their game for her, while we…aren’t.

Haven manages to hang in there, but after five innings, we haven’t scored enough runs to prevent the umpire from invoking the mercy rule—if a team is ahead by eight or more runs after five innings, the game is called, and the last two innings aren’t played.

It’s hard to keep your head up after a run-rule loss. The mood is somber as we walk off the field and somber as we reach the locker room and settle in for the verbal lashing we all know is coming from our coaches.

Noticeably absent, as Coach Monique runs through our multiple errors on the night and Coach London talks us through the mistakes we made at the plate, is Erica.

I don’t know when she slipped out, but her stuff is still here in the locker room.

Coach Golding has the final words on the night: some corrections, but she ends with her usual, “Pick yourselves up. It’s one game.

You are not defined by one game.” When we’re dismissed, we all pack up our bags—I pack up Erica’s gear—and we walk silently out to the bus that takes us back to our hotel.

Shutting myself in the room I’m sharing with Erica, I pull out my phone and dial the one person I wish had been at the game tonight.

“Hey, Sugar! How was the game?”

“Terrible.”

“You lost?”

My throat clogs with emotion, and the events of the night finally hit me like a brick wall.

Not only had we lost, but Alyssa got hurt.

Alyssa, who was supposed to be the shining star of the league for years to come.

Alyssa, who is my best friend’s favorite person, which makes her one of my favorite people, too.

I wish I didn’t have to say it out loud. I wish Trace were here and could understand what I needed to say without words. I wish Trace were here to hold me and tell me that everything will be alright.

“We lost,” I’m finally able to croak after a few minutes of battling with my vocal cords. “And Alyssa—got hurt.”

“Erica’s sister?” he asks. I can’t find my voice again, and after a minute, Trace must understand. “It’s bad?” he almost whispers, his voice instantly softening from the cheerful way he answered the phone.

I nod, but when I remember he can’t see me, I whisper, “Yeah, it’s bad. Erica isn’t at the hotel, and I can only assume she’s with Alyssa and her parents, wherever they are right now.”

“Hey, hey, hey.” He shushes me as my quiet words become a quiet sob.

Between the frustration of losing the game, my concern about Erica and Alyssa, and the miles separating me and Trace, it’s all too much, and it comes out as a steady stream of tears.

“It’s going to be alright. Call Erica and get an update on Alyssa. ”

I manage an affirmative sound through my crying.

“Everything’s going to be alright.” Trace’s voice in my ear is soothing, but it doesn’t change the reality that he’s over a thousand miles away.

“I wish you were here.” I punctuate my sentence with a large sniff, and I’m glad Trace isn’t here to see the very unladylike way I wipe the snot that’s beginning to run out my nose.

“I know.” Trace’s voice is gentle, and I can hear the words he doesn’t say. I wish I were there, too. “Only a few more weeks, Naomi. You can do this.”

“I can do this.” It feels silly. If you had asked me a few months ago if I was fine with Trace being halfway across the country for the second half of the summer, I would have said, “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?

” But so much has changed between us since then, and now that I know what it’s like to have Trace as a boyfriend, his physical presence is like a craving I can’t satisfy.

“Call Erica,” he tells me again.

“I will.”

He pauses, and when he speaks again, I can hear the regret in his voice. “Hey Sugar, I’ve got to get going. We’re watching film tonight.”

“Right, yeah, you go.” I sniff again. “I’ll call you tomorrow?”

“Of course. Call me after your game. And Naomi?” Trace pauses, and I wait. Not for the first time, I wish he were here so I could read his face. Is he pausing to make sure I’m listening? Or is he debating his words?

“Everything’s going to be alright,” he finally says.

I end my call with Trace and fall back onto my bed.

I call Erica, but it goes to voicemail. I try to put the worry out of my head as I get ready for bed.

She’ll make it back to the hotel room, and then she can tell me what’s going on with Alyssa and her knee.

I’ll see her in the morning, and then we can talk.

I climb under the blankets and turn out the lights, telling myself that a good night’s rest will solve half of my problems, and I can figure out the other half with Erica in the morning.