Summer Swing (22 page)

“Ellie,” Beth said in a low voice. “There’s a guy out here that’s
kinda rough looking
, but super hot at the same time. You sure
you want
me to trade the keys
, or can I tie him up in the closet
?”

With a smile I said, “Actually, tell him I’m on my
way
out.”

I hung up the phone without waiting for a response and made my way down the halls. Tyse
was
standing near the door, almost like he was going to
run
from Beth at any second.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey. Uh, is there a problem?”

“Problem?”

“Yeah, why’d she have to call you?”

“Because I asked her to. I wanted to know when you got here so I could pay you.”

He shook his head, but I was retrieving his keys from Beth as she stared at us at the same time.
I was sure she had already undressed him with her eyes, but before she could do anymore damage,
I led Tyse outside and
we traded keys
.

“It hardly took any time
at all, so don’t worry about it,
”
he said when I asked him how much.

“Where’d you take it? Because the last time I took my car in for
‘
standard maintenance
,’
it ended up costing me a lot more than I was expecting. I mean I’ll pay you whatever it cost—”

“I did it myself, Ellie. It’s no big deal.”

“
Wh
- what? You put in a new, uh, what was it again?”

“Fuel pump,” he
partially smiled.

“Oh. I didn’t realize you were so…mechanically, uh, gifted.”

He chuckled. “Gifted. I like it.”

“Well jeez, Tyse. I feel very indebted to you. How much was the, uh, pump thing, and how long did it take you?
I want to pay you for your time—
”

“No worries
. The pump wasn’t a big deal, and I enjoyed listening to your music while I did it. It was a fair trade.”

“My music?” I tried to think of what I had playing in my car at the time, but I couldn’t remember. “A fair trade? Well just tell me how much a fuel thingy is.”

He sighed. “A dollar.”

I snorted. “Right.” I pushed open the door to the building and asked, “Beth, will you look up how much a fuel pump costs
for my car
?”

“Sure thing,” she smiled, already typing away
at
the computer.

“Why does it matter?” Tyse asked me.

“Because I
told you I’d
pay you for it.”

“No,
you agreed to ‘
paying
me later,’
but we never established what exactly that payment was going to be. I don’t really want your twenty bucks.”

“Around twenty bucks,” Beth said from the desk.

I let the door close again and faced Tyse. I began walking across the parking lot and motioned for him to go with me. “Payment, huh? What exactly does that mean?”

He shrugged. “I don’t want anything from you, but I know the type of person you are, and you’
re going to pay me back somehow
anyway. I’m sure I’d love anything coming from you, but I actually have something else in mind.”

“Oh?”

He smi
led. “You seem a little worried
. Surely you don’t think I’d request anything inappropriate from you.”

“No, I just… I don’t know. What is
it
that you want?”

“I’d just like you to come to another game. One I’m pitching in.”

“Your suspension is over?”
I was really happy to hear that news.

“Yeah, but I won’t admit the reason why.”

I sighed. “Because Gage isn’t around. Yeah, I understand.
”

“Where are we going?” he asked, looking up and down the street we were about to cross.

“I’m starving. I can’t go very long without food, so I hope you’re hungry too because I’m buying. And no objections.”

He h
eld his hands out. “Okay, okay.
So that takes care of the fuel pump because I eat a lot.”

With a smile I said, “That’s fine by me.”

“So since that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the rest of it.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.
“The rest of it?”

“Mm
-
hmm. I gave you a couple hours of my time, so I’d like a coupl
e hours of your time in return. One of my games?”

“Oh. Seriously? You only want me to watch you pitch?”

“Yes.”

“Well… Sure. I’d love to.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why not?”

He shrugged. “Just thought baseball might not be in your interest anymore.”

“Because of Gage? Well yeah, it might be weird to be there when he isn’t, but I would go. When are you scheduled to pitch again?”

“Saturday. Tomorrow. We have a double header, but I’m pitching the first game at noon.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry, I can’t make that one.
Today
I’m headed down to see Gage after work. I’ll be gone until Sunday.”

We were just entering one of my favorite café’s when he said, “Oh. Sure, that’s fine.”

“When will your next
pitching
game be?”

“Uh,
Wednesday, I think
. But…we’re out of town, so I don’t expect you to go to that one.”

“Okay, but I will make one. I promise.”

He barely nodded. “All right.”

I studied him just slightly as we sat down in a booth. He was wearing a pair of really worn jeans and a gray t-shirt. When he sat down h
e put his forearms on the table
and I could see just the bottom edge of the tattoo on his upper left arm.

“So I didn’t realize you had such an exciting first date with Gage,” he said as he looked over a menu. He glanced at me raising my eyebrows at him. “Yeah, I listened to your show this morning. It was pretty entertaining.”

“The show in general, or the fact that Gage was doped up for
most
of
our date
?
”

He laughed. “Nah, that wasn’t it. The funny part was listening to you talk. The way you story tell is kind of…amusing. You’re really good at it.”

With a smile I replied, “Well thank you.”

“I think you’re a lot more interesting than that one lady… What’s her name?”

“Uh,
Amy
?”

“Yeah. She’s boring.”

I laughed. “That’s just the balance of their show. Ken and Jack are the voices of the show;
Amy
’s kind
of the extra hand. You know, the female that has to keep everyone on task? She’s also there to kind of cater to the listeners that have things in common with her—spouses and kids.”

“Yeah
,
but the other guys
have
kids, too. I don’t know, I just don’t think she ever says anything worth listening to.”

“Ever? You mean you’ve listened to the show more than once?”

“Yeah, I’ve been listening. But it kind of sucks that I have to listen for a while just to find out if you’re going to be on or not. It’d be easier if you just told me.”

I smiled, feeling pleased that he was interested in my job.
“I know, it varies.
Next week is Monday and Thursday, I think.”

“Monday and Thursday,” he murmured, logging it into his head. 

The waitres
s took our order, and when she
left, I asked Tyse, “So what were you up to all night? You roll in at five-thirty on a Friday
morning
? You must have had a fun night,” I added, taking a sip of my water.

He didn’t respond at first. Maybe it wasn’t in his interest to share his partying stories with me.
“I wasn’t out all night,” he finally said. “We do have a midnight curfew, you know.”

“Ah, yes, which kind of made me wonder if I’m supposed to tell on you. Isn’t Wyatt in charge of keeping you guys in line?”

He slightly smiled. “Wyatt doesn’t really give a crap what we do. I mean he’s what, twenty-
four
? He’s just one of the guys.”

I nodded. “True. So I guess you guys basically get to do what you want, huh?”

He eyed me carefully. “I don’t break the rules, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything. This morning you said you just got home. I kind of assumed that meant you’d been, you know,
gone
.”

Again he took his time, and while he stared out the window to the street, I wondered if he was ever going to answer me.

“I have a job,” he finally said. “I usually go to bed as early as I can because I get up at three and
go to
work for a few hours. I got done early this morning, so I was home
at five-thirty instead of seven.”

Now that was a shocker. With morning practices, afternoon and evening games, how could any of
the guys
work a job, too?

“Where do you work?” I asked.

“
Fenley’s
Nursery. It’s mainly just manual labor—unloading trucks, or loading them for delivery. It’s pretty much the only thing I can d
o around all the baseball hours
, and it’s a good way to fit in a small workout
.
”

“Do you work with lavender?” I asked.

“Lavender? Uh, yeah this morning we shipped off a load. Why?”

“Your truck smelled like lavender.”

“Oh,” he smiled. “Yeah, I think it smelled like junipers last week. Not my favorite smell.”

I studied him for a few seconds
while he looked out the window again
. If he had to land a job while he was up here playing summer baseball, then I had to assume he struggled financially. It made me feel bad
about not paying him for working on my car
. I wanted to ask him about it, maybe to see if he could use some help with money, but I knew I just
didn’t have the courage
.

“So don’t you guys have to be enrolled in a college to play in this league for the summer?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“So what college do you go to?”

“Uh, right now I’m at San Diego
Mesa
.”

“Right now? Do you have plans to transfer somewhere?”

“Uh no, not really. I’m just going into my second year.” He
decided to add
, “Yeah, I’m twenty-two and just finally getting some college in.”

I knew why, but I said, “Better late than never. I wasn’t even going to go to college at first because I started working at the radio station when I was a senior in high school. I thought, ‘Hey, I’m already here, I can just work my way up.’ In a way I think I might have, but I was basically stuck working just on the weekends, and it wasn’t really anything that even excited me. So I got back on track and registered for college. Of course that’s when I started getting more hours at the station,” I smiled. “So I ended up going to school for half the day, and working the other half of the day. It was kind of tiring. I’m glad to be done with swinging both.”

“You’re not going to continue on with school?”

“I was going to transfer to Portland State, but now I don’t really see the need to. I might keep taking credits, and maybe eventually I’ll get a Bachelor’s degree, but for now I like working.”

He barely nodded. “
And you’ve got Gage, so that takes up some time.”

I smiled, but the truth was that I couldn’t spend any time
with
Gage right now. He was almost five hours away.
I still thought about him constantly, and talked to him on the phone when I could, but so far “lo
ng-distance relationship” was an unpleasant phrase
to me.

“What about you?” I asked. “What are your plans? You know for school or a career or whatever.”

He was quiet for a few seconds before he replied, “Well,
for me
it’s
just kind of a wait-and-
see process. As long as I can
pay for
college I guess I’ll go, but as for my future, I don’t really know.”

“Uh, you don’t have, uh, parents that can help with college or…?” I wasn’t sure how to ask it, but that was the best I could do.

He paused. “Mmm, that’s not really an option. My parents are…unable to support me right now.”

I nodded, feeling bad that my suspicions about his financial situation were correct.
“Well isn’t it more expensive to live in California?” I asked. “What if you went to school somewhere else that was more affordable? Maybe you should just stay up here,” I smiled.