Nothing Like the Movies

Wes

“Settle your ass down, Bennett.”

Woody threw back the ball and pulled down his face mask. Dropped to a squat and waited for me to get my head out of my ass.

I took a deep breath, trying to find calm.

“I’m good,” I said, desperate to convince him, knowing the coaching staff valued his feedback on all things pitching. I was throwing shit, and I needed to get it together.

I took off my cap and wiped my forehead because it was hotter than hell.

And then I gritted my teeth because Clark was in my peripheral vision, filming my epic meltdown.

As if sucking didn’t suck enough, Liz’s boyfriend was here to capture the suckitude.

Stupendous.

Because my pitches were all over the place.

No matter what drills we were doing.

The game was next week, and I needed to get all of this shit together.

I tried reminding myself it was only an exhibition game, but the reminder didn’t help.

It was only an exhibition game, just a casual fall-ball situation where everybody played, but for me, it was the most stressful game I’d ever prepared for. It was the game that haunted me, the game that was going to set the tone for whether I was actually able to get past the nonsense in my head.

And I wanted to get the start so badly, even though it didn’t matter.

I flipped the ball and ran my finger along the seam.

Heard my father’s voice, loud and clear in my head.

“Dammit,” I muttered, then threw the damn ball.

Another wild pitch that Woody had to chase.

“Did you grab my bag?” I heard Liz say from the direction of the dugout, presumably to Clark. “Or is it in the truck?”

I ground my teeth together, wondering if Ross had read my message yet. It was just too much, having the two of them everywhere. After witnessing them hugging as I headed into the locker room to change yesterday, I might’ve fired off an email questioning whether it was a good idea for the team to constantly be distracted by cameras.

Was I fully aware of the fact that if it was anyone else, I probably wouldn’t care that much?

Absolutely.

But this was how it was, and it was bugging the crap out of me.

It irritated me as I threw the next pitch—finally controlled—and I was crazy annoyed while I nailed the pitches that followed.

By the time I was finished, I was ready to rage about their constant distracting presence.

But I was also relieved that I’d stopped tanking.

That my game was back for now.

That I’d fucking killed after the initial hiccups, praise Jesus.

“Way to work through it,” Ross said as he walked by, not slowing long enough for me to mention my latest email. “The last set was a lot better.”

“Thanks,” I said, loading my stuff in my bag, so relieved that I’d finished strong.

But as I walked out of the bullpen area, there they were again. Liz and Clark were standing side by side, talking quietly next to the fence right beside me, so there was no way to avoid them.

“Hey. Wes.” Liz squinted in the bright sun, clearing her throat, and when I didn’t slow, she started walking beside me, her boyfriend following at a distance while looking down at his phone. “I’m starting to schedule the meet-the-team intros, and I was wondering when you’re available.”

I kind of wanted to laugh at that, because from the sound of it, she’d been scheduling them for almost a week. Everyone on the team who I talked to on a regular basis was all set up for their intros already.

I’d been starting to wonder if she was planning on skipping me entirely.

I’d been hoping.

Because even though Lilith assured me via email that they wouldn’t ask me about my dad, I was nervous.

“By ‘available’ you mean…?” I said, unable to stop myself. It was ridiculous how much I’d missed messing with her.

“You know exactly what I mean,” she snapped, her eyes narrowed in irritation as she looked straight ahead, like she refused to dignify me with a glance. “It won’t take more than thirty minutes.”

“I’m available now,” I said, the smell of her perfume making me drunk on the idea of having thirty minutes alone with her.

“Oh.” There was a crinkle between her eyebrows as she blinked fast in surprise and stopped. “Well, I don’t think Clark can because he has class.”

Perfect.

I hadn’t known that Clark was going to be a part of it, and now he wouldn’t have to be.

“It’s probably the only time I can squeeze you in this week,” I lied, “because I’m buried in homework.”

That part wasn’t a lie. I wasn’t sure if it was UCLA, college in general, or just my chosen field of study, but every one of my classes had gone from zero to a hundred on homework mere days into the quarter.

I was swamped.

“No, that’ll work, Liz,” Clark said, pulling his keys out of his pocket. “We only need one-shot filming for these casual intros, so you can just use your phone.”

“I thought we were going to do two,” she said, looking up at him with a help me look on her face that should’ve amused me, but it didn’t.

It made me feel like shit.

I never would’ve thought she’d want to be rescued from me.

“That was for the interviews, not for the meet-the-team intros.” He put on a pair of sunglasses and said, “One’ll be perfect. Go nail this down, and I’ll see you at home.”

See you at home.

That haunted me. I obsessed over it, the logistics of their situation, and my jaw hurt from the clench as I watched him walk away.

They lived together.

In the same apartment.

They were there together, every fucking night—

LA-LA-LA-LA-LA NO.

“Okay,” Liz said, squinting up at me as the warm sun wrapped around us. I’d missed her size, the perfect angular distance between her eyes and mine when I looked down at her. She said, “Well, I guess we’re doing this now. Let’s go to the mound.”

“The mound?” I’d pictured us going to a conference room or something.

“I want to center the ‘UCLA Baseball’ on the backstop behind you,” she said, and I could tell her mind was all work now as her eyes narrowed on a spot in the distance. “And the lighting’s great. Are you good with sitting on the ground for the interview?”

“Sure,” I said, getting tripped up by the closeness of her face under mine. Of long lashes and shiny lips in point-blank range. As if reading my thoughts, her gaze came back to me.

A moment—maybe two—hovered between us.

God, she’s so pretty.

At the start of practice, I saw her filming the infield drills and thought no one had ever looked so good in leggings and a Bruins hoodie. Like, the way the blue ribbon in her hair perfectly matched the UCLA on the football hoodie was ridiculous. Seriously. What the hell was she even doing, looking that gorgeous at a practice?

And what happened to the dresses and flowers?

I wasn’t complaining, God no, but Liz definitely had a different vibe now.

I didn’t think I’d even seen her in a pastel yet.

She swallowed—is she nervous?—and tucked her hair behind her ears before saying, “So let’s go.”

She turned and started marching away from me, toward the field, and I was happy as hell to follow, clicking behind her in my cleats. Liz obviously knew her way around Jackie and didn’t slow until she was on the field, standing behind the pitcher’s mound.

“I’d like to have you sitting on the mound, facing the outfield, just relaxed,” she said, staring toward home plate with her eyes narrowed. “Like…”

I dropped to the ground, leaning back on my palms with my ankles crossed in front of me, happy to follow her directions.

Her eyebrows squished together as she looked down at me and—holy shit yes—her mouth quirked. It quirked for the slightest of seconds, like she wanted to laugh as I rested at her feet with my legs stretched out in front of me.

“That.” She tilted her head and looked toward the stands. “That might be perfect.”

“Why, thank you,” I said, giving her a cheesy grin.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes, but still looked slightly amused.

It feels like I’ve won something.

“So I’m asking everyone the same questions,” she said as she lowered to her knees and unzipped her bag. She pulled out a notebook first, opening it to a page where her perfect cursive was looped all over the place, and then she got out an extendable tripod and started messing with the height. “Very basic stuff like where you’re from, what position you play, et cetera. I’m recording the entire thing and making cuts later, so just let me know if there’s something you want deleted. And if you wouldn’t mind, please answer as if we don’t know each other.”

“So I should call you Miz Buxbaum and ask for your number?”

“Hilarious,” she said, her eyes on the tripod. “I just mean that I’d like you to answer as if I don’t know your story.”

“You don’t know my story,” I said, then wondered why I even said that. “Not all of it, at least.”

She didn’t look up from her equipment, but her hands stilled for a second when I said that. They immediately went back to work, and all she said was, “True.”

I’d always been obsessed with the way the sun played with her hair, and that hadn’t changed. Direct sunlight made it shimmer, I swear to God, and every strand looked like copper as she knelt in the infield grass.

She put her phone on the tripod, raised it slightly, then dropped her hands at her sides. “Okay, I think we’re ready.”

She pressed record, then picked up the notebook.

“So tell me your name, your position, and where you’re from.”

I can handle that one. “My name is Wes Bennett, and I’m a left-handed pitcher from Omaha, Nebraska.”

“Perfect,” she said quietly, her eyes on her notebook. “What made you want to be a Bruin?”

“Now or the first time?” I asked.

She looked up from the page, surprised. “Is the answer different this time?”

The truth was that when I was in high school, UCLA was my number-two choice until the night Liz told me she was going there. That changed everything, and after that, no other schools even stood a chance.

“Yes,” I said, not sure exactly how to expound upon that. “I’ve been a Bruins fan my entire life, but the first time I stepped foot on campus, I fell hard for Westwood. So hard that when I decided to go back to school after dropping out, there was no question that UCLA was the only option. I’d rather not play than play anywhere else.”

“Good,” she said, but there was a wrinkle between her brows, like something about that answer bothered her. I must’ve read it wrong, though, because she moved on with a very vanilla question. “What’s your major and why?”

“I’m majoring in civil engineering with a minor in environmental engineering,” I said, realizing I sounded ridiculously boring. “I can’t remember why, to be honest, because it’s just what I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Math nerd,” she said under her breath, a tiny smile on her mouth as her eyes stayed on the page, and I felt that smile in the center of my chest because holy God, Liz was teasing me.

About something from our past.

She’d always thought it was funny that I liked math. How can someone so unserious be good at math? She sucked at math, and it’d somehow pissed her off that I didn’t.

“Stop being so jealous, Libby,” I teased back, but instantly regretted it because her smile disappeared the minute I used her old nickname.

Dammit.

“Okay—next question,” she said, clearing her throat. “Which of your teammates would you call if you needed a ride at three in the morning?”

“Powers,” I said without pause.

“Which of your teammates would you call if you needed help planning a bank heist?”

“Mick for sure,” I said around a laugh.

“Which of your teammates would you set up with your little sister?”

“That’s not on the list.”

“Answer the question.”

“None of them,” I said in disgust. “Sarah’s too young to date college guys.”

“She is in college,” Liz said with a snort, her smile back.

“A freshman,” I said defensively. “She’s not even eighteen yet.”

“AJ Powers is an eighteen-year-old freshman, dumbass,” she said, and I knew she was forgetting about the interview entirely. “They are basically the same age.”

“Why are you trying to marry my baby sister off to a baseball player?” I asked.

“Why are you trying to pretend your sister’s a baby?” she replied, laughing a little.

“I think the better question, for the record, would’ve been, ‘Which of your teammates would you murder for dating your sister?’ ”

“And the answer to that question would be…?” she asked.

“Brooks.”

“Weapon of choice?” she asked.

“Baseball bat.”

“I thought college pitchers didn’t take BP,” she said, and the breeze blew a few strands of hair across her cheek. “You really think you could still connect?”

“I know I could.”

“So cocky about your murderous abilities,” she murmured, looking back at the notebook. “Okay, so tell me your three favorite things about UCLA so far.”

Liz Buxbaum, Liz Buxbaum, and Liz Buxbaum.

“The food, the scooters, and the libraries.”

“The libraries?” I could see I’d shocked her with that one.

“There’s just something about studying in these libraries that feels so innately… collegiate, right?” I really was a little in love with them. “Like, you walk into Powell, and it feels like every movie you’ve ever seen about college. The dark wood, the desk lamps, the intricate carvings on the arched ceilings—how can you not be inspired to read and learn in a place like that?”

Liz was staring at me, her eyes all over my face like she was trying to make sense of something. She probably thought I was being a smart-ass, but I meant every word. After assuming college was no longer an option for me, it was still mind-boggling to be able to walk into Powell and spend hours at a table with only my studies to worry about.

“And what’s surprised you most—so far—about UCLA?” she asked.

“Just the fact that I get to be here at all.”

She had that crinkle between her eyebrows again, the one that told me she didn’t like my answer, but it was the honest-to-God truth.

I woke up every day shocked as hell that it wasn’t a dream, the dream I’d dreamed so many nights during the almost two years I’d been away.

I really was back, holy shit.

“I think that’s it,” Liz said, interrupting my thoughts. She stopped recording and pulled her phone off the tripod. “Thanks a lot for squeezing me in, Wes.”

Night or day, Lib. “No problem.”

I basically sprinted to class after that, very late. My professor gave me the stink eye as I slid in the door, sweaty and out of breath, interrupting her lecture because the only available seat was in the center of the lecture hall.

I was mortified as I squeezed through everyone—“excuse me, excuse me, sorry”—plopped down, and unzipped my backpack.

I was mortified, but not actually sorry.

Because somehow, it felt like I’d made progress with Liz that day. She still wasn’t happy I was there, but it felt like the ice between us had melted just the tiniest bit. It made the idea of something between us seem possible.

I felt hopeful.

But then I didn’t see her at all the rest of the week.

I heard she was doing interviews, but they were always when I wasn’t around. And Clark was by himself every time my bullpens and workouts were filmed, with no sign of Liz anywhere.

She’d disappeared again, and along with her, my good stuff on the mound had also gone missing.

I was trying my hardest and digging my deepest, but I was painfully inconsistent. One second, I was throwing nasty pitches that had Woody grinning, and the next he was chasing wild shit and my breaking balls weren’t breaking at all.

And the exhibition game was just around the corner.

It was a pointless goal, to be nabbed to start in a game that counted for nothing, but for me, that game counted for everything.

And it’d been my primary focus since recommitting to the team.

I needed it to exorcise some ghosts.

I was well aware of the fact that since I was a freshman, I probably wouldn’t start in many actual games this season, if any.

But Ross thought this one was a possibility.

You throw enough filth to get the start, but you’ve gotta get rid of the shit, kid.

I finally got desperate, and on Saturday morning I called him.

“Ross here,” he answered.

“Hey, it’s Bennett,” I said, feeling a little weird about calling him even though he always said he was available twenty-four seven. “Do you have any time for extra workouts this weekend?”

“Goddamnit,” he said, sounding like he was still in bed. “I’ve been waiting for you to get your head out of your ass and make this call, but did you have to do it when I’m hungover?”

“Uh,” I said, smiling even though he sounded legit pissed. “Yes…?”

“Fuck off,” he said, “and meet me in an hour.”