Miserable At Best

“Evan,” she called out softly, her voice barely above a whisper as her eyes settled on me from across the mostly empty visitor’s locker room. The remainder of the guys left snapped their heads in my direction and gave me disapproving looks that I shrugged off by buttoning the rest of my dress shirt and pulling on my suit jacket. I decided to skip putting on my tie, letting it hang loosely around my neck, and walk over to meet her halfway. Before I had a chance to comprehend anything, she was throwing herself towards me, pushing her face into the crook of my neck and locking her legs securely around my waist. I picked her up off the ground and twirled her around and when I set her down again she locked her arms around me, pretty much plastering her body to mine.

“Where’s your brother? Or your boyfriend?” I asked, letting my arms draw her body closer to mine, kissing her hair, and not really caring if she answered my questions or not - the only thing that really mattered was she was here now.

Everything about our relationship was wrong from the fact that her twin brother, Josh Reddick, played for one of our biggest rivals to the fact that her boyfriend, Jeremy Hermida played for that same team. The thing about our relationship was we knew it was wrong but there was nothing Kaity or I could do to stop it - we were attracted to each other ever since the day I literally crashed into her at Fenway Park. It was a story I loved telling; the Rays were playing the Red Sox and I was chasing after a foul ball and flipped over the wall, landing half in her lap and half on the ground causing her to drop her hot dog, loaded with ketchup and mustard, on her new, white Jon Lester jersey. As hard as she tried to stay mad at me she always told me she couldn’t bring herself to do it and when I showed up to Fenway with an identical Lester jersey I (as she would put it) ‘traded her the jersey for her heart’. Ever since then, I can always on two things whenever we play the Sox home or away; one, Kaity will always be in the first seat right along the third base line across me and two, there’s not a person in Fenway or the Trop that cheers louder for me than she does. Kaity could put my parents to shame.

The downer about this whole relationship, however, is that we both have to be secretive about it. Almost every time I see Kaity instead of greeting her like any other normal couple would, the first questions she always gets from me are ‘where’s your brother’ followed by ‘where’s your boyfriend’ and I hate asking them because I know it kills her. Kaity’s one of those girls that have a big heart that’s full of love so to bring up the subject of her brother or boyfriend is like reminding her of all the hurt she’ll cause when if anyone ever found out about this mess. If I had it my way, I’d wrap her up in my arms and kiss her hello every time I saw her, sometimes playfully teasing her if the Rays beat the Sox or let her comfort me like she always did when the Sox beat the Rays and I had a bad night, but the fact that our relationship was ‘complicated’ forbade me from doing so. We knew we both had to be careful and while sneaking around and being secretive was nearly opposite of our personalities, that’s what it came down to and we both had to accept that it was the situation we brought upon ourselves.

“Josh is probably still in the locker room and Jeremy’s definitely out running errands and getting ridiculous things I asked him to get me,” Kaity replied after several long minutes of silence, her lips moving against the skin of my neck and pressing a few kisses there. She took a shaky breath before pushing her face deeper into my neck and that was when I felt the first of the hot tears. She always felt bad about what she did but she never, ever cried and that’s when I knew something was wrong. I pulled away and held her at arm’s length while she adverted her gaze to the locker room floor, anywhere but my face.

“Kaity, don’t cry,” I soothed, moving my hand under her chin and gently lifting her face so that her eyes met mine. She blinked back a couple more tears and I use my free hand to wipe them away, my knuckles gently stroking the skin of her face in a desperate attempt to make everything okay.

“Evan, we can’t keep doing this,” she says sadly and I cringe as she leans her face into my hand. Her tone is serious and she used my actual name instead of one of the nicknames she’d normally call me. I stiffen and Kaity gently rubs my back in an attempt to relax me. “I just can’t keep doing this,”

“I guess I always thought that day was going to come,” I replied softly, leading her towards the bench in front of my locker and sitting her down in my lap, wrapping both of my arms around her middle while she leaned against me. “You’re trying your hardest to stay strong and you have no idea how much it means to me,”

“We have to do something like decide what we want to do in our life or where we want to take this, Ev. I love you but I can’t carry two relationships like some two-faced, baseball whore and I can’t keep sneaking around Josh like this. He puts all of his trust in me and every time I lie to him it kills me a little more,”

“Say that again,” I demand, gently setting my girlfriend down on the bench next to me so that I’m looking at her.

“We have to figure out what we want to do with ‘us’,”

“No, not that,”

“I can’t carry two relationships like a two-faced baseball whore,”

“That’s a lie, beautiful. You’re not a whore, you never will be, and if anyone tries to tell you otherwise they’ll have to answer to me. But I wasn’t talking about that either,”

“It’s killing me to lie to my brother?” she repeats, confused. “Ev, what do you want me to say?”

“What you said right before you said you can’t carry two relationships,”

“I love you?”

“Yes, say that again,”

“I love you,” she replied hesitantly, fear etched across her face. This was the point where she probably wanted to run, thinking that what she just said might scare me off especially since I hadn’t said anything back to her.

“Say it like you did the first time, when you were completely confident about yourself,” I encouraged, shooting her a smile and dropping a kiss to the top of her head.

“You’re not gonna run away?” Kaity asked, inching closer towards me on the bench.

“I promise, I’m gonna be sitting right here five minutes from now. I want to hear you say it again,”

“Evan Longoria, I love you,” she said confidently, looking into my eyes as if to prove her point.

“One more time?”

“I love you,” she told me and I wrapped both of my arms around her body, gently pressing my lips against hers in a soft kiss. When we pulled away, she sighed contentedly and situated herself back in my lap so she was facing me.

“I love you too, Caitlyn Reddick,” I smiled, kissing the tip of her nose while she giggled. “I. Love. You,”

“You got me way off subject!” Kaity scolded, playfully shoving me and nearly falling backwards in the process.

“I think that was kind of my point,” I smirked, wrapping my arms tighter around her as she tried to shove me again.

“But I’m serious, Ev, we have to talk about where this is going,”

“If my vote counts for anything, I say you just break up with Jeremy and tell Josh about us. If he loves you, he’ll accept the fact that we’re together because he wants you to be happy,”

“It’s not that easy,”

“Of course it is, beautiful. He’s your brother, he wants to see you happy even if it means being with me,”

“Once on a road trip I asked him what he’d do if I was dating someone on the Yankees or the Rays,” she told me, shuddering at the memory. “Let’s just say his reaction was ‘I’d rather ship you off to California and have you date one of those movie stars you talk about so much before you date any division rival of ours.’ His words, exactly,”

“Don’t you think he’d learn to accept us? Besides, I live in California,”

“All of these late nights, the lies, the sneaking around, the nights we spent together - it has to stop, Evan,”

“Come to that Ocala thing with me next week,” I say suddenly, trying to stop one of my worst nightmares from coming true. Kaity looks at me wide eyed and shakes her head sadly, bringing her hand to comb through the mess that, at the moment, I called my hair.

“What is this?” she asked, tugging on the longer middle strands before running her hand through it again.

“A cross between a mullet and a mohawk. You know I have to mix it up and stay classy,” I laughed, pecking her forehead. “But you never answered my question. Kaity, sweetheart, come with me,”

“I can’t,” she whispered, tears forming in her eyes again. “I meant what I said when we have to figure out what we’re doing. I think that tonight’s going to be out last night together. We can’t keep sneaking around like this because eventually we’re gonna get caught and it’s not going to bode well for either of us, not to mention that my brother will make sure you can’t play baseball again if he ever found out,”

“I’ll take my chances with him,” I shrug. “We can work this out,”

“Look at what’s happened between you and BJ. You’ve gotten into three dugout arguments with him all because he’s threatened to tell my brother about us and he’s like one of your best friends. This is tearing your team apart and I refuse to be the cause of their downfall.

“I’d leave Tampa before I let it get down to that,” I declare, tightening my arms around Kaity so I can prove my point. “I’ve found something more important to me than baseball, if you can believe that,”

“Evan Michael Longoria, I am not letting you give up your dream for me. Don’t you even dare to consider it for a second,”

“Kaity,I love you and I meant it. The married guys on the team always tell me that you know you’ve found the one when you’re willing to give up baseball to be with her and I always laughed at that until now. Yeah, I’m a cheese ball but I need you in my life. I mean it, come to Ocala with me,”

“I-I can’t do that,”

“Sweetheart, what do you mean you can’t?”

“Jeremy already asked me and I promised him I’d go. I’m sorry,” she tells me, her eyes looking down to the floor again. It’s killing her to say no to me and it’s killing her to bring Jeremy into this so I don’t push the subject any further. After a few deep breaths, Kaity continued on. “I meant what I said when I told you I love you but I also meant what I said about us. After tonight, there can’t be anymore us,”

“I understand,” I said, after a few moments of silence in which she looked at me worriedly. Taking Kaity’s hand I pull her up, leading her towards the back exit of the locker room. If this was really going to be our last night together, I was going to take every moment of it and make it last.
------------------------------

“Evan, man, what’s wrong with you?” Carlos Pena asked me a week later when I walked into the dugout after flying out for the second time tonight against the Red Sox. I ignored his question and made my way to the end of the bench, sitting down and staring along the third base line where, Kaity should have been. Instead, she was out in center field right behind her boyfriend with a big smile plastered to her face. He had just made a spectacular diving catch to get me out and there was no doubt in my mind she was the happiest person in the Trop right now. As I tried to shake the thoughts of Kaity from my mind, Carlos’ voice interrupted my thoughts, again. “Seriously dude, two errors three strikeouts this game, not to mention you’ve only gotten like five hits during your last 20 something at bats. We’re playing the Red Sox with the World Series on the line. Lose this game and we’re out, win it and we’re in,”

“Just drop it,” I snapped, crushing the paper cup I was holding and letting it fall to the ground. “Everyone has a slump once in a while, I’m no different,”

“Does this slump have to do with a certain girl named Kaity Reddick?” Carlos asked, following my gaze to catch me glaring at her brother.

“No. I’m over her. She broke up with me, it was doomed from the start. I’m over it now,”

“Are you sure about that?”

“She’s all that I hoped I’d find. I seriously thought that one day she’d be Mrs. Caitlyn Reddick-Longoria, okay? I thought we’d have kids that ran all over the place, maybe a son that I could teach baseball to and a daughter I could spoil. Can you leave me alone, now?” I shouted, getting irritated with Carlos’ sudden interest in my love life. The rest of the guys just let me wallow alone in my misery and I didn’t understand why Carlos couldn’t be like them.

“Don’t you dare snap at me, I’ll kick your ass,” Carlos warned. “I’m just trying to help because no one will admit it but we all miss the old Evan, the one that pumps up our team in the dugout. The sooner we fix this the sooner you can be on your way to being back to yourself again,”

I was saved from any more of Carlos’ talk when the next batter popped out which meant we had to get back on the field.

“This isn’t over,” Carlos called as we both jogged our separate ways, him to first and me to third.
-------------------------------
Error number three. That was the only way I could describe the next few innings and just my luck I made error number three playing Jeremy Hermida’s ball - not good. Walking into the dugout I already knew BJ was right behind me and by then it was the bottom of the 9th and we were down by a run with our season on the line so emotions were pretty high.

“Who’s side are you playing on?” BJ called after me, causing me to stop dead in my tracks and turn around. “Three errors. That’s THREE runs the Sox scored on your errors. Throwing the game isn’t going to bring her back to you . She left you, you need to get over it and move on,”

“I love her,” I snapped, shoving BJ backwards. In all the dugout altercations I ever had with him, I never once started anything, it was always a little shouting and me walking away, until now. “So I’m fucking sorry if I’m supposed to go on like every thing’s okay and she doesn’t exist. I’m so fucking sorry I’m letting this team down and I’ve become a softie, if that’s what you want to think of me,”

“You should leave your problems in the locker room, not take them on the field,” BJ replied shoving me back.

“And you should mind your own business,” I shouted, shoving again.

“I normally do, until you wallow in your self pity and it hurts this team as a whole. We’re losing and the Sox scored on all your costly errors. If you’re going to let your personal life affect your performance, you just made it my business,”

“Kaity has nothing to do with it,” I spat, as Carlos pulled me back while two other Rays separated BJ. “It’s called a fucking slump, Upton, and I didn’t complain about yours so you should shut up about mine,” I shouted as Carlos dragged me towards where my bat was resting against the wall- I was probably supposed to be in the on deck circle by now since I was due up next. As I grabbed by bat, Joe Maddon gave both BJ and I hard glares.

“This has to stop, Longo,” Carlos told me firmly, grabbing the back of my jersey to prevent me from leaving the dugout.

“Maybe you should tell that to him,”

“I should and I will, but I’m telling it to you first. You have to let this go before it gets out of control. The fights, the errors, the slump - it’s tearing the team apart and you know I got your back, man, but there’s no way this team needs to even think about choosing to be on ‘Team Upton’ or ‘Team Longoria’,”

“I’d remove myself from the situation before it came to that,” I replied, bouncing the end of my bat on the ground. “It wouldn’t come down to that,”

“I’m just making sure you know. You get into anymore fights and Joe’s going to have your head and you’ll probably the on the highlight reel of ESPN as the biggest dick in baseball,” Carlos said, letting go of my jersey and patting me on the back for luck. “Just some advice, channel your anger through your bat and maybe you’ll make something happen,”

“I’ll try,” I shrugged, making my way to the on deck circle, taking a couple practice swings before leaning on my bat to watch Carl Crawford face Jonathan Papelbon.

When Carl hit a double off of Papelbon, most everyone in the Trop went wild and that excitement certainly didn’t stop when I walked up to the plate. Nearly though the third year of my MLB career it still blew me away when I heard a stadium full of people chanting my name - it’s something I had yet to get used to. The crowd died down when I got into position and Papelbon was staring me down when a recognizable voice cut through everything else.

“Knock it out of here!” Kaity shouted, and my eyes fixed on her from all the way across the field. Whether her boyfriend saw her or not I didn’t know, I had one goal. That ball was going to land in her lap. I stood and let pitch one sail by me for a ball and pitch two sail by me for a strike before I swung at pitch three, watching it sail right down center field. The ball sailed further and further back as Hermida when deeper and deeper after it before hitting the wall and pounding it in defeat. Rays fans went wild and Carl made the rest of the trip around the bases, stopping at home to wait for me. The ball landed exactly where I wanted it to land, except as I was rounding second I saw the unhappy look on Kaity’s face and the wet stain she had on her jersey. When I tagged home plate, I looked back one more time to see my home run ball rolling on the grass towards left field before my teammates mobbed me in celebration. We ended up winning that game by my home run and I even got the home run ball. Break out the champagne, we were going on to face Atlanta in the World Series. By the time we were all out with bottles of champagne, Kaity was standing near her normal seat by the third base line and I took it as my opportunity to shoot my bottle of bubbly off in that direction. It was then that I noticed, for the first time, she wasn’t wearing her normal Lester jersey or Reddick shirt to the game. I had to blink a couple times and walk closer to make sure I wasn’t just seeing things, but when I got to the edge of the wall I definitely saw the Rays logo on the front of her jersey but by the time the whole celebration was over, she was gone.
------------------------------------
“Guess it was too good to be true,” I muttered, mainly to myself, as I buttoned up my dress shirt and stood up, grabbing the necessary items from my locker hours after the game had ended.

“We’re going to the bar across the field to celebrate, you in?” BJ asked me as I passed, motioing to himself and nearly half the team.

“Nah, I think I’m just gonna chill at my apartment. It’s been a long day but thanks,” I replied.

“Look, if this is about what happened earlier, I’m sorry,”

“It was my fault and, you know, I probably would have bitched at me too - but it’s not about that at all. I’d go with you guys on any other day, you know I would, but I’m just not feeling up to it today,”

“It’s still Kaity isn’t it?” BJ questioned, giving me a knowing look. “Just trust me on this one, you’re gonna wanna join us. It’ll be worth your while,”

“I guess,” I shrug, slipping my wallet into the back pocket of my pants and joining my teammates on the walk out of the locker room. “But if anyone tries to hook me up with some chick, I’m out,”
---------------------------------
“What about that chick?” James Shields asked, nodding towards some blonde wearing a tight shirt and a skirt that barely covered her butt. Apparently I was caught staring long enough because James smirked and flicked water from the glass of his beer at me. “I’ll go get her for you, she’s hot,”

“No, I’m good,” I declared, taking a swing of my beer before staring straight in front of me. “I mean, she’s hot but she’s not my type,”

“Look man, I think you should really go after her,” James said, blocking the view in front of me while shooting his wife a secretive look. “If not her why don’t you go relax, go dance, or something,”

“I don’t want to,” I shot back, trying to look around the bar for a girl who might even slightly resemble Kaity. The bar seemed to be filled with toothpick skinny, fake tanned girls in tight clothing and while that suited my teammates just fine it didn’t suit me. I wasn’t what some might think of as a stereotypical athlete - I liked my girls to eat in front of me (bonus points if they ate my cooking) and if they lived on the beach their tan should be natural not from a tanning salon, their hair color should be natural, not some bottle blonde that clashed terribly with their skin color, and while I didn’t mind if they didn’t care for sports I did want them to know or care enough to follow the Rays and most girls in the bar didn’t fit the description. It wasn’t like I set my standards too high - I just wanted a girl who was real and down to earth.

Hours drug by and I watched as my teammates various states of drunkenness got progressively with the more drinks they consumed. Some of them had found girls to dance with, some of them were with their own wives or girlfriends and others had just disappeared from the scene all together, either leaving because they weren’t the ‘hard party’ type or leaving for other reasons. Carl Crawford was on the dance floor with a few other Rays and the sight of all of them stumbling to the loud music was enough to give me nightmares. Once the song had ended though, Carl grabbed a girl and dragged in my direction. Within seconds I could make out the frame of a girl who was wearing a Rays jersey with black skinny jeans and a pair of red Converse. The jersey was stained with what looked like some type of alcohol or beverage and as they approached the bar her glare was unmistakable.

“EVAN LONGORIA!” Kaity shouted, her hair slightly out of place from her dancing. By the way she was walking I could tell she was sober as ever and I winced. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING, HITTING THAT BALL ALL THE WAY OUT TO ME? THAT WAS MY BRAND FUCKING NEW JERSEY AND YOU FUCKING COST US THE WORLD SERIES. THEN IF THAT WASN’T ENOUGH, YOU HAD TO SPRAY CHAMPAGNE ON ME AND IT GOT IN MY EYES AND ALL OVER THIS PIECE OF SHIT. I HATE YOU, YOU KNOW THAT RIGHT?”

I wanted to say something to Kaity, maybe ask her whose jersey she had on but I wasn’t able to say anything. It was the first time we’d talked in a week; the first time we had talked since she told me that we should end whatever we had between us. I must have looked incredibly stupid, opening and closing my mouth silently and judging by the look on Kaity’s face, she wasn’t impressed with my lack of words. There was almost always some witty comeback to any of Kaity’s joking insults or comments but this time I couldn’t think of one. My brain wasn’t functioning right and it was a miracle that I was still standing. For the past three days, I had been functioning mainly on coffee because I couldn’t sleep very well knowing that the Sox and Kaity were in town. Every time I managed to drift off to sleep, I’d always wake up a few hours later because of nightmares of Kaity, my Kaity getting married to Hermeida.

“I shouldn’t even be here,” Kaity said plainly, her hands on her hips.

“I know. I should probably leave you alone.... you should be with your brother and your boyfriend...” I finally managed to choke out, feeling like my team was the one that just lost.

“We both know that I’m not that strong. I’m here because I want to be here, Ev. I’m old enough to make my own decisions and I think you gathered that tonight by my attire. I couldn’t last the week without you, I couldn’t sleep the night I said goodbye. I made my decision and I made it final. I missed you,”

“I can’t slip back into this Caitlyn. Let’s not pretend that you’re alone tonight, it’s not fair to him,”

“I am alone tonight, Ev,” Kaity said softly, taking my large hands into her smaller ones. “I told you I made a choice... Josh wasn’t happy with it but it was my decision and he accepted it fully. It took a week but I figured out where I wanted to be. I’ve been a bitch and in reality I shouldn’t be with either of you because both you and Jeremy deserve someone much better than me. For some weird reason, I need you Evan. So here I am, in your jersey hoping that you haven’t moved on yet. I should be comforting my brother over the loss but I wanted to be here, celebrating with you. I can’t live without you,”

“I can live without you,” I said over the loud music in the bar. Kaity’s strong physique faltered and I lifted her chin so she was looking at me. “But without you I’d be miserable at best,”