Sure Bet (Out of Left Field #1)

7. Liam

Chapter 7

Liam

“ Y ou look like shit.” My best friend’s bluntness hit harder than his bat with bases loaded in the ninth. Brenden had no filter and made no apologies for it.

He was right, though. I’d been up all night, tossing and turning. I felt like shit. Resembling it wouldn’t be a stretch.

Brenden held open the door and gestured for me to come inside the palatial brick Tudor, but I peeked over his shoulder. “Is Karen home? Or is she out somewhere asking to speak to a manager?”

Karen was a Karen before Karen was a thing. My best friend married his high school sweetheart when they were nineteen years old . He thought she would grow out of her entitled and demanding attitude, the dumbass.

He scrubbed his face and mumbled something unintelligible under his breath. “She’s at hot yoga, asshole. She’ll murder you if she hears you say that.”

She can get in line.

Brenden strolled to the kitchen, and I followed, relieved his wife was out. Judging by his relaxed shoulders, I wasn’t the only one.

“You would let her?” I took a seat at the island as he resumed packing protein powder, frozen fruit, and almond milk into the blender.

The chef’s kitchen in this house—all stainless steel and professional-grade appliances—was nothing like what existed in my grandma’s condo. Imported Italian marble countertops and custom solid wood cabinetry. High-end finishes and statement pendant lights. Rather unfortunate Karen ruined my chance to live here. The opulence might inspire me to cook instead of ordering takeout most nights.

“Depends on the day, man. Sometimes, it’s easier to give her what she wants. If your murder improves her mood? I’d consider it. Nothing else seems to be working.”

I frowned. “Dude. That’s not sustainable. That’s?—”

The blender roared to life, cutting me off mid-sentence as Brenden cupped his hand to his ear and shook his head. I sighed, waiting for him to finish pulverizing his breakfast. When the motor quieted, I tried again. “That’s not?—”

The appliance whirred into action as he slammed his finger on the power button.

“Guess you don’t want to talk about it,” I shouted over the chaos.

I met my best friend in my freshman year of college. The program paired up new players with experienced teammates, and as team captain, a junior, and the top hitter on the roster, Brenden volunteered to work with an incoming newbie pitcher. Despite his grumbling nature, he was the kind of guy who raised his hand first for anything.

Brenden’s career took off, and he launched into the MLB just as my life collapsed when I blew out my elbow. He stuck around and peeled me off the floor when I needed it.

He shot me a clipped smirk, easing off the blender. “Guess I don’t want to talk about it.”

Getting traded to Seattle had been his dream, but Karen hated this city.

I gestured to his breakfast. “Does your nutritionist know you put a banana in there? The carbs alone…”

“It fits my macros.”

The liar, but training was brutal. I allowed him his secrets.

“Did you finish your admissions essay for UW?” The first smile on my best friend’s face, and of course, it was sadistic. “Since we’re discussing things that we don’t want to talk about.”

“You’re a mean son of a bitch.” I plucked a banana from the center bowl, grabbing a second when Brenden’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll finish when I finish,” I mumbled.

Applying for college was my highest priority at the moment. My procrastination was baffling, even to me. I stalled every time I sat down to complete my application.

“You have to start in order to finish. Universities have deadlines.” He swiped the fruit from me and tossed it back into the bowl, glaring. “You’re dragging your feet to run out the clock. If you don’t try, you can’t technically fail, right?”

I opened my mouth to tell him to fuck off, but Brenden loved an inspirational speech. Bet he wished he was still a team captain.

“We go for a run, and then you get to it. I don’t care if it’s one sentence on the page. You put it down.”

“Bossy motherfucker,” I muttered, pushing out of my seat and accepting the protein shake he slid over the island. “You’re as bad as Shana.”

He was worse, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of that knowledge.

Brenden toasted me. “You made me promise to hold you accountable, brother.”

I had, and I was a damn fool for it. My fault for befriending a guy who took responsibility for fixing any problem presented to him. And me? Christ. I was the ultimate problem.

“Let’s go. I need to clear my head and wake up.” I rinsed my empty glass in the sink, fearing the wrath of Karen should I leave even a crumb behind.

Brenden followed suit, stretching in the driveway and bending to touch his toes to loosen up. “How far to outrun your thoughts?”

There wasn’t enough distance on this planet, but Brooke would be out of the condo by nine for work.

“I have a couple of hours.” I glimpsed the cloud break overhead and hoped it wouldn’t rain on our run. “Where to this morning?”

Bouncing off the balls of his feet, Brenden took the lead, hitting the pavement. “Let’s circle through the arboretum.”

We jogged in companionable silence, zigzagging through the tree-lined streets of his neighborhood. It’d been an unseasonably warm winter, causing the plum and cheery trees to flower in early February. We didn’t usually get them until March.

The pink and white blossoms resembled a miniature orchard planted in the lush green grass of the nature strip.

“Hey,” I huffed and puffed, breaking the quiet. “Does your wife listen to porn?”

Sweaty and sore, I hobbled into the building, gripping the banister to hoist myself up the stairs to the third floor. Peak physical conditioning was required for a pro athlete, but I was not a pro athlete.

I started conditioning again—stupid, probably. While surgery repaired some of the damage to my elbow, I would never be more than a star at a local pickup game. I couldn’t even play in the minors.

The one thing in my life that should have been a guarantee went to shit with everything else my sophomore year.

Entering the condo, I kicked off my shoes and headed for my room, determined to be productive. A shower, and then I would start on my essay. After lunch. Maybe some weightlifting, too. By then, it would be close to dinner, so I may as well?—

The sound coming from Brooke’s bedroom halted my movement as I passed. She was supposed to be at work, Shana, too.

I pressed my ear to the door. The hollow core wood did little to contain the noise. Someone sobbed on the other side. Emotions of the most uncomfortable kind: sadness.

Feelings. Yikes. I pulled back.

“Hello?” A muffled sniffle through the door. “Shana? Did you get my text?”

Shit. My deep timbre sounded nothing like my sister’s voice. Useless, this twin thing.

The door flew open and our eyes locked. Brooke hurried to wipe smudged mascara from her cheeks, blinking through tears and clearing her throat.

“You’re not Shana.” Her voice was shredded. How long had she been crying? She blushed as my gaze raked over her face. “I have terrible allergies.”

I winced, scratching the back of my head. “Can I get you a Claritin?”

Her chin trembled, tears welled again, and the dam burst as she crumbled. Shit. Shit.

She wiped her nose with her sleeve. “I—I’m sorry.”

I reached out, hesitating until the last possible second before patting her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

God, it was awkward, the movement obligatory and robotic, but Brooke and I didn’t touch. At most, an occasional brush of shoulders when we fought for space and refused to yield, but nothing more.

She scrunched her face. “How can you say that?”

A fair question from the woman in a stained pair of sweats. Was that red wine on her sweatshirt?

I shrugged. “It’s what people say, but fine. I meant everything happens for a reason.”

At least she stopped crying. Her mouth hung open, indignant. “What kind of shit response is that?”

The kind from an emotionally stunted man, keep up.

I gritted my teeth. “Pardon me for not knowing what to say when I don’t know what the problem is in the first place.”

Drop that fucking blade, asshole. I’d cut her enough over the years. Amid a flood of tears was not the time to keep pushing. I took a deep breath and relaxed my jaw—or tried to, anyway.

She smirked. “You’re right. My apologies.”

“Brooke—”

The door swung closed, but my foot shot out to catch it before it slammed in my face. And fuck, that fucking hurt . My poor toes.

“What happened? Are you okay?” I probably should have started there.

Red-rimmed eyes studied me for a moment, assessing, like she expected an attack. But I wouldn’t fire at a woman with blotchy pink patches blooming over her skin. God, she was a wreck. A total wreck, and it made me feel… something.

Sympathy for her and concern for me because seeing her sad… I wanted to help, the fucking idiot that I was. She didn’t want me to comfort her. She wanted me to leave her alone.

“You don’t care.”

Her words held more dejection than anger. I could work with that.

“If I didn’t care, I would have let you shut the door.” That was an uncomfortable admission. I changed directions. “Do you want me to call Shana?”

“No. She has a shift at Reign tonight, and she needs the paycheck.”

Ah, yes. One of my sister’s many gigs, this one at a trendy club in Capitol Hill. Shana trained as a dancer growing up, and her dream of opening her own studio conflicted with Seattle prices. Being a vet tech didn’t earn enough to get her to the finish line. She took almost any side job she could get. Whether dancing, dog walking, house cleaning... anything except babysitting. She had hard limits.

Brooke stared at the carpet, and my gaze followed, catching the bright blue polish on her toenails. Neither of us spoke for a while.

I was nothing like my best friend—or my sister for that matter. I wasn’t a fixer. I was a fucker-upper. Yet my voice broke the silence. “You tell me something, and I’ll tell you something. Deal?”

A faint smile toyed on the corners of her lips, but she kept her focus on the ground between us. “We’re not eight years old, Liam.”

“That just means this should be more interesting.”

We hadn’t always fought one another for sport. There’d been a time when we got along as kids before hormones kicked in and life was divided by social status. When a game of You Tell Me earned a grin with a shared secret, as inconsequential as they were at eight years old.

“Who made it up, anyway?” She leaned against the door frame, finally looking at me.

“Shana,” we said in unison, laughing. My sister would do anything to dig up dirt to lock in her memory vault for later use.

Brooke exhaled. “I called in sick at work today, even though I can’t risk failing on a crucial project.”

A softball open. Fine.

“I hate my best friend’s wife.” Registering Brooke’s immediate disgust at the confession, I explained, “Her name is Karen.”

Her face relaxed. She got it.

“Keep going.” I softened my voice. “If you want to tell me why you called in sick.”

She pursed her lips and focused on the hem of her sweatshirt, fiddling with the cotton. “My boyfriend dumped me.”

Was it the yogurt? I nearly bit through my tongue to hold it in, my eyes watering.

“We’d been talking about moving in together, and maybe it was because it felt like what we should be doing. Sam is a good guy. He’s kind, smart, and motivated. He treats me well, and we never fight or argue.”

“So why break up?”

Brooke strode to her bed, sitting at the end and leaving me in the doorway. I didn’t follow.

Used tissues lay scattered around her, an empty box tipped on its side. She smoothed her palm over the purple quilt, a faint swishing sound filling the room. Without my sister thundering through the apartment or music playing, it was unnervingly quiet.

“He said he’d been thinking about things, weighing the fact that he loves me against whether that love is the kind that can sustain a relationship. He doesn’t want us to wake up someday and wonder where our lives went.”

With a puffed exhale, I entered her room. This had been Shana’s room when we stayed with my grandma growing up, on the nights when Mom worked, and Mrs. Elwood couldn’t take us. I’d been in this room countless times, but never with a flip-flopping stomach.

Brooke had painted over the sickly green wallpaper with a shade of cream, offsetting the neutral tone with canvas prints—abstract art with vibrant hues and geometric shapes. Her choices had no apparent color scheme or pattern, surprisingly unexpected and bright.

I sat on the floor with my back against the wall and pulled up my knees to rest my chin. “And you?”

She shrugged, studying her hands. “He worried we settled because things were comfortable, but what’s wrong with comfortable? We didn’t have a heart-pounding love, but I’m not the kind of girl who makes hearts pound. Doesn’t he know I’m the kind of girl to settle because I’m the girl a guy settles for?”

My chest tightened, and I swallowed. “You’re?—”

Brooke held up a hand to stop me. “It kills me that you’re my confidant on this matter and only highlights my tragic state. If you tease me, so help me, god, Liam. I’ll shave off your eyebrows in your sleep.”

I sputtered a laugh, my head collapsing against the wall. Judging by her wild eyes, she meant it.

“Please don’t. I would never tease about this.” She shot me a glare, and I amended, “Probably never, but definitely not now.”

Not when she looked so… real and unguarded with a sheen of tears she didn’t wipe away. Her blotchy cheeks and swollen eyes—she wasn’t hiding behind a pretentious attitude, pretending she was above vulnerability.

Growing up, Brooke carried herself with an energy that read as superior to the dipshits around her, me included. She was always so much better. Smart as hell, and yeah, annoying, but sharper, more determined, not sidelined by unimportant shit.

I’d always assumed she didn’t care about other people’s opinions or expectations, while I spent my life crushed by them. Turns out I wasn’t quite on the money on that assumption.

Strands of dark hair fell over her face, clinging to tear-streaked cheeks and tangled with the remnants of mascara smudged beneath her dull and swollen eyes. She clutched at a tissue, sobbing. “I’m so pathetic.”

Amid her disarray, I found myself drawn to her even more. Did that make me an asshole? Probably, but I never claimed to be a hero.

But maybe I could try.

I cleared my throat, deciding this was my moment . “Love is a marathon, not a sprint, and it’s not always linear. Sometimes you run ahead, and sometimes you fall behind.” Holy shit. Eat your heart out, Bren! “You’re going to get to the finish line someday.” Knocked that one out of the fucking park!

My grin fell when Brooke sobbed harder. Honestly, my speech was brilliant—and wasted, apparently.

She shook her head, sniffling. “He hadn’t even considered the idea of settling until he realized how it would go. We would move in together, get married, buy a house, have kids, and wake up one day wondering where our lives went. Something about holding hostages if choosing to settle.”

I cocked my head. That sounded vaguely familiar. Was that in a movie?

“He said we have one life, Liam. One puny, miserable life.”

The dawning horror of realization hit like a shovel to the head.

‘Right. Let me guess. She’s great and there’s nothing wrong, no reason to break up. You’ll get married, buy your house, have your babies, and wake up one day wondering where the fuck your life went. If you’re a better man than my father, you’ll stick around to raise those babies. We have one life. One miserable, puny life filled with miserable and puny shit. Yet we treat it like settling is doing others a favor, rather than admit it’s holding everyone involved hostage.’

No. No fucking way. There was no chance… the odds of…

I tugged at my collar, the room a goddamn inferno suddenly. “Um. What, uh. What kind of life does he want? What’s it like now? Like, what does he do? For work, I mean?”

Brooke blew her nose. “He owns a pub in Pioneer Square. He bought it from his dad after a lot of back and forth. It’s not his dream job, but he’s turned the place around.” She heaved a heavy exhale. “It’s not his life that’s puny and miserable. It’s me .”

Well. Fuck.