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DOM

January

Dominic Rizzo didn’t consider himself to be dramatic. Ask CJ Hartman or Evan Delgado, though, and they’d tell you a different story. CJ tended to treat him like he was a menace to society who could turn something as simple as ordering a cup of coffee into a catastrophe. He liked to remind Dom that he once declared an entire week completely ruined because of a couple of food delivery errors. In his defense, the errors were that everyone else got food, but his meal was missing. Twice. As far as he was concerned, that was enough of a reason to consider the week a loss. Evan usually sat there during these arguments, looking deeply exhausted, while Dominic defended himself with increasingly specific examples that usually proved CJ’s point. The rest of the Barracudas viewed him with the kind of fond patience usually reserved for overstimulated puppies.

But Dom was really just a normal guy. Mostly.

He was twenty-four and played baseball for a living, and the game had been very good to him. He was lean and quick, built for speed around the bases and powerful hits that sent balls soaring over the fence. He kept his brown hair a little too long on purpose, in a permanent state of undone that looked free but actually cost him two hundred bucks at the stylist he refused to admit to seeing.

According to a reel the Barracudas’ public relations team had posted on every possible social media platform last season, his eyes were hazel but turned gold when the sun hit them just right. The guys mocked him for weeks after that, but he’d secretly been flattered by the description.

He liked spending his money on all the things he’d coveted as a teenager but never dreamed he’d really own: limited edition sneakers that cost more than his first car, joggers tailored to fit just right, a gold chain he insisted was subtle. It wasn’t. His look was called effortless, and he would never admit that effortless took him fifteen minutes in the mirror most mornings.

Underneath it all, though, he preferred the quiet nights playing video games at home over hanging out at the bars everyone assumed he lived in. He liked clean kitchens and sleeping in on off days. He loved dogs but knew it wouldn’t be fair to have one when he was always on the road. And he liked making the kind of money that let him buy stupidly expensive sneakers while still needing to call his mother to ask how long rotisserie chicken lasted in the fridge.

Tonight, though, he’d admit he was being a little dramatic. His body felt like he’d been hit by a tractor-trailer before being run over by each one of its wheels, and it was Evan’s fault. Okay, it was partially his fault too. He needed to stop letting himself get talked into off-season workouts Evan specifically designed to ruin his life.

His legs were screaming, and a small whimper escaped his lips as he limped up the exterior stairs to his second-floor apartment a little after seven at night. He unlocked the door, stepped inside, dropped his gym bag just inside the door, and groaned as he bent to untie his shoes.

“Okay, nope.” Dom straightened and toed them off instead, thankful that his mother was three thousand miles away and couldn’t see him committing her biggest pet peeve. “Sorry, Ma.”

The apartment was quiet as he padded through the living room, flipping on a couple of lamps instead of the harsh overhead lights. It wasn’t a big place: one bedroom, one bathroom, a small galley kitchen, and a balcony just big enough for two chairs and a grill he rarely got to use. But it was enough for him.

Someday, he’d buy a house. He’d spent most of the last week helping CJ and Evan move into their new house, and for a minute, he’d been tempted to look at houses nearby. But there was no rush. Maybe after he signed his next contract. Right now, the apartment was easy to keep clean, close to the ballpark and the Gaslamp Quarter, and far enough from Evan and CJ’s place that he could still pretend he wouldn’t end up there three nights a week.

Dom liked having them nearby. He loved San Diego, but some days being three thousand miles away from his enormous, loud, overbearing, unconditionally loving Italian American family felt farther than that. Most days, he was too busy with baseball to notice, but every now and then, the quiet hit him. Birthdays happened without him, holidays required airline tickets, and dropping by his parents’ place for dinner wasn’t an option. Having CJ and Evan ten minutes away made the distance feel a little smaller.

Now, all he wanted was food and sleep, and as he shuffled toward the kitchen, thighs aching beneath his sweats as he moved like an old man, he prayed he had something edible. The refrigerator had half a rotisserie chicken, a couple of bottles of water and three sports drinks, and some takeout he probably shouldn’t trust anymore. He threw out the leftovers, then stood in front of the open fridge, eating cold chicken straight off the bone and staring at nothing.

His phone buzzed somewhere in the living room, but he ignored it. If it was his mother, she’d keep him on the phone for forty-five minutes, filling him in on all the family gossip. If it was CJ, he’d try to browbeat Dom into coming over to watch a movie they’d all fall asleep to ten minutes in. If it was Evan, it would be a reminder to stretch. Anyone else would try to get him to go out to a bar. None of those options appealed to him.

He finished eating, then padded down the short hallway to the bathroom to shower. Twenty minutes later, he returned to the living room feeling slightly less miserable. Outside, it had started to rain, so he hit the switch to ignite the gas fireplace, then settled into the corner of the sectional. He turned on the TV, already tuned to replays from last season, and regretted it immediately when they showed one of his more frustrating strikeouts.

“Nope.”

He grabbed the remote to change the channel and had just started flipping through channels when his doorbell rang. Dom frowned and glanced at the time on his phone. It was after eight. His first thought was that Evan and CJ had come over, but they wouldn’t show up without texting first. Dom checked his phone. A missed call from his mother, but no other notifications. The doorbell rang again, more insistently, and Dom jumped up from the couch.

“Coming,” he called. He pulled open the front door and immediately froze. “Talia?”

The woman standing outside his door looked nothing like the one he used to date. She wore a sweatshirt several sizes too big and her shoulders were soaked from the rain. Her dark hair was twisted into a messy bun, exhaustion painted bruise-like shadows under her eyes, and she had a baby in her arms. Dom blinked once, then twice, then his brain stalled out completely.

“Talia,” he repeated stupidly. “When did you have a baby?”

Her shoulders sagged. “Hi, Dom.”

Dom’s eyes were locked on the infant in her arms. Tiny. That was the only word he could think of. A tiny face with a tiny scrunched-up nose and tiny fists tucked beneath a tiny chin. And a tiny pink hat pulled low, hiding any hair she had. Maybe a she. He didn’t want to assume.

“Can I come in?” Talia’s voice was soft.

Dom stepped aside automatically. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

She bent to grab a baby carrier and a pink quilted bag, then slipped past him into the apartment. He shut the door behind them and followed her as she walked toward the living room, still trying to figure out how Talia had a baby.

They hadn’t really spoken since they broke up, when she’d sat across from him in a restaurant in May and told him she thought they wanted different things from life. He’d been hurt, but not blindsided. She hadn’t been wrong. Their relationship had been limping for a while before it finally died. There hadn’t been any big fights, and he didn’t think Talia had cheated on him. They were just two people who’d stopped fitting together.

Talia stood awkwardly in the middle of his living room, still holding the baby against her chest. She looked paler than she had outside, and her whole body shook. “Dom⁠—”