The Last Inning

Eddie stood at the stainless steel counter, his ruined knee throbbing in rhythm with the restaurant's industrial hum. The **baseball** scholarship that should've been his ticket out had evaporated seventeen years ago—one bad slide, one snap, and a lifetime of what-ifs. Now he julienned vegetables for minimum wage while his ex-wife's voice echoed in his memory.

"You never fought for anything, Eddie. Not even us."

"The **bear** will have your ass on a platter if those tickets aren't sold by Friday," Chef Marcus bellowed, emerging from his office like a storm cloud. Marcus—six-foot-three, three hundred pounds of pure aggression—had earned his nickname in culinary school. Tonight, Eddie had other concerns.

Through the kitchen's grease-streaked window, the **palm** fronds swayed in the Santa Ana winds, silhouetted against a bruised purple sky. Sarah had always loved palm trees. They'd stood beneath one on their honeymoon in Malibu, salt-crusted and tipsy on cheap wine, promising forever. Forever had lasted three years.

She was coming tonight. For the first time since the divorce.

"Eight o'clock," she'd said on the phone. Her voice still did things to him. "I want to talk."

Eddie plated the **spinach** salad with trembling hands—a garnish she'd insisted on ordering at every restaurant, claiming it made her feel virtuous before the main course. He'd hated it then, hated it now, but he'd eaten every bitter leaf because that's what you did for love.

The dinner bell chimed. Sarah walked in, wearing that red dress he'd bought her for their anniversary. Their eyes met across the room, and suddenly Eddie was twenty-two again, whole and hopeful and unaware that the ground beneath him was about to give way.

Then the other man appeared at the door—broad-shouldered, confident, with a smile like a sharpened blade. Her new **bull**, strong and uncomplicated, everything Eddie wasn't.

Sarah touched her engagement ring. "Eddie, this is Michael."

The air left the room. Eddie's ruined knee gave way, and he gripped the counter, staring at the spinach salad that would never leave the kitchen. The palm fronds outside continued their indifferent dance. Some games, he realized, you lose before you even step up to the plate.

"Congratulations," he said, and meant it. "Really."