Nothing Like the Movies
: Chapter 17

Wes

“That felt so damn good.”

“Agreed,” I said to Mickey as we ran toward the dugout, and I felt like I was floating. I would’ve liked to be cool and not smile as the relaxed crowd cheered for us, but that was impossible.

Because I’d just pitched a no-hitter.

Granted, it was a one-inning no-hitter in an exhibition game, which didn’t mean dick, but it felt like twelve innings in the World Series to me. Swear to God, I felt lighter now than I’d felt since moving to LA, now that I’d pitched through the bullshit.

“Fucking fire, Bennett,” Ross said without looking at me as I stepped down into the dugout, and those three words meant a lot.

I wasn’t some little kid who needed a father figure now that I no longer had one, but there was something about Ross’s opinions—and respect—that mattered a hell of a lot to me.

“Thanks,” I said, throwing down my glove and reaching for a water.

I felt like I could do anything.

Because not only had I shut down the voices and pitched my game, but Liz tried to help me.

Liz. Tried. To. Help. Me.

Me.

I kind of didn’t know what to do with that, especially when her boyfriend had been the one to bring me the note, but I’d take it.

Because something about knowing she cared that I was struggling felt important. Not for her and me in regard to our past or future, but for me. I’d struggled alone through a lot since my dad died, and it felt good to know she was still there.

She might be further away, and she might not love me anymore, but she was still fucking there.

And that made me feel closer to whole than I’d felt in years.

After that inning, the rest of the game was like a party.

I stood in the dugout, leaning on the rail with guys on both sides of me, and for the first time since committing (the second time around), it felt like I belonged. Like I was supposed to be there. I realized at the bottom of the ninth, as we beat on the fence when the closer came in, that I finally didn’t feel like the guy who found a way in but still wasn’t sure if it was going to stick or not.

No, it was my team, and I wasn’t going anywhere.

After the game, I grabbed a quick dinner with Sarah before she went to meet up with friends she had in LA. It was laid-back, the perfect ending to the day, and it wouldn’t be my sister if she didn’t butt her nose in and say, “I saw Liz by the dugout, by the way.”

“Yeah?” I said, rolling my eyes as I finished the last of my steamed rice. I loved the Boiling Crab—we’d come here with my parents on my first college visit—and I basically wanted to lick my plate clean every time. “Congratulations on having eyes.”

“Thanks,” she said, grinning as she lifted her last crab leg. “But what are you waiting for with her, Wes? Why don’t you—”

“Shhhhh,” I interrupted, flicking her crab leg so it fell onto her plate. “Save the bossiness for tomorrow. Don’t ruin my moment.”

“Dammit, Wes,” she said around a laugh as she retrieved the leg.

The truth was that I doubted anything could hack the raging buzz I had from the one-two punch of good baseball and Liz Buxbaum. I was on top of the world, and even though I knew she’d be excited about it, I couldn’t bring myself to tell Sarah about the note.

Because what if she found a way to explain it away?

That note was on a piece of paper that came from Liz’s notebook (she loved notebooks and usually had no less than six going at once), was folded by Liz’s fingers (the same ones that had danced magic over piano keys while I begged for more), and was handed off by Liz’s grip (that I could still feel on my shoulders) to be sent to me.

To me.

I didn’t want it to make sense, to be honest, because it felt like a beginning.

“Fine. But I think you’re a moron for not saying anything when she’s right there,” she said. She took a bite before adding, “You are a fool for pressing your nose against the glass when there’s still a chance you can have that donut.”

“You did not just call her a donut.”

“Just because there’s another customer inside the bakery with your donut in his cart doesn’t mean you can’t still grab it. Pastries are fair game until they hit the conveyor belt.”

“I…” I stopped and dropped my fork, shaking my head. It was hard not to laugh all the time when dealing with Sarah because she was so… Sarah. “I’m not sure if I should be concerned about your intensity for baked goods, horrified you’re wielding such terrible analogies, or focused on straightening you out.”

“All of the above, probably,” she said, shrugging. “Also, I have regrets because I think ‘donut’ could be a euphemism for something nasty, but I’m not sure.”

“You’re an idiot,” I laughed, reaching for one of her fries.

After she dropped me off, I decided not to go out with the guys. I wanted to savor the waning hours of the memorable day, so instead of hitting a party, I hit the steps outside my dorm. I leaned back on my elbows and looked up at the dark sky, soaking in the warmth of the Westwood night as the quiet sounds of Saturday-night-on-the-hill played around me.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts until I got to her.

Libby.

I’d deleted all previous messages after the breakup, mostly because I knew I’d never stop rereading them like a favorite book. I could see myself as an eighty-five-year-old man, no longer communicating in any language other than recycled Buxbaum if I didn’t make it disappear.

I looked at her name and paused, wondering if I should do it.

“What the hell,” I muttered to myself, then thumbed out a message.

Is this still your number, Buxbaum?

I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t immediate conversation bubbles.

“Holy shit.” I sat up straight, staring at the bright phone in the darkness, but the bubbles disappeared almost immediately.

Is it her? It has to be her, right?

People didn’t actually get new phone numbers, did they?

I sat there with my phone in my hand for a long time, waiting, but she never responded.

Not that I’d expected her to, but after the note, it suddenly felt like anything was possible.

Which explained why, on Monday, the smell of her perfume had me searching for her in the hallway as I walked out of chem. Thousands of people in the world probably wore that scent, but the second it found my nose, my eyes were on the hunt for red hair.

And that old song found my head.

You got anesthesia in your Chanel No. 5…

I squeezed around the girl in front of me, who was slow-exiting CS50 while looking down at her phone, and as soon as I cleared her—

Holy shit.

There she was.

Liz.

I almost didn’t believe it.

She was actually there.

She was standing by the wall on the other side of the doors, watching on tiptoes as the people poured out of the lecture hall.

Like she was looking for someone.

I had to force myself not to grin as I went straight for her. “Can I help you replace someone, Buxbaum?”

She hadn’t seen me coming, so she looked at me in surprise. “Oh. Um, hey, Wes.”

“I can’t believe you’re stalking me already,” I said, reaching out a hand to mess with her hair. “And we just reconnected.”

“Haha,” she said, but she didn’t roll her eyes. And she didn’t smack my hand. No, Liz tucked her hair behind her ears and said, “I actually was waiting for you.”

Oh, what’s this?

Something shot through my body—happiness, maybe—as I committed to memory the way Liz Buxbaum looked on the day she’d shown up at my building to wait for me.

Long curls, pink lips, white cardigan, white jeans.

“Do you have five minutes?” she asked, leaning in a little like she didn’t want anyone to hear her. “I just need to run something by you really quickly.”

Did I have five minutes? For Liz? My entire life, the answer to that had been something along the lines of hell fucking yes. Electricity still shot through every cell in my body when she spoke to me, and I was positive that was never going to change.

For better or for worse.

“It’s work-related,” she added breathlessly, as if to make sure I didn’t think it was personal.

It was idiotic that something similar to disappointment settled in my belly. What did you expect, that she was going to tell you she missed you?

I mean, of course it was work-related.

“I have to get to my next class,” I said, injecting boredom into my tone so she didn’t see how pathetic I was, how off I’d been about what her appearance here could mean. “Is it something your big man can help you with?”

“No,” she said, her eyes flashing with irritation before she plastered on another made-up smile and said in a weirdly peppy voice, “But it’s five minutes, Wes. Surely you can spare five tiny minutes.”

“My next class is at Kaplan,” I said, curious to know what she was up to, “if you want to walk with me.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding and adjusting her backpack, but I could tell that her mind was going a million miles an hour. We didn’t talk as we walked through the crowded hallway, but once we stepped outside, she cleared her throat and repeated, “Okay.”

I glanced over at her (well, down and over because she seemed shorter all of a sudden) as we walked on top of the red bricks of the courtyard, and something about the moment slapped me with a homesickness so strong, I nearly stumbled.

How was the strength of my want still so overpowering?

I mean, the setting was messing with me for sure. The tall trees lining the sidewalk, the stone buildings, the immaculate fall vibes as students walked to class in the warm afternoon sun; this was everything we’d experienced the first time around.

Those Polaroid days of our first week at UCLA.

I’d piggybacked her down this very path when her shoes gave her blisters, and she joked that we were like Jess and Rory at Yale, if Jess had wanted to go to Yale and Yale was hot and had leaves that only turned marginally yellow.

She’d assigned “In Between” to what she called our “WesLiz montage.”

Knock it off.

“Thank you for letting me talk to you,” she said politely, looking like she was about to launch into a prepared presentation. “I promise to stay under five minutes.”

“See that you do,” I said, looking away from her and at the space in front of us as we walked, the damn lyrics ribboning around the campus trees.

He hates it when she’s crying, he hates when she’s away

Even at their worst, they know they’ll still be okay…

“Of course,” she said, going even harder on the manners. “So here’s the thing. I know Lilith has reached out to you about doing another interview, and I totally understand why you declined.”

“You do,” I said calmly, more as a statement than a question as I struggled to digest what she’d just said. Was she seriously here to try to talk me into doing Lilith’s interview? That was what brought her to my side of campus? To convince me I should tell my stor y of “overcoming adversity” so the athletic department could get more clicks?

“I mean, I totally get wanting to keep your personal life private,” she said. “But she really just wants to talk about how you came to be at UCLA—and on the baseball team—again. That’s not really so private, is it?”

I kept walking, knowing she was probably right, but still feeling apprehensive as hell.

Because not only did I not want to revisit that time in my life, but there was also a lot of stuff that went down in my family that I really didn’t want to share with the public.

In the past, when faced with awkward silence, Liz tended to ramble.

Apparently my lack of response triggered that reaction in her, because she launched into a babbling sales pitch, going on and on about how nice it would be for me to be able to share what’d happened with the world.

When we got to Kaplan and stopped walking, she finished with, “It’s an incredible story, the way it all transpired, and I think it’d be really cool for you to share it.”

“What’s incredible about it, exactly?” I asked.

“What?” She looked surprised by that question, her eyebrows crinkling.

“I’m just wondering what you know about my ‘inspirational story,’ ” I said as I realized I had no idea what she knew about my return. “And why you think it’s inspiring at all.”

She pressed her lips together and looked at me, her eyebrows scrunched as the breeze lifted the tips of her copper hair. God, I love those freckles. She sighed, pushed at her hair, and admitted, “To be honest, I don’t know anything. But if Lilith thinks it’s a good story, then it’s a good story.”

So she’d never been curious enough about me to look. Noted.

“Who the hell is Lilith, anyway?” I asked, unable to hide the irritation. “I don’t think I’ve even met her, yet she always seems to be in my inbox.”

“She’s my boss. I’m her intern.”

“Oh, well that clears it up.” I could tell by the way Liz raised her chin that she didn’t feel like elaborating, so I said, “Well, I appreciate you crossing campus to do her dirty work, but please tell her ‘no, thank you.’ ”

“ ‘No, thank you,’ ” she repeated slowly, obviously surprised I didn’t cave. She cleared her throat and said, “So, no, then? You won’t consider it at all?”

“Nope,” I said, allowing myself to stare into her eyes for a second under the guise of polite eye contact.

My happy place.

“Why not?” she asked, her eyebrows going down. “I promise that we’ll give you total control during the interview, and this will give you the chance to make your story what you want it to be.”

I shrugged, knowing my story would always be the story I didn’t want it to be because it centered on my dad’s death. “I just don’t.”

“What can I say to convince you?” she asked, sounding—and looking—a little desperate. “We’ll let you review footage, we’ll cut anything you want us to cut, we’ll reshoot—”

“I’m not doing it,” I interrupted, hoping she’d just accept it and move on.

“Why won’t you at least consider it?” she asked, her pitch rising in frustration. “It’s one tiny interview, Wes.”

“That I would like to pass on,” I repeated. “But thank you.”

“Gaaah,” she said, then continued through clenched teeth, “why are you so stubborn about this?”

“Why are you so hell-bent on making sure it happens?” I asked, and as soon as I said it, I realized that was it. The thing that I was missing. “I seriously doubt that you care to hear my making-it-back-to-LA story, so what’s the deal?”

She blinked fast. “I just think your experience—”

“Bullshit,” I interrupted.

She blinked faster. “Don’t you want to tell—”

“No,” I bit out, running a hand over my head. “What’s in this for you, Liz? Why are you trying so hard to talk me into it?”

“Because I don’t want to let Lilith down, okay?” she said, her voice rising as she squinted into the sun. “I don’t expect you to care, but Lilith is, like, a really big deal in the industry. She has a million connections that could mean everything for my career someday. So if I have a chance to do her a favor, I am going to be hell-bent on making it happen.”

Her cheeks were red, her eyes hot, and my chest was burning as I watched her crackle.

“Please just consider starting the interview,” she said, reaching out her hand and setting it on my arm. Squeezing just the smallest amount, the physical manifestation of her need to convince me. Did she even realize she was touching me? “If it’s too intrusive, you can stop, but at least try.”

I still didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t deny Liz what she wanted.

I was a weak, weak man.

I looked into the eyes that I saw every night when I closed my own and said, “Okay, I’ll do it.”