If I had known where they were taking me, I never would have let them drag me out of the cozy little den of misery that had become my apartment in the three months since Joey and I broke up. I’d been spending my time in between work and… well… work, weeding through the ever-so humble two-bedroom abode looking for traces of him that’d been left behind. Letters and photos were destroyed. Jewelry and other tokens of affection hocked- paying for a very expensive Prada bag that went with nothing I owned.

I hadn’t been to that place since I’d been there with him. I could still remember his booming voice… his playful smile… the way his body moved. What had possessed my friends to bring me there?

Nose bleeds… that’s whatcha call ‘em. Sitting up in the rafters, I failed to care about much of anything after my sixth beer and fifteenth cigarette. I certainly didn’t care about what was happening on the field that was so far below me, all the players resembled insects. After my seventh beer, I wasn’t absolutely sure they weren’t insects. I heard a racket that could’ve been an announcer… by the time the voice reached our seats, the wind had taken it and made it into something resembling a few vague vowel sounds. Somehow Melissa understood it because she took the liberty of screaming in my ear her approval of the next up to bat.

“C’mon Chasez!!! Don’t make us sorry we gave up Cooper for ya!!”

My only reply to this was, “Ow… more beer please.”

“That’s Josh Chasez,” Melissa explained ignoring me, “the new Yankee. Very cute.”

“Cute,” I nodded. “Where is that beer guy?”

“I think you’ve had enough, my friend,” Jeanine spoke up on the other side of me.

“I think I’m a 23-year-old adult who wants another beer,” I countered, lighting a new cigarette.

“Oh!! Oh!!” Melissa cried, hopping up out of her seat, excitedly raising her baseball-gloved hand up in the air.

I vaguely heard cheering in the background but by the time I looked up it was too late. The next thing I remember was Jeanine and Melissa standing over me.

“What the hell happened?”

“Do you know what the odds are of catching a fly ball?” Mel laughed helping me up from where I’d fallen backward in my seat.

“I caught a fly ball?”

“Your head did,” Jeanine laughed.

“That explains the searing pain then,” I slurred.

“Well, glove or frontal lobe, this belongs to you, my friend,” Mel said slapping the ball into my left hand.

I looked down at the small white ball, fingering the laces. “Joey caught a fowl ball here.”

“Oh jeeze,” Jeanine rolled her eyes. “I told you this was a bad place to take her.”

“I’m sorry, I thought she’d have some fun.”

“Sorry kiddo,” Jeanine smiled comfortingly. “I should have realized this was the kinda place he’d have taken you.”

“Everyone kept yelling at him cause he was cheering for the Mets. He didn’t care though. He was having so much fun.”

“Aw, honey, you gonna be okay? You wanna go?” Mel offered.

“Yeah I’ll be okay,” I said fingering the tender spot on my forehead and straightening up. “After another beer.”

Four innings and a flash of Jeanine’s press pass later, we were standing outside the Yankee locker room waiting for the new Yankee to come out and sign the ball that smacked the shit out of my head. If I wasn’t so drunk, I might have been embarrassed. As the guys started to come out, Mel congratulated them on a great game and Jeanine and I propped ourselves up against the opposite wall.

“Good game,” she offered Derek Jeter, before turning to us and mouthing an “Oh my God, he’s so Hott!” A few minutes later, the man of the hour finally emerged. “Mr. Chasez!” Jeanine called out getting his attention. He turned around, flashing an expectant smile. “Sorry, um… I’m a huge Yankee fan I just wanted to say good game and um…”

“We were wondering if you could sign the ball our friend… uh… caught,” Jeanine stepped in. I could tell she was trying to spare me some embarrassment but I really didn’t care at that point… when would I ever see the new Yankee again?

“Yeah, I caught it with my head,” I laughed pushing myself away from the wall and approaching him.

“That foul ball to the upper deck?” he questioned, his eyes— blue, I noticed— inspecting the bump that was forming on my forehead.

“I guess,” I shrugged, digging into my Prada purse that especially didn’t go with the jeans and oversized NYU t-shirt I was wearing. “It’s in here somewhere,” I mumbled. “Here we go,” I announced pulling it out.

He laughed taking the ball from my hand. I realized that confronting a drunken woman outside his locker room was probably as surreal for him as being the drunken woman outside his locker room was for me. “What’s your name?”

“Marin,” I answered, really looking at him for the first time. He was cute, after all.

“Here ya go, Marin,” he smiled. He had a great smile. I smiled back… hell I was flirting from the moment I told him his ball had beamed me. “Sorry about your head. Wish there was something I could do.”

“Well,” was I really about to say what I was about to say? “You could buy me dinner… or a CAT scan.”

While I couldn’t see Mel and Jeanine’s jaws drop behind me, I knew they did. This was completely out of character for me… this was even out of character for the drunk me.

I could see the wheels turning in his head. He was definitely intrigued but, if I wasn’t mistaken, he was also a tad bit frightened. Then he smiled and I knew he was hooked. I had totally hooked him. Me. Marin Healey. The same Marin Healey who’d been so nervous, she’d barely spoken for the first three weeks of her relationship with Joey. “I think that can be arranged.” He really did have an incredible smile.

We exchanged numbers. The new Yankee had just given his phone number to me- a drunk woman who he’d hit with a ball. This made me begin to doubt his mental faculties… but he was cute and I needed a rebound guy. How many girls get to rebound with the New Yankee?

The next morning, over brunch with my baby brother, Justin, I tried my damnedest to tell the story of the day before without puking. After a comment on the status of the level of shit I was looking like that day, Justin went on to laugh for approximately ten minutes about me getting hit in the head by a foul ball.

“Yeah, laugh it up, Curly. See if I lend you money next time you’re living on Ramen Noodles,” I said pouring another pound of sugar into my coffee.

“I’m sorry, but it could only happen to you, Mar,” he said trying to compose himself.

“Yeah, yeah, but at least I got a date out of it.”

“I still can’t believe you’re going out with Josh Chasez,” Justin shook his head, shoving a fork-full of eggs into his mouth.

“Me neither,” I said ruefully. “How am I supposed to face him after the fool I made out of myself?”

“Well… it would appear he likes the fool you made out of yourself. Why else would he have coughed up his digits?”

“Are you trying to make me feel better or worse, ‘cause I really can’t tell at this rate,” I said, my face scrunching into a pout.

“Listen, Mar, I love you like a sister—”

“I am your sister.”

“— and I don’t want to see you get hurt again. But you can’t just shut yourself off. You are a great person and any guy would be lucky to be with you. Even the new Yankee.”

“Aww, JuJu, I didn’t know ya cared,” I cooed.

“Yeah well, I’m outta Captain Crunch.”

Getting ready for my date with the new Yankee, I repeatedly tried, with little success, to syke myself up. In truth, I was terrified. Loneliness, sadness, and an incredible amount of alcohol had given me something that made me vaguely appealing to this man. What would he think when he met the real deal: Marin Healy, an overly introspective, slightly neurotic, junior editor at Random House. I supposed he must’ve seen something exciting in the way I'd boldly asked him out. I dreaded the look of disappointment in those eyes when he found out how boring I was in real life. Those eyes that even through my drunken haze of a memory, shone through as perfect blue orbs. Maybe the perfection was a side effect of that very drunken haze but something told me they were as real as they were in my head.

No sooner did the clock roll around onto 9, did my doorbell ring. I’d been ready since 8 and the opportunity to get this humiliation over with sent me flying out the door and down the stairs to meet him.

My haste came to an end when I opened the door and came crashing into those same blue eyes. I was right. They were real. “Hi,” I smiled shyly. There. He’d seen it. My real nature was bared and he could now make his decision on how he wanted the night to continue. I know how men work. They have two plans when they take out a girl. They decide within the first five minutes which plan to go with based on how they see the date going. At least that’s what Joey told me. I don’t know how reliable he is anymore.

“Hi,” he smiled back. What did ya know? The smile memory was accurate too. Damn, that smile. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” I said slipping out the door and into the vestibule. He held the door that led outside open for me and I melted. Okay, rebound guys aren’t supposed to make you melt. I could see, plainly, that I was in trouble. “Just so you know,” I started, figuring I should get this out of the way, “this isn’t something I do normally.”

“Go out on dates?” he teased, his right eyebrow lifting into a perfect arch.

“No… well, that too… but…”

“Relax,” he smiled, his hand reached over and joining with mine as we walked down the street. I had no clue where we were going. “This isn't normal me either. If I had thought this was normal you, I wouldn’t have given you my number.”

I looked up at him and saw the truth of his words written all over his face. “I was a little drunk yesterday,” I went on, my face beginning to burn.

“A little?”

“Okay, a lot. I was a lot drunk yesterday. I was just feeling down and couldn’t resist the opportunity to drink in the middle of the day without judgment,” I smiled becoming more comfortable in my skin then I’d ever been before.

He chuckled at that before turning serious. “Why were you down?”

“I’m getting over a breakup,” I said before I could think to stop myself. You never tell rebound guy that you just got out of a relationship. He’ll know he’s rebound guy!

“So I’m rebound guy?”

If I could have kicked my own ass with any degree of efficiency I would have done so at that moment. “No, you’re not,” a replied lamely.

“Yeah, yeah,” he groaned good-naturedly. Was he okay with being rebound guy? “How long ago did this breakup happen?”

“Three months,” I said slowly, the words coming out of my mouth making me embarrassed by the absurdity of grieving for as long as I had.

“Three months? And I’m your first date? How unfortunate for you,” he laughed. “I should be no one’s first foray into the dating scene after a break up.”

“Why’s that?”

“My dating skills are a tad rusty, myself,” he confessed.

“Are you getting over a breakup too?”

“Nah, I was okay with the breakup. That’s probably why I didn’t jump back into dating. I thought it was odd I didn’t take it harder and figured it was a sign that I shouldn’t be with anyone,” he explained.

“Then why are you here?”

“Well, someone has to be your rebound guy,” he grinned. We’d been walking for blocks, and I still had no idea where he was leading me.

“You didn’t know I was on the rebound,” I challenged.

“Sure I did. Beautiful, drunk, woman, asking me for a date after I knock her out with a baseball… there are only two logical explanations. One- you’re on the rebound. Two- I knocked some screws loose with that ball.”

“So, you were hoping to take advantage of either my emotional or mental instability?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he defended himself. We stopped momentarily and he tilted my head, brushing the hair away that I’d purposely styled to cover the hideous lump that’d formed. “Jeeze,” he breathed. “Is that okay?”

I could feel he breath on my face and if he had chosen to kiss me at that moment, I would have refrained from the slap my instincts would have told me to serve him. He didn’t kiss me then, though. I couldn’t figure out why I was so disappointed. “Yeah, it’ll be okay.”

He nodded, smoothing out my hair. I could have sworn he’d just want to touch it for the sake of contact but I was never so perceptive as I seemed to be with him, so I doubted everything my senses told me. “Anyway, as I was saying,” he started walking again, breaking the spell he’d temporarily cast on me, “I just figured that if you were on the rebound, I would make a great rebound guy— easy to dump due to my poor dating skills. And if you were crazy… I had an Aunt who thought she was Saint Theresa that I used to visit on Sundays. I’d be well equipped to deal with the situation.”

“Looks like you got things all worked out,” I smiled.

“Well, I did forget the third possibility,” he said as we approached the café he’d been leading us to— Eros, a place I’d walked by several times but never set foot in.

“What’s that?” I asked, as he opened the door for me.

“That I was recognizing something in you I had myself,” he smiled.

“What’s that?”

“Hope that there could be more for us beyond the rebound.”

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