by Kathy Lyons
“Heidi, please say something. I’m dying here.”
What could I say? I wasn’t someone who raged or screamed. Again, words bubbled up from inside, cold and barely polite.
“Thank you for your honesty,” I sneered.
“That’s it? You understand?”
And the awful thing was that I did understand. The pressures of Major League Baseball were something I could barely fathom. Being an athlete today was more than being great at the sport, but also about fashioning a public persona. He was trapped in the one the Bobcats had fashioned, and he couldn’t give up his dream of being a baseball star. I didn’t want him to. And frankly, if his choice was between me and baseball, then I could see how he’d choose baseball.
Baseball, when I’d wanted him to choose me. To want me like I wanted him.
But that obviously wasn’t possible. Who would choose me over Major League Baseball? But I didn’t want to be second in his life. And I wasn’t going to stick around knowing that I’d never be first.
So I stood up. “I’m going to go home and finish packing.”
“But…” He stood and reached for me. “Where…?”
“Where am I moving to? I haven’t a clue. But I’ve got to be out of my apartment by next week.”
“Um, right. Do you, uh, want any help?”
I shook my head, feeling tears burn behind my eyes. But I kept them inside. I kept it all buried deep down inside. “It was nice knowing you, Rob.”
“What? Wait!” He grabbed my arm, and I nearly collapsed at the way he felt. His hand was warm and strong. His forearm muscles flexed in a distracting display. And I felt his panic as keenly as I felt my own pain. “Please, Heidi. I don’t want this to end.”
“I know.”
“But—”
How to explain? How did I put his betrayal into words he’d understand? “You’re asking me to put my life on hold for you for a baseball season. To wait for you—”
“Yes! I swear—”
“No.” The word burned through my body as it came out. It whipped us both and tasted like ash. No, I would not wait for the man I’d already fallen in love with. No, I would not sneak around and be his girlfriend while the press pictured him with someone else. And no, I would not pretend like this wasn’t killing me. “I want someone who will choose me first, and you can’t. I understand why. Baseball is everything to you.”
“It’s just a season. Can’t you wait—?”
“No. Because next season, it will be something else. And then something else. And then I’ll have lost another three years waiting for you.”
So I left.
I kept my scream locked inside me on the elevator down and out to the street. I managed to hold the tears at bay while I called for an Uber. And then I stood there, staring sightlessly at the street until something caught my attention. Someone.
I saw a dark sedan parked across the street, and in it sat Nico.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew that Rob wouldn’t have done this without significant pressure from the Bobcats. Brittany’s media machine was one thing, but Nico was the force behind the threat. He was the one who made sure that Rob carried through and he’d been against me from the beginning. Which is why he was parked here in the first place. The man wanted to make sure that Rob ditched me like a good boy.
Well mission accomplished. I’d been dumped and at that moment, all my hatred coalesced into a single gesture. It was something I’d never done in my entire good girl, Chinese life. I gave him my middle finger with enough force to put someone’s eye out.
Then I climbed into the arriving Uber and never looked back.
Chapter Seventeen
Heidi
I held it together long enough to push into my crappy apartment. But the moment I saw my packed boxes, I completely lost it. I stumbled to my bed and sobbed for an eternity. That’s the problem with living alone. There’s no one there to comfort you. No one to buy you ice cream when you feel shitty. And no one to pull you out of the doldrums unless you call them yourself. Which is what I eventually did, though God knows it took more energy than I thought I had to finally press Samantha’s speed dial number.
And then between choking sobs, I told her the whole fucking story. Every word, every mean bitchy thing I thought, and all the ways I wanted to die or strike out or just hide until it was all over. Samantha listened to every word and then, when I’d finally gone silent, she asked one question.
“So you just left and called me?”
I sniffed, then grabbed another tissue. “I cried for a couple hours first.”
“Oh.”
Shit. I knew that tone of voice. It was the one she used when she was holding back her real thoughts. “What? Just say it.”
“It’s just that you’re so black and white sometimes. I don’t get it.”
“What?”
She sighed. “Look, I’m with you one hundred percent. Whatever you need, I’m with you. But let’s just take a look at what happened, okay? Way back at spring break, you decide to cut loose a bit. But instead of a bit, you have this great sex-a-thon with a hot guy. But when he has to go back to his life, you mope over him for months. And that’s nothing compared to the way you cyberstalked him for years.”
“I never cyberstalked him!”
“Please. You’ve read every article written about him.”
“There hasn’t been that much!” Then I moderated my voice when I realized how crazy I sounded. “I mean, he wasn’t that big a deal until he made it to the majors.”
“Right. So let’s look at that. You do this Hail Mary pass at work and when that doesn’t work, you give it all up in favor of another sex-a-thon.”
“It didn’t happen like that!” I huffed.
“Of course, it did. I’m not judging. God knows, I thought it was great. Except that you did it at work and got caught on video. Are you seeing a pattern here? It’s a scorched-earth thing. You can’t seem to cut a little bit loose. You just dive in whole hog and let everything else go to hell. And then you’re surprised when the rest of the world can’t keep up.”
“That’s not what happened,” I protested, though I was thinking hard about her words. Nothing she said was wrong exactly, but it wasn’t exactly right, either.
“So now we’re up to your weekend in Nebraska. I get that it was a great weekend, but Heidi, it was one weekend and suddenly you turn in your press credentials and go move in with him.”
“I was fired! And you told me to!” I crumpled the tissue in my hand before throwing it into the wastebasket.
“Yeah, I did because I thought you could spend the time having fun and relaxing between sex-a-thons. We both forgot he has a job. More than a job—a multimillion-dollar career in baseball. And yeah, he’s definitely a shit for the way this played out, but you don’t want to be the hot girl on his arm at media events.”
I shuddered. “Never.”
“So you were going to keep this low-key while he does the publicity dance with bitch-face.”
“Brittany.” I spit out her name like bad meat.
“He wasn’t going to sleep with her, was he?”
“He hates her.”
“Then you believe it’s a publicity stunt. A shitty one, but just a stunt, right?”
“Yeah, I do.” My voice came out low and depressing. Because I did believe him. But I also hated him for doing it.
“So what did you lose, Heidi? You still need to find a journalism job. You never intended this to be permanent. What are you really crying about?”
I let out a slow breath. “I don’t know,” I muttered. I both hated and loved her for making me think about this stuff. “I had this idea in my head about playing house with him. An idea, by the way, that you put in my head.”
“My bad.”
“And now I have to move back in with my parents.”
“Okay, I’d be sobbing, too.”
There was a long silence as I digested what she’d said. Was I really that black and whit
e? That I had no compromise in me? That it had to be my way or the highway? I felt like I compromised on a lot of things. I’d gotten fired from my job for him, not that it was much of a job. Being a stringer at a newspaper was like being an Uber driver. I could show up for work when I wanted to and on my own terms. It was a job, certainly, but one where I worked only if I felt like it.
“I wanted someone to choose me.”
“Did you really want him to give up baseball for you?”
“Definitely not.” I sighed.
“Then maybe the person who has to choose you is you.”
I blinked, trying to sort through her words. “Come again?”
“Come on. Forget Rob, your parents, and all the pressures in your life. Imagine your perfect future. What do you see?”
“I don’t know!”
“Yes, you do. Really think. What do you want to be doing in five years? Ten?”
The answer spilled out. “I want to be like Rob. I want to have what he showed me back at spring break.”
“Hot sex?”
“No. Doing what he loves for a career.” I took a deep breath. “Even under the spotlight, even when the bases are loaded and it’s all on him, he loves baseball. Even when he sucks, he loves the game.”
“So? What do you love?”
Asking the tough questions.
My answer to Rob all those years ago echoed in my head. I loved asking the question that could make someone think, maybe even change his point of view. So what was that question for me?
“I’m going to be an investigative reporter,” I said, the decision feeling both absolutely right and absolutely terrifying.
“And how are you going to do that?”
“I’m going to finish that piece on Rob, for one. Then I’m going to use it to get my job back.”
“The crap one at the Indianapolis Sun?”
“Nope. A better one. One that will train me in what I want.”
“And what about Rob?” she asked.
I took a deep breath, steeling myself to say the words. “I’m walking away. Because I can’t be with him until I figure out me first.” Then I moaned. “But I was falling in love.” That was a lie. I’d not only fallen in love with Rob, I was completely drowning in it.
She sighed. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“I was thinking about our babies. Twins. A boy and a girl.”
“What were their names?”
“Sam and Samantha.” It was a joke, and it made us both laugh. It also told my best friend that I didn’t hate her for making me face reality. And she returned the favor by inviting me up to Chicago to sleep on her couch if I couldn’t face my parents.
By the time we’d said goodbye, I had a plan in place. Twenty minutes later, I was burning through the internet looking for Jill Sullivan. Ten minutes after that I was driving to Nebraska. Because I didn’t think this was a conversation I could do over the phone.
It took forever to get there and then find Jill. Thanks to my miniscule savings, I didn’t have to sleep in my car. But what really took work was getting the woman to talk to me. She was a high school counselor and had too much on her plate to want to spend time digging into old wounds with a reporter. Fortunately, I didn’t have to resort to anything unsavory to get her to open up. All I had to ask was one good question.
“What do you want people to know about your relationship with Rob Lee?”
In one second, her expression went from dismissive to downright furious. “You’ve been talking to my asshole brother, haven’t you?”
I gave her a casual shrug. “I might have had a beer and nachos with him.”
She had some choice words about her brother, but in the end gave me everything I needed. Our discussion was brief and enlightening. And she had a really good answer for me.
“Here’s what I want you to know about me and Rob. If he’d loved me, I would have married him in a shot. But his whole soul is taken up by baseball. He helped me out of a jam. I got pregnant by another guy who my parents hated. Rob covered for me, helped me through the adoption, and paid for my counseling. Thanks to him, I went on and found my dreams. So there’s never been a relationship between us and never will be. That man loves baseball, and no woman will come between him and the game. But he sure as hell will come through if you need help.”
Words that were like daggers into my heart, but they were true. And now I had my story. I wrote it at a rest stop in Illinois. I just didn’t know if I had the guts to risk everything by printing it.
Chapter Eighteen
Rob
I’d never played a worse game in my life. Not even in Little League, when I had growing pains in my legs so bad I could barely run. Heidi was in my brain and I couldn’t get her out. Not even to play baseball. And maybe it wasn’t just my brain that was filled with her. She’d settled in to my heart and soul, too, and that’s what scared me most. Because I’d blown it with her big time. But before I could fix the situation with her, I had to deal with Brittany and the media machine.
The game ended with a loss. I had to endure a lecture from Coach and worried looks from my teammates, but everyone had experienced a bad day and knew better than to pry. Nico tried, but I shot him a look so dark that he held up his hands and backed away.
One dragon down. The next came in the form of one hyperactive brunette. Gia bounced on her toes as she waited for me outside the locker room. She started speaking before I’d taken a single step through the doorway.
“I know you sucked today, but now’s the time to start turning that to your advantage. Brittany’s out front looking amazing. She’s all set to cheer you up.” She shoved a boxed corsage into my hand. “There’s media to take pictures as you pin this on her—”
“This isn’t a prom date, Gia.”
“I know, but—”
I pushed the corsage back into her hand. “I’ve got the flowers all taken care of.”
She blinked. “You do?”
I flashed what my agent, Marc, called my million-dollar smile. I thought of it more as charm with teeth. Either way, it made her blink. “I’ve got this covered, Gia. Promise.”
“But—”
“I look okay, right?” I’d dressed in casual style, every piece picked out by Marc as perfect for a hot date. In fact, he’d gotten the designer to give me it for free if I mentioned his name to the press.
“You look incredible,” Gia said. “Is that Brioni?” She reached out a hand to touch the leather jacket but didn’t dare connect.
“Yeah,” I said, human enough to preen. Two days ago, I hadn’t heard of the man’s name and now I had to drop it into casual conversation while the press was snapping pictures. Honestly, every thought I had as I adjusted the leather was that Heidi’s skin was softer and I really wanted to be touching her right then. “Let’s get this over with,” I said as I headed up to the owner’s box where Brittany would be waiting.
“Not the right attitude!” Gia said as she rushed to follow me.
I barely stopped myself from snorting. If she thought this was a bad attitude, she was not going to like what was coming next.
By the time we made it to the owner’s box, Gia was panting in her high heels. I paused a moment before pushing through the door to make sure every hair was smoothed down and my expression was appropriately mopey. Not a hard feat given how badly I felt about everything. Then right when Gia started to give me last-minute tips, I pushed open the door and tried not to flinch at the flash of cameras.
God, they were everywhere. Somehow Gia and Brittany had made this date into a publicity event. I saw a dozen reporters, a few important somebodies in suits—including Joe DeLuce—and of course, perfectly framed by the sunset view of the park was Brittany, looking just like the girl I’d thought I’d one day marry. Blond hair, blue eyes, freckles smoothed into nonexistence by smartly applied makeup, and a tasteful dress that emphasized ample cleavage.
I wanted none of it. Straight, dark hair captivated me and almond-shaped eyes
on smooth yellow-gold skin. I found Brittany overblown, especially when she pursed her lips as she came forward to give me an Obsession-scented hug.
“There you are. I’m so excited we finally get to spend an evening together.”
“Sorry about missing things earlier. You know how the season goes. I’m busy all the time.”
“I know,” she crooned. Then she angled her hips to the camera and tilted her head just right, so her hair spilled over her shoulder to tease at the edge of her cleavage. “You were at that children’s hospital on Monday and the cancer fundraiser right afterwards. And my goodness, don’t you look fabulous in this jacket.”
This was why Brittany was a media darling. She knew all the right publicity moves to make…even when greeting her date. And she looked gorgeous doing it.
“It’s a gift from Brioni. He’s a big Bobcats fan, and I just love his clothes.”
Brittany waxed poetic about the way the jacket fit my broad shoulders, blah blah blah. Then she made a sympathetic sound as she pursed her bow-shaped lips. “I’m so sorry about tonight’s game. I tried to help. Did you see me standing and watching?”
I had. Everyone had. And I was never more grateful to have to focus on a baseball and nothing else. It hadn’t worked, but I’d certainly tried.
“Yeah, about that…” I said as I put on my best sad puppy face. That’s what my mom called it and it had never worked with her, but the cameras were eating it up. “I’m just a simple Nebraska boy who loves baseball. All this fuss is overwhelming.”
“Oh you poor—”
“And you are just too beautiful for me.” That was bullshit, of course. She wasn’t beautiful at all in my mind. But social media liked having a story about me, so I was giving them something that I could live with.
“Don’t be silly.”
I did an “aw-shucks” shrug, and then continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “You are, Brittany. You’re just too much woman for me and it’s messing with my concentration.”
She shook her head. “But it didn’t in practice. And at the White Sox game—”
“You’re like holding a firecracker, Brittany. You burst so bright that I get mesmerized.” I knew there would be social media memes with her face and firecrackers going off behind her. “But I don’t want the team to get burned. Nothing is more important to me than playing my very best for the Bobcats.”