by K. Bromberg
He blocks my path and I stride around him but not before he reaches out to grab my bicep. My opposing arm is cocked back in a second—fist ready to fly. My temper is sick of being tested.
He doesn’t flinch, even though so much of me needs to get a reaction out of him. Instead he just holds my stare for a beat before looking at my fist and then back to my eyes with a lift of his brows. “Please tell me you weren’t just royally fucked over by your physical therapist because of some kind of lover scorned bullshit.”
I lower my arm slowly and scrub my hand over my face, but I don’t answer.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks with a disbelieving laugh as I turn my back to him and stare at a photo of my dad and me, both in our Aces jerseys, on the last day we shared the field together before he retired. Finn groans, and I can follow him pacing by the sound of it. “What happened? Did you have your fun and then were done with her while she was hoping for somewhere over the goddamn rainbow with you?”
“Not exactly.” The vision of her standing in my bedroom, shoving a curling iron into her bag with those sexy shoes on, and that shy smile on her lips that shocked to an O when I asked her to move in with me, fills my mind.
“Then what? Throw me a goddamn bone, East, so I know what I’m working with here.”
“Drop it.”
“No. I won’t drop it,” he says, getting in my face and ripping the bottle from my hand. “This is my job. To get to the bottom of shit so I can figure out the next step while you get on the field wherever the hell they’re going to send you. That’s how this goes. So what the fuck happened here, Easton, because I need to know where to start.”
Jaw clenched, I shake my head, not willing to admit defeat out loud. I can see the wheels of his mind turning, figuring, assuming. He takes another guess.
“She told you she loved you, and you said no fucking way and so this was her way of getting back at you not wanting to commit to anyone?”
My pride wars with the necessity to tell him the truth I’d rather not admit. “Actually, quite the opposite.” My voice is a whisper but the widening of his eyes and surprise in his expression tells me he heard me loud and clear.
“Ah shit,” he says in sympathy.
“Yeah,” I say as I shrug my shoulders and walk away from him. “Lost my team and got fucked over by my girl all in the same day, so let me be and give me my bottle back, will ya?”
“I’m sorry, man. That’s fucking rough.” He hands me the bottle and falls quiet, thinking so hard I swear I can almost hear it. Then again, that may be the Jameson talking. “It still doesn’t make sense though. If you’re not one hundred percent and reinstated, then Dalton’s Physical Therapy doesn’t get the contract . . . so unless those terms changed, she fucked herself too.”
“Exactly,” I say in a frustrated growl. “That’s why I’m at a loss.”
“There’s one way to find out.” He points to where my cell sits.
“I don’t want to fucking talk to her right now.” I struggle with believing myself.
“Rip the Band-Aid off. It’s easier knowing than wondering.”
“No.” I’m adamant. Or at least my tone is because fuck if I don’t want to tear into her and pull her close all at the same time.
That has to be the alcohol talking.
“I’ll give you tonight, but we’re going to need answers from someone since God knows I won’t trust a damn word coming out of Tillman’s mouth in the morning.”
I grunt in response.
“We can talk tomorrow before I head into the meeting.” He takes a few steps. “You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna go a few more rounds with the machine.” And even that doesn’t seem like an escape anymore.
“Okay. I’ll send over some food in a bit.” He looks at his watch and then back to me. “I’ll try to time it after the ballpark lights are out.”
He knows. Understands. And doesn’t think I’m stupid for it.
“Thanks, Finn.”
“Get some rest.”
I watch the elevator doors close behind him and drain the rest of the bottle. My hands hurt like a motherfucker but I walk to the cage anyway. This kind of pain I can deal with.
I’m used to it.
“It’s gotta be the fucking papers.” Finn’s voice startles me just as I pick up a new bat to check it for splinters. “They have to be the catch.”
“What?”
“I knew Tillman was pulling a fast one. I knew it in my gut when I got that addendum you signed. I wanted to go to Boseman and you told me to drop it . . . but, East, I think that’s the key.”
“What?” Speak English, please.
He strides across the space with a purpose that tells me he’s figured something out, but there’s not much to get excited about even if he has. I’m still traded. Still removed from my life here. “I need you to think hard about this,” he says, voice serious, eyes intense, and all I give him in response is a chuckle.
“The bottle’s empty.” I throw it up and it lands with a thud onto the turf. “You think I can remember shit, right now?”
“I’m fucking serious, E. When you got hurt, you told me you signed papers. The club sent copies to me. It was a two-page doc with your signature in agreement on the second page.”
“Not this shit again,” I groan. “We’ve already beat that horse to death, Finn. I fucked up. I signed on the dotted line, and now I’m paying the goddamn consequences for it.”
“That’s exactly right. You signed on the dotted line. But how many dotted lines were there? You’ve always called them papers—plural—and I just assumed you meant the two papers I received . . . but it just hit me . . . the way Scout said ‘the papers’ like they were the be-all and end-all. Do you remember how many times you signed your name?”
My head is spinning—from the Jameson and from what he just asked. I think back and all I remember is pain, blacking out from it, and then coming to in the locker room with papers in front of me, a pen shoved in my hand, and blank spots in my vision. “Fuck, Finn . . .”
“It’s important, Easton.”
The words on the pages blurred. My need for the OxyContin to dull the pain surpassed the need to understand them.
“Two . . . maybe three . . . but two for sure.”
“Goddamnit!” He smacks his hands together and the sound echoes around the room. “Tillman’s stink is all over this. He pulled something over on you. I know it. I’ll bet your ass Scout saw it.”
“And you weren’t there.” The words are accusatory although he’s already explained why. I’m so sick of excuses when my world’s been turned upside down by first a dirty play and now what looks like a dirty deal.
“I’ll make this right,” he says, but I stare at him, knowing he can’t. “If you won’t talk to Scout, I will.”
“Do whatever you want. It’s not going to change a thing,” I mumble.
“But I’ll have ammunition when I go in there tomorrow instead of an empty barrel.” He pulls out his phone. “What’s her address?”
“Can you just go?”
“Yeah. Sure. I’m on the right track. I can feel it. I’ll talk to her, East, and get to the bottom of this.” His smile fades like I should be as excited as he is that he figured this out. But I’m not.
I’m fucking devastated.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes, and I shove that shit away as fast as I can because it’s not worth crying over.
Women come and go.
Teams are teams. I can still play ball anywhere.
But it’s not just some woman. It’s Scout. The one who gets me.
And it’s not just a team. It’s the Aces. The one whose blood I’ve bled since before I was born.
What the fuck is happening?
I’m sorry, Scout. He’s not accepting any visitors at this time.
It’s the same response I got when I rushed over here after leaving the meeting and the same one I’ve continued to get each and every
time I’ve attempted to gain access to the building.
The look on Easton’s face continues to haunt my certainty as I stand across the street and watch Alec, the doorman of Easton’s building, man his post. The same man, who just this morning joked with me as I left for the stadium, is now turning people away left and right. Reporters. Teammates. Me.
I glance at my cell again just in case Easton has texted me back. I know he hasn’t because it’s been gripped in my hand, but I look anyway.
It has rung numerous times though. Calls from Finn wanting answers. Calls from reporters trying to get to Easton. A call from Tino asking me what the hell happened. Calls from everybody I don’t want and not the one person I do.
So I’ve resorted to this—sitting in the dark across the street from his building with a nauseated stomach, salt from my tears dried on my cheeks, and hope waning—while I wait for Alec’s shift to end and Simon’s to begin.
Each second feels like an hour. Every thought is only exacerbated in doubt and dragged through the mud of my feelings as I wait to see Easton. Explain to him. Beg him to forgive me. Because the longer I sit here, the more I question everything: if I saw what I think I saw, if I made the right decision, how I couldn’t have realized earlier that I love him.
Because, yes, I love him.
His megawatt smile and loudly sweet gestures. The way he has to have coffee in the morning before he’s even remotely tolerable and how he hates for his food to touch on his plate. The way he loves his mom and respects his dad despite everything they’ve put him through. The way he seems to know exactly what I need, when I need it, even when I don’t know myself. Our dance in the country bar. Our venture to play with rescue dogs. A picnic on a baseball field.
And of course, with my realization is the choking panic that hits. And not because I’m afraid he’ll leave me, but because I just made sure of it . . . when I didn’t even know it.
Nothing like a little dose of reality to make things clear.
Desperate for a connection with Easton, I check my phone again. Nothing. But when I look back up, Alec is giving Simon a quick recap at the door before walking down the sidewalk opposite of me, hopping in his car, and driving away.
It’s now or never, Scout.
Clear mind.
Open heart.
It’s the only way I can fix this.
I step out onto the sidewalk and run smack dab into the sushi delivery guy I’ve come to know quite well from staying at Easton’s. “Riku!”
“Ms. Scout,” he says in broken English as he tries to rebalance his delivery load I knocked off kilter.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—I’m just—are you okay?” I stumble over words while trying to help him steady his packages.
“Yes. So sorry. I wasn’t watching. Such a busy night. So many deliveries,” he explains.
“It looks like it.” I smile tightly, wanting to be cordial but really needing to get to Easton. My brain is so frazzled but . . . “Is this Mr. Wylder’s? I’m heading up there right now and can deliver it for you.”
“Yes,” he says with an eager nod but then his smile fades. “But my father be very mad if I don’t make sure—”
“We won’t tell him,” I say as I pull a twenty out of my wallet and stuff it into his pocket. “There’s your tip, just tell me which bag is his.”
“You sure you don’t mind bring it to him?” He warms up to the idea, and I’m sure the twenty-dollar tip doesn’t hurt either.
“Of course not. I was just heading up there anyway so why not help you out.”
He eyes me again, the fear of getting in trouble from his father warring against getting his other orders delivered quicker meaning bigger tips. I can see the minute the latter wins. “Thank you so much.” He hands me a bag full of stacked Styrofoam containers.
“My pleasure.”
With a huge sigh I watch Riku hurry down the sidewalk before jogging across the street to approach Simon.
“Hey, Simon, sushi delivery for Easton.” I hold the bag up with the familiar restaurant’s name on it.
Reporters call my name as he looks at me wearily, making me wonder if Alec told him not to allow any visitors to Easton’s as he should have. “I need to call him and check first,” he says, bringing his phone to his ear.
My smile remains while I slowly die inside knowing this isn’t going to work.
“Mr. Wylder, this is Simon at the front . . . Sorry to bug you, sir, but I just wanted to make sure you ordered some sushi for delivery . . . okay.” Simon eyes a few people across the street with cameras and nods his head. “Yes. I’ll make sure . . . You’re welcome.”
I swallow down the nerves slowly closing up my throat as I wait for him to hang up and tell me to leave the food with him instead of delivering it myself.
“He got screwed,” Simon says with a shake of his head as he pushes open the door and lets me enter the building.
“He sure did,” I murmur as I rush past him.
If I thought I was nervous before—thinking and overthinking what I would say, how I would say it, what not to forget to say—I’m a wreck now as the elevator slowly ascends floor by floor to Easton’s place.
The elevator dings.
The doors open.
The condo is bathed in darkness except for the front light much like it was the first time Easton brought me here. The memories of that night—our first time together—flash through my mind, but this time the butterflies are over so much more than the possibility of first-time sex.
This time they’re over possibly losing him.
“Thanks, Riku. Just put it on the table. Your tip’s there.” His voice is a deep rumble from the darkness, and the grief mixed with alcohol slurring it breaks my heart.
I freeze. Plans and rehearsed speeches go out the window because now I have to face him, and I don’t know what to do.
“Riku? Is everyth—” Easton says seconds before he steps into the foyer, the words dying on his lips when he sees me.
He looks like hell. And gorgeous. All at the same time. His hair is a mess, his face is etched in stress, his jaw a shadow of stubble, his chest bare, and he’s still in his baseball pants but they’re unbuttoned at the waist. But it’s his eyes that devastate me. Yes, they’re glossed over from drinking, but it’s the flash of hurt I catch before it’s cleared and replaced with anger.
Unsettled and uncertain what to say, I hold up the bag of food for him to see. He glances to it and then back to me for a brief second before turning on his heel and walking back into the darkness. “I’m not hungry.”
“Easton.” His name is a desperate plea.
“If I wanted to talk to you, I would have called you back. But I didn’t, and I still don’t. You know where the door is.”
My stomach drops to my feet as he disappears from my sight. Momentarily stunned, I don’t move as that ridiculous fantasy I may have been making up in my head—the one where he’d need me so much he’d pull me into him and all would be okay—incinerates with the ice in his tone.
I scramble after him, desperation in my voice and fear of screwing this up in my heart. “They were going to get rid of you.”
“Well, you made sure of that. Save your dignity, Scout, and just go. There’s nothing left to say . . . your actions, your lies, said it all.”
“No. Please. Listen.”
“To what?” He turns around to face me, but he’s a silhouette of dark against the night sky with the wall of windows at his back. “You want me to listen to how you fucked me over? My career? My family? How you made for damn fucking sure that you didn’t have to be afraid of me leaving so you did it for me? After everything we’ve worked for? Really? Were you so fucking spooked you had me traded?” The anger in his voice has nothing on the distress tingeing its tone. His words cut deep and are devastating.
He thinks I was spooked?
“You really think that? That I’m so selfish, so spineless, that I’d purposely get you traded for my own
benefit?”
“Nothing surprises me today. Not in the fucking least. Well, except for the ‘you’ve been traded part’ . . . now, that sure as shit shocked the hell out of me.”
“Easton, it’s not like—”
“Did you lie?” There’s grit in his voice as if it pains him to confirm what he already knows. I open my mouth and then close it, the admission so very hard to make now that I’m standing before the person facing the consequences of my actions.
When he steps forward, his face partially in the light, shadows still dominating the rest, and meets my eyes across the space, the words on my lips die an undignified death. “Just tell me one thing, Scout. Did you know you were going to lie when you kissed me goodbye? Was it all planned? Were you hoping the trade would be one of those sudden ‘grab your bags, your flight’s about to leave to take you to your new team’ so you wouldn’t have to see me again and face what you did? Take a good look, sweetheart, because this is what it looks like.” He takes another step forward so his face is bathed in the light. “This is what getting fucked over by someone you trusted looks like. It ain’t pretty, is it? So thanks for your concern, but I know it’s only so you can ease your guilt. Don’t think I’m going to help you with that because I’m the one left living with what you did.”
“I know, and that’s why I’ve been trying to get hold of you so I could explain,” I yell as I step forward, but the glare he shoots me warns me to stay where I am. “Finn wasn’t there and then—”
“I’ve never asked someone to move in with me.” His voice is soft and pained and the sudden change in it from his shouting seconds before sucks all the air out of the room.
“That’s not why I—”
“Then spit it out.”
“The papers—”
“I knew you were going to run or push me away and—”
“That’s not—”
“And you made damn sure it was push me away so you’d get the goddamn contract.”
“No! Just listen to—”
“Get out!”
“No.”
“We’re done.”
“I’m in love with you!”