“The All-Star break is coming up next week. I’m going to play tonight’s game, and tomorrow’s,” I cleared my throat. “Then I’ll have a few days to come.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable, Son,” Dad agreed. “I believe they might even transfer him again before then, so it’d be good to wait a few days to come out so we know where he’s headed next.”
I looked blankly at the long hallway, not seeing anything in particular.
“Love you, Pop.”
“Love you too, Son. Be good.”
The familiar saying made a small smile kick up the corner of my mouth, but just as quickly, it fell.
Dad used to say that to Hannibal and I, but he really was talking more to Hannibal than me. Hannibal and I were okay apart, but together we were atrocious. Though, most of that was because Hannibal was crazy.
Not crazy, crazy, but crazy as in he would do anything crazy.
“You better be okay, fucker,” I whispered a quiet prayer. “You better be okay.”
***
I walked into the dugout two minutes before game time.
I’d missed the national anthem. I’d missed the opening pitch that I normally caught. I also almost missed my kiss from Sway.
Though that was something I collected on despite the fact that the whole entire world was probably watching us.
At this point in the day, I was tired of everything. I was literally on the verge of a mental breakdown, and I needed my woman.
“You okay?” she asked once the kiss ended.
She ran her hand over my hair, then smoothed her soft fingers over my beard.
“No,” I told her truthfully. “I’m about as far from okay as a man can get right now.”
She closed her eyes, and then opened them. “He’ll be okay.”
He would.
That I knew.
The question was whether he would be the same.
“Ready to play ball, boys?” Coach Siggy bawled.
He looked at me specifically, and I nodded.
“Ready.”
We weren’t ready.
We sucked it up.
Bad.
Gentry hit three players. I missed the goddamned ball more often than I caught it. Rhys was fucking up and making errors right along with us, and we didn’t get a single hit the entire game.
“Good game,” the other team’s first baseman said as he collected the bat that was laying on the ground next to my feet.
I looked over at him, sweat dripping down my face and into my eyes.
“Yeah,” I lied.
He slapped me on the back. “How’s the kid?”
“Out of surgery. He’s alive…but they’re not sure if he’ll make it yet or not.”
“Fuckin’ A,” he murmured quietly. “Keep us updated, okay?”
I nodded once and watched him leave, wondering if the entire world was aware of what had happened to George only hours before the game.
But they were only aware of one part of the turmoil I was feeling right then, and hopefully, they would never be the wiser.
***
Four days later
I knew the minute I picked up the phone that something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
“Hello?” I answered, disrupting not just my sleep, but Sway’s and my dog’s as well.
“I know it’s late,” my dad’s voice broke into the quiet. “But we need to talk.”
“What?” I asked, sitting up. “Is Hans okay?”
My dad cleared his throat.
“There’s not an easy way to say this…but your brother isn’t the man we came to see. The man that we’ve been giving you updates on over the last week was a young man named Easton Monroe. He’s a part of your brother’s team…but he’s not your brother.”
“Then if he’s not there, and not one of the dead…where the hell is he?”
“That’s the problem.” My dad’s voice was tired. “We don’t know.”
Chapter 16
Mommy, when I grow up I want to be a total bitch like you.
-Hancock, Age 7
Hancock
“Listen,” I told our general manager. “I’m not playing in the game. I don’t want to. I’m not paid to play in the game. And it’s not in my contract that I am required to play the All-Star Game. So, you can kiss my ass. Find someone else to use.”
“This isn’t something where we can just find another player to use. This is something that you were voted into. It’s good exposure for our young team. This is fucking perfect,” Ernie continued as if I’d never spoken.
“Ernie,” I looked at him. “I’m not doing it. Got it?”
“Hancock…”
“Not. Doing. It.”
Ernie’s lips pursed. “Just think about it, okay?”
He left before I could refute his comment, and I turned to glare at the man’s back.
“I’m not doing it!” I bellowed.
“Can you turn down a position in an All-Star Game?” Sway’s quiet voice from behind me had me starting.
I turned to see her standing behind me, arms crossed and eyes studying me like I was an interesting bug.
She’d heard, and I wanted to groan.
Instead, I turned and studied her before speaking, my words tight and clipped.
“I just did,” I pointed out the obvious, my words angrier than I’d intended them to come out. “Did you not notice?”
Her lips pursed.
“Getting mad and throwing attitude at me isn’t the way to go about doing this. I know you’re hurt. I know you’re scared. And I know you’re not meaning to, but you need to seriously stop acting like an ass to everyone. It’s not good for your team, and frankly, I don’t like it. You’re not you.” Sway’s arms crossed over her chest.
My eyes narrowed.
“You don’t like it?” I snapped.
She shook her head.
“You’ve got nothing to do with this. You don’t know my brother. You don’t even know me all that well,” I growled, the words falling from my lips before I could stop them. “So maybe I should just take my bad attitude and stay the fuck away from the people who don’t like listening to me.”
Her mouth dropped open, and her face paled.
But I’d already gone too far, and I wasn’t in the mood to apologize, even though it was obvious that I was acting like an ass, and she was only trying to help.
Regardless, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t apologize.
My head wasn’t on straight.
My mind was in the fucking clouds as I thought about where my brother could be. Whether he was okay. Wondering if I would ever see him again.
It was literally all I could think about over the last couple of days, and I didn’t see it getting any better. Not until I had some fucking answers.
Answers that I intended to get tonight when I spoke with Corvallis.
Corvallis, who’d reluctantly taken the meeting with me.
Lucky for me, and unlucky for him, he had business in the city to attend to.
He’d, of course, tried to get out of it, claiming a busy schedule.
I’d pulled the godson card, though, and he’d had no choice but to meet with me.
I was sure he was going to try to beat around the bush when it came to Hannibal’s whereabouts—because there was not a single doubt in my mind that he knew exactly where he was—but I wasn’t going to let him.
I was going to leave that place with the knowledge of where my brother was, and I wasn’t going to let him play me.
He knew something, and I was damn sure going to find out.
“That was kind of harsh,” Gentry drawled. “She was telling the truth, you know.”
I turned my head to glare at Gentry.
“Fuck you.”
His brows rose.
“You just told the girl you were falling in love with to leave you the fuck alone,”
Gentry pointed out.
I glared at him.
“I most certainly did not say that,” I countered.
Not in so many words, anyway.
“And I’m not in love with her.”
Gentry’s brows rose even higher.
“You’re so full of shit I can see it coming out of your ears.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the locker that was directly beside mine. “And your fucking face is telling me something completely different than your words.”
I sighed.
“I’m not in the mood, Gentry.”
“You better get in the mood, or you’re going to lose one of the best things you’ve ever had in your life—and that’s saying something since you’re currently making forty-two million dollars over a five-year period,” Gentry argued.
I shrugged my shoulders and brought my hand to my face.
“I can’t fucking think straight.”
Gentry continued to stay silent, and I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“I fucking love her, okay?” I growled. “Stop it.”
Gentry chuckled.
“Your brother’s gonna love her.”
If my brother came back was left unsaid, but we were both thinking it.
“When’s your meeting with Corvallis?”
“How did you know about my meeting with Corvallis?” I questioned, picking up my glove—which had miraculously turned back up after the last game.
“I overheard you speaking with him outside of Sway’s office,” Gentry answered, picking up his own glove.
We were headed out to toss the ball around—something that I hadn’t intended to do. Not until after the All-Star break, anyway. We only had one week off—well, four days and five nights—and I usually used this time as a breather for the rest of the season. In the years since I’d been playing professionally, I’d never once picked up a baseball or my glove, but this time I needed the release. Needed the freedom it would allow my mind as I did something meaningless like tossing the ball around with my best friend.
Tossing the ball around was a stress reliever for me, and Gentry knew it.
“I haven’t had my meeting with Corvallis,” I grumbled. “Later this afternoon, actually.”
“Didn’t I hear you tell Sway and her friend, Ember, that you would go to dinner with them tonight?” Gentry asked as he tucked his glove underneath his arm.
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“Hmmm,” Gentry hummed, leading the way out to the field.
We didn’t practice on the same field that we played on. The field we played our games on was off limits, even to the players, during off time such as now.
Which was why we headed in the opposite direction we usually took, which led us straight past Sway’s office.
The moment I was close enough to her door, I could hear her talking.
“No, I’m going to have to cancel on you tonight. I’m not feeling well.”
My mouth thinned as I turned the corner into Sway’s office, easily slipping the phone from underneath her hand and placing it against my ear.
“Sway’s lying. We can’t go because my Godfather is in town, but I want to reschedule.” I declared. “I was being an asshole, and she’s mad at me.”
“Ooookay,” Ember drawled. “If you change your mind, we’re gonna go to Peter Pan’s.”
Peter Pan’s was a new pub in the heart of downtown Longview, and something that I’d been looking forward to trying.
What I was not looking forward to dealing with, however, was the angry look in Sway’s eyes.
“Thanks. Bye,” I murmured, tucking the phone into my shorts pocket.
My eyes automatically found Sway’s angry ones, and it took everything I had not to laugh at her.
“I’m sorry,” I told her bluntly. “I’ve been acting an ass, and I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”
Her face automatically softened.
“It’s okay,” she lied.
“No, it’s not,” I grumbled. “But it is what it is. I’m going to try really hard to stop being a jerk, but it’s likely that I’m still going to be pretty pissy until I find him.”
Sway’s eyes showed every single emotion that powered through her mind, and I could concur with a few of them. The feeling of the unknown wasn’t the best thing in life to deal with, especially when it came to my brother.
“Where are you going?” She touched the glove with a single finger, and I licked my lips.
“We’re headed out to the practice field to toss the ball around. Do you want to join us?”
Her eyes widened.
“I literally suck at baseball.”
A grin tipped up the corner of my mouth.
“Don’t worry. You have the best pitcher and the best catcher in the league showing you the ropes.”
Twenty minutes later found us staring at Sway in horror.
“You can’t step out of the way of the ball,” I told her. “Otherwise it’ll throw off your entire trajectory.”
“But if I don’t move out of the way, I might miss the ball, or it might hit me in the face,” Sway countered.
“But how do you know if you don’t even try?” Gentry asked. “You’ve done that the entire time we’ve been out here!”
Sway tossed a glare at him.
“I’ll have you know, Gentry, that I’ve not dropped a ball yet. Can you say the same?”
I choked on the water I was drinking and stopped long enough to let a bellow of laughter out.
“That was because Mr. Handsy over there shoved his hands down your pants right in front of me,” Gentry challenged. “How do you expect me to catch a ball when he’s busy feeling you up?”
Sway’s eye twitched.
“He wasn’t doing anything in my pants,” Sway said. “He was fixing my belt!”
Gentry’s brow rose.
“Yeah…” he rumbled. “And he needed to stick his hands down, not just your pants, but into your underwear, to do it?”
Sway sighed.
“Shut up,” Sway grumbled, her face going beet red as she did.
I grinned at their back and forth.
“What time do you have to leave?” Gentry changed the subject, turning to me. “It’s already four. When are you meeting Corvallis?”
“Corvallis?” Sway asked in surprise. “Your godfather?”
I shot Gentry a glare.
“He’s going to hopefully give me some information about Hannibal,” I told her evasively.
Sway stared at me.
“You’re meeting him before we go out to dinner.” she stated.
I nodded my head.
“Yeah,” I looked at the watch on my wrist. “He’s supposed to come here, though.”
“Hmmm,” she murmured. “Do you mind if I sit in on this meeting? I’d like to meet him.”
I tossed another glare in Gentry’s direction.
“Catch,” I told her, tossing the ball high and slow.
She, of course, moved out of the way and then caught it, firing off the ball right back at me like a fuckin’ pro.
At least she could throw. She still needed a lot of work on catching.
“Nice,” I caught it and tossed it in Gentry’s direction.
We were in a triangle, and Gentry and Sway were close, while I was fairly far away.
Once I caught the ball that Gentry threw back at me, with less heat than I was used to from him, I threw it high and slow to Sway.
We did this for about ten more minutes in silence before someone interrupted us.
“This her?”
I turned to find Corvallis, or better known as Leslie, my godfather, staring at Sway with accusation.
Sway wasn’t one to back down, though, and she caught the ball Gentry let slip through his fingers.
“Are you Leslie right now, or Corvallis?” I asked him.
There was a difference between the two men.
; Corvallis was the ex-military badass that obeyed orders. He had the United States of America’s best interest at heart.
Leslie was my godfather. He gave me what I wanted, when I wanted it. He had my best interests at heart. Hannibal’s best interests at heart.
Leslie sighed and turned to me, dismissing Sway.
“You know exactly who I am, boy,” Leslie countered. “I just wanted you to introduce your woman to me.”
He said ‘your woman’ like it was something dirty.
Sway froze where she was walking toward us and frowned hard at Leslie.
Gentry caught up to her and placed a hand on her arm briefly, and jealousy surged in my gut at the thought of my best friend touching her. I knew in my heart that he would never do anything inappropriate with her, but my head and my heart weren’t always in sync, and sometimes illogical thoughts made their way into my mind.
“How about we go talk for a minute. Sway, why don’t you go inside and give me a few minutes with my godfather,” I ordered, gesturing to the side entrance to the building that we’d exited from half an hour before.
Sway pursed her lips, but she chose not to argue.
Instead, she followed closely behind Gentry as she walked inside, giving Leslie a wide berth.
The moment the doors closed on them, I turned my glare on him.
“What the fuck, Leslie?” I barked.
Leslie winced.
“I’ve had a bad day,” he tried to excuse his actions.
I waved my hand in the air.
“Sway isn’t one of your men. She isn’t me, and she isn’t Hannibal. She also isn’t dad. She’s a woman. You have to treat her as such. She’s delicate and doesn’t know that you’re a dickhead at heart,” I snapped.
Leslie’s mouth twitched.
“She’s cute,” he observed.
She was cute.
Exceptionally so.
I also knew she’d be sexy as hell in a gown at the end-of-the- season awards banquet that I planned to take her to in a few months.
I also couldn’t wait to peel that dress off her supple body and devour her afterwards.
“I realize that sometimes you can’t help it, but how about you start off on the right foot here. She’s it,” I informed him bluntly.
“She’s it?” he looked startled.
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