“Must make a social life hard.”
I turned and looked at him. “It’s the same schedule you’ve been on for three years. Doesn’t look like it’s cramped your style any.”
“I’m not a teenage girl. Don’t you guys have sleepovers and—”
“—pillow fights?” I cut him off. “No.” I reconsidered the question. “At least I don’t. Friends aren’t something I have a lot of.” Any of.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Lack of options?” I didn’t look at him. “No one else travels with the team except a few wives. And I’m home schooled so…” I lifted a shoulder. “My dad and I are close. And the guys on the team keep me company.”
“No boyfriend?”
I risked a look at him. The darkness shielded most of his face, dim hints of his beauty peeking out at me. But I could see him looking back at me, the eye contact I was so scared of right there, his face expectant, his question hanging in the dark.
“I don’t think you can ask me that.”
“Why?”
I stuffed another Starburst in my mouth. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” I rushed out the words, the response barely audible through the candy, my cheeks burning.
If I expected a response, I was disappointed. He tilted back his Gatorade and took a long sip. I tried to think of something, a change in subject, but couldn’t find a single question that didn’t border on inappropriate.
He broke the silence. “I hate traveling.” He screwed the lid on the bottle and flipped it into the air, catching it with one hand. “Why don’t you stay home? Be a normal teenager?”
I set down my candy and tucked my hands under my thighs, swinging out my feet. “Dad tries every year to keep me home. He doesn’t succeed.”
“Most wouldn’t give their daughter a choice.”
“I think he just wants to make sure that I really want to be here. He argues, I fight back…” I shrugged. “Then the next season starts, and I’m back on the bus.”
“But this is your last season, right?”
I turned to him, one eyebrow raised.
“Someone said you were seventeen,” he explained. “I figured you were a senior.”
I nodded slowly. “I am.”
“So … what will you do after you graduate?”
I turned my head and met his eyes. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“None of the ones I want.” His reply was so quick that it caught us both off guard, his eyes moving away, head dropping, his teeth catching his bottom lip and holding it in place.
“So ask.” I suddenly felt bold, his hand near mine, gripping the edge of the dock, those strong fingers, that home-run-hitting arm tight as he rested his weight on it.
“Nah. Not now.” He smiled, as if in apology, and lifted his chin at me. “Ask me something.”
“Why did you sleep with Davis’s wife?”
It was a wildly inappropriate question—one I almost took back, the words hanging uncomfortably between us.
“Wow.” He rubbed his cheek. “You really dove in there.”
“You don’t have to answer it.” But I wanted him to. I wanted to know how someone could be so incredibly stupid.
“She was there. I was bored.”
I shifted uneasily. “Please tell me that’s not the sugarcoated answer.”
“It’s the truth. I’m a man. Self-control isn’t exactly my strong suit.”
“So … you didn’t love her?” I heard the way the question came out. Na?ve. Young. I know people fuck without love. I’d seen, in ten years around players, a lot of stupid decisions. But, I still needed to ask, needed to know what kind of man sat beside me.
He laughed, hard and cruel. “Love her? No. I’m not entirely sure I even liked her.”
I wondered how Davis’s wife had felt about him. If she’d been the same, their sex just some lust-filled side project that had gone wrong. Or if he’d poured on false promises, wooing and abandoning her with one easy signature on the trade contract. I wondered if she was heartbroken and crying, all while I giggled at him in a hotel hallway and felt special because he’d given me seventy-five cents for a candy bar.
I was suddenly angry with myself and pushed to my feet, my cheeks burning.
“You’re mad?” He looked up at me, the moonlight on his face, his expression wary. “Oh.” He barked out a laugh. “You wanted the bullshit response I gave the press? You want me to be remorseful and blame it on alcohol or drugs?” I moved to leave, and his hand grabbed my bicep, and then he was standing.
“I knew what I was doing,” he said, low and close to my ear. “I knew the risks. I didn’t care. And look.” He let go of me, holding his hands out from his body. “Look at what I got. A spot on the Yankee roster. Not bad.”