The information had haunted him, dragging him here for the last week, each night a waste, the security guards barely glancing his way by the third time he pulled up. But it’d been worth it. Because here she was and here he was and they were on, of all things, a baseball field. The perfect setting for this, a moment of privacy, a moment without Tobey Grant lurking around the corner, a moment without anything but the two of them.
She was as beautiful as the week before, but more so, the Ty of his dreams. The one in shorts and sneakers, her hair pulled back, no makeup on her face, a t-shirt clinging to her shape. He didn’t look for a ring, didn’t want to think of anything but the girl he knew. The one who had been as loyal as she’d been fierce. The one who had loved him with a passion and fire that had clawed at his barriers and punctured his walls. The only girl he’d ever imagined a future with. The woman he’d forgotten to get his heart back from, before he left.
“Easy,” he repeated. “You don’t want to kill the Yankee’s newest star.”
“Step forward again, and he’ll rip out your throat,” she called. Beside her, the dog snarled, his teeth bared, every muscle ready.
He stopped, holding up his hands, warily eyeing the German Shepard. “I surrender.” He surrendered everything to her. She’d destroyed him once before. And here, a fool three times over for nights wasted on this field, he could already smell his demise in the crisp night air. Just as before, she held all the power in those little hands. No longer a girl’s hands, they were older, wiser. A married woman’s hands. Ones that could crush him. Ones that could ruin him. Their time in that bathroom hadn’t shown him anything other than her weakness for his touch. He’d wasted that opportunity, going after low-hanging fruit and not the important things. Did she still love him? How could he have not asked that question? Would she leave Tobey? A scarier question, one that he was afraid to know the answer to.
She was loyal. He knew nothing if not that.
But would she be loyal to their love? It was a love that hadn’t been touched in the last four years. Or would she be loyal to her husband? That question, he was terrified of. That question he could barely form in his mind, much less off his lips.
“Platz,” she said, and every muscle in the dog’s body relaxed as he looked up at her with a disappointed expression, a low whine coming out. “Platz.” He laid down on the dirt, his eyes on Chase. She took one step forward and stopped. “What are you doing here?” Her voice was guarded but not angry.
“Are you alone?” Do you still love me? He couldn’t ask it. The words just wouldn’t leave his mouth.
“Yes.” Her eyes darted to the stands. “But there are security guards here. So don’t—”
“I’m not here for that.” And he wasn’t, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to pull her into his chest. To lay her onto the grass and make her whisper his name into the night.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Working out. My hotel’s gym sucks.” He tested the dog and stepped forward, smiling at her, the lie rolling convincingly out.
“Security can get you a key to the gym. It’s on the third floor. I can have them open it for you—” she stopped talking, his head shaking.
“I don’t want a gym. I like the field.” His fingers tightened on the ball and he forced his feet to stop moving, a few steps of separation between them. This close he could see her eyes. This close, he could almost smell her. This close, if she wanted to, she could crush him.
77
God, I love him. The truth that I’d run from every day of my new life smashed into me like a fastball into a mitt, stinging in its impact, radiating through my bones. I love him. Before, in my heels, wearing my ring, my husband standing beside me, it’d been easier to lie. To protect. But now, on our field, I felt naked, nothing between him and I but the truth. It wasn’t supposed to be this easy to destroy your life. There were supposed to be moments where you could divert, could pick new paths that would lead back to success. But in this, there was only one path, a giant vacuum that sucked me in, the end hitting my heart with a resounding thud that shook everything, down to my soul. I love him. Still. More. Impossible, yet true. Whatever asshole said that absence made the heart grow fonder was right. Before, I fell for him with a teenager’s love, bold and passionate, no real obstacles to overcome, no real consequences to consider. Now, the wind tickling past my legs, I could see the full path of destruction this would cause. I saw it, and in that moment, I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. There was right, there was wrong, and there was love. And love trumped it all.
I said nothing, my silence a waste of space on a blackboard crowded with possibilities. Take me from this life. I’ll always be yours. “Did you know I’d be here?”