“We need time to consider where your contract falls into play after this unexpected turn of events. Let’s reconvene tomorrow morning at eight, after I’ve conferred with my colleagues.”
Numb.
That’s all I felt during Cory’s hour-long inquisition on why Easton wasn’t at one hundred percent. Lies. My responses were all lies but they were the only things I could say to support my findings.
Empty.
Throwing up in the bathroom. The nerves finally winning. My struggle to hold on instead of upending the lunch I’d shared with Easton earlier onto the conference table.
Bone-tired.
Rushing through the maze of hallways in the stadium. Somewhere above the mass of concrete a game plays on. Little boys with their dads. Families on an outing together. First dates. Happy times.
The game he was supposed to make his return in.
All I can think about is Easton.
Getting to him.
Talking to him.
Needing his approval that I did the right thing.
I push redial again. His name flashes on the screen but it’s his voicemail that answers. Not him.
I thought I was going to turn our lives upside down today but in a totally different way. He’d be traveling with the team on road trips. I’d be here rehabbing the injured guys. The everyday routine we’d gotten used to would be thrown up in the air and turned around. We’d have to figure out a new norm, but at least we’d be in the same place, working for the same team.
Not in a million years did I imagine we’d be doing this from different cities.
I’m startled by the bright sunlight when I emerge from the tunnels out to the gated parking lot for the players and staff. I’m so exhausted, so disoriented emotionally, that it feels like it should be midnight. Just as I reach my car, my phone rings. Desperate to speak with him, I answer without looking. “Easton!” His name is a rush of air.
“What the hell happened in there, Scout?”
He knows.
“Dad.” Every part of me sags in defeat. While my dad is the one person I should be worried about the most, I’ve been furiously dialing Easton instead of calling him to explain what happened.
“I’m hearing rumors. What the hell happened in there?”
My feet and words falter knowing I have to tell him I’m not exactly sure. It feels surreal to me.
“It’s a long story,” I begin as I climb into my car and continue to tell him the short version of it, knowing how damn ridiculous it sounds even to my own ears.
When I finish, the line falls into an oppressive silence that weighs as heavy on me as the Austin heat beating through the windshield of my car.
“I’m disappointed.” His deep baritone rumbles through the line followed by the frail wheeze of his breath.
Strength covering the devastating weakness beneath.
Kind of like how I feel.
“I did what I thought was right.” My voice is barely a whisper when I speak, and tears threaten after hearing those two words every child hates hearing their parent say, I’m disappointed.
“What was right, though?” he asks. “Right for you or right for Easton?”
“Dad—”
“People—men especially—will come and go in your life but family will always be there. You need to take care of what’s yours first. Always.”
The sting of his words is brutal and right now I hate him for them. I hate him for making me question what I did. For questioning my loyalty to both men in my life.
My stomach heaves, but I don’t say a word.
“Lying is one of the quickest ways to ruin a relationship,” he says and has no clue how much those words squeeze my heart since I fear I just ruined two relationships. Easton’s and mine with the Aces.
“It’s not what—”
“I asked you for one thing, Scout. Don’t call me back until you tell me you’ve done it.”
“What?” I screech as the panic sets in. “Wait! Don’t hang up. How? I mean—what am I sup—?”
“You go back in there tomorrow and you get the damn contract. You fight for what’s ours and you don’t let them push you around,” he says with conviction before being overcome by a violent coughing fit.
“Are you ok—?”
“You mixed business with pleasure, Scout. You risked the contract by letting your emotions get in the way. Fix this and secure next year’s contract. Don’t call me until you have.”
The line goes silent and I’m left sitting in my car with my phone to my ear, tears streaming down my face, and doubt owning my soul. I have no clue how to process the last two hours.
Did I really just jeopardize fulfilling my dad’s last wish by putting Easton before him?
“What did I do?” I whisper as I squeeze my eyes closed and drop my head back on the headrest to try and shut everything out for a few minutes. It’s futile. The look on Easton’s face when he barged into the conference room and the echo of my dad’s words in my ears are etched in my mind.
And if rumors are already flying, I need to get to Easton and explain to him the what and the why before the wrong information gets to him. The adrenaline of the moment has worn off. It’s given way to the fear that I royally screwed everything up and no one’s going to forgive me.
Get it together, Scout.
A knock on my driver’s side window scares the shit out of me. I snap my head up and stare at the man standing there—crisp white shirt and tie, mouth set in a straight line, serious brown eyes that demand answers—bent over at the waist telling me with hand motions to roll the window down.
“Who are you?” I shout through the glass as I halfheartedly shove the tears off my cheeks.
“Open the damn window. You better start explaining what the hell happened in there,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Excuse me?” There’s no way I’m opening the window to this jerk.
He steps back from the window, hands up as if he’s just realized how threatening he appears, and he shoves them in his pockets. “Security guard is right there,” he says with a lift of his chin to where Arnie is watching us from the guard’s booth. I glance to make sure he’s there and then back to the man demanding answers and slowly open my car door, because I know it has to do with Easton.
It seems that everything does these days.
The hairs on my neck stand on end—my guard up, a steel gate of unknown—as I exit my car to meet him glare for glare. My synapses misfire as I try to connect thoughts and place him.
“You’re no Dalton.” He shakes his head. “You told Easton he was good, and then I get a call that he’s been traded? Are you fucking kidding me? Doc always protected his players at any cost. You sure as hell don’t. What kind of game are you playing?”
The fuck you on the tip of my tongue dies with the punch of his insult to my solar plexus. “Finn?” Easton’s agent glares as he nods. “Why weren’t you there?”
It’s a simple question but the man I wished for an hour ago to help me make sense of the papers I’d seen is now in front of me. I don’t trust him. He should have been there. He should have never allowed Easton to sign what I saw. A good agent protects their client by any means necessary.
“That’s a good question.”
I take a step back. “And what does that mean?”
He didn’t answer me.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened in there, Scout?”
Was he a part of this?
“There were papers . . .” I begin but stop. My pulse pounds in my ears.
Did he know?
“What papers?” he urges.
Paranoia takes over. Tears burn the back of my eyes as I question my own sanity. Why don’t I trust the one person I should be able to when it comes to Easton?
But he wasn’t there.
“I need to talk to Easton.” It’s the only thing I have left to say. I stare at him for a beat—more time wasted that needs to be spent finding Easton.
“There’s no time. I need answers now. I’m his agent, Scout. You can trust me.”
I think of the papers. The scrawled signature that agreed to such ludicrous terms. Any agent who tells their client to sign something like that shouldn’t be trusted.
“Trust you?” I laugh with a shake of my head.
He glares, fists clenched, and muscle pulsing in his jaw. “What happened in that room, Dalton?” he demands and takes a step closer, frustration evident and posture threatening.
“If you had been here, you’d already know and then maybe we wouldn’t be in this position, would we?” I grit out before turning and getting into my car. My hands are trembling so violently I’m glad I have the steering wheel to hold on to.
He’s still staring at me as I pull out of the gated lot on my way to Easton’s. I weave through the stadium parking lot filled with tailgaters finishing up their cocktails before heading in to watch the game already several innings over.
The tears stain my cheeks as I drive. I’ve nothing more than a pocketful of hope that I can make this right with Easton, but the doubt I feel is as devastating as the look that was on Easton’s face. It owns my soul.