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!”
“No,” he shouts, hand slamming down on the table beside him to match the thunder in his temper. I jump from the sound as it echoes through the room, but it has nothing on the slamming of my heart against my rib cage. “You don’t get to say that to try to make this right. Don’t you get that your words mean shit to me right now? You told me I was one hundred percent and then you told them I wasn’t. You think I’m going to believe you when you say those three words to me? Pretty goddamn convenient, Scout. You can’t even handle me asking you to move in, and yet you tell me you love me to try and make things right? Are you out of your—?”
I snap.
“You signed the goddamn papers,” I scream at the top of my lungs, finally able to get a word in edgewise. He’s cut deep with his words, purposely hurt me, and it’s my damn turn to lash out. I’ve berated myself all damn day over what I did, but in the end this isn’t all on me. “You did this. Not me. It was either shipping you off to a Triple-A team in Maine or across town to the Wranglers, so I did what I had to do.”
The room falls silent as dust particles dance in the sliver of light from the foyer, and I know for the first time since I’ve stepped foot in here that he hears me. The stumble of his feet backward. The shocked open of his lips. The narrowing of his brows. “What did you just say?” Drunk meets sober. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“The papers,” I say in a hiccupping sob as the emotions catch up with me. Sensing a chance for redemption at my fingertips, I step toward him. “They fell off the desk. It was a mess. The coffee spilled and papers were knocked to the floor and when I tried to help gather them, your signature was on them and I didn’t know what to do and—”
“So you decided to take it upon yourself and—”
“One paper was an agreement that if you weren’t one hundred percent they could trade you,” I stumble. There’s too much to explain, too many words to get out at one time, and the pressure of making this right has my head all jumbled.
“I’m well aware of what it said and the trade part.” He shrugs with a condescending chuckle. “You sure as shit made sure that happened, didn’t you?”
“But the other one . . . why in the hell would you ever agree to it?”
“What other one? Agree to what?” He steps forward, anger and accusation on his face.
“You gave them consent to send you down to Triple-A.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He’s on me in a flash—smelling of whiskey and rage—with hands on my biceps, giving me a little shake before realizing what he’s doing and jolting back as if he’s been burned.
“It said something about you giving the Aces consent to send you down to Triple-A for the period of a year with a cut in salary, upon return from the disabled list, and—”
“That’s bullshit,” he yells.
“I saw it with my own eyes. You signed it. On the bottom left-hand side.”
Easton starts to speak and then stops, his eyes bore into mine, but there’s a look that slowly comes over his face. It’s one I don’t think I’ll ever forget, and I don’t understand, but it’s there and it’s real. In the intensity of the moment the thought crashes through my mind that an expression like that should never be on that handsome face of his.
And before I can place what it means, it’s gone. Wiped clear and replaced with the hardened game face I knew from watching Easton play on TV before I met him. I scramble to explain further.
“There were these papers. The ones you signed. And then ones from Cory’s folders. Notes. Scribbles. They were everywhere, and I was trying to stack them and . . . there were formal trade options. Orders for you to be sent to Triple-A. There was correspondence with Dallas over trading you. There was an email to the manager of The Portland Surge telling them to demote Gonzo to Double-A because you were going to play for them. I only had seconds, Easton. Seconds. To read and decipher and figure out what—”
“Scout.” Serious. Worried. Confused.
Petrified of his sudden silence, I add, “It was trade you or demote you and I chose to trade you.”
“You chose?” His voice a mixture of fury and disbelief as he steps back from where I stand. He walks back and forth bracing his hands against the back of his neck as his temper physically manifests in his posture. Frozen in place, I watch as he picks up the bottle on the coffee table and throws it as hard as he can. The sound of it hitting the wall is deafening—a glass bottle against a glass wall—followed by the sounds of the shards hitting the floor. It’s jarring and takes me a minute to recover from the sudden outburst.
“East—”
“This is my goddamn life,” he thunders. Rage vibrates in his voice. “Who gave you the reins to decide for me? I sure as hell didn’t? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
The doubt I’d carried around with me all day slowly slips into dread and fills every ounce of my being. When I answer him, it’s the first time I sound unsure, and I hate myself for it. “But it was Dallas. Your mom is halfway between here and there and—”
“It’s my goddamn mom. It’s my fucking choice. Who do you think you are choosing what’s best for me? That’s a lot of decisions for someone who couldn’t even handle me telling them I was falling for them, don’tcha think?”
“It was a split-second. Maine or Dallas.” Please see my side of this.
“Total bullshit.” He throws his hands my way as if he’s done with me and while I know I made the choice for him, this is on him.
“Why did you sign the papers? Why would Finn ever let you agree to that? Why wasn’t he there today?” My voice is the steadiest it has been since I walked in here. I take a step toward him, needing to know the answer since that signature is why I felt it necessary to make a decision in the first place.
“Fuck this,” he sneers. “Don’t turn this on me. You couldn’t handle any of this, could you?”
“No. Yes. I mean, I did what I thought was best—”
“Best? Best? Are you fucking kidding me?”
I can’t even comprehend what is happening right now. I mean I can, but I thought once I explained to him . . . I thought he would be . . . not thankful, but at least understanding. It was a choice between the humiliation of being demoted and sent across the country or being traded to a team within a two-hour driving distance of his mom.
My head is spinning. The fight not making sense and at the same time making perfect sense. I try again. “But it’s Dallas.”
“It’s nowhere, Scout, because the trade hasn’t even gone through yet.”
My heart falls into my stomach at his words. “What do you mean? I don’t—”
“You’re the first person to even utter the city Dallas . . . so that means my trade is still in talks and hasn’t been completed. You may have seen papers, Scout, but there were most likely more. Others covered in notes from talking with teams like the Orioles or Tampa or the Mariners.”
Oh my God. What did I do? Panic, disbelief, shock. All three become an eddy of emotion tearing through my system and wreaking more havoc than I ever thought possible.
“Your face says it all. So yeah, thanks for nothing. You win, Scout. I’m gone.”
“I didn’t win shit, Easton,” I yell, grasping for straws as the eddy of emotion turns into a tornado and slams into me. “Do you think this did me any favors? Do you think I got the contract? I don’t even know yet. I have to go back in the morning to find out—”
“You and your precious goddamn contract. It’s always been about the contract, hasn’t it? Not me? Only you.” Disgust is what I hear in the bite in his voice.
“No. No.” I take a step back to try and calm the situation. His temper. My sobbing. His accusations. My denials. “Please. Just listen to me. The only reason I remotely care about the contract is because of my dad.”
“Convenient.” He snorts as he turns his back on me and stumbles to the windows leaving me fumbling.
“Don’t you see I’m the one who could lose everything?”
“Poor baby. Forgive me if I’m not feeling much sympathy for you and—”
“No, that’s not what I meant by—”
I cut my own words when I can’t hold back my sob anymore. It’s pointless. This conversation and trying to reason with him while he’s drunk. Fighting to explain my actions, my decisions, myself, when he’s right. It wasn’t my place to make a decision about his life for him regardless of the circumstances or my selfless intentions behind them.
I stare at him—the broad shoulders and proud stance—and think about the first time I saw him like this and what that led to. My heart aches for him. For the road he’s traveled, for how hard he fought to get back again, only to be blindsided by Cory.
Much like how he fought for me. Why is it that now when I can admit to myself I’m in love with him, I’m going to lose him? Literally and figuratively.
“Easton . . .”
I made a mistake.
I should have stalled for time.
I should have . . .
I love you.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have lied.” The derision in his tone only serves to reinforce what I already know.
“You’re not listening to me. If you’d actually hear me you’d see that . . .”
“Believe me, I am hearing you, more now than ever. It’s your actions not your words that speak fucking volumes.”
“I did what I thought was—”
“Stop. Stop saying that. It means nothing to me.” He strides to the kitchen. Glass rattles before he pulls out another bottle of whiskey from the liquor cabinet, and takes a long swig from it while I silently beg for him to stop. I’ve never seen him like this—helpless, hopeless, careless—and knowing I contributed to this is killing me. When he finishes his drink, he slams the bottle down for emphasis. “What you did was put yourself in a prime position with that fucker Tillman. I’d be out of the picture—no stress, no distractions, no sleeping with the player to screw up the contract hanging over your head, and no worry for you about a guy who’s going to leave you. Thanks for making sure this went nowhere. And thanks for thinking you know what I want out of my career and making a decision you’re not qualified to make. Thanks for nothing, Scout. Go to your meeting tomorrow. Take whatever the Aces give you. Be happy with the result. You screwed me to serve your dad. And while I get it, I don’t.” He flops down into a chair facing the view beyond with his back to me. “We’re done, but then again, I guess we never were started according to you . . . so, uh . . . see you around, Scout. Or not. You know where the door is.”
He makes a show of lifting the bottle in the air and then bringing it to his lips. When he finishes his drink, he slouches down farther into the chair and continues to stare into the darkness.
He doesn’t say another word.
There’s nothing else left to say.