“You need to talk?”
“If you suggest a tea, I’m going to hurt you.”
Pace studied him for a beat. “You letting John fuck with your head?”
“No.”
“Sam?”
Wade closed his eyes. “It’s me.
“Hey, knowing it is half the battle.”
Wade tried to shrug him off, but Pace was like a pit bull when he wanted to be. “
“Just giving you a minute to collect yourself.” Pace was looking at the entrance to the locker room, where Gage stood waiting, dark eyes fixed on Wade. “Gage’s going to bust your ass.”
“I’m fine.” Wade walked up to Gage to get it over with.
The youngest, smartest, sharpest, shrewdest team manager in the MLB looked Wade over carefully. “Talk to me,” he said.
Wade shrugged. “Bad night.”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
Well, he sure as hell had nothing else.
Gage blew out a breath. “Does the bad night have anything to do with the fact that Sam dumped your sorry ass?”
“How did you know that?”
“Fuck, Wade. I told you this was a bad idea. You don’t even
“Right.”
“So get over it. Get over it by tomorrow’s game or I’ll kick your ass until you’re over it. And if anyone asks, I already kicked your ass.”
Wade showered, changed, and slinked out into the shower room, hoping like hell to just be alone.
He got his wish. It was quiet, and though a few of the guys were moving around, no one was talking. And Sam was nowhere to be seen, which shouldn’t have mattered, but did. She was almost always around after a game.
Not today. She and Tag were gone.
Torn between relief that he didn’t have to face her, and a bone-deep regret that made his chest ache, he drove home.
And was shocked to find Sam sitting on his porch step waiting for him. He sat in his car staring at her through the windshield.
“You’re either an idiot or a moron,” she said.
He dropped his head into his hands. “Is there another choice?”
“That weekend we went to Mark’s wedding, when we were in our
Surprised, he blinked. “You had a crush on me?”
She smiled a little sadly. “I know. I always acted like I couldn’t care less, but that was just self-preservation after Atlanta.” She shrugged. “I always felt off balance around you.”
He understood that. Sometimes he had trouble finding his balance around her as well, though she usually located it for him just fine.
“The truth is,” she said. “Pretending to be with you was harder than I could have imagined, because I kept forgetting to pretend.”
He understood that, too. “Sam-”
“I watched you with Tag, saw how you put yourself out there with him, no hesitation. I watched you with your father, how even when you were so angry, you couldn’t turn him out. And I realized my feelings for you had… deepened.”
Despite feeling the urge to hide, he couldn’t look away to save his life. “You weren’t alone in that,” he managed. “I told you I was falling for you.”
“Yes. In a light and easy way. But as it turns out, I fell harder. As hard as you can, actually.”
His brain froze, like it did when he drank a slushee too fast or inhaled ice cream. And like a complete idiot, he just stared at her. “Sam-”
She stood up. “I get that I was rough on you. Unfairly so. I expected too much and I’m sorry for that. I just want you to know, I can be a grown-up about this. It won’t be awkward at work or anything.”
Awkward? She was worried about awkward? She had no idea that absolutely nothing was the same when she wasn’t in his life. Awkward didn’t even begin to cover it. How about devastating and empty and…
“I’m trying to make this easy. Because that’s how you like things. Easy women, easy job, easy everything. I can give that to you. Good-bye, Wade.” With one last look into his eyes, she walked away.
And though he hated himself for it, he let her. Because she was right. He liked things easy. He
Chapter 29
Baseball? It’s just a game-as simple as a ball and a bat. Yet as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. It’s a sport, business-and sometimes even religion.
Wade spent several hours slouched on the couch with his remote all alone, which given his last two weeks, should have been heaven. Not only was the silence perfect, but everything was fucking perfect. No demands on his rare time to himself, nobody talking to him, nothing on his plate except whatever he chose. He could call the guys. Hit a bar. Find a willing woman.
Except none of that appealed. He felt restless and frustrated.
And then he realized what the problem was.
He didn’t want to be alone.
Alone felt easy but all of a sudden he didn’t want easy either.
He called Sam to tell her but she didn’t answer. He called his father. No answer there, either. And then he called the one person he knew could help him. “Tag.”
“Yo,” Tag said into the phone.
“You know where your Aunt Sam is?”
“Again? How come you keep losing her?”
“Because I’ve been stupid. But trust me, I’m getting smarter. Where is she?”
“Not supposed to tell.”
Wade sighed. “How about my dad?
“Same thing.”
