“Izzy!”
But I was already hurrying back to my car. Nick kept pace, albeit at a distance. Damnit, I had parked right behind him. I couldn’t get out of this so easily. And I’d already had a bit to drink…
I got to my car, fumbled with my keys, and finally got them unlocked. But before I could open the car door, Nick put his hand there.
“Do you want to talk?” he said, his voice stable but on the verge of breaking. “Can you talk?”
I…
“No,” I said. “Not, not right now.”
Nick opened his mouth to speak, but he seemed to recognize it didn’t matter what he offered. Short of murdering the photographer and destroying the camera—something that, all fantasies aside, I really didn’t want Nick to do—there was nothing he could do.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I…yeah. Call.”
I thought for a second about planting a kiss on his cheek—anything more felt inappropriate—but instead, I just awkwardly jerked back, opened my car door forcefully, and got inside. I turned the car on, backed into the vehicle parked behind me, cursed loudly, and sped off as Nick still tried to reach me.
I didn’t know why Nick kept trying to be nice to me. After that incident? And with spring training a month away?
It had been a fun two dates. But I didn’t deserve him. I didn’t deserve anyone.
At this point, I literally needed to crawl under a rock and just disappear. It might have been the only chance I had at escaping Malcolm’s reach.
Chapter 9: Nick
One Month Later
“Fucking hell!”
The manager of the Giants, an older man we affectionately just called Brucey, was anything but affectionate right now.
“I know it’s spring training,” he said. “But the way you guys swung the bat today, I don’t know if you would’ve hit it off a goddamn tee.”
He shook his head.
“And you, Ferrari,” he said. “You’re usually the guy everyone looks to. But right now, I’d have to say you’re the guy I tell the youth to be cautious of.”
“I understand,” I said.
That admission surprised Brucey, who wasn’t used to players owning their mistakes right after games. But how the hell could I not?
The routine, in years past, was the same before every game. Arrive three hours before opening pitch. Take a nap in the locker room of about half an hour. Eat my pregame meal. Go for some light jogging and fielding for half an hour. Head to the locker room and watch some tape of the opposing pitcher. Go out, do some warmups. Mentally prepare. And then it was “play ball!”
But this spring, there had been something that happened almost anytime I had my cell phone at arm’s reach, and it was not helping.
“Now, look,” Brucey said, his tone softer. “I ain’t gonna hammer this home too much. We’re talking about spring training, not game six of the World Series. But how you practice? That’s how you play. So, we’ll catch our flight back to San Francisco tomorrow at noon. You’re free until then. Maybe meditate instead of partying.”
Every player on the team had to keep a straight face—Brucey had to say it, but absolutely no one was going to follow it.
Well, except me.
What good was partying when I was so confused about where Izzy and I stood?
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
And with that, Brucey disappeared into his office, and the locker room slowly started to warm back up. Players started to thaw the ice with jokes, a couple of plans were made, and Marcus came over and patted me on the back.
“You’re coming out tonight, right?” he said. “Might be the last chance to party for a while. Well, last chance without having to wake up for a game the next day.”
I sighed. Marcus was not asking the question to give me a yes or no option. He was asking the question to force my hand.
“I suppose it would make me a bad teammate if I didn’t show up, huh?” I said.
Marcus patted me hard.
“That’s the spirit, brother,” he said. “Can’t have the all-star sulking that he got dumped.”
I laughed as Marcus left, giving me some space. Dumped was not the right word.
But as I grabbed my phone, saw that no one had published that photo yet, and read through the most recent text messages between Izzy and me, a small part of me wondered if I’d already been dumped but just didn’t realize it yet.
* * *
The party had already gotten started in Marcus’ hotel room. I knew that not because Marcus had banged on my door or blown up my phone, but because I could hear the damn music and the laughter going from one floor above me. It was one of those parties where you didn’t need an invite because the invitation was just hearing the music rage and the girls and guys laugh.
I looked at my phone, still reading the most recent messages from Izzy. I had texted her when I got back to the hotel, telling her that I would be landing in San Francisco tomorrow and would love to see her. The response was a little unnerving.
“Can’t tomorrow. Maybe over the weekend?”
At least she’d actually responded. The last month had felt like a game of extraction, where I had to dig and word my texts very carefully, just enough so that she would eventually respond.
