She laughed when I pinched her chin.
My wise baby sister. I’d tried to make life as easy as possible for her, but maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I had to let my sister experience some of the shit in the world so she knew how to fight against it.
And I was in a lot of shit right now.
“The Bats won,” Taylor said as she scrolled through her phone.
“Good,” I said, exhaling a little relief that Silas didn’t have to deal with two problems today.
“Silas just texted me. He said to turn on the channel the Bats usually play on.”
I sat up, reaching into the end table drawer for my phone. A flurry of texts from Silas littered my screen. He’d probably had the same awful day as me, and I’d made it worse by causing him to worry about me. I was about to reply when I heard his voice through my TV speakers.
“Good afternoon,” Silas said, still in uniform as he spoke to reporters. I scooted to the edge of the cushion to get a good look at the man I’d left this morning before both our lives had been turned upside down. He seemed okay, but as I took a closer look, I spotted the hard set of his jaw, his tell when he was angry and holding himself back.
“Nate Becker is out for the rest of the season with a shoulder injury, but he’ll be back next year after surgery and sometherapy. We’ll miss him, but we look forward to seeing him come back and break his home-run record next year.”
He paused, glancing down at the podium before he continued.
“His friends won for him today. And I’m hopeful that we can still take it all the way and clinch that wild card spot this month. They’re an amazing group of guys, and I’m proud to be leading them this season.”
He sucked in a long breath, his chest jerking as if he were laughing to himself.
“That should have been where my statement ended, but I have one more thing to add. Pictures were posted of me and my girlfriend this morning, and those pictures exposed her identity and where she works—orworked.”
Shit, he knew.He’d probably figured, but Gayle had mentioned a call with Kent before she’d told me HR would be contacting me with termination papers and hung up.
“I know that a life in professional sports means there is no such thing as true privacy, but there should be. Rachel Manning is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and she’s had to deal with a lot in the past few hours. Please leave her and her family alone.”
He smiled at the camera, and it was as if he were standing in my living room. The reporters, my furniture, and even my sister faded into the background.
“I’m lucky to have found the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, but I’m asking you to let us do that in peace. I owe you all the best season I can give you, and if you want to post my ass on social media from fifty different angles, go ahead. But my girl is off-limits.”
“Oh my God!” Taylor squealed, pressing her hands against her cheeks. “This is like one of those old movies you make me watch sometimes. By that guy John Hayes.”
“Hughes,” I said, my voice cracking as tears streamed down my cheeks. The first good tears of the day.
“Yes! He’s telling the world he loves you,” she said with a big sigh, clasping her hands under her chin. “And that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you.”
“It’s a local channel, Tay,” I said, wiping at my eyes.
“But I bet it gets streamed.” Taylor pulled on my arm. “This is so cool.”
“So the girl in all those pictures this morning is your girlfriend?” an out-of-sight reporter asked.
“Yes, and I’m all hers.” His lips stretched into a smile, his jaw finally relaxing as he found the camera again. “If she’ll still have me.”
Silas waved and walked off, the flash from the cameras still flickering as he stepped away.
My phone vibrated in my hand, hot against my palm as if the ton of notifications I was getting right now would make it explode along with my heart.
If I’d still have him? When he’d started talking about us, I’d thought it was a fuck-you to whoever had posted our picture and my identity, but why would he think I didn’t want him anymore?
I’d been an active participant in all of it, and I’d made the decision to go to Boston to see Silas. What had happened after sucked, but how could he think I blamed him for that?
“Now Auden is calling me,” she said, eyeing me as she pressed her phone to her ear. “She’s right here.”
Taylor waved her phone in my face before I took it.
