“It was probably more than that. I guess it was fun to have a ballplayer boyfriend, but a husband was different to her. I always felt on the spot when I’d come home, afraid to say the wrong thing or piss her off if I just wanted to relax after a long road trip.”
“That is a lot of crap,” Rachel said, her nose crinkling. “You couldn’t even relax in your own house?”
“No, especially not toward the end. I still can’t pinpoint exactly when it turned, and trust me, I’ve tried. But somehow, we ended up like strangers. I felt guilty over being away all the time, so I would try, but I just got tired. I know it sounds terrible.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. I’d said exactly that to my ex-wife when I’d asked for a divorce. It’d been too late for anything else, and if I didn’t even want to try, what was the point?
“I asked her for a divorce, and she called me a coldhearted asshole who couldn’t be anyone’s husband.”
“That is,” Rachel started as she sat up, “absolutely not true. I knew that from the first moment I met you, when you didn’t have me arrested for slugging you.”
I laughed, drawing her closer.
“I thought that for a while. That I just wasn’t cut out to commit to anyone with the kind of job I had. I’d ask her to come meet me on the road, but she always had some excuse why she couldn’t.” I shrugged. “She was tired too, I suppose. But when I admitted it first, she just became angrier.”
“That’s why you told me you didn’t want to hurt anyone again?”
“It was,” I said, letting out a long breath that seemed to lift a weight off my chest. “I didn’t want to hurt her, but this was my career. Until I got cocky sliding into a base and ended it.”
“But now, you have a new career, and you’re killing it.”
“I don’t know about killing it. My guys are talented and doing well, but I’m here because of those damn reels you like to tease me about. When I talk to Kent, all he wants to tell me are social media follows and ticket sales. He says he’s happy we’re winning, but I’m more than just a fucking face, you know.”
Rachel’s lips pulled into a frown.
“You have a beautiful face, but you are a lot more than that. When you take them to the play-offs for the first time this year, everyone will see that. You’re a bighearted, talented, beautiful man from the inside out. Fuck anyone else who’s too stupid to see that.”
I didn’t know what to say, but I had to bite back the “I love you” that was burning the tip of my tongue.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
RACHEL
“Again,you didn’t have to drive me all the way home,” I told Silas as he turned onto my block.
He frowned at me as he pulled into a spot right on the corner of my street. Silas was the first person I’d ever met who could find parking so damn fast in this neighborhood.
“So, I’m supposed to fuck you all night and hand you a MetroCard in the morning to get on the subway?”
“You’d give me my own MetroCard? That’s sweet, Silas.” I clasped my hands under my chin and fluttered my eyelashes, ignoring the heat pooling between my legs at his reference to fucking me all night.
I hoped I had a little time before Taylor came home to sit in a warm bath, as all night wasn’t really an exaggeration. It had been about four in the morning before we’d finally dozed off. I wished I could lounge in his bed for the whole morning, but I didn’t want to look like I’d been out all night long when my sister came home.
Our mother would sashay home midafternoon after one of her dates, too tired and distracted to bother with either of us as she’d sleep on the couch for the day.
I wouldn’t do that to my sister, no matter how tired I was, but I didn’t want to have to explain why a book signing in the late evening had me coming home the following morning in the same dress she’d helped me pick out.
Breakfast wasn’t sad this time, but it was fast. Silas had bought us bagels from the deli next to his building, and we’d hopped into his car after I’d stopped arguing with him over taking me home.
“Boyfriends don’t do that. I know you’re new to the concept, so just follow my lead,” he said, pecking my lips before climbing out of the driver’s seat.
I had to laugh. I guessed I didn’t know the right thing to do after a sleepover with a boyfriend since I’d never had too many with any men, period. And a repeat of last night wouldn’t be anytime soon. Sure, my sister loved staying over at her friends’ houses or visiting our cousins in New Jersey, but that was a once-a-month kind of thing, if that.
We’d need a very long talk before Silas stayed at our house. And while I felt good about us, we’d been going fast enough. I needed some time before I brought Silas into both our lives.
But at least I wasn’t afraid to bring him in. This wasn’t repeating bad family habits as I’d always feared if I ever met someone I really wanted to be with.
I was doing something for me. That was a good thing—and didn’t have to be relegated to only the random day off once every few months.
