Most guys are working out with their own headphones in. A few look up from various weight machines as if they didn’t notice the music at all.
“I picked it,” I say finally. “It’s called indie.”
“It’s calledboring,” he scoffs. “New guys don’t get the aux.”
“That’s right,” Isaiah McDonald, the second baseman, intervenes, pulling my phone from the docking station. “Rookiesdon’t get the aux.” He hands my phone to me with the air of bored impatience only veteran ballplayers can manage. He’s played in the league for ten years. I probably shouldn’t piss him off.
“You want me to make you a playlist?” I ask McDonald, expecting him to roll his eyes at me the way Brayden did. The way most of my teammates in Chicago had. It doesn’t matter if I don’t fit in here: I fit In on the field and that’s what matters.
McDonald laughs instead. “Would it be all boring shit?”
“Probably.”
“Then sure.”
Behind me, Brayden sighs like a balloon slowly deflating, then mutters something that sounds likefiguresbefore he goes back to punishing himself on the weight machine.
After my workout,I change into my batting practice uniform. Brayden is here—of course—listening to his headphones like he needs to wash the sound of indie rock out of his ears as I busy myself going through the team-provided T-shirts. I glance over. He clenches his eyes shut as if he doesn’t want to be caught watching me. Huh.
More rifling through T-shirts. Another glance. This time Brayden doesn’t quite get his eyes closed. Yeah, so he’s definitely looking at me. Fuck this. I turn and look right back. “What the fuck is your problem?”
Brayden’s shoulders rise like he’s not used to people being that direct with him. The South ispolite,everyone said. More like passive fucking aggressive. “I’m having a party this weekend,” he says. “For the wedding.” As if he can’t saybecause I got married.“The whole team is coming.”
Which isn’t an invitation. “Are you telling me or inviting me?”
For that I get an eye roll. “Only because you gave Sav a ride.”
Usually team parties have mid beer and terrible music but most of the guys on the Peaches have been fine so far—Brayden very much excepted. I can’t think of any place I’d rather be less than at a party with him. But if Savannah is going to be there…
Everything tells me I should stay away from her: she’s her own person who makes her own decisions and she’s decided to be someone else’s wife.For now.
I’ve seen enough bad marriages in my life to know when someone is in one. She should know that she has options. Like annulment or divorce.Or throwing Brayden in the ocean.“Sure. I love parties,” I lie. “Just tell me when and where. Or”—I grab my phone from my pocket—”I can probably just askSavfor the details.”
So I walk out of the clubhouse with Brayden’s eyes boring holes in my back.Take a fucking picture, asshole. It’ll last longer than your marriage.
Chapter Ten
Savannah
Several hours earlier…
Despite the timedifference from California, I get up early. Barb will be over at some point, and I need to look reasonably put together. After Brayden leaves for the ballpark, I throw my hair up in a hair tie that, for some reason, was hanging around the doorknob, then I go for a run in the home gym with long mirrors installed along one wall, practically the only decoration in the house, watching the bounce and shimmy of my body as I run.
I’ve been this size—big, curvaceous,fat, whatever we want to call it now—for most of my life. I like my body. I can’t help that the world, including my husband, feels differently.But he asked you to marry him.Probably because he, like me, was otherwise out of options.
I tell myself I’m not disappointed. This is just like having a roommate.A drunk one whose bed is thirty feet from you and who grunts loudly in his sleep.At least…I think that’s what hewas doing. He was disheveled when I walked in on him, almost like he’d been?—
No, he was hungover, obviously.
I must have imagined that I heard him say my name.
Once my run is over, I shower and change. I need to go to the grocery store. I need to find a decorator to actually make this house look like humans live here. I need to figure out all the stuff related to my transferring to Morningside. The college accepted me. Having a 4.0 GPA helped. Not needing financial aid maybe also helped. But there’s a lot to manage, regardless, making sure that my credits all transfer and that I’ll actually be done in two years. This is all so?—
Overwhelming.
No. I won’t let myself be overwhelmed, even if all my life I’ve just had other people to manage this stuff for me.
I do my makeup in the bathroom mirror. See my note to myself in lipstick that’s starting to smudge. I don’t know if I got this, but I don’t have long to consider it, not when someone rings the bell downstairs.
