“You want to come back to San Diego?” Victoria asks.
Of course she thinks I mean San Diego. I should mean San Diego. It’s where I grew up. Where my memories are, even if my childhood home has been stripped for parts and sold. A place that was home but doesn’t feel like it any longer. “No, I was gonna go back to Atlanta.”
“You like it there?” Victoria asks.
“It’s too hot, the traffic is bad, I think I’m going to fail out of my program…” I think about Baby, climbing up my leg, Forrest and Katia helping me out when they had no real reason to. Asher, coming over with a baseball bat to make sure I was safe.Dancing with Brayden in the candlelight at our wedding party. “Yeah, I guess I kind of do.”
“You wanna know what I think?” Victoria asks, and she waits for me to nod before she continues. “I think you’ve never run away from anything in your entire life.”
I snort. “I moved across the country, like, two months ago.”
“There’s a difference between running toward something and running away from something. How many times have you told me that I should stop being scared of the things that I want?”
That was different.Because when I said that, I was sure of my place in the world. I was going to be the person I’d been raised to become: a country club princess with an inevitably rich husband and a degree that I’d never use. Now I have that rich husband—who’s not my real husband.
Isn’t he?Brayden acts like he is—including getting jealous of someone he thinks is trying to steal me away.
“Maybe you’re right,” I tell Victoria. “I might stick around here for another few days. See how this whole thing plays out.”
Victoria grins. “See, that’s the spirit.”
“When did you get to be so bad?” I tease.
“Right about when I realized there were better things than being afraid.”
“Like getting dicked down by two baseball players?”
She cocks an eyebrow. “Try it. You might find out you like it.”
That’s the problem. I like them both.“I’ll consider it,” I say, evenly, and Victoria laughs.
After we get off the phone, I pull myself up, shower myself off. There’s a bite mark on my shoulder. I can’t tell which one of them left it. And as I soap it up and rinse off, the reality of the situation hits me. I’ve spent so long thinking about this as a competition—but what if none of us has to lose?
Chapter Thirty-Five
Asher
The conversation stopsthe second I get into the clubhouse. Guys are there going about their business—working out and heading to the field for practice and generally just hanging around. A group is playing cards in one corner. Two put down their hands; the other two peer at me over their cards.
So…that might answer that. Brayden knows. That much is clear from the argument—and the ensuing make-up sex—that came echoing from the other room this morning. At first, I listened for Brayden’s reaction: anger is one thing. Rage is another. If Brayden so much as lifted a hand to her, I was ready to tear their hotel door from its hinges.
But from the sounds she was making—the sounds I knew because she’d made the same ones with me less than twenty-four hours ago—Savannah wasn’t objecting. At all.
He made her come once, little bitten-off noises like she was whimpering against the window. Again when they were fucking on the bed—going by the squeak of springs and thump of the bedframe. And he used the toy I got her to do it. It paired with the app on my phone last night and was still registering data.
I’d tried to drown them out. Headphones. Water from the shower. Eventually, I just sat on the bed, cock in hand. Jerked myself roughly in time with her moans. If I couldn’t have her, at least she was being taken care of.Even if it was by him.
Forsyth must have said something to one of the guys, and gossip did what it always does among baseball teams: spreads uncontrollably like clubhouse flu. LeBlanc is looking at me pityingly. McDonald seems like he might try to have a conversation with me about leadership or sportsmanship or something. Half these guys cheat—not McDonald, but a bunch of them fuck other people’s wives. I’m not gonna be lectured onmoralityby someone who takes his wedding band off to screw a bottle girl, then doesn’t even bother to call her the next day.
At my stall, I pull off my street clothes and prepare to work out. Today is supposed to be a rest day, but fuck that, I’m lifting heavy. I go into the weight room, rack up. Lose myself in the rhythm of weights and the simplicity of picking something heavy up and putting it back down.
I’m alone for a while, music playing, body reminding me that I might not look like I belong here, but I do. I’ve earned this. It’s possible I’ll be shunned by the team for the season. It’s possible that Forsyth will go to Coach and management and make it clear that they trade me or him. It’s possible word will get around the league. Baseball has a lot of rules, but none more important than bro code. The first of which is: don’t fuck your teammate’s wife.
Worst of all, it’s possible Savannah will never speak to me again.
My throat starts to tighten as I think about what this means. Was I just a distraction while she got her marriage back on track?
I pick up the weights, relish the burn in my muscles: it makes it easier to ignore the answering burn behind my eyes.
