I don’t want to be out with my friends.
I don’t want to swagger around here being fabulous, getting hit on, lining up options for the next time we’re back home too.
I want—
I want something that I let go a long time ago.
Something I had to let go for my own sense of self-worth.
And I don’t want to want that, and I don’t understand why five minutes in a damn meet-and-greet room is turning my world upside down during a season when I have much,muchbigger things to worry about than the pop star I walked away from eight damn years ago.
Yeah, but you haven’t talked to her since then, an obnoxious voice that sounds like my grandfather’s parrot says in my ear.You talk to her, you fall for her. Rawk!
I shove up out of the booth. “Got beaned in batting practice,” I mutter. “I should go home. Don’t let D get arrested. Or hook up with a bride or that redhead in the corner who’s been eyeing all of us. Not a good fit. Trust me.”
“You need me to drive you home, Mr. Cooper?” Diego asks. He grins. Of course he does. “I’m designated sober driver. I got you, boo.”
I need to get my head back on straight.
Waverly Sweet was a blip in my past. She’s not part of my present or my future, no matter how much I can’t stop thinking about the way she stared at me when I walked into that room, and the way she stared at me when my mouth didn’t get the memo to shut the fuck up and instead started rambling about her mom.
So I’m gonna go home, wallow in my feelings until they pass, and then I’m gonna get back to being Cooper Rock, baseball god, hometown hero, and sexy beast with the ladies.
Have to.
Because if I don’t, I’m gonna be worthless for my team this season. Andthisseason, of all of them, is the one that matters most. This is the season that will change all our lives even more than last season did.
Which means that I need to get Waverly Sweet and all those old memories out of my head in order to be the player that the team needs me to be.
“Yeah,” I tell Diego. “I’d love a ride. Thanks, man.”
I don’t need a ride.
But D needs to feel needed and like he’s an important part of the team both on and off the field.
Also, he’s gonna talk about Waverly the entire time.
Can’t get over her if I don’t face her.
So here we go.
3
Waverly
Of all theparties that I had to bring Aspen to, this is by far the worst option.
It’s great for her.
Superfor her.
It still feels weird for me to say I found an indie artist and decided to put my star power behind making her into the next big thing, but that’s exactly what happened with Aspen. I was on my tour bus one night last summer, licking my wounds after seeing one more report about my ex-fiancé and the diamond he bought for the woman he’d been cheating on me with the last few months of our relationship, and I started randomly perusing iTunes to distract myself before I spiraled into the pit of self-doubt and loneliness that’s been my constant companion since Geofferson—yes, Geofferson with aG-e-o—left me for a Cirque du Soleil dancer.
Yes, she’s prettier than me.
And more flexible.
And I don’t want to talk about it anymore, other than to say that that night is when I stumbled across Aspen’s self-produced first album and fell head over heels in love with her voice and her style and basically everything about her.
