But it’s not as if he hasn’t had a bad game or a loss while we’ve been together. Sure, he’ll seem a little down, but he can easily be cheered up. It’s just not like him to let me, and especially one of the kids, down. I can’t believe he’s not here. Or that he hasn’t called.
Callie sets her phone down and shakes her head.
“Who is his emergency contact? Should we call hospitals?” My stomach flips over at the thought, remembering when I received the call about Skylar and Patrick.
Callie frowns. “I’d call my mom, but I don’t want to worry her yet. Plus, if anyone called her, she’d call me right away.”
I nod. That’s true. The Carlisles always keep one another in the loop.
A rush of girls storm through the back door, running toward the staircase.
Lake lingers as her friends try to find the next item upstairs. “So, he’s not coming?”
“He’s just late. Maybe there was a meeting after the game.” I hate making excuses for Hayes. I understand that sometimes things come up, or whatever it is, but a phone call would at least tell me he’s not dead.
“Great.” She throws up her hands. “Now I’m a liar. I told them all three Colts players were coming, and they acted like I was lying all week.”
“Lake…” Even Callie is at a loss for words.
The newly minted twelve-year-old huffs and storms away.
I sigh, picking up my phone and redialing him. “Hey, you know what to do.” I slam my phone on the counter.
“Hey, I know. Believe me, if he’s not dead in a ditch, his balls are mine.” Callie wraps her arms around my shoulders.
Every scenario runs through my mind, but one haunting suspicion that isn’t fair to Hayes is the fact that Foster Davis is back. Could they both be wallowing over a bad game in some bar and—no. I can’t assume he’s cheating or out tying one on. I know Hayes, and he wouldn’t do that. He just made love to me last night, whispering how much I mean to him.
Still, the familiar feeling of disappointment mixed with dread swamps my system. My chest feels tight, and it makes me jittery.
But it makes no sense why he would be late.
A fucking phone call. Would it kill him?
Chapter
Forty-Eight
Hayes
* * *
It was a shit game.
The fact that we couldn’t pull it together in the bottom of the ninth only made what happened at the top sting worse.
Baseball is called a game of failure for a reason. Errors happen—every game, every team, no matter how good you are. The best hitters in the league fail seven times out of ten. That’s success in this sport.
The defense controls the pace, which is rare in any other game. The batter steps in alone, outnumbered nine to one. There’s no teammate to pass to, no quick assist. It’s just you, a bat, and the hope that you can square up a ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastball.
Even then, most of the game depends on the pitcher hitting a spot the size of a postage stamp—and an umpire’s judgment on whether or not he did. One call, one inch, one blink—it all decides who walks away a hero and who walks off the field defeated.
All four of us—Foster, Decker, Easton, and me—walk into the media room having not said a word to one another since the game ended. We’re processing—most likely our own failures during those six outs.
Foster brushes by me onto the platform and takes the far chair to the right. He’s stewing, and if I were Ripley, I’d have made him sit this one out. It always takes Foster a night to regroup, and by the next morning, he walks in ready for a fresh start. It’s the way this game has to be played in order to remain sane. It’s exactly what I wasn’t doing last year.
I just want to get this over with so I can make it to Lake’s party in time to help Leighton finish decorating and keep Callie off her back since Leighton said she was going to tell my sister we’re a couple as soon as she arrived. I’ll be pissed off if my sister behaves shitty when I want to be a human shield to Leighton.
Foster and Decker are in identical poses—leaned back in their chairs with their arms crossed and scowls on their faces—so I point at the first reporter.
