Cheryl was sinking in quicksand. Patrick stood at the edge of the puddle and reached for her, but he couldn’t grab her. She was keeping her arms at her sides.
“Reach out to me,” he yelled. “KitKat, put your hands up!”
But she just stared blankly at him. “I can’t.”
“You can. Just reach out. I’m right here, I’ll grab you.”
Someone started wailing on a drum. He looked around so he could hit them with his laser gun, but he couldn’t see where the noise was coming from. Cheryl was crying; sobbing. She was already up to her neck in quicksand. Soon she’d be gone.
His eyes opened into semi-darkness. He wasn’t near quicksand. He was in bed and someone was banging on his front door.
“Shit.”
He dug around for his phone and found it near his pillow. It was five-thirty in the morning. Squinting, he saw texts from his dad and Ingram, but nothing that said his door should be getting kicked down at this time. The banging got louder. What the hell was going on?
“I’m coming!” he called, staggering out of bed. He took the stairs slowly, clinging to the handrail as he went. He’d been hitting the gym too hard lately and all his muscles ached. Whoever was knocking on his door wasn’t giving up. If anything, the bangs were getting faster.
“What the fuck?” He flexed his hand for his laser gun, then remembered that it wasn’t real. He needed a baseball bat or something. Then again, if someone was robbing him, why would they knock? It must be an accident or something.
He reached the door and opened it, fully expecting a lost Uber Eats guy. But it wasn’t a lost Uber Eats guy, it was Cheryl. Fourteen days he’d gone without her and here she was, her face scrubbed clean, her hair shiny around her shoulders. He bypassed relief and went straight to euphoria, grinning at her like an idiot as his half-sleeping brain tried to absorb every detail of her face and body. She wasn’t in quicksand; she wasn’t even gone. She was here. She’d come back to him.
“KitKat?” he said, all slow and stupid. “What are you—”
“We need to talk.” She pointed a red-tipped nail at him. “Are you transferring interstate?”
She looked so real, so fucking sexy in her plaid skirt and little white t-shirt, it was like a shooting star going across his exhausted eyeballs. “Huh?”
“Are you getting traded to another team?”
He braced a hand on the door frame. Was there a chance he had fallen asleep and let his manager trade him? That didn’t make sense…
“No,” he said triumphantly. “I’m staying with the Sharks.”
She bared her teeth. “You’re not moving?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You wanna come in or…?”
“Arrrghhh!” Cheryl stomped her foot. “I’m going to kill Eden!”
“I… What?”
“She told me you were leaving! Are you seriously not getting traded?”
Patrick tried and failed to hide a smile from his face. He owed Eden one fuck of a birthday present. “No.”
“Bitch! Absolute fucking bitch—what are you giggling about?”
“Nothing.” He put his fingertips on the top of his doorframe and rocked forward. “So… what’s good?”
Cheryl squinted at him. “You’re really not getting traded?”
Her cheeks were pale and there were shadows under her eyes. She looked thinner too. His heart gave a hard pulse. As much as he wanted her to miss him, he hated seeing her so unwell. “KitKat, come inside and we can talk.”
“About trades?”
“No.”
“Why not? I’ve heard you mention trades before, and I know you miss Rockingham—”
