Art continues to approach me. He waves Ripley in, and he crosses the first base line, joining our party.
“You better calm down, Foster,” Art tells me.
“Fuck off.” I spit off to the side, into the grass.
“Out!” he yells, making the ejection signal.
I chuck the ball into centerfield. “Happy to.”
“Davis!” Ripley shouts. “Get in the locker room. Now!”
Fuck all of them. I walk through the dugout and right into the locker room, throwing my glove as hard as I possibly can.
I pull my phone out of the safe in the locker. I sometimes carry it with me, but I didn’t want to be tempted to contact Callie or read our text threads again.
There are two messages waiting for me.
Jagger Kale: Way to lose the endorsement. They’re not interested in you anymore.
The other one makes my heart stop for a second.
Callie: I’ll survive, don’t flatten your career on my account.
She hs no business messaging me, showing once again that she’s way too good for a fuck-up like me.
Chapter
Fifty-Seven
Callie
* * *
At least if Foster was going to break my heart, he did it right before he’s gone for a week.
“Cal!” Leighton calls, and I meet her in the foyer of Foster’s place. “Hey.” She drops the empty boxes in her hands and wraps her arms around me. “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to rock this single parenthood thing. And I don’t want to hear it—you’re staying in our guest room for the foreseeable future.”
She hugs me so tightly, I almost believe her that the pain will fade.
“It’s only until I find a place.” I pick up the boxes and go into my bedroom.
“Hayes wants you to stay. Says he wants to be a hands-on uncle.” She goes to my dresser and fills a box with my clothes.
I don’t say anything.
“How was this morning?” she asks hesitantly.
I shrug. “I pretended that I like Foster too.”
My taping with the fourth guest Foster secured for me was earlier today. I didn’t tell Lex anything was going on, and I pretended to be as happy as I normally am as I chatted with the sports reporter who was involved in a scandal because she had a relationship with her boss. She talked about how cruel the internet is, which I understood perfectly. But also about how she found love, and she didn’t want to apologize for that. It was a real feel-good story. Had I interviewed her before Foster ran out on me, I would’ve probably been even more delusional afterward that Foster and I could ride off into the sunset together.
“I think my fifth interview will have to be one of the guys. I don’t want Foster’s help anymore.”
“That’s right, we’re not taking anything else from him.” She points at me with an intense expression on her face.
“Okay, we can’t hate the guy, he is this one’s father.” I rub my stomach as I’ve been doing constantly for the past two days, as if I’m consoling the baby too. “It’s bad enough that he’ll bomb his own career.”
“Hayes said he’s suspended.”
