“Who?” Leighton looks between the two of us.
I nod to Angela, and she shakes her head, walks away, then comes back with her phone. “Listen, Callie…” She pauses but then seems to convince herself of something and continues. “Has Foster shown you a picture of his dad?”
I shake my head.
She holds her phone out to me. “This is him. I have no doubt he’s in this stadium somewhere. When we were in the suite, I felt okay, but now that this news has come out…and with you being pregnant… he’s going to show his face.”
I stare at the man who looks more like Decker than Foster. Dark hair and eyes, shorter than both of his sons.
“This is why I come to the Seattle games,” Angela says.
“Why?” Leighton moves in to look at the picture. “You couldn’t have known that this news would come out.”
“No, but I knew he reached out to Decker for money and things. And I knew with both boys here… and if he knew you were here too, Callie, he’d try to work some angle to get something from the boys.”
Emotion hits me when she says the boys because that’s how she’ll always see Decker and Foster. As her sons. She still wants to protect them both.
I take out my phone and see that the story is everywhere. I don’t bother scrolling through the shitty comments from people who have no idea what they’re talking about or the man they’re pointing their fingers at.
“I just need to see Foster.”
Chapter
Sixty-Five
Foster
* * *
Walking off the field, I want to flip off the Seattle fans for booing me, but I’m better than that now. I have to be for Callie and our little girl.
As I’m about to duck my head and step down into the dugout, a woman leans over the railing, with the most venom in her eyes I’ve ever seen from a fan. And I’ve seen some bad looks.
“Your mother should be ashamed. Betting against yourself? I’m glad you’re not with Seattle anymore.”
I stop dead in my tracks.
Fuck.
It’s out.
There’s no way this lady just happens to be the one person who figured it out or has the inside track.
My gaze shifts to the suite Callie was in earlier. I don’t see her, Leighton, or Jagger. Which means shit went down at some point in the ninth while I was pitching a great outing.
I jog down into the dugout and rush into the locker room, but Ripley stops me before I reach my locker. He touches my elbow and nods for me to follow, leading me to a nearby room.
No surprise, Jagger is waiting for me.
“I didn’t do it,” I say to Ripley.
He chuckles and sits in a chair. “I know that.”
“Do you?” I arch an eyebrow, my heart beating a mile a minute.
He tilts his head. “Kid, I’ve known you for how many years? I know you’d never be part of something like this, but I know who would. I really wish you would’ve come to me.”
I look at my lap. “No one else needed to be dragged into it.”
