I hang my head, shame and regret sitting like a stone in my gut.
“You’re right,” I say.
The silence that follows is icy, bitter, and empty. I’m afraid something has shifted between us that I can’t shift back.
I look at Logan and try to remember the last real conversation we had. Not logistics, not baseball, not me deflecting with a joke or counting down to when I could see Scottie. A real one.
I can’t find it.
And from the way he’s looking at the wall instead of at me, I don’t think he can either.
“What are you gonna do?” He sounds hollow.
That hollowness costs me more than anger could.
At that very moment, a call comes in.
And the plummeting feeling I’ve had all morning suddenly comes to a violent end.
It’s Doug.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Lucas
The stadium corridors shouldn’t be this lively, considering it’s not even seven a.m.
The smell of coffee hits me, and I realize I didn’t get to send Scottie her morning cup.
As upset as I am about everything, that might bug me most of all.
A few staffers are staring at me with knowing looks that don’t actually know a thing as I walk toward Doug’s office. No one has a phone out, thankfully. Everyone here has signed NDAs … not that that mattered when it came to Jake sharing that picture.
I knock on Doug’s door.
“Come in,” he barks.
I open the door, and that’s when I see her, frozen in place, her shoulders pulled tight toward her ears, arms folded so rigidly she looks cut from marble.
I want to touch her, but I don’t dare.
That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.
Doug’s office overlooks the stadium, sunlight pouring through the wide glass panes onto the empty diamond below. The grass looks impossibly green, the chalk lines clean and precise. It’s wrong that something so orderly can exist when this room feels wired with landmines. One wrong word from me could set everything off.
Doug sits down at his desk and rolls forward. In joggers and a team T-shirt, he clearly didn’t have any more time to get ready this morning than I did. He turns his computer screen to face us. It’s a different version of the same hit piece.
“Explain.”
I’m silent. I look at Scottie, not sure what I’m supposed to say or do. Do I expose Jake and tell him the truth? Do I take the fall? She wouldn’t answer any of my calls or texts on the way over here, so I have no idea what she wants me to do, no clue what will hurt her the least.
“Well?” Doug asks.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I say, because she’s not saying anything.
Doug shakes his head, looking less furious than frustrated. “I don’t understand. Ms. Quinn, you of all people have shown how adept you are at managing situations and personalities. How could this have happened?”
“I’m not cut out for this job,” she says simply.
