Moonshot(50)

Security answered and I cleared my throat, speaking into the phone. “It’s Ty.”

“Good evening, Mrs. Grant. How long will you be with us this evening?”

“About an hour. On the field and in the stands.”

“Wonderful. Will you need us to open the locker facilities?”

“No, not tonight.” The elevator shuddered, the doors opening on the ground level. “Thank you.”

“Certainly.”

I hung up the phone and stepped out, Titan beside me. All was dim, emergency lights bathing the halls in a soft, red light, and I flipped switches as we walked, bringing the hallway to life, my steps quickening as I got closer to the place where I was happiest.

I’d heard that cutters enjoyed the pain of their activity because it caused them to feel. I’d never understood that until the first night I’d stepped back out on this field, almost two years after Chase left. I didn’t know why I first did it. Part of it was because I had ordered myself to stop mourning his loss, and was ready to take the first step. Part of it was because I’d thought I was ready, ready to reenter the world which my pregnancy, which my dad’s retirement, which my marriage—had all taken away. The nights afforded me privacy, the late hours insuring no party to my pain. Each visit, the scent of the grass, the dig of cleats into the dirt … each sensation brought back a flood of memories. Sometimes I cried, most nights I didn’t. But I always felt.

At some point, I’d be able to replace his memories with new ones of my own—my midnight workouts with Titan an attempt to paint over the past. An attempt that hadn’t happened yet. And now that he was back … that goal stretched even further into improbability.

I grabbed a bucket of balls and pushed through the double doors, stepping from the hall and out into the night. I was climbing the steps to the field when Titan’s body knocked against me, his body jumping the final two steps and planting, four feet in the dirt, his hair raised, a loud snarl spitting out.





76



“Achtung.”

The foreign command rolled off her tongue like silk, no hesitancy in the word, and Chase hoped to God it meant something other than attack.

“Easy.” He stepped off first base, hoping some light from the stands would light his features, the dark field no help. That’s what he got for lurking here, the last two hours of jogging, stretching, throwing—all an excuse to wait, to hope, for this.

“Ty never comes to the field?” Chase watched the skybox suite, the interior illuminated in the darkening night. Inside it, Ty gave a strange woman a hug.

“Mrs. Grant?” The second baseman spit on the dirt. “Not really. I heard she comes out here late sometimes, to run.”

“Late?” Chase looked away from the skybox. Mrs. Grant. The name turned his stomach.

“Yeah. Security mentioned it once.” He shrugged. “They say she used to help out on the field, but I’ve never seen her pick up a ball. Probably just rumors.”

Chase said nothing, stepping back into place and leaning forward, his eyes watching the batter, poised for action.

The information had haunted him, dragging him here for the last week, each night a waste, the security guards barely glancing his way by the third time he pulled up. But it’d been worth it. Because here she was and here he was and they were on, of all things, a baseball field. The perfect setting for this, a moment of privacy, a moment without Tobey Grant lurking around the corner, a moment without anything but the two of them.

She was as beautiful as the week before, but more so, the Ty of his dreams. The one in shorts and sneakers, her hair pulled back, no makeup on her face, a t-shirt clinging to her shape. He didn’t look for a ring, didn’t want to think of anything but the girl he knew. The one who had been as loyal as she’d been fierce. The one who had loved him with a passion and fire that had clawed at his barriers and punctured his walls. The only girl he’d ever imagined a future with. The woman he’d forgotten to get his heart back from, before he left.

“Easy,” he repeated. “You don’t want to kill the Yankee’s newest star.”

“Step forward again, and he’ll rip out your throat,” she called. Beside her, the dog snarled, his teeth bared, every muscle ready.

He stopped, holding up his hands, warily eyeing the German Shepard. “I surrender.” He surrendered everything to her. She’d destroyed him once before. And here, a fool three times over for nights wasted on this field, he could already smell his demise in the crisp night air. Just as before, she held all the power in those little hands. No longer a girl’s hands, they were older, wiser. A married woman’s hands. Ones that could crush him. Ones that could ruin him. Their time in that bathroom hadn’t shown him anything other than her weakness for his touch. He’d wasted that opportunity, going after low-hanging fruit and not the important things. Did she still love him? How could he have not asked that question? Would she leave Tobey? A scarier question, one that he was afraid to know the answer to.

She was loyal. He knew nothing if not that.

But would she be loyal to their love? It was a love that hadn’t been touched in the last four years. Or would she be loyal to her husband? That question, he was terrified of. That question he could barely form in his mind, much less off his lips.

“Platz,” she said, and every muscle in the dog’s body relaxed as he looked up at her with a disappointed expression, a low whine coming out. “Platz.” He laid down on the dirt, his eyes on Chase. She took one step forward and stopped. “What are you doing here?” Her voice was guarded but not angry.