Swing (Landry Family #2)(71)

As I try to process that, she continues talking.

“It’s why I knew this was coming. I’ve seen baseball take over his life. Take over my mother’s. It’s their love for the game that trumps any love for me, Landry. If it can be that way for a parent, there’s no way it won’t be that for a boyfriend. I knew this before I met you, so I can’t blame you.”

She tries to shut the door, but I don’t budge.

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” I ask, still in disbelief. “That motherfucker is the GM? Of San Diego?”

“What do you want me to say? Everyone loves him. He’s on television, smiling and playing Mr. America. Of course it’ll look to you like I’m some kind of weirdo . . . unable to even win my parents’ love.”

My heart cracks, breaking in two jagged pieces. I reach for her. She swats my hands, but eventually relents and lets me pull her into me as I kneel by the side of the car.

Her body racks with tears as her life comes full circle again. Tears lick at my lashes too because, without a doubt, this is nonnegotiable for her. She won’t go with me. This will be the end of us.

As if she reads my mind, she pulls away and gives me a soft smile. “Go, Landry. Go play ball.”

I plead with her without words. I can’t ask her to go near her parents, not to the people that hurt her so badly. I can’t even figure out how I’m going to do that, but I also can’t think about going without her.

“Lincoln,” she says, the ring of my first name, the one she never uses, pierces the air. “This was always going to be the way this ended. I knew it before it started.” She wipes away a tear. “I’ll always be thankful for the time we did have together, and I’ll always root for you.”

“This doesn’t have to be the end.”

“No, it does. You live a life I can’t,” she says, a hint of a laugh in her voice. “If you’re ever in town . . .”

“Dani, don’t leave,” I say as she shuts the door. The car lurches backwards as she puts it in reverse. I pound frantically on the window because when she’s gone, she’s gone. My throat tightens and I fight myself from screaming in the middle of the fucking driveway. “Roll down your window. Please, give me that.”

She looks away, like it pains her to look at me before she concedes. Her eyes flicker to mine, and we both smile at the same time.

“I need to say something,” I say, a break in my voice. “I don’t know what it is, but I need to figure out how to rewind the last few hours and stop this from happening.”

Her hand falls over mine on the ledge of the window, her thumb stroking the side of my hand. “If you think of it,” she says, “mail me the pink mug you bought me. I’d like to keep it as a reminder of you.”

“I can bring it to you. I won’t leave for a week or so.”

Her head swishes side to side. “I can’t see you again. It’ll make it worse.”

She’s right. This isn’t a girl I can be friends with. It’s a girl I want to fucking crawl inside and never leave. It’s all or nothing with this one, a grand slam or a strike out, and right now, I’m watching the ball hit the catcher’s mitt.

“Goodbye,” she whispers, her eyes filling again as the car rolls backwards.

Panicked, I jog alongside it. “I love you, Dani. Okay?”

“Okay, Landry,” she chokes out. Her chin bowed, she hits the road and drives right out of my life.





Lincoln

THEY JUST TALK. I DON’T even think they know what they’re talking about. Their mouths move and shit spills out.

“Let’s be fucking real,” I say to the television hosts, lifting a bottle to my lips. “None of y’all played ball. Of any kind.”

This beer tastes as bland as the first ones. Plural. Lots of plural. Well, it tastes way more bland after the seventh-inning stretch of whiskey I added to the mix. I’ll feel this tomorrow.

Tomorrow. The chorus from some play my mom took Ford and the girls and I to one summer rings through my memory banks and I find myself humming the tune. How do I even remember this?

My laptop glows in front of me with housing options in San Diego. I hate them all. I even try to convince myself that the beachfront bungalow is everything I’ve ever wanted. That it probably comes with beachfront bunnies. That the beach equals no clothes and lots of girls.

I fail.

Every house I find, I think about stupid shit. Like Dani. And how she won’t be there. And how much that fucking burns right now. Blisters my heart. Poisons my soul. Then I drink more. Maybe eventually it will drown out. Or I’ll pass out. I’m good with either option.

Something catches my attention but I can’t focus on it. I’m in a lovely state of buzz, a muddy, fuzzy warmth that sort of bubble wraps everything. But it’s there. Something is, anyway. When I reach over to put my drink on the table, my ass lifts off my phone and I hear it ringing.

“Aha!” I say, nearly falling off the couch. Stabilizing myself, I answer it. “Hello?”

“Hey, Linc,” Graham says.

“Hey, G! What’s happening, man?”

“Well,” he says slowly, “I called to see how your meeting went and to ask you a question. But after hearing you, I have a brand new set of questions,” he chuckles.