Third Base (The Boys of Summer Book 1)(69)

After I shower, I walk out of the clubhouse and back toward the dugout. The lights are still on and people are cleaning the stadium. Daisy still sits in the same spot she was in earlier, right where I asked her to stay. I sit down in the empty seat beside her and look out over the field.

“The reporters asked about you tonight. They asked me to tell them about my girlfriend.”

“What’d you tell them?”

“That I was in love with her.”

Her head turns and the light catches her eyes just right, making them sparkle.

“Oh yeah?”

I nod. “Yeah and they asked for her name. I told them her name is Baseball.”

Daisy’s lips morph into the biggest smile I’ve seen in a long time. “That’s the best answer ever.”

“I know,” I say, proud of myself for the quick thinking. “What are you doing here?”

“I got your tweet.”

I sent her a tweet before the game started, telling her that I missed her. It was a last ditch effort to reach her and to show her that I’m serious. I know I don’t owe her anything, but I feel something for her that I can’t let go. Call me a psycho stalker or a sociopath but I want to be with her, or at least have her in my life.

“I’m pretty good at tweeting.”

“Yes, you are,” she says.

We sit in silence, watching the grounds crew cover the field and preserve the infield for tomorrow’s game. They’ll be here first thing in the morning to get it ready. They’ll mow, edge and make sure everything is in place before they cover it up again for batting practice. It’s a tedious job, but they’re damn good at it.

“I don’t deserve to have you in my life.”

“I know,” I say, agreeing with her. Anyone else would’ve walked away, never looking back. But they’d be fools to walk away from someone like Daisy.

“I should’ve told you about my job when we first met.”

“Yes, you should have, but why don’t you tell me now?”

Daisy sighs, rubbing her hands over her bare thighs. It was ninety out today and the night air is the perfect temperature.

“When you arrived in Boston my professor thought it would be a good idea for someone in class to cover you. Sort of like a fan blog about you, but I had the idea to do the whole team. He gave the job to me because I have season tickets, or at least I did. He offered to pay me, plus I could do whatever I wanted with ad space. I needed the money so I took the job thinking I’d never meet you or any of the other guys.

“At first, you made it easy. The stupid things you were doing were tabloid fodder and I was having so much fun. Then you’d tweet me and I could tell you were getting pissed so I started writing about the other guys as well. Tips were coming in like crazy. I’d get tweets about who was in the bar hooking up, who’s cheating, what wife just spent an obscene amount at the store… the more I posted, the more hits I received which meant more ad traffic and that meant more money in my account and better food on our table.

“The first night we had dinner, someone in the restaurant tweeted me about you being on a date. I thought for sure you figured it out by the time I sat down, but you never said anything except for me to call your agent. Believe me, I have…he’s not very nice.”

I have to laugh at her last statement because it’s true: He’s a dick.

“The day you surprised me in the library I was uploading a new post. And when we fought, I saw it as an opportunity to escape what was coming.”

“What was that?” I ask.

“Heartache.”

She broke my heart.

“But I couldn’t stay away and it wasn’t because of some story, but because I was… still am… in love with you. I never used you, Ethan. I didn’t have to. There were enough people surrounding all of you that were willing to give up a story. Bainbridge’s wife is one of them. She emails me on a daily basis. It’s sad, really.” Her voice trails off and I start to question why I’m not angry with her now that she’s coming clean. This is the story I’ve been waiting for and I should be yelling, but I’m not.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you. That is my biggest regret. After everything you’ve done and were doing for my grandpa… there were so many times I wanted to tell you, but I just couldn’t find the words.”

“That night in the car, when you said you forgot to call a night nurse, what was that about?”

“I had forgotten to cancel the post and freaked out. You would’ve wondered about all the notifications or asked me why I’m fiddling with my phone so much. I couldn’t turn my phone off because my grandpa might have called.”

I would’ve taken her phone away if she were messing with it while we were together. Our time was valuable and limited. The last thing we needed was interruptions.

“How did you know I went to Sarah’s in Seattle? You never posted about it.”

“Steve’s wife. She tells me everything.”

And Steve heard it in the clubhouse and told his wife? I’m not buying it.

“I don’t think Bainbridge would’ve told her.”

Daisy looks at me. “He didn’t. Jacobson did.”

“Interesting.”

“Honestly, Ethan, sometimes you have these blinders on. You need to take them off and look around. There’s a lot of shit going down in your clubhouse.”