“They didn’t kiss me.” One of his hands was back on my arm, and he was guiding me, until my shoulders hit a locker, and his stare was impossible to escape from. “Look at me.”
I was looking. I couldn’t not look. I was staring into his eyes, and I believed him when he spoke.
“They had a connection. They got me some coke. They were there, they snorted it with me, they left. Nothing happened.”
“Coke?” I whispered. “Cocaine? Are you stupid?!” I yelled the word, shoving at his chest, but it didn’t give. I glared into those eyes and saw shame.
“Yeah.” He gritted out. “I was. And I was weak. And I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry to me!” I exploded. “If you get tested—”
“It’s out of my system in three days. And I’m not going to get tested. You know they don’t test for that unless I give them a reason—”
The door at the end of the locker room banged open, and a ball boy squinted at us, Chase caging me against the wall. “Mr. Stern?” the teenager called out, some Cincinnati local.
“Yeah?” Chase didn’t turn his head; he stared at me, eyes begging for understanding that I couldn’t give.
“You’re in the hole.”
Shit. There would be talk. Speculation. The door slammed shut, and we were alone again.
“I like you,” he said, and there was never more simplistic beauty.
“You hurt me,” I accused and felt tears come. Tears at a terrible time, our team’s needs imminent. “You’re stupid,” I repeated. Drugs? I hadn’t believed the rumors, too many of them swirling around these men. I’d thought he was above that. I’d thought he was stronger than that.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he leaned forward, his lips gentle as they pressed against my cheek, underneath my eyes, my tears kissed away. “Forgive me. Please. I need it.”
I didn’t know if I could. His need for drugs had led to too much. What I had given up in Tobey’s hotel room … it hadn’t felt valuable then, it hadn’t felt major. But now, looking into his eyes, I wanted it back. I wanted Chase to hold me and love me, and I wanted to have that to give to him. I hated him for ruining that. And I loved him for his regret—regret that matched my own, my heartbeat echoed in his eyes.
Both of us had made mistakes. He had confessed his. I couldn’t begin to bring up mine. Instead, with precious seconds ticking by, I ducked under his arm. “You’ve got to go,” I called over my shoulder, heading toward the door.
I was almost there when I saw the handle turn, my jump to the side barely in time before it flung open, in my direction. I flattened against the wall, hidden by it, and heard the bellow of our manager. Chase had been following me, almost running into Don, and I watched his fingers wrap around the edge of the door, keeping it away from me. “I’m coming,” he gritted out, his eyes darting to me, and I mouthed the word GO.
He didn’t move, and I gave him the only thing I could, a smile. It was small and hesitant, but his eyes grabbed at it, his fingers leaving the door, and he reached for me, the pads of his fingers brushing over my cheek for a brief moment, and then he was gone, the echo of his cleats bouncing off the walls as he followed Don to the field.
That night his disappearance was the talk of every sports show, our own team giving him hell, his bathroom excuse bought by most but not by all. Maybe it was just paranoia, but I felt my dad’s eyes, boring into me, past the laughter and the ribbing. I focused on the glove I was oiling and didn’t look up.
That night, he texted me and asked if he could come by.
That night, by the time he gently knocked, I had my mind made up.
47
“You can’t do drugs anymore.” I cracked the door and spoke quietly through it, scared to give my heart more than a sliver of a view. I’d be the first to say that I was naïve about a lot of things. Young in the world of experience. But drugs—I’d seen them destroy too many players. Their marriages, their careers, their reputation. He had too much at stake. Not just with me, but with life.
“Okay.” He tilted his head at me, and I eyed the freshly shaved jaw, the damp hair, the cornflower blue polo cleanly tucked into the top of his jeans.
“I’m serious.” I wet my lips and saw his eyes drop to them. “No coke, or weed, or heroine or—”
He pursed his lips at me. “It’s just coke—was just coke,” he amended. He held up his hands. “But no more. I promise.” I didn’t know him well enough. I didn’t know whether his promises were gold or tinfoil. He glanced both ways down the hall. “Please let me in before someone sees me.”
I rolled my eyes but opened the door wider, ready to table the discussion for another time. “Scared of my father?” I asked.
“Terrified.” He grinned at me and stepped forward. I shut the door behind him, and quietly flipped the latch.
“We can’t stay in here all night.” He stood at the window and looked out, the Cincinnati skyline glittering out of the dark.
“Why not?” I spun in the chair, watching him. He turned his head, looking at me for a long moment, his eyes traveling up the length of my legs before he chuckled, shaking his head, saying nothing. “What?” I pressed.
“Nothing.” He looked back out the window, and I stood, walking over to him.
“What?”
“A man only has so much control, Ty. I’m in a hotel room with you, alone. No one watching, no one to see. No one to stop me from kissing you.” He looked at my face. “And from doing a hell of a lot more.”
I took a step back, still shaky from my mistake with Tobey. The mistake I’d decided to never think of again. I wasn’t the only one regretting it. I’d passed Tobey in the hall that morning, and he’d practically broken his neck trying to avoid eye contact.
Chase’s eyes followed me, the dark arousal in them fading. I could see the thought process and spoke quickly, before the conversation turned serious. “So what do you suggest?”
His mouth broke into a grin, and he glanced down at my pajama pants. “Got anything else to wear?”
48
He didn’t know why she trusted him. Especially after whatever she saw that night. She shouldn’t. He was fucked up in more ways than one. Drugs were just the side effect of the bigger problem: a broken heart, one too afraid to love and too wary to trust. What happened with Emily proved that the greater the love, the deeper the pain.
He walked down the hall toward the stairs, thinking of the look on her face when she’d stepped away from him. It had almost been fear. It had certainly been cautious. In his mind, everything had changed when she’d turned eighteen. He needed to remember that, for her, it was just another day on the calendar gone. It didn’t change her outlook on things. It didn’t make her ready for something that his cock was frantic for.
He could be patient. He could wait.
He stepped into the stairwell, and leaned against the wall, the door settling closed behind him.
She shouldn’t trust him.
He should have the strength to stay away.
There was no way any of this would end well.
The door creaked open, and the most gorgeous blonde on the planet stepped quietly through, a backpack on her back, hair down, smile peeking wide below mischievous blue eyes. “Ready?” she asked.
And there was no way this wouldn’t end well.
For that smile? He could be a better man. He would be a better man. And everything would be okay. It had to.
49
Twenty-seven flights of stairs was a bitch; it didn’t matter who you were. Well, unless you were a Major League freak of nature who barely wheezed while the blonde beside him struggled to stand. Not that I was wheezing. Or had sweat dripping down my cheek (I think they had the heat on.). Just hypothetically speaking.
We left the hotel through the stairwell door, coming out in a back parking lot. Chase grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the street. I gave one last glance back at the building, then followed.
>
I had told my Dad goodnight, in those minutes before we left. Same as I did every night, his voice tired and sleepy, the light under his door already out. He wouldn’t know about this, couldn’t, but I still worried, my phone tucked into my back pocket.
“What if someone recognizes you?” I hissed. They would. His face was too beautiful not to notice, too famous to forget.
“We’re not going anywhere that I’ll be seen.”
And, thirty minutes later, he was right. It’d taken three phone calls, five hundred dollars in cash and a photo op with two security guards, but we were standing in the one place that no one in a city of millions, would see him. The Newport Aquarium, at eleven o’clock at night.
Before us, glass stretched to the ceiling, a thick divider between us and a million gallons of salt water. Floating gently, lit bright blue, the biggest stingray I had ever seen.
“He’s beautiful,” I said quietly, watching his giant fins silently pass through the water. Chase nodded, crouching beside the tank and watching a group of seahorses bob along colorful grasses.
“Have you been here before?” I asked, lifting my chin and following the path of the ray as he soared above me.
“As a kid. Not at night. You?”
I came here as a kid also, my hand tight in Mom’s. I had a small memory of a coloring book, purchased at the gift shop. And of holding a starfish. I remember those moments, but not the sight of her face when she looked at the fish. Or the sound of her laugh. I was too fixated on the things that hadn’t mattered. It seemed unfair that I’d remember those and not her. I told him so, and he pulled me to his chest, his arms wrapping around my shoulders, pinning me to him. I looked up into his face and memorized the line of his nose, the dent of it where a break once occurred. The thick brush of his eyelashes, framing eyes that searched my soul. I dropped my gaze to his mouth, his lips pale and smooth, tilting toward me as he softly brushed them against mine. I stayed still, the delicate skin of our lips against each other, and vowed never to forget this moment. I smelled the faint scent of chlorine, and his cologne, and felt the tighten of his hand, our lips parting, tongues meeting, and held onto each detail desperately. I would not forget this moment. I would never forget this moment.
I laid in the backseat, my head in his lap, his fingers in my hair, absentmindedly playing with strands. The SUV, a fleet car from MLB, drove slowly, bumping over occasional potholes, the driver clueless to my identity and highly-paid to ignore Chase’s.
We passed over a train track and the clatter made me think of my mom. Of the sounds in the kitchen when she cooked. Pots clattering, the scrap of metal spoons against a pot. Funny how odd things can take you to new places. I looked up, into his face.
“My mom was a great cook.”
“Yeah?” He ran a soft finger over the lines of my ear and waited.
“Yeah. I remember sitting in the kitchen and drawing as she cooked.” I could picture the coloring book perfectly—my favorite—one with Belle and Gaston and all of her relationship drama. “Is it bad that that is the only thing I can remember?” Not the scent of her perfume. Not the sound of her voice. I just remember that damn coloring book and the smell of spaghetti cooking.
“It’s not bad. I don’t remember much from that stage of my life. And you don’t have to remember her to still love her.”
“I know.” I turned my head, watching the shadows as they moved across the leather. But did I?
“What happened to her?”
“She was having surgery. Something went wrong with the anesthesia.” I’d been home with a sitter. Dad had been in Colorado, playing. Neither of us there when she died.
“I’m sorry. Is it hard to talk about?”
I looked away from the shadows and up into his eyes. “No. But you’re the first person I think I’ve ever told.” I think he was the first who had ever even asked. When I was younger, people brought up my mother a lot. Nothing worse than a heartbroken girl being innocently asked where her mommy was. “My dad did a good job of stepping in,” I said quickly, my loyalties fierce. “A great job.”
“Are you going to tell him about us?”
I opened my eyes. “Us?”
“Well, yeah.”
It was a question worthy of sitting up, and I did, turning to him, my equilibrium off for a moment before I found my bearings. “I didn’t know there was an us.”
“I’d like there to be.” His voice was low and steady, like we weren’t having the biggest conversation of my life, like he wasn’t CHASE STERN asking me to be his girlfriend.
“You want to be my boyfriend.” Clarification was needed because this was huge, and if I was wrong, if I was misreading this, then I needed to reel my heart in before—
“Yes.”
“Exclusively.”
“Yes.”
I looked away from his eyes for a moment. “That means no other women.”
His mouth twitched into a smile. “Yes. I know what it means.”
“I’m not ready to have sex.” Again. I wanted to add the words, to give him some hint that I had, unfortunately, done that before, but couldn’t. Adding that would lead to questions. Answering those questions would mean facing my mistake head on. It was easier, especially in this new world, one where Chase wanted to be my boyfriend, to pretend that it never happened.
“That’s fine.” He reached for my hand, and I pulled away.
“No. You say that’s fine, but I’ve lived in a world of men for ten years. And I’ve seen almost every one of them cheat. There’s too much temptation—it’s not fair for you to be with someone like me, someone—”
“Ty.” He cut me off, his hand pulling at the back of my neck, bringing me forward, his mouth hard as it kissed the top of my head. “Shut up. I’m a big boy, I can handle some celibacy. Just please don’t tempt me too much.” He lowered his mouth, bringing it to mine, and we shared one long kiss, a kiss that had my heart pounding and nails digging into him, the muscles in his arm tight under my grip.
When the kiss ended, we were both breathless, and I pushed my hair back, trying to find my composure, my sanity in all of this. “I can’t tell my dad.” Not yet. Not when his opinion of Chase was lower than garbage. Not when I was barely eighteen, and Dad was finally giving me space. “If he knows, he won’t let me see you. I mean … not like this.” There would be curfews and limitations. He’d watch me like a hawk, and question me to death. Assuming that he didn’t forbid it altogether. I may be eighteen, but I was a Yankee employee. And I was his daughter, his world. For the moment, my life, and my decisions, weren’t exactly my own.
He studied me for a moment, then nodded. “It’s your decision. Just let me know when. But I’m yours. No other women. No drugs. I promise.”
I nodded. And when he pulled me onto his lap for another kiss, I felt his conviction in his touch, his taste, his reverent whisper of my name.
And just like that, five blocks away from the Marriott Marquis, we were official. Officially together.
Officially committed.
Officially screwed.
JULY
“Even once they made the Yankee connection, Ty wasn’t compared to the victims ‘til the fourth girl died. Then some criminal behaviorist finally made the correlation between the hot blondes and Ty. That was really when the investigation started to break wide open. And that’s when the protection detail started following Ty. For all the good they did.”
Dan Velacruz, New York Times
50
Cleveland
I hid my yawn behind my glove, the motion still caught by Higgins, fifteen yards away, in left field.
“Tired Ty?” he called out, reworking the glove onto his hand.
“Nope.” I scoffed, earning a laugh from him, his head turning as the hit went high left. Foul. Five innings in, and we were up by two. The remaining innings were crawling by, my eyes heavy, a nap calling my name. I’d been dragging all day, Dad all but pullin
g me out of bed that morning. My body wasn’t built for 3 AM bedtimes, a habit that my secret relationship with Chase was fostering. Last night we’d driven to his hometown, a quiet suburb forty-five minutes out of Cincinnati. He’d given me the grand tour, the final stop his high school.
The ball shot through the dark toward me, and I reached out, catching it barehanded, grateful for his light toss. Behind him, the dark lights of the stadium, the high school barely visible across a sea of grass. I stepped closer to him and threw it back, the toss short, him only fifteen feet away.
“It’s so odd,” he said. “That you’ve never been in high school.”
I shrugged, glancing over my shoulder. “I didn’t miss it.” I held out a hand, ready for his throw, but he turned, tossing the ball back to the dugout. I watched as he came closer.
“High school’s pretty great.” He looped an arm around my shoulders and steered me around, heading for the bleachers, his first step up on metal loud in the deserted dark. “I had some great moments here. I hate that you missed it.”
We sat halfway up, the metal hard and cold against my upper thighs, and I looked toward the buildings, a fortress of red brick that looked more like a prison. “What was so great about it?”
“It’s hard to explain.” He leaned forward, rubbing at a spot on his palm. “There’s this energy in high school. A sort of magic.” He looked over at me. “I see it in you, sometimes. The way you smile when you see something new. The excitement you get over something dumb. How your breath hitches when I lean toward you.”
“That’s not high school. That’s just … being young.” I hated that I was five years younger than him. I wanted to have this conversation on an adult level, one where we were equals.
He leaned back, resting his elbows on the row behind him. “I would have loved to meet you back then.”
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