Unforgettable: A Small Town Second Chance Sports Romance

by Melanie Harlow

  But it would be the last.

  I’d taken a risk opening my heart to him, and when it was time for him to take a risk for me, he’d bolted.

  I deserved more.

  The truth of it was right there in front of me, and yet . . . I cried for him all night.

  In the morning, I texted my sisters.

  Hey. Sorry for the 6 a.m. text, but I need a hug. Anyone who can come over for coffee this morning is encouraged to bring tissues.

  Within minutes, responses were coming in.

  Meg: OMG I will be there as soon as I can.

  Frannie: Shoot! I’m at work already! Are you okay?

  Me: I don’t know.

  Chloe: OMW.

  Sylvia: I have to get Whitney from her sleepover at 8 and then I’ll come over!

  Forty-five minutes later, I was sitting across from Meg and Chloe at my kitchen table, telling them the entire story. When I got to the part about the letter and the photograph, they both gasped.

  “Can we see it?” Chloe asked.

  Nodding, I got up from my chair and went over to the kitchen counter where I’d placed the envelope, letter and picture tucked back inside. I placed it on the table in front of them, then went and poured myself another cup of coffee.

  A second later I heard one of them gasp. “Oh my God! It’s Tyler in high school! But with your skin!” Meg exclaimed.

  “And Dad’s ears!” added Chloe.

  I would have smiled if I could. “Yep.”

  They were silent as they read the letter, and I made my way back to the table. I studied their faces as they read—Meg’s brow furrowed and serious, Chloe’s jaw hanging open in disbelief.

  When they finished, they looked up at me. “Wow,” breathed Meg. “That’s . . . a lot to take in.”

  “God, April. You must be just—I don’t even know what you must feel.” Chloe shook her head. “He’s been right here. For months. At our old school. Playing for Tyler’s old team.”

  “And Tyler has been working with him one-on-one,” I told them.

  Meg sucked in her breath. “Jesus. Does he know yet?”

  I nodded, plucking a tissue from the box on the table. “Yes. This is the part where I might have screwed up. I opened the letter right before going to work. I was already kind of upset because of that stupid news story. Not so much for me, but for Tyler, and because Cloverleigh and our family had been dragged into it. But learning about Chip was a whole other level of holy shit, what is my life?”

  “I bet,” Chloe said.

  “I sort of gave myself the day to figure out how to tell him,” I went on. “I knew he was going to freak out—he’d already made it clear he was not into meeting his biological son, although he was supportive of me wanting to establish contact. He understood why it was important to me.”

  “Chloe said he’d made the decision to move back?” Meg asked.

  “Yeah. It’s been so crazy I haven’t really had time to update you guys. But yes—he was planning to move back.” I felt the tears coming again. “Until last night.”

  “What happened?” Chloe sat up taller in her seat.

  “I’d given him a key to my place so he could come over while I was at work. I knew I’d be late, and I didn’t want him to have to wait up if he was tired. I’d taken the letter with me to work, but apparently the photograph fell out, and he saw it on the kitchen floor when he got here. On the back is Chip’s full name—he figured it out.”

  “Wow,” Meg said again. “That had to be a shock.”

  “What did he do?” Chloe asked.

  “Exactly what I feared. Freaked out. Went back to his hotel and packed his bags. Booked a flight back to California.”

  “He left without even saying goodbye?” Meg looked shocked.

  “No, he was here when I got home. He said goodbye.” The memory of it had my tears spilling over, and I blew my nose. “He said a lot of things.”

  Chloe reached across the table and rubbed my arm. “Like what?”

  “He’s scared. He thinks if he doesn’t leave, people will put it together—if I don’t hide the fact that I’m Chip’s birth mother, he says people will do the math and figure out he’s the father. We’re all over the news together.”

  “In all honesty, he’s probably right,” Meg said gently, picking up the photograph again. “The resemblance is really strong. It’s a small town. And everyone knows you guys were close back then.”

  “I guess you’re right,” I said, reaching for another tissue. “And he just isn’t ready for that. He doesn’t want Chip to know. He says he’ll just mess up Chip’s life. He thinks he ruins everything he touches.”

  “And what do you think?” Chloe asked.

  “I think he’s using that fear as an excuse.”

  “How so?” Meg tilted her head.

  I blew my nose again before going on. “Deep down, he’s so scarred from the way his career ended, he thinks he’s a failure as a man. As a human being. He thinks he can never live up to anyone’s expectations of him, so he’s refusing to even try. He thinks I don’t see the real him. But I do, you guys,” I wept. “I do see the real him. And he saw the real me. I thought he felt the way I did. I thought we had something worth fighting for. How could I have been so wrong?” I folded my arms on the table, dropped my head onto them, and cried.

  Chloe rubbed my arm. “I’m sorry, honey. Relationships are so hard.”

  “You know, Noah and I went through this,” Meg said softly. “When I first mentioned moving back from D.C., he freaked out. He tried to pretend it was because he didn’t want to be in a serious relationship, but really, it was just fear.”

  “That’s right,” said Chloe. “Wasn’t he worried about his brother?”

  “Yes. He’d always felt guilty because Asher had cerebral palsy, and he didn’t. They were twins, and he knew Asher’s CP was likely caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain during birth. So anything that Asher struggled with that came easy to Noah—from walking to talking to girls—he felt guilty about. From a young age, he had it in his head that he didn’t deserve things like becoming a husband and father. As if denying himself the things he wanted deep down was the right punishment for being born without CP.”

  “God, that’s so sad,” I said, picking up my head and grabbing another tissue.

  “It was sad,” Meg agreed. “He needed to work through it, and I had to give him the time and space to do it. Maybe Tyler just needs time to work through this.”

  “I don’t know,” I said miserably. “He seemed pretty determined when he left here last night. I got the feeling it was goodbye for good.”

  Sylvia showed up a little while later, and I went through it all again, complete with more tears and soggy tissues.

  After two pots of coffee, my sisters said they had to get going, but each of them hugged me tightly before they left. “Don’t give up,” Sylvia whispered fiercely in my ear. “If you love him, don’t give up.”

  Frannie called and said she was so sorry she’d been unable to get away, but she was dying to talk to me. “Can you meet up later?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I do have tonight off.”

  “Then come over,” she pleaded. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

  I spent the rest of the day doing laundry, cleaning my condo, and trying not to think about Tyler. But it was impossible—everything reminded me of him, from the scent of his cologne clinging to my sheets to the bottle of whiskey he’d left on my kitchen counter. The toothpaste tube. The Netflix remote. The stairs. The couch. The bathtub.

  I racked my brain, wondering what, if anything, I could have done differently yesterday to prevent Tyler from leaving.

  But no matter which way I pulled at the threads, the end result was always a knot I couldn’t untangle. People would talk—it was a fact. And Tyler was still a hot news commodity. If people did figure it out, my life would be affected—and possibly Chip’s too . . . I could see the hea
dline now. Baseball’s Hottest Head Case Has Secret Son.

  We’d face social media blow-ups and news media scrutiny and judgment from people around town about the “scandal.” People would stare. They would gossip. They might say ugly, hurtful things that made me feel bad about myself.

  Had Tyler been right to leave?

  At one point, I sat down at the kitchen table to work on the toast I had to give at the retirement party, but I ended up reading the letter from Robin Carswell over and over again. Staring at Chip’s picture.

  That grin of his took the edge off some of my sadness. If there was a silver lining in all this, it was that I’d still get to meet my son. I’d focus on that.

  I opened my laptop and composed an email to Robin.

  Dear Robin,

  Thank you so much for writing me back. What a shock to realize we all live so close! I am very excited about meeting Chip, and I loved seeing his photograph and hearing about his interests. He’s so handsome, and it sounds like he’s also smart and kind and talented. You must be very proud.

  I was so sorry to learn of Chuck’s passing, and I’m sure the last year has been difficult. If this feels like the wrong time to add to your emotional burden by introducing me to your son, please let me know. I do not want to make things harder for you.

  If you would like to discuss things over the phone, my number is below.

  Sincerely,

  April Sawyer

  I hit send and closed my laptop.

  Twenty-Four

  Tyler

  As soon as I got back to my house in San Diego, I took a sleeping pill, crashed into bed, and slept hard. When I woke up, it was already getting dark outside. I dug one of Anna’s meal containers out of the freezer, microwaved it according to her instructions, and ate it sitting alone at my kitchen island.

  When I was done, I took a shower, threw on some clean sweats, and fell onto my couch. I knew I should call my sister, and David Dean had been trying to get ahold of me too, but I couldn’t handle talking to either one of them yet. They’d only make me feel worse.

  I sent Sadie a text saying I was sorry for leaving so fast and telling her I’d call her in a day or so. I sent one to David Dean apologizing again for the incident at the Jolly Pumpkin and saying I’d decided to return to California after all, so the school didn’t have to worry about their offer. I wished him well for the rest of the season and asked him to please tell the team how much I’d enjoyed working with them.

  Every time I thought about Chip Carswell, I felt sick.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t have, deep down, a kind of pride that he was my biological son. I did. I couldn’t help it. He was a great kid—smart, talented, strong, respectful, popular. What more could any father ask for in a son? But I wasn’t his father, and it felt wrong to think of myself that way. I’d forfeited that privilege when I’d walked away from him. From April. From the whole situation. I’d justified it the way I always justified everything back then—what mattered was my baseball career, and anything that threatened it had to be cut off at the source.

  Including my feelings.

  That wasn’t being a coward, was it? That was being a man. At least, that’s what I’d been raised to believe.

  But what about now?

  I reached for the remote and turned on the television. I needed a distraction. I’d go crazy if I let myself start rethinking everything. The bottom line was, they were better off without me.

  Without even thinking about it, I searched for Kids Baking Championship and binged an entire season.

  I missed April so much it hurt.

  I stayed that way for eight straight days.

  Alone. Miserable. Depressed.

  I ignored my phone and never once checked email. I even told Anna not to come. I didn’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone, or answer any questions. When I ran out of meals in the freezer, I had my groceries delivered, cooked my own food (okay, I mostly microwaved shitty frozen entrees), and did my own laundry. Of course, I turned a load of whites pink because I didn’t realize a new red T-shirt had gotten in the washer with them, and I remembered the night April had scolded me about separating my colors. My first instinct was to take a picture of my new pink socks and undershirts and tell her she was right, but of course, I couldn’t do that.

  And I couldn’t call her and tell her that the spaghetti sauce I made from a jar didn’t taste right. And that my bed felt too big without her next to me. And that I’d heard that Stevie Wonder song and—swear to God—started air-dancing with an imaginary partner, turning her out and bringing her back in just like she’d taught me.

  On Friday, one week after I left April, I went up to my cabin in the mountains, but the silence and solitude there no longer felt peaceful to me—they felt stifling. I couldn’t stand being alone with my thoughts in such a small space. The voices in my head argued constantly.

  You did the right thing. She’s better off.

  You’re a dumbass. Go get her back.

  You’re a head case. Quit doubting your decisions.

  You’re a chickenshit. If she doesn’t care what people say, why should you?

  I left after just one night.

  Back in San Diego Saturday afternoon, I swam fifty laps in my pool, and the physical activity helped a little. I was just pulling myself out of the water when I heard a voice.

  “Good, you’re alive. You asshole.”

  I straightened up to see my sister standing there on the patio. “Sadie?”

  She ran straight for me, and threw her arms around my neck, soaking herself. “I was so worried about you. I thought maybe something had happened.”

  I hugged her back, amazed at how good the human contact felt after a week of isolation. “Sorry.”

  “You should be.” She let me go and stood back. “Now that I know you’re okay, I’m super pissed at you.”

  “Look, I can explain. I—”

  “How could you leave without saying goodbye?”

  I frowned and moved past her, grabbing my towel off a chair. “I had to get out fast.”

  “Why?”

  I dried off and wrapped the towel around my hips. “It’s complicated.”

  “Lucky for you, I’ve got all night.”

  “You flew all the way out here for one night?”

  “How else was I supposed to make sure you were okay? You weren’t answering texts or calls. I’m just glad I had the code to the privacy gate or I’d still be sitting out there in my rental car.”

  “I’m okay,” I said. “I just needed some time by myself.”

  “You mean you needed time to mope,” she clarified with a sniff. “What happened to your coaching job? What happened to a house on the water? What happened to red hair and dimples?”

  “That was never going to work,” I said. “It was a stupid idea.”

  “What happened to no more hiding out?” she pushed.

  “What do you want me to say, Sadie?” I ran a hand through my wet hair. “I changed my mind about it. About all of it.”

  “But why? There must have been a reason.”

  “There was. There is.”

  “Well?” She put her hands behind her back like a patient teacher. “I’m waiting.”

  Exhaling, I shook my head. “Fine. I’ll tell you. But I’m not going back there, okay? So don’t try to convince me.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I won’t.”

  She followed me inside, and I went up to my room to throw on dry clothes. When I got back down, she was sitting at my kitchen island drinking a bottle of water. I grabbed a beer and sat next to her, spilling the entire story.

  “Wow,” she said. “So you knew him the whole time?”

  “The whole time.”

  “That’s so crazy. A lefty pitcher.”

  “And he looks just like me. I almost passed out when I saw that picture.”

  “I bet.” She took a drink of water. “But I still don’t see why you left.”

  I got off the stoo
l and went to the pantry for a bag of chips. “Sadie, I just explained it. I left to protect them.”

  “Really?” Disbelief colored the word.

  “Really.” I opened the bag and leaned back against the counter.

  “Protect them from what?”

  I rolled my eyes. “From the media shitstorm. From gossip. From knowing what it’s like to be stared at and whispered about.”

  “How do you know they care?”

  I crunched on a chip while April’s words echoed in my head. I don’t care what people say. Let them talk. Would Chip have felt the same way?

  No. What eighteen-year-old ball player wants to learn his biological father is a MLB pitcher . . . only to learn oh, it’s that one. The fuckup. The has-been. The choke joke. He’d want nothing to do with me.

  “They would care,” I insisted. “Even if they thought they wouldn’t, they would. It’s embarrassing.”

  “Hmm. Because I don’t think you left to protect them. I think,” she went on, “you left to avoid dealing with your feelings.”

  “What feelings?” I snapped.

  “The same ones you shut out your entire life. The ones you felt you could never show because they were a detriment to your macho reputation. Shit, there’s probably a little of everything in there by now. Love? Fear? Compassion? Vulnerability? Shame? A secret longing to be a dad?”

  I squinted at her. “Are you fucking crazy? I don’t want to be a dad.”

  “Maybe not.” She shrugged. “But you were the one who told me what an expert you were at shutting out anything you didn’t want to feel for thirty-odd years. And I’m not saying I blame you—that habit served you well in baseball, maybe even in life. And it isn’t just going to go away. You have to consciously decide to grapple with those feelings.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Although part of me was afraid she was making a little too much sense.

  “I suppose I could be wrong. I mean, maybe you don’t really care for April.”