MVP (The MVP Duet Book 2)

by Laramie Briscoe

  Road trips give me an anxiety I’ve never felt before, and I’m starting to literally fucking hate them. I don’t know what to do about it, and I’ve said as much to Felicity tonight.

  “Why don’t you go with him next time?” Felicity asks as we sit in the living room of the penthouse, watching their game on TV. “I’ve gone with JD a few times. It’s not my favorite, but at least I don’t have to worry about what he’s doing.”

  “I never thought I’d be that kind of woman.” I shrug, taking a drink of the wine I’ve poured in my glass. “That I would keep tabs on my husband. It’s not that I don’t trust him,” I continue. “It just bothers me that other people use that distance between us to make it seem like things are happening, when they aren’t. My brain and my heart know that he loves me, but this fucking doubt creeps in when he’s been gone for so long.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it keeping tabs. If it’s something that’s bothering you, then maybe it’s something that will give you peace of mind,” she says before taking a drink of her own wine. “When JD and I first got married, I got jealous over everything and everyone, just because I wasn’t used to it. I mean, so far you’ve done way better than I did during my first year. Women throw themselves way more at Savage than they ever did at JD. And as much as I want to tell you to be a strong woman, I can understand how it makes doubt creep in. We women are our own worst enemies, our voices to ourselves are louder than anyone else’s.”

  “You know he loves you though,” Susie says as she brings us the dinner she’s made. Typically I don’t like for her to serve us, but she’s eating with us tonight and staying to watch the game.

  “Damn Susie, this Greek salad looks amazing.” Felicity rubs her stomach as it rumbles. “I’m starving, if you didn’t know.”

  We all laugh as she gets a huge plateful of it, dousing it liberally with a homemade dressing that Susie absolutely kills every time she makes it.

  “Fingers crossed ladies that our guys win tonight and they take the lead in the division.”

  Four hours later, the girls are gone and I’m lying in bed, waiting for Slade to text or call me. This is the part I hate. He has interviews and meetings with the team, which gives me time to think of what he may or may not be doing. I’m not sure when this started for me, but I got sick of hearing women I don’t know talking about how hot my husband is.

  I’d been in the bathroom at the stadium and had heard them talk about Slade. The way they did it didn’t sit well with me at all, and since then I’ve been a jealous bitch. I know I’ve got to get over it, but it’s harder than I ever imagined it would be.

  As I’m scrolling through my newsfeed on Facebook, I see an alert on Instagram saying that I’ve been tagged in a photo. That in and of itself isn’t unusual. It’s gotten to be where I’m tagged all the time. What makes me do a double-take is the person who tagged me. She runs a gossip blog that likes to talk about how sports star husbands cheat on their wives while they’re on the road.

  I’ve been nervous about being tagged by her for months.

  “Don’t do it, Malone,” I tell myself. “You know she does this shit to get followers and to make things into what they really aren’t.”

  This woman tagged JD and Felicity not long ago, and I know from what happened with them that what looks to be the situation isn’t always. I wait for long minutes, trying to talk myself out of it, trying to talk myself down, but in the end, I can’t. I click on the notification and open the app.

  When I do, I really wished I hadn’t.

  There’s my husband in what looks like the shadows of a bar, a beer up to his lips, with a woman in front of him. He’s got his hand resting on her hip in a familiar pose as he leans down to either kiss her or hear what she’s saying. There’s not a follow-up picture, so I’m unsure of what happens after these moments.

  What I do know is that I’m hurt, I miss him, and I hate to think that other women are out there giving him what I can’t. This is the moment I let the loneliness creep in, the moment when I let the tears fall, and I hope like hell Slade and I can make it through the distance.

  Savage

  “I fuckin’ hate this bitch,” I groan as I see my name tagged by a woman who calls herself a reporter. When all she is, is a shit-stirrer who posts pictures to cause gossip.

  “Don’t even look at it, man,” JD tells me from where he sits beside me. “You know what she caused between me and Felicity last season. Don’t even give her the time of your day.”

  “I don’t want to, but she tagged Malone in this, too. Both you and I know, she’s probably looked at it, and she doesn’t have the capacity that we do to deal with this.”

  JD claps me on the shoulder. “Then good luck with this buddy, because we’re not getting home for a while.”

  The entire ride back to the hotel my stomach is in knots, and as soon as I’m alone in my room, I call her, wanting to get this over with. It feels like forever as I wait for her to accept my FaceTime request, and when she does, my heart clenches at the sight of her tear-streaked face.

  “Babe, it’s not even true.”

  “Looks pretty true.” She wipes at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

  I sigh as I lean back on the bed. “I miss you, Malone, not just any woman, not just any woman’s touch. Yours. You’re my wife, you’re who I reach for in the middle of the night. A one-night stand isn’t going to satisfy me, and you of all people should know that by now. Not when I have you at home, who loves every part of me, and I love every part of you.”

  “I know,” she sobs. “But I don’t like seeing you in what appears to be compromising positions with other women. It doesn’t do well for my self-esteem.”

  Now that pisses me off. “Have I ever given you any indication I don’t love the way you look? The type of person you are? The way you love me? Have I given you any fucking reason to doubt me? Other than this garbage?”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “This is just me, and I know I need to get over it, but it’s hard.”

  “You don’t think it’s hard for me? When I go up to bat, the opposing catchers always have something to say about how hot my wife is. How they’d like to get to know you themselves, and how they can’t believe you’re with me.” I run my fingers through my hair. “It’s what people do. They try to psyche you out, and it’s a game for them.”

  “But this is our lives!”

  “I know.” I raise my voice. “I know that and you know that, but they just don’t care. It’s something we have to deal with - they just don’t care, Malone. That’s where we have to be the bigger people and realize they do this to bring us down.”

  “I don’t like it,” she sobs. “I don’t like people playing with our feelings like this.”

  “I don’t either, but this is what we signed up for when we said we’d be together. I’m sorry this hurts you, but it hurts me too, and I fucking hate fighting with you.”

  “I hate fighting with you too,” she sighs. “It’s the distance.” She wipes at her eyes.

  “I can’t do anything about the distance, Malone, this is my job.” I shrug, feeling more helpless than I have since the moment she walked away from me when we were teens.

  “I know, and I also know that’s why I need to figure out how to overcome this. It’s not you,” she cries. “It’s me.”

  Like it was before, is on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say it. Frustration roars up in my throat. It’s always her. “It’s the fact you don’t trust me,” I interrupt her.

  “No, I do trust you. I don’t trust others around you,” she argues.

  “I am who I am, babe. Either you learn to live with it and deal with it, or we can’t make this work. More than anything I want this to work for us, but we can’t do this with every road trip I go on. Our marriage won’t survive and neither will our mental health.”

  “I love you, Slade.”

  “I love you too, Mal. But is that enough?”

  “I think it is.”
She sniffles. “I’m just feeling down tonight.”

  My heart aches as I hear the hurt in her voice. “Then let’s watch some TV together.” I lie back against the bed. “You put Netflix on your laptop, I’ll put Netflix on mine, and we’ll watch the same show together.”

  “You think that’ll work?”

  “It’s the best idea I’ve got, sweetness.”

  Instead of arguing with me, she does as I’ve asked. Two hours later when she drifts off and I disconnect the call; I hope we’ve done enough to minimize the damage. If I don’t have her, I don’t know what the fuck I’ll do with my life.

  Eighteen

  Savage

  September

  M: Will you be home soon? I miss you!

  Reading the text I’ve gotten from Malone breaks my heart. We’ve not been the same since our argument in August at the end of that long road trip. I’ve been doing appearances for the last two weeks, on top of playing the best baseball of my life. I’m tired as fuck and all I want to do is spend a weekend in bed with her, but it’s not meant to be. I’ve just been informed the Commissioner wants me to make an appearance on one of the late shows. Instead of flying home right now, I’ll be flying to New York, and then home. She’s going to be super pissed.

  S: I have to go to New York, and I’ll be home tomorrow. I’ve been asked to make a late-night appearance to help with post-season ticket sales. I’m sorry, babe. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

  She doesn’t respond quickly and that almost scares me more than a tongue lashing would. I wait for what feels like forever to see the three dots indicating she’s typing a response. I’ve almost given up when I get a text back.

  M: Fine. See you tomorrow.

  There’s one thing you don’t want to hear from your wife – ever – and that’s the word fine. It’s indicative of an underlying fight waiting to happen, and fuck but I’m tired. Tired of being on the road, tired of us fighting, and really fucking sick of disappointing her. There’s a part of me that knows this is my job, but there’s another part of me that knows I should have said no when the league asked me to do this. Fact is, I didn’t want another fight on my hands, but it looks like I’m going to get one - whether I wanted it or not.

  S: You know this isn’t my fault. I don’t want to be away from you anymore than you want to be away from me.

  M: I know, but honestly, Slade, it doesn’t make it any easier.

  And I know that is the end of our conversation. It makes me sad, pisses me off, and in a way, it makes me resent not only baseball but her too. That’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted to happen. I worry what will happen if we can’t overcome this ocean of doubt and negativity we have with one another.

  Malone

  “Why are you here today?” Nita asks as she sees me sitting at my desk at seven am. “Doesn’t Slater come home today?”

  “He does,” I confirm. “But we’re arguing right now,” I admit. “We’ve spent a long time apart in the past month, almost two months. There were some pictures posted of him with a fan, and they hit me wrong. We’ve been arguing off and on since. So I’m not exactly looking forward to seeing him.”

  It doesn’t feel good to admit that out loud. It almost feels as if I’m giving up on my relationship with him.

  “Honey.” Nita has a seat across from me, looking at me over the desk. “Marriage is hard work. It’s even harder when your husband has a job like his.”

  “I’m beginning to learn that.” I take a drink of my coffee. It’s been a rough couple of days, and I need coffee today more than I’ve needed it in a long time. “It’s just hard to always feel like I’m on the outside looking in.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “He shares a lot with me, but I always feel like he’s holding back.” I push my fingers through my hair. “I want to be a part of everything he does, but it never truly feels like I’m equal to him.”

  “You aren’t.” Nita gives me a soft smile. “There’s pressure on him you’ll never understand, there are things he’ll never tell you, and you have to be okay with that. Otherwise your marriage will never survive. I know that for a fact.”

  “How?” I get the feeling she’s talking from experience and I don’t want to pry, but I need to know I’m not in this on my own.

  “I was married to a baseball player once.” She gets a faraway look in her eyes. “He played for the Bandits back in the early nineties.” She mentions the name of a very popular player from that time period.

  “I didn’t even know he was married.” I’m totally shocked.

  “Well back then you didn’t have social media the way you have now, but we did have television, and obviously I was older than him. One night after they’d won the division, they showed the players partying at their hotel. I saw my husband leave with another woman. I assumed many things, like he was cheating on me, like he didn’t care about me, and he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Instead of talking to him, figuring out what we could do to make things work, we spent months ignoring each other and our problems. It ended with us hating each other and in a divorce. He was the absolute love of my life.” She smiles sadly. “But I let him go, and I didn’t fight for him. I’ve never remarried, and I don’t think I ever will. I lost my shot; I don’t want you to lose yours, too.”

  Silent tears slip down my face as what she’s saying hits me square in the chest. “I don’t want us to lose it either; we’ve fought so hard to be together. I just miss him.”

  “Distance does a lot to you, Malone. I’m not trying to make light of it, I’m not trying to excuse it. All I’m saying is understand what you’re thinking is a problem, may not even be a problem.”

  “I need to go home. He should be here in the next hour.”

  “Go, wait for him, and talk this out. The work you’re doing will still be here tomorrow, or even next week.” She gives me a wink. “What you need to make sure of is that you have a marriage to go home to.”

  Grabbing my stuff, I almost run to my SUV, wanting to get either before or right as he does. Morning traffic is worse than normal, but I fight through it. When I get to the parking garage, I see Slade’s car already parked.

  My heart is pounding as I ride the elevator up to the penthouse. What normally takes about ninety seconds feels as if it takes ninety years. As soon as it dings and it opens to the foyer, I see my husband standing there. He’s obviously just come in himself, hasn’t even put his bag down. He turns, but doesn’t make a move to come forward, it’s obvious in his refusal to move that this next step is mine and mine alone.

  “I love you,” I tell him quickly, throwing my purse to the ground as we stare at each other. “I’m so damn sorry that I’ve been difficult, you haven’t deserved it.” As I run to him, he waits for me, holding his arms out. “I’m sorry I haven’t tried to understand where you’re coming from, you haven’t deserved that.”

  We meet in the middle. Arms going around one another, him picking me up by my thighs, turning so that I’m pressed against the wall. Our mouths touch, teeth nipping, tongues seeking, breath mingling.

  “I love you and that’s all that matters,” I breathe in between kisses.

  “All that fucking matters,” he agrees, his voice deep and rough.

  Our hands tangle as we fight to get each other’s clothes off. I hear a growled fuck it, as I feel my shirt rip free of my body, same with my leggings. He pushes his jeans down below his hips, just far enough to get expose his hard length. Before I know it, he’s pushing and I’m pulling. I moan loudly as he grunts, pressing so hard he spreads my legs.

  It’s wild, primitive, and with a passion we haven’t had in a long time. It’s everything I love about us, and everything I’ve missed.

  “Fuck, Mal, you feel so good. God I’ve missed you,” he groans in my ear. “But this,” he emphasizes with a thrust. “This is where I feel like home, where I know we don’t have any disagreements.” He buries his mouth in my neck, sucking, kissing, and biting.r />
  “Please, don’t stop,” I beg, gripping his shirt in my hands, scratching against it with my fingers. “I need this, I need you.”

  “God, I need you too.” He moves so that our foreheads are together. “Don’t ever leave me, we’ve gotta stop what we’ve been doing. We’ve gotta make this work.” His thrusts pick up the pace, and I can do nothing more than hang on as he takes us both over the edge.

  We collapse against one another, sliding down the wall in the foyer, both giggling when our bare skin hits the tiled floor. “Welcome home, Savage.”

  “It’s good to be home.” He inhales and exhales, looking a lot more relaxed than he has in a while.

  He’s holding me against his chest, nuzzling my forehead, when I look up at him, kissing his lips softly. “I’m sorry about all the crazy shit that’s been going on. I can’t promise I’ll never have my moments, but I don’t want this to come between us. When I miss you next time, I’ll just say I miss you. I won’t accuse you of doing things I know you aren’t doing.”

  He laughs, his eyes crinkling. “I know it’s hard, sweetness. If anyone knows it’s hard, it’s me. Hell, my family hardly knows who I am during the season, but I want you to know, I get it. I understand, and I’m just sorry it took us being mean to each other to get here.”

  “Well now we know for next time.” I kiss his jawline. “It’s been a whirlwind, Slade. We haven’t had what people would ever call a normal relationship, and we haven’t ever really fought up until this. It was bound to happen, and maybe it needed to happen. I just never thought jealously would be something I’d give into.”

  “Happens to the best of us, sweetness. I hate when random dudes tag you in shit talking about how you’re the hottest of the wives. When I say I get it, I really do.”

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about, Savage.” I wrap my arms around his waist. “There’s no place I’d rather be than in your arms.”