by J. Sterling
That just wasn’t how being a professional athlete worked. And I’d had years to adjust to the idea of what playing baseball professionally meant for me as a person and future husband and father. Danika had no clue, not really. Having her own career would be a struggle, and after the other night, I knew that she wanted one. She wasn’t the kind of girl to be satisfied with following me around the country. She needed something of her own.
I had no idea how to give that to her and still keep her. I wondered if it was even possible at all.
Not Himself
Danika
I was surrounded by Chance’s family, and I couldn’t have been happier even though Chance was having what appeared to be a pretty bad game.
When I’d shown up today, I’d had no idea that I’d be meeting his aunt Melissa and uncle Dean or his grandparents—Gran and Gramps, as they’d insisted I call them. They were all so welcoming and kind. I wondered briefly if Chance knew how lucky he was to have so many people care about him before thinking that he most likely did. Chance wasn’t the type of guy who took things for granted.
Being surrounded by all this Carter love reminded me of growing up in New York with all my friends’ families. My own extended family had been spread out for most of my life. My mom’s parents lived in France, and I had rarely seen them as a kid and hadn’t seen them since the funeral. And my dad’s parents lived in Italy on some sprawling estate that grew grapes for wine. They used to visit a few times a year but never since my two aunts, my dad’s sisters, had moved there to help them oversee operations. I wasn’t sure if they ever planned on coming back to the States or not.
I’d basically grown up being the only Italian girl from the city with no siblings and only her mom and dad. Everyone else seemed to have generations of family living within a three-block radius, who got together every Sunday for barbeques and homemade dinners. I used to feel sort of left out, like I was missing something, until my friends started including me in their family rituals.
“I’ve never seen Chance play so bad before,” Cassie whispered before eyeing me. “Did you two have a fight?”
“What? No. I mean, not that I know of.” I laughed uncomfortably.
“They don’t fight, Mrs. Carter,” Sunny interjected, and I gave her a look before she snapped her lips shut and pressed them together dramatically.
“I’m just teasing, but he’s definitely not himself. Something has him unfocused.”
“You can tell that just by watching him?” I asked, fascinated.
“Oh, absolutely. You will, too, eventually.” She smiled, and I hoped she was right. I wanted to know that Chance was off just by looking at him.
“Any idea what’s gotten into him?” his uncle leaned forward and asked.
Both Cassie and I shook our heads.
“Weird,” he said before typing out furiously on his phone.
I hated how concerned everyone sounded. I started wondering if I was the reason Chance was so unlike himself.
Did I do something and not realize it? I had no idea what was wrong, but something clearly was.
“What was it like, dating the Jack Carter when you guys were here?” Sunny asked with a giant grin, and I practically groaned, a little embarrassed.
Cassie looked over her shoulder at Melissa. “How do I even answer that question?” she asked before Melissa shook her head.
“I’ll answer it,” Melissa said before Cassie shushed her.
“Jack was a piece of work. He was a mess,” she said before looking at Gran and Gramps and apologizing.
“Oh, honey, you know that I’m well aware of what a mess he was,” Gran said.
Cassie continued, “I was a mess too. We were two immature and hurt people. We took our pain out on each other. But we also saved each other.”
“They mostly saved each other,” Melissa said before adding, “Of course, that was after putting each other and everyone who ever cared about them through hell.”
“She’s one to talk.” Cassie thumbed toward her. “Remind me to tell you the nightmare story of how those two finally got together.”
“Hey, it’s not a nightmare story.” Melissa mocked offense, and we all laughed. “Fine. I was a little bit of a nightmare.”
“But you’re my nightmare.” Dean wrapped an arm around his wife and kissed the side of her head. “I honestly wouldn’t change a moment of our story.”
“You wouldn’t?” Melissa asked, like this was the first time he’d ever said something like that to her before.
“Nope. I think it worked out all right in the end. Don’t you?” He grinned, clearly still head over heels for his wife, and she leaned over to kiss him.
If this was how all the Carter men loved their women, I wanted to keep mine. I used to think that finding a love like my parents had was a fantasy, but now, looking around at this family, I knew it could be real. It was rare but still possible.
“Chance just got pulled.” Cassie’s green eyes tugged together as she watched her son walk into the dugout.
I’d never seen him look so angry before.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“That he’s not playing for the rest of the game.”
“Do they do that sometimes? Considering it’s really hot out, and he’s got all that gear on.” I hoped that I sounded reasonable, but I ended up just sounding stupid and uninformed instead.
“Not usually. Unless they’re ahead by a lot,” Cassie said.
I glanced at the scoreboard even though I already knew the score. We were still down by one run.
“So, this isn’t normal then?”
“This is definitely anything but normal.”
The mood instantly shifted once the family realized that Chance was out for the rest of the game. Uncle Dean suggested that Gran and Gramps go home and get out of the heat, and they agreed.
“Tell my grandson I was here,” Gramps said, his voice gruff and husky.
“I will. I’m sure he already knows,” Cassie reassured him before giving him a giant hug.
“Make sure my grandson brings you over for dinner,” Gran said to me before leaving.
“Aw, I will. Thank you.” I smiled, and just like that, our group shrank from seven to three.
The rest of the game sucked because Chance wasn’t in it. I didn’t care what the team did if I couldn’t watch him play. I found myself bored and uninterested. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one. Cassie felt the exact same way.
“I always lose interest in the game if Chance is out of it. That’s shitty, I know. But it’s the truth.”
The game finally ended, and Sunny headed for home, leaving me and Cassie alone to wait for Chance. Looking around, I kept shifting my weight from foot to foot.
“Are you nervous?” Cassie asked, and I realized that I was.
“I think I am. Is that dumb?”
“No. I was a wreck anytime after Jack had a bad game. I never knew what kind of mood he’d be in.”
“How’d you handle it?”
“With a lot of patience.” She laughed. “And yelling.”
“Yelling?”
“Sometimes, I didn’t want to be understanding. Just because he had a bad game, that didn’t mean I wanted to be his emotional punching bag, you know? So, sometimes, I yelled at him. But he liked it,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Her response made me even more nervous.
“Do you think Chance will be mean?”
“No,” she attempted to reassure me. “But he might be quiet. And if he is, it’s not personal, I promise. Just give him a little time to process the game. He’ll come out of his head and be normal again.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay. Time to process. I can do that.”
“Dating an athlete is a different beast than dating a normal guy, isn’t it?”
“There are so many more things to think about. Like, it isn’t just about you and him. It’s about you, him, and—”
“Baseball,” we both said at the same tim
e.
“Here he comes.”
I looked up, watching Chance head toward us, his dad next to him.
“Hey.” He leaned down and gave me a quick peck before hugging his mom. “Where’d everyone go?”
“It was too hot for Gran and Gramps to stay if you weren’t playing, so Uncle Dean took them home early,” Cassie explained, and Chance nodded.
“Was Uncle pissed?” he asked.
“At what?”
“The way I played?”
“Of course not. He was just wondering what was wrong. I’m sure he’ll call you later,” Cassie said.
“Okay. You ready?” He turned to me, and I smiled, but he didn’t return it.
My nerves reappeared as we said good-bye to his parents and headed toward the parking lot, our hands at our sides and not on each other.
He opened the passenger door for me and helped me inside the Beast, but his eyes never met mine. I wasn’t sure if something was wrong or if this was how he acted after having a bad game. I had no idea what to do or say, so I stayed quiet, letting him take the lead. I wished I had asked his mom for more advice on how to handle an athlete’s mental state.
Because this was awful.
Chance stayed as muted as I was being, and the silence was so loud, it hurt my ears.
“Chance?” I finally said as we neared my apartment complex. “This is all new to me,” I started to explain.
“What is?”
“Learning how to deal with your state of mind after a game.” I wanted to be careful with my words. “So, I don’t know if this is normal or if there’s something else going on.”
He seemed almost uncomfortable. “I don’t usually play like that,” he said, his voice quiet but strong.
“I know. Your mom said the same thing. So did your uncle. They were all asking me what had happened,” I said as he pulled to a stop in a visitor parking spot and cut off the engine.
He blew out a quick breath. “What’d you say?”
“That I didn’t know. Did something happen?” I took off my seat belt and angled my body toward him.
He looked at me and hesitated, like there was something he wanted to tell me but wasn’t sure if he should. “Your ex got in my head.”
“My ex?” Jared did this? “When?” That was the last thing I’d expected to hear Chance say. I’d had no idea that he’d even seen Jared or that they’d had words.
“This morning.” His response was clipped, and I wanted every single detail that he was choosing to leave out.
I realized that I was going to have to pull the information out of him by asking all the right questions. “What did he say?”
Chance swallowed, his eyes looking over my shoulder before landing back to mine. “He said that if we stayed together, I’d ruin your life.”
“What?” That was the only word I managed to muster as my anger soared. How the hell Jared thought he had any right to interfere in my relationship was beyond me. “That’s ridiculous. He’s just mad that I broke up with him. He’s even madder that we’re together. Chance, he’d say anything to get inside your head. And look, it worked.” I was shocked. I’d never thought that Jared could say something that Chance would take seriously or listen to without talking to me about it first.
“But is he right?”
“What do you mean, is he right? How would you ruin my life? You’re the best thing to ever happen to me. I’ve never been this happy before.” My emotions came spilling out. I meant every word, but this wasn’t how I wanted to tell him all of those things, in the middle of a disagreement filled with miscommunication and hurt feelings.
“He said that you’d throw away all your future plans to chase mine.”
I reared my head back like I’d been slapped. “And how does he know that?” I was getting more and more pissed off by the second.
I really hated it when people made assumptions and decisions for me without asking. If Chance wanted to know what exactly I’d do for him and his dreams, he could have asked me.
“How does he know that, Chance? Did he ever ask me? Have you?”
His green eyes flashed with pain as he winced so slightly that anyone else would have missed it. But I didn’t. “He made some good points. You’re supposed to work for your dad, and I’m hopefully still getting drafted. Our lives are headed in two very different directions. How are we going to make that work?”
The way he’d asked the last question made my anger evaporate as fear and insecurity took its place. I knew exactly what he was doing.
“What are you saying?”
Chance fucking Carter was trying to break up with me.
And I was not having any of it. Not now. Not ever.
Stubborn Little Spitfire
Chance
“Just say it,” Danika pushed from the passenger seat.
She knew. She knew exactly what I was trying to do, but I was too afraid to admit it. Once I said the words out loud, I could never take them back. I’d never been in this position before—having a girlfriend I was in love with and didn’t want to lose but wouldn’t dream of taking anything away from her.
“I don’t want you to throw away your dreams for mine.”
“You already said that,” she snapped.
Oh, she was pissed, and it caught me off guard. I honestly hadn’t expected her to put up a fight.
“I just don’t see any other way. I’m going to keep falling for you, and I’m going to want you with me twenty-four/seven, Danika. I’ll have to move, and I’ll want you to come with me. I can’t ask you to give up your career and follow me around the country. And I also can’t live long distance forever. Take your emotions out of it, and you’ll see that what I’m saying is true.”
“I’m a girl. I can’t do that. I’m built on emotions.” She sounded so defeated, and I hated that I was the reason for it.
“But you know I’m right.”
“No,” she said, still being stubborn as her eyes met mine and held, like she was begging me to challenge her.
I swallowed, carefully measuring my next words. “My career doesn’t really breed partnership. It breeds sacrifice … from you.”
She exhaled long and loud. “Why do we have to figure this all out right now?”
“Because every day that you’re a part of my life, I’m finding it really damn hard to see the rest of it without you in it.”
“That’s usually a good thing.” Her hand reached for mine, and she intertwined our fingers.
I knew that, yes, finding your forever person was typically a positive, but this didn’t feel like that. This felt selfish on my end. And I didn’t want to be that for her.
“Chance,” she said quietly, and I looked at her, my heart aching inside my chest, “I know that having a relationship with someone in your situation is possible. People do it all the time.”
I nodded in agreement. “They do. But the girls don’t usually have their own careers,” I said before thinking about Cole and Christina. Christina seemed like an exception, running her own social media management company that could be done from anywhere. “I mean, mostly, they do charitable work with the team and social media influencing, but you have a family business to think of. A business that’s only in New York. It’s a little different.”
“Well, how did your parents do it? Your mom had a successful career of her own.”
I’d known that was coming. That she would bring up my parents and the fact that they were still together and in love and my mom had done well for herself.
“Yeah, but she freelanced and called her own shots. And when she did work for someone else, she gave it up because being with my dad was more important to her than being away from him all the time.”
She sucked in a breath. “I didn’t know that. I’d just assumed they’d made it work.”
“They did. But it took a lot to get there. My mom fought for her independence. And then she gave it up. But she got it back again after my dad retired. Their relationship was a
lot of give and take, but it was scheduled around my dad’s career. You get what I’m saying?” I was trying to let her know that baseball always came first, and there was really no way around that without quitting the game.
Danika closed her eyes and rubbed them. “Look, I know you’re trying to break up with me right now. But I’m not going to let you,” she said with some kind of mustered confidence, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re not going to let me?”
“No. And I’m not getting out of this car until we’ve worked this out.” She folded her arms across her chest to amplify her stubbornness.
“What do you suggest? How the hell do we ‘work this out’?” I asked, using finger quotes around the last part.
She stayed quiet, and I assumed she was thinking. I really didn’t know what to do. I’d thought that letting her go was doing the right thing by her, but now, I wasn’t so sure.
Did I jump to conclusions and decide too fast, all because of what Jared said to me?
No, I knew it wasn’t only because of him and his words. My mom had raised me to respect the fact that the girl in my life would want independence and something to call her own. She’d told me that I couldn’t expect anyone to support my dreams if I wasn’t willing to support theirs in return. And that true partnership was built on mutual respect and communication.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, breaking my inner monologue.
“I was just convincing myself that this was the right thing to do.”
“Which part?”
I gave her a soft smile. “The part where we deal with this now instead of putting it off until later when it would be a million times harder to try and figure out.”
“Yeah. I hate that you’re right, but here’s what I’m thinking.” Her voice settled and grew steady, and I knew she was moving out of an emotional state of mind and into a more logical one. “I can’t make any decisions about this without all the facts. But the one thing I will say is that you don’t get to decide for me. Do you hear me?” She reached across the truck and poked me in the shoulder. “You don’t get to choose what I do with my life. It’s not only up to you, and it’s not fair.”
