“It doesn’t matter,” she interrupted, waving away the question. “The point is that I caught it, the other guest didn’t care, everyone behaved like reasonable adults, and you are still in room twelve.”
Evan stared at her for a beat before snorting out a laugh. “So there was never actually a problem.”
“There was for me.” Eleanor pressed a hand to her chest. “Do you have any idea how stressful those five minutes were for me? You’re very…particular.”
“Okay,” he said, shaking his head. “I get it. I’m being a pain in the ass.”
“No more than usual.” She nodded toward the credit card machine. “Tap.”
Evan held his card against the reader until it beeped, then Eleanor placed a keycard on the counter in front of him. She kept her fingers on it, and his eyes narrowed again. “What?”
“So, full disclosure,” she said suddenly, and his eyebrows went up. She shifted, then sighed. “I probably should have led with this, but I didn’t want you walking out the door and finding somewhere else to stay.”
He felt his jaw lock. “Eleanor.”
“Don’t give me that tone,” she said, completely unbothered. “You sound like my little brother. It’s not that big a deal. I just wanted you to know because I know you stay here because no one else from your team does. But you can handle it.”
“Handle what?”
“The guy who booked twelve? He’s with your team too.” She pressed her lips together.
Evan closed his eyes. He already knew. Before she’d even finished her sentence, he knew. “Which guy?”
She hesitated, sensing the landmine she was about to step on. “Hartman.”
“CJ,” he said with a nod.
Eleanor read something on his face. “You know him.” It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t mean just from the team.
He swallowed. “He’s new to the team, but we knew each other in college.”
“Ah.”
Evan knew she had questions, but he wasn’t going to answer them. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s fine.”
“You always say that.”
He headed toward the door, but her voice stopped him. “If it makes any difference, he looked like he could use the kind of quiet you like. Maybe you guys can be friends.”
Evan gripped the doorknob and looked at her. “You know I’m not here to make friends.”
She rolled her eyes. “You say that every time too.”
“And I mean it every time.” He gave her a smile he knew she wouldn’t believe before pulling the door open and stepping outside.
He grabbed his bags from the car and hauled them across the courtyard. The rooms all opened directly onto the courtyard, their doors tucked beneath a long overhang that ran the length of the structure, providing shade during the day. Room twelve waited for him where it always had, and the familiarity should have settled him. Instead, all he could think about was the fact that CJ Hartman was somewhere nearby.
Evan inserted the keycard into the lock and pushed his way inside, exhaling slowly as the door shut behind him. The room looked exactly as he remembered. The furniture looked like it had been pulled from a mid-century design catalog, with gleaming appliances disguised as vintage pieces and the air conditioner humming steadily. He dropped his bags by thedresser and did his usual walkthrough, not because he didn’t trust Eleanor but because he’d sleep better after he’d checked everything himself. He tested the water pressure in the shower, made sure the windows locked and the door latched.
Yeah, maybe he had some control issues.
When he finished his checks, he cracked the blinds just enough to look out at the courtyard. The pool shimmered in the afternoon sun, and the card-playing couple was still at their table. He scanned the windows of the other buildings, trying not to wonder which room CJ was in. He failed immediately, and he closed the blinds with a sigh.
It had been seven years since he’d seen CJ outside of a baseball stadium. Seven years of convincing himself that whatever had happened between them was buried in the past. Evan had perfected the art of avoiding interviews, articles, and highlight reels that lingered too long on his face. Then the World Series happened, and rumors started circulating that the Barracudas were shopping for an outfielder, and part of him had known this would happen. Chicago needed to free up some room on their payroll, which meant someone had to go. Evan had known the math, but that wasn’t the same thing as being prepared for the reality.
When the trade was announced, the past was brought into the present and turned into media fodder overnight. Every sports network seemed determined to revisit their college years, digging up old photos and stories about their friendship, running video montages of them laughing in a dugout somewhere or celebrating when their college team won the College World Series, making Nebraska back-to-back champions. Analysts speculated about what it would mean to reunite them on the same roster until one commentator pointed out that they had barely interacted on the field when their teams had faced each other over the years. Before long, the story hadshifted, and people were debating whether that distance was just professional focus or evidence of some falling-out neither of them had been asked about before.
Evan paced from the kitchen to the foot of the bed and back. Eight strides each way, same as always, but the room suddenly felt smaller than it ever had. He needed water, fresh air, or something to do with his hands that didn’t involve punching a hole in the drywall. He wasn’t violent by nature, so he grabbed his water bottle and keycard and headed outside. The ice machine was in a room at the other end of the building, nestled in the corner between the laundry room and another guest room. He peered around the courtyard, but it was empty. The card players had disappeared, and the only sounds were the faint churning of the pool filter and the traffic from the other side of the building.
