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“You suck more,” I reply, the same way I would have when we were twelve. “Did your wife come with you? I want to meet the unlucky woman who got stuck with you, so I can give her my condolences.”
He shakes his head. “Trust me,” he says, “she knows full well how unlucky she is. That’s why she left me two years ago.” He suddenly stops and looks into the distance. “She left both of us.”
Boy, I put my foot in that one, didn’t I? “I’m sorry,” I say for lack of a better response.
He sucks in a breath. “Well, it is what it is.” He jerks his thumb toward the field. “So, you ready for this?”
“Ready for what?” I ask, as we start to walk slowly toward the field.
“Judgment day,” he whispers quietly.
Ethan turns as we get close to him, when he hears my voice. He smiles at me, but his smile fades when he sees Little Robbie.
“Ethan,” Robbie says with a nod. He sticks out his hand to shake.
I see Ethan visibly relax as he reaches out to shake with Robbie. Little Robbie turns it into a silly handshake with a few slaps, a handshake that Ethan seems to know. Ethan lets out a loud laugh after it’s over, and all the people in the stands turn to stare at him, some with their mouths open.
The coach blows a whistle and all the boys run toward the dugout. Ethan turns to me. “You want to go sit?” He points to the bleachers.
“I want to go wherever you want to go,” I reply.
His eyes narrow.
“What?”
“Did somebody already get to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did somebody already tell you?” he asks, his voice crisp and cool.
“Tell me what?”
“Stop jacking around, Abigail.”
Now I’m annoyed. “I’m not jacking around.” Then I realize that he probably needs to hear the truth. “There were two women talking in the ladies’ room,” I say quietly.
“What did they say?”
I think about it, until his stare breaks me. “They said the town would never forgive you.”
“Forgive me for what?” He stares at me. “Say it, Abigail.”
“The word murder came up,” I whisper next to his ear.
He straightens his spine. “Actually, it was involuntary manslaughter.”
I suck in an audible breath, and immediately hate that I did.
“Yeah, exactly,” he says. Then he goes to the stands, climbs up a couple of rows, and holds out a hand for me.
Even though I’m still reeling, I take the hand he holds out because I feel like he needs me to. I let him pull me up, and I settle onto the bench next to him.
He looks around, so I do too. I see hate-filled gazes pointed in his direction. “I want to hear more about your past, as soon as you’re ready to tell me.”
“Why? What’s the point?” He throws up his hands. “They already got to you.”
I lay my hand on his thigh and give it a squeeze, then leave my hand there. “You got to me first,” I say quietly.
