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“Oh, sweetie. Google Alerts.” Jane smiled apologetically, as if she felt bad for knowing the details of Alice’s life.
Alice’s face fell. She was hoping it hadn’t gotten outside a limited circle, but clearly the smoochie photo had made the rounds well beyond the baseball community. She was surprised she hadn’t gotten messages from old high school friends to tease her or probe for more gossip.
Actually, there was a good chance she had, but she hadn’t logged into her Facebook account since the whole thing had happened.
“Great.” Alice sighed.
“It wasn’t so bad. Looked pretty innocent, honestly.” Violet was trying to make Alice feel better, and for some odd reason it was sort of working. She didn’t want to feel better though. She didn’t want to like these people. Alice just wanted any and every trace of Alex gone from her life.
Was that too much to ask?
The Ross sisters clearly thought it was.
“So, naturally, you’re here to tell me Alex had nothing to do with the story leaking.” Alice had already
mostly convinced herself of Alex’s innocence, but what was the harm in hearing them out? She wouldn’t mind being reminded of Alex as the man she’d fallen for. Since he’d left she’d told herself she was fine with being single because there was no such thing as nice guys.
But there were, weren’t there? There had to be, otherwise why did anyone bother falling in love? And if he wasn’t a bad guy, if he wasn’t the villain of the story, maybe she didn’t need to feel so stupid for letting him into her life.
“Oh, he’s definitely to blame for what happened,” Jane said, taking a sip from her water at possibly the most dramatic point in her sentence. “The same way you are. He was in that car with you, and he was kissing you just the same as you were kissing him. So in that sense, you were both doing a piss-poor job of keeping things a secret, if that was your goal. But outside that, he’s innocent.”
Alice chewed her lip. An incessant ding noise from the kitchen called her attention away from the big reveal. “Hold on.” She got up and went into the prep alley to collect their meals, taking far more time than she normally would to load up the tray.
This was it, exactly what she’d wanted without allowing herself to admit she desired it. Now she could totally forgive him and not feel stupid about letting herself fall for him. But it didn’t change the outcome. She’d still lost her job.
Did she have to lose him too, though?
The sisters weren’t an unbiased audience, so of course they would take Alex’s side. But for them to drive all the way from Georgia to state Alex’s case? They must really believe he loved her to go to the effort. And they seemed, by and large, to be sensible women.
But if that was the case, and she’d stubbornly ignored him for this long, why would he want to take her back?
Did she want to be taken back?
“Hey, Alice? You’re a Felons fan, aren’t you?” One of the line cooks got her attention as she re-spaced the plates on her delivery tray.
“Oh shut up,” she replied, assuming it was another joke about her involvement with Alex.
“What? Huh? Geez, sorry. We just have the game going back here. Seems like things are getting interesting. Thought you might want to know.”
Chapter Thirty-One
In the dugout, Alex grumbled to himself as he pulled on his pads. “Fucking tool.” He rifled through his cubby for a towel, wiping dusty sweat off his face.
“What’s that guy’s problem, anyway?” Miles asked, already sitting on the bench, his arm wrapped up in an identical towel. “Did you see the way he got in my face with his home run?”
“Yeah, kid. Everyone saw that. It was a dick move. Don’t let it get to you.”
“I say you hit him,” Chet suggested, sitting on Miles’s opposite side. “Turnabout is fair play, man. Gotta show him you won’t stand for that bullshit.” He chewed a wad of gum, punctuating his statement of revenge with a big pink bubble.
“You think?” Miles stared at the field where Matt lurked behind third base, looking like an asshole even from a distance.
Alex was never a fan of hitting a batter to teach him a lesson. Sure, it was a move as old as baseball itself, and he’d seen it used many times, but still, it probably wasn’t a great idea to tell Miles to do it.
No matter how badly he’d like to see Matt get his comeuppance.
“Nah, just leave it alone,” Alex told him. “Guy’s a dick, he’s always going to be a dick.”
Tucker came and filled the seat on Alex’s other side. “What are we talking about?”
