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Why was I fucking this up so badly?“Um, anyway, I should go.”
“Okay.”
But I couldn’t. Not yet. “Will you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
That had tears filling my eyes. “Say it again,” I whispered.
He blew out a breath. “I love you, Emma.”
The tears spilled over and I hung up, staring at my phone through blurry eyes.I love you, too.
There it was. Finally. I couldn’t run away from it anymore. Didn’t even want to, actually. Jake had never stopped loving me and, no matter how much I’d tried to deceive myself, I’d never stopped loving him, either. So I had a choice: I could be mad and hurt that we’d wasted the last ten years by not being together, and waste thenextten running away from that mad and hurt. Or I could, finally, once and for all, go home.
Jumping to my feet, I grabbed my purse, threw my phone and charger in it, scooped up the clothes and toiletries I’d bought in East Raleigh that morning, and ran for the door.Run. Go home.The words rang in my head, giving urgency to my movements so that I was literally running to the reception to turn in my keys and check out, then back to my car.
One hundred and seventeen minutes. That’s how long it was going to take me to get back to Jake. To slide in safely to home.
The Emma that backed out of the motel lot was a very different person than the one who pulled in less than twenty-four hours ago. This one was full of joy and hope and love. God, so much love. I was smiling as I turned onto the road that would take me home.
I felt like I’d been driving for hours when I saw the turn off for Knightdale. Fuck, only twenty minutes had passed. This drive was going to be the longest of my life. I felt like another hour past when I hit the exit for Zebulon. But nope, it was only seven minutes. Next up, Bailey. Forty minutes. Each second ticked by with agonizing slowness and this was absolutely fucking excruciating. Finally, the turn off to Saratoga meant I was pretty much halfway. “On the home stretch now,” I said to myself.
There was something about being so close that had all this excess energy pouring into my system. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to push down on the accelerator. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I hit Greenville. Just over half an hour left. I glanced at the time. I was looking good for getting to Esperance in time to see Jake before his baseball game started. Perfect.
Nearly perfect, that is, until I got snarled up in Greenville traffic. What the hell? I was going to have to deal with some sort of fucking…what was this, a parade? A fair? What the fucking fuck? I had places to be! Tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I chewed my lip, contemplating whether or not to back out of this traffic and go the long way around. I had no way of knowing how long I’d be stuck here for, or if the long way around would actually be quicker. I was in agonies of indecision.
“Fuck it.” I was just about to turn up a side street when the traffic started moving again. “Thank you!”
I left Greenville with the setting sun at my back, the clouds glowing with apricot and mauve in my rear-view mirror. So pretty. Everything was so wonderful. So perfect.
Less than half an hour to go. Damn! I wasn’t going to make it before Jake’s game started. “I’ll go straight to the field, then,” I announced to the steering wheel.
I pulled up well after the game had started, so the lot was crowded and there was nowhere near the entrance for me to park. I ended up squeezing in between two big trucks, practically on the main road. On top of all that, it must have rained pretty heavily earlier while I was holed up at the motel because the ground was thick with mud. My ballet flats made walking from the road to the edge of the field hard work.
There was a crowd of people standing along the chain link fence that edged the diamond. I could see from the unfamiliar faces that the visiting team was in the outfield, but all I could do was mutter impatiently as I tried to stand on tiptoe to see which batter from Jake’s team was up. Maybe I should give up and try to get to the bleachers, sit with the Coopers until the end of the game. What I should do is go back to my car to grab my coat, which I’d forgotten in my haste. It was freezing out here.
Then I saw him through a gap in the crowd, and my whole body vibrated with urgency. “Excuse me. Please, can you let me through?”
Jake stepped up to the plate, giving the bat a few practice swings. The two big, burly guys in front of me obligingly made room for me and I was able to step right up to the fence.Jake.Oh god, I loved him. So much. My love for him welled up inside me, like it was calling his name.Jake.He swung the bat one more time, then got into position.
The pitcher threw the ball and I waited for the satisfying thwack sound of it connecting with Jake’s bat, but it never came. Instead, Jake dropped his bat to the ground, looking across the diamond, shielding his eyes from the bright white lights. Looking at me.Looking at me!He knew I was there and I watched, frozen, while he took a few hesitant steps towards me.
Tears welled up in my eyes and the need to run to him slammed into me full force. “Jake!”
The two men either side of me gave me odd looks, but I was gripping the top of the fence in frozen fingers, trying to lift my leg up to swing it over.
“You okay, lady?”
All the other players were watching Jake, confused as to why he’d stopped playing and what he was staring at across the diamond. A few of them were trying to figure out what he was looking at. “I need…Fuck, I have to get…” I’d waited ten years for this and I couldn’t stand to wait another moment longer.
“You wanna go over the fence?” The guy on my right asked, completely bewildered.
“Yes, please!”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” With his big, meaty hands at my waist, he swung me up and over the fence as though I weighed no more than a feather.
“Thanks,” I gasped, then the minute my feet hit the ground, I was running. Racing across the diamond as fast as I could. Jake started jogging towards me, but he hadn’t even reached the pitcher’s mound when I was throwing myself at him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and my legs around his waist. I knocked him back two steps, but he still managed to catch me. Shaking all over, I was bawling my eyes out as I buried my face in his neck.
