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“It would make a good present for Tamara, Dale and Steven, since I have barely seen any of them since I skipped out to meet you on Tamara’s birthday,” I said, laughing.
“Take them both,” he said. “One for her, one for you. When you drink it, remember me.”
“You think I’ll forget you easily?” I asked, our bodies pulling closer to each other like a magnet.
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “You are a gorgeous, talented woman in a big city full of handsome men.”
“And you are a gorgeous, famous baseball player who goes from town to town being celebrated for being amazing,” I said.
He made a dismissive sound and kissed me. “There is no universe in which I forget Mallory Taylor,” he said.
“And there is no reality in which I forget Graham Miller,” I said.
We kissed again, longingly. It was almost like a desperation to hold on to that moment. To stay there and never leave. A part of us, I felt, never would. In my dreams, I would come back to this place. To this hotel. To his arms.
I didn’t have work that evening. I could feel the sadness creeping up now, building in anticipation of Graham’s leaving. I tried to fight it away, to simply enjoy sitting down and having a meal with him, but it was almost impossible.
We ate and talked, avoiding the topics that loomed large over both of us. Neither one of us wanted to address the elephant in the room, so we simply didn’t. We talked about the day, and how nice it looked. How it would be a perfect night for baseball. How it meant that the team flight to Boston would be easy, and they would be able to spend the evening by the pools. It sounded fun.
For the briefest of seconds, I was tempted to drive there. To meet him at the hotel and go to the pool with them. Then go to his room and spend one more night before I had to be back in the morning. It was a three-and-a-half-hour drive and depending on traffic could be as much as five. I would have to leave at three in the morning to get home in time to get to work.
I shook it off. It was silly. Worse, it was desperate. It was the action of a lovesick girl who was head over heels for the pro athlete. It was like high school all over again, with me driving to other schools to see Graham pitch, and he never even knew I was even there.
We weren’t going to make promises to each other. I knew that. Even if he started to, I was going to cut him off. We were adults. We had our own lives. Either this would work, or it wouldn’t, but making promises we didn’t know if we could keep would only make things worse. It would add expectation into the equation. And right now, neither of us could handle expectations.
Finally, he didn’t have any more time left. I had my things packed from the night before, and Graham stuffed the wine bottles into one of the bags, grinning. I shook my head and kissed his cheek. It was sweet.
We walked down to the lobby, and the team bus was there, doors open, letting guys on. He had to go. He tried to reassure me, but I kissed him, stopping the words from even starting. I didn’t want to hear them. I would only get hurt if he couldn’t live up to them.
As he walked onto the bus, I stood there, watching him. He waved as it rolled off, and I grabbed my bags, went to the edge of the street, and hailed a taxi. I headed home, but I had no intention of staying there. If I did, I would never leave. The emptiness was too large, too much of a hole in my heart. I had to fill it with something, anything to entertain me.
I dropped off my things, changed into less cute, more functional clothes, and headed back out. I had Tamara’s wine in my bag, and I made a beeline to her new place. I let myself in with the key she’d left me and settled onto her couch, watching TV. When she got back from work, she saw me, took one look, and shook her head.
“Come on, girl,” she said. “We’re going out to dinner.”
“I already ate,” I said.
“When?”
“Around eleven this morning,” I said.
“Girl, it’s six,” she said. “I’ll text Dale and Steven. They’ll meet us there. Is this for me?”
She held the bottle of wine critically as she inspected it. I nodded.
“Graham said to bring it to you and say happy birthday,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “I guess he’s not terrible then.”
“He’s amazing,” I said.
“He’s not here anymore,” Tamara said, catching my eyes and forcing me to look at her. “And that means you need to move on. Let’s go have something to eat.”
16
GRAHAM - PRESENT DAY
Texas heat. I never forgot that. It was dry and yet still somehow sticky. If you didn’t wear long sleeves, you always felt like you had a thin layer of dirt covering your body, kicked up into the air and carried on the hot breeze to the next unsuspecting object. It wasn’t that things were dirty, per se. People down there prided themselves on keeping things tidy. Cars were clean and sparkling in the hot sun, and buildings were bleached white and kept pristine in the heart of downtown.
