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“Damn,” he said. “That’s the end of my lunch period. I took too long walking over to the diner.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “Well, I hope your first day is going well.”
“It is,” he said. “It’s a lot better now, though.” A familiar warmth ran up my spine and filled my cheeks. I looked away to my pasta salad to avoid letting him see me blush. “Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see a lot more of each other.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said.
He smiled, and as he walked away, I felt my stomach drop.
I was so conflicted. Of course, I wanted to see him. My feelings for him had never gone anywhere. They hadn’t changed since the kiss I’d given him as he rode to Boston on the team bus. They hadn’t changed as we missed calls from each other, spent longer periods between texting, eventually stopped speaking at all. They hadn’t changed since I made the decision that I would never tell him I’d had his baby. I wouldn’t tell anyone except Mom. No one else had to know. No one else would believe it anyway.
Now what the hell was I going to do?
How was I supposed to go through my life, moving on and being the best mother, the best version of myself that I could be if he was going to be in town and seeing him every day? How would I keep my secret? How would I raise my son so close to his father and never tell him? What was I supposed to do with him back in my life when I never thought he ever would be again?
20
GRAHAM
That was wildly unexpected.
First off, Mallory looked incredible. I shouldn’t be surprised that time once again did nothing but wonders to her. She looked like she had grown into the woman she was always destined to be. An absolute knockout, who I was sure was routinely followed by starry-eyed high-school kids she was oblivious to, the same way she had always been oblivious to how beautiful she was.
Second, I was wildly upset at myself for spending so much time at the diner getting my lunch. It was a mistake I intended on not making again. If I had brought something with me or just gone to the fast-food joint, I would have had more time to catch up with her. Which I absolutely wanted to do.
I’d had no idea she was back in town, much less working at the school. I was positive she was still in New York, being an actress and living the life of an artist in Brooklyn. Or maybe that she had moved to LA and was making it in film. Seeing her back in Murdock, and apparently having moved back into town to settle, was frankly shocking. She was so gorgeous and so talented; it seemed a waste for her to be back in Texas.
Yet, there she was. Mallory, the girl that I had thought might be the one. The girl who made an effort to keep in touch. The girl who grew more and more distant until one day, I realized it had been nearly three months since we’d spoken. She looked happy to see me, but there was something else there too. Something I couldn’t place.
We’d lost touch all those years ago, and I beat myself up over it for the longest time. The stand against Boston was as brutal as the trip to New York had been. Three straight games of getting hammered, even though I’d pitched a halfway decent game. Then, one win and seven straight losses over the next week. We dropped out of first and never got back. By the end of the season, we were scrapping with Boston for the lone remaining wild card slot, and rather than starting me on three days’ rest, they went with a veteran pitcher who had been a world champion before.
He didn’t make it out of the first inning.
We lost by eight runs in the last game of the season in a game that would either let us in or leave us out of the postseason. It was a kick in the teeth, and the stress and insane work I was putting in meant I started missing calls and texts from Mallory. I would call or text her back, but it was always when she was out at one of her several jobs or at rehearsal. Eventually, we just both stopped calling.
Then I sent my last text. It was simply asking if she had time to talk. She never responded.
After that, the postseason was a whirlwind of meetings and courting, looking for a long-term home. My agent wanted me to angle for a ten-year deal somewhere, but I was willing to take something shorter if it meant playing in New York. I thought if I lived there, I could find Mallory again and rekindle what we had. But neither New York team was interested in a long deal, and after pressure from my agent, the player’s union and the press, I ended up signing with Seattle, who was willing to match the length and overpay for pitching.
We just weren’t part of each other’s lives after that season, and I felt like I could trace every negative thing that happened to me to the day I chose to get on that team bus and drive away from her. If I had rented my own car and left later, or whisked her away with me, orsomething. Even if everything else had happened, I would have gone through it with her by my side. It would have been worth it.
I spent all day thinking about her. My first day didn’t involve a whole lot of coaching, since I wasn’t particularly involved in football and the other sports were foreign to me. I met some of the kids that were on the JV team and a few of the returning kids that were seniors now. All informal get-to-know-you stuff, mostly to let them gawk at me and geek out now so we could actually get something done later.
But every time I was alone, I was thinking about Mallory. When the last bell rang, I almost walked the halls to the auditorium to watch her, but I realized she probably didn’t have a play to rehearse on the first day. Instead, I got in my car and drove quietly home. It was only when I had stopped the car that I realized I had been holding the steering wheel so tightly that it left marks in my hand.
I went inside, using the key for the bottom floor door to get in. Allison was upstairs and heard me come in, calling down to me as I made it to the bedroom. She said Ryan was at the fire station that night. Without him around, the house was dark and quiet around nine, Allison having put Leo to bed and gone to sleep herself.
Tooling around for a little while, I tried watching TV and reading, but nothing was satisfying me. I decided to just turn in and got into bed. I was staring at the ceiling, going over the interaction with Mallory in my head, wondering what else I should have said. What I would say next time.
Then memories came.
Memories of how amazing we had been together. How much chemistry had been there, and how I felt a spark of it sitting across from her even that day. Memories of her body wrapped around my own. Her legs curled over my hips as I buried myself inside her. Or the way her lips felt pressed against my skin.
My cock hardened, and I sighed. I needed the release. Deciding to set my alarm a little later for the morning, I got up and hopped into a shower. Once the hot water was on me, I closed my eyes and let my mind drift to Mallory’s naked body. One of the days we had been together stuck out in that moment, and I let myself focus on it.
I had taken a call from my agent, sitting in the office of the suite, staring at the sunset over the Bronx. She came into the room wearing nothing but a robe and stood in front of me. I pulled at the string tying the robe together, and it slipped open, revealing her soft, supple skin. I reached out to touch it as she slid to her knees, and I grasped her breast as she settled between my legs.
My agent kept droning on as I tried to wave her off, but she had a devilish grin on her face. There was no stopping her, and I didn’t really want to anyway. She pulled my cock out and stroked it for a moment as I said the last words I could remember saying on the call. They didn’t matter. My agent didn’t particularly pay much attention to what I said anyway.
