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“What happened? What did you see?” Ronnie frowns as she studies me.
“River,” I gasp.
“You saw a river?” Ronnie scrunches her face.
I shake my head. “No. Someone called me River.” The images start fading from my memory. “I was on a stage. They called me River. The eyes were there.”
“Okay, okay. Relax. A stage. You were performing a play? Were you in a band?”
I shake my head. “No. There was a pole.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Like a stripper pole?” I nod. “Okay, were you a stripper?”
“In the dream… I guess I was. I don’t know. It felt so real, but I still felt like I was outside of my body. I can’t explain it.”
Ronnie hums. “Maybe it was just your mind messing with you.”
“That’s all it seems to be doing these days. Fuck. I don’t know right from wrong. I feel like I’m losing it.”
“Stop that. You are not losing it,” she chides me. “Your mind is just trying to put the pieces back together. You will get there. We will figure it out.”
“Promise?” I look at her hopefully.
She smiles at me. “Pinky fucking swear. Now, I got you a cheeseburger with extra circle pickles and a shitload of fries, so eat something.”
I take the Styrofoam container and open it up to the smell of a delicious burger. “How was your job? Did you do what you needed to?”
Her face blanks out, and for a brief second, I can see the pain in her eyes. But she quickly recovers and smiles. “It did what I needed to. I got us a few hundred, so we’re good for a few days.”
I nod to her as I pick up a fry and bite into it. She clears her throat and heads over to her bed, where she pulls out her food and starts to eat.
Guess that is all we are going to mention about the job then. Whatever it is, I can’t tell if she hates it, or if it’s dangerous. Either way, between the two of us, we have some serious demons that are clawing their way up from hell.
The only difference is that she knows what hers are. Mine have yet to show their faces.
Chapter Ten
TRISTAN
Buzz.Buzz. The annoying sound of my phone tells me someone is incessantly trying to piss me off more than that almost loss we just had.
It was the fucking Salt Lake Seagulls, for fuck’s sake. The fucking Seagulls. They are one of the worst teams right now, and we almost blew a five-run lead on them. They had the bases loaded with us up by one run; any base hit would have brought in a run to tie it, or worse, the winning run.
Buzz. Buzz.My phone rattles on the shelf. Internally, I flip off whoever that is.
Though I know who it is. And he’s the last person I want to talk to.
“That was a nice save, Evans.” Cameron gives me a friendly slap on the shoulder. But I turn and growl at him. I hate being touched or congratulated, and he knows this. He grins as he winks at me.
Asshole.
“Someone had to keep the Seagulls from making us a laughingstock. Wasn’t gonna be any one of you fuckers.” I turn back toward my locker, throwing on a clean shirt.
In the final inning, top of the ninth, with the bases loaded, a line drive was hit on the third base line. It was foul, but I threw myself sideways and caught that son of a bitch. Ending the game. Giving us our win.
And sure, I could have let it go foul, but then that would give them the chance to win the game. To get that hit or home run. Fuck that.
So, I won us the game by making that catch. I wasn’t losing to the fucking pussy ass Seagulls.