Page 25

CHARLIE

I focus on the phone call. That’s all I can do. That’s safe and simple and very unsexy.

“Express Charters, this is Bernice. How can I help you?”

Her accent is thick and southern and her voice high-pitched and very much the opposite of Frankie’s.

It helps.

“Hi, this is Charlie Avery.”

“Mr Avery,” Bernice says. “How was your flight to Phoenix?”

“It was great, as always. That’s one of the reasons I’m calling, actually. I’m going to need a flight out of Phoenix into New York as soon as practicable.”

“New York. It’ll be hard to get into JFK or LaGuardia at this hour. Can you do Teterboro?”

I want to ask Frankie if the smaller airport in New Jersey works for her, but she’s focused on her phone, tapping away, probably calling for a car.

I allow my eyes to just take her in, from the wreck of a messy ponytail pushed off to the side now to the soft flush still painting the apples of her cheeks.

It might be from sitting out in the unforgiving desert sun this afternoon, but I choose to believe she’s still feeling what I’m feeling, the hum of arousal still coursing through her veins.

My shirt, which is now not tied up or tucked into her shorts, is actually longer than her shorts.

It looks like maybe she just threw on the shirt after leaving my bed, something to wear when we made breakfast in the kitchen tomorrow morning and let the eggs burn while I put her back up on the counter and make good on my promise from just a minute ago.

“Sir?” Bernice asks.

I clear my throat and, with it, the fantasy. “Teterboro is fine, but then I’ll need a car for one passenger back into Brooklyn.”

“For just you? Is it the usual address? Mr Vasquez’s residence?”

“No, no, I won’t be on the flight. It’ll be for a Ms Francesca Sullivan.”

“The same Ms Sullivan from the previous flight?”

“That’s the one. She’ll give the driver her address when she arrives.”

“Okay, it’ll be an hour or two, but as soon as I have this confirmed, I’ll get the flight information to you. It will be out of Phoenix Sky Harbor.”

“Perfect. Thanks, Bernice.”

“Thank you, Mr Avery. You have a good night.”

When I end the call, I turn back to her and she’s looking at me again.

“You’re not coming back?” she asks, and I can’t catch her tone. I don’t know if she’s disappointed or relieved or, maybe, somewhere in-between.

“No, it sounds like you’ve got enough on your plate. I’ll stick around, go to the boys’ game tomorrow and then maybe hop over to LA . I need to get my house on the market and pack up my stuff.”

It’s an excuse and not even a very good one. She knows it and so do I, but the relief is real when she lets it go and focuses on her phone. If what just happened between us here is going to stay here, there’s no way I can get on the plane with her. I need some space to get my head right.

“The Uber is two minutes away,” she says.

“I’ll walk you out.”

“No!” She nearly shouts it, and then shakes her head and says, softer this time, “No, that’s okay. I’ll be . . . it’s better if we . . . say goodbye here.”

“Okay then. I’ll see you back in New York,” I say, having no idea what else to do. Do I kiss her? Hug her? Just stand here feeling like a massive dick?

She sends me a tight smile and then grabs at the handle of her suitcase, but she misjudges it and sends the purse she’d balanced on top crashing to the floor.

“Crap.”

Bending down into a crouch, she sits in a squat to gather the scattered debris, her wallet, several tubes of make-up, a little emergency kit with Band-Aids and wipes and a stain stick and a couple of tampons. I reach down and grab it as she stands up.

“Here,” I say, holding it out to her and, when she takes it, her fingertips brush against mine, sending not just a shiver, but a lightning bolt of energy through me.

Fuck, I want her.

And now that I almost had her, I’m not sure that want is ever going to go away.

She makes to step back, but I circle her wrist, lightly. She could easily pull away from the bracelet of my fingers. She doesn’t, though, just stares at my hand and then looks up into my eyes. I can feel her pulse thrumming against my fingertips.

So I take a chance, just like I did back in Bozeman.

“Stay,” I rasp, so low, she doesn’t answer, and I wonder if she heard me. I open my mouth to say it again, but that’s when she pulls away, slowly, and shakes her head.

“I can’t. You know I can’t.”

And I do know that. Women who sleep with men in this industry are shunned.

She’s worked too hard and too long.

Doesn’t stop me from wishing it was different, though.

I watch her leave and, once the door clicks shut behind her, I spin in place and head straight for the kitchen to grab another beer. I don’t look at the counter, just march into the bedroom and shut the door behind me.

I need to sleep this off. Sleep her off, praying to any higher power out there that might exist that I don’t dream about her.

But first a shower.

A cold one.

Ice cold.

The first thing I see when I get out of the shower, towel wrapped around my waist, is a missed call lighting up my phone screen from my nightstand. I nearly trip over my discarded clothes trying to get to it, but when I sit on the edge of my bed it’s not the name I hoped for on the notification.

Ethan Quicke.

Taking a long slug from the beer I got from the fridge, I call him back.

“Charlie!” he says, like he’s greeting an old friend, “how’s it going?”

“Really?” I shoot back. “How’s it going? Shitty, it’s going fucking shitty.”

“Oh, I guess you heard,” he says. “I wanted to talk to you before it leaked.”

“Yeah, I heard. What the fuck are you doing? We shook hands. That means something where I come from. I thought it did where you come from too.”

“You know how it is. Dan was upset that I shook on a deal that he didn’t approve, so I let him go to other teams with the chance to counteroffer. I didn’t expect anyone to top what we agreed to, but the Dodgers did and I need to do what’s best for me and my family.”

“And that extra couple of million will really make a difference.”

It sounds insane – millions of dollars do matter, but at a certain point, how much is too much? When does it become Monopoly money?

He scoffs. “Like you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

“Newsflash, asshole, I didn’t do the same thing. You think that contract I signed with the Dodgers was the most money I could get? I wanted to play there. I wanted to win a championship with the only organization I ever played for. That’s what you said you wanted too. And it was all bullshit.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not my fault you were a weak negotiator then and naive about that shit now. This is a business and I don’t owe the Eagles any fucking thing, especially when they want to replace me with some import who’s never thrown a goddamn pitch in the major leagues.”

“You know what? Fuck you. I’ll see you in October, motherfucker.”

“Yeah, you wish, asshole.”

The line goes dead.

Fuck.

I shouldn’t have done that, even if it felt good.

But I realize I meant every word. And it’s because of her. Frankie. She has me believing, really believing in this absolutely batshit plan of hers.

I toss myself back onto the mattress, trying not to think about the plans I had for it less than an hour ago, yanking the sheets up over my body and flicking off the lights.

Sleep.

Go to sleep.

Don’t dream.

Wake up to an empty bed and move the fuck on.

Win a bunch of baseball games.

Face the Dodgers in October and take Ethan Quicke deep.

Fuck, wait, no I won’t be out on the field.

I might be a little bit drunk.

Okay, not me. But I can make sure that kid, the Davis kid, knows exactly what’s coming, I’ll have Frankie run her computer a billion times to make sure and then let the kid take him deep.

Yes. Good.

But first, sleep.

And, thank God, I’m out as soon as my head hits the pillow.

“You okay, Skip?” Cole Davis asks me, all suited up for the game ahead of him while we stand on the field less than an hour before first pitch.

My flight’s not until later tonight, commercial (my budget does have limits), but business class so I actually fit in the damn seat, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take in one more Desert Dog game before I head back to New York.

“Hungover,” I admit.

The beers at dinner and then the two once I got home were a little too much for my metabolism to handle anymore.

Getting old sucks. I used to be able to go out with the boys at night, have a couple of drinks to unwind and then wake up the next day and go four for four with a homer and two doubles before doing it all over again that night.

“I don’t get those,” he says, a wide grin playing across his features.

He’s a good-looking kid. Gonna be a star in New York if we bring him along right, but that comes with a whole other host of issues. That’s a problem for April, though, not right now.

“Where’s Ms Sullivan?” he asks.

“Back in Brooklyn,” I grumble out.

Cole clicks his tongue, but like last night, knows to mostly keep his trap shut. “so, it’s just you today.”

“Just me, kid, is that okay? Do you need more of an audience?”

He laughs and claps me on the shoulder. “Nah, we’ll put on a show for you.”

“No show necessary. Just play your game. That’s more than enough, got it?”

“Got it.”

“Hey, Mr Avery,” Archie Esposito says, darting out of the dugout, bouncing like he didn’t throw eight shutout innings the day before. Oh, to be twenty-one again. “You’re back! Where’s . . .” he’s cut off by Davis’s elbow to his gut. “Ouch, what the hell, Cole?”

“Shut up,” Cole mumbles, and I ignore their interplay.

“You boys have a good game and, when I see you after the holidays, be ready to work, and Davis, when you wrap things up here, the first thing I want you to do is study the staff.”

“Homework, Skip?”

“Consider it your final exam before graduation. I want a full scouting report on everyone on our staff and a complete write up on Nakamura.”