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Shane turns around and, well, at least he looks as stunned as I feel.

“Frankie,” he says.

And it’s the first time I’ve heard him speak in years.

Two years.

Two years, two months, six days and, if I really, really think about it hard, probably five or so hours.

The last time I saw him was during the brief time just after the divorce was finalized but before I blocked his number and every social media account I could find.

Okay, maybe my best friend had done that for me.

But in person? The last time I saw him in person was the day he came to clean out the last of his stuff from our house back in LA .

I hadn’t said anything and neither had he.

Though there was plenty I would have liked to say. I’m not really the kind of person that censors myself, but that day I kept silent, because I knew once I started I’d probably never stop, and what good would that do? Probably just give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he’d hurt me.

And after the lying and cheating he put me through, he didn’t deserve to know about my pain.

“Is this your car? Babe, I think this is her car.”

His wife.

The woman he’d cheated with.

The woman he’d married almost as soon as our divorce was final.

The woman he’d had a baby with less than a year later.

A baby that, he insisted to me years before, wasn’t something he wanted.

Oh God.

I’m spiraling and they’re just staring at me, waiting for me to say something.

Fortunately, Vladimir is a saint among men. He’s out of the car and by her side.

“Ms Sullivan, I can take your bag,” he says. “I’m sorry, folks. This is a private car.”

“Right,” his wife, Jessie, says, biting her lip and glancing down at the baby in its carrier. I’m not even sure if it’s a boy or girl. “Sorry, we were waiting for our car to take us, but it’s a half hour late and we thought . . .”

“Take the car,” I hear myself saying, though I can’t quite believe the words as they fall off my tongue.

“What?” Vladimir says.

“What?” Shane says at the same time.

“Oh, we . . . we couldn’t. We’ll just wait,” she says.

“No, no, you have a baby out in the cold and it’s probably going to rain. Vladimir can take you wherever you need to go. I’ll just get an Uber to the field.”

Shane blinks at me, his vision seeming to clear for the first time. “The field?”

“Russell Field.”

“You work for the Eagles now?”

“For about a year,” I say, but shake my head. “You should go . . .”

“Wait, you live in New York?”

Seems like maybe he cut me out of his life just like I did him.

Not that it bothers me. It really doesn’t. It just reaffirms that leaving him, leaving that life behind, was the right decision. No matter how much it hurt.

“For a little over a year now.”

Shane and Jessie look at each other, eyes wide like they don’t quite know what to say to that, and I can’t imagine why it should matter.

Then something in my head pings, like a timer going off.

One of the reasons I’m so good at my job, why I can predict down to the smallest percentage point exactly how a baseball player is going to perform in a season, is because my brain tends to analyze the data it’s given and arrive at the most probable outcome.

And the only reason I can imagine either one of them would care about me living in New York is because they also live here, or maybe . . . are about to.

They really do have a lot of luggage.

Too much for just a vacation.

And who vacations in New York in early November?

No one.

“I didn’t think anything could get you out of LA ,” I manage to say.

“We don’t want Kaydance growing up there.”

“I grew up there,” I protest, though I have no idea why I’m even responding.

Who cares why they moved to New York? I just need to get out of here.

They can take the car, like I said. I’ll just get an Uber and maybe I won’t go in straight to work.

Maybe I’ll just go home for a little while and take a long hot bath and then sleep for a few hours.

Yeah, that’s it. I’ll be refreshed and ready to pitch Stew and can pretend this never happened.

And then spend the rest of however long pretending that they don’t live here.

Shane doesn’t respond and we’re all still standing there. Him, his wife, the baby . . . Kaydence, a girl probably, Vladimir and me.

“Go, I insist. Vlad take you wherever they need to go. You should get the baby out of this chill.”

“You’re sure?” he asks, his face wrinkling into a deeper frown than usual.

“I’m sure.”

I’m already taking a step and then another back to the sidewalk and glancing around to find the sign for the cab line.

“Frankie,” he says, and I look back over my shoulder. “Thanks.”

Shrugging, I send him a tight smile, the kind you use when there’s way too much to say, but you’re absolutely not going to say any of it.

Turning away, so I don’t have to watch Vlad help them into the car and secure the baby seat and put their luggage in the trunk, I pull out my phone to start ordering myself an Uber.

“Ms Sullivan,” Vlad calls out from behind me, and I stop, not keen on making the older man run to catch up.

“It’s really okay, Vlad, I promise.”

“No, no, I understand. I will take that man to where he wants to go.” Ah, so Vlad put the puzzle pieces together. “But there is another car.”

“Another car?”

“Yes. The team sent another car this morning to pick up a guest from Los Angeles.”

“A guest.”

“Yes, from Los Angeles. Just behind you, ten minutes.”

He motions back toward his car where another has pulled up behind, black and sleek, just like all the cars the team employs.

I can’t see a name in the window from here.

“Who is it for?”

Vlad shrugs his large shoulders. “I don’t know, but if you wait, you can share.”

Okay, so keep to the plan. Get in the car and wait for whoever it is ownership is flying in from LA , get to the office, shower, a change of clothes and then pitch Stew.

That’s my priority: get Stew on board with signing Nakamura and then go from there.

Dragging my luggage back toward the cars, I avoid looking into the tinted windows of Vlad’s car and allow the other driver, a man I vaguely recognize and who introduces himself as Sam, to take my bags and load them into the trunk before he holds the door open for me.

Just as I’m about to climb into the backseat, a voice calls out from the sidewalk.

“You jackin’ my ride, Sullivan?”

That voice.

I know that voice too.

Closing my eyes, as if I don’t see his face he won’t actually be there.

No stupid ever-present five o’clock shadow, no ridiculous broad shoulders and thighs to match, and definitely not eyes crinkled with a shit-eating grin, and the slightly premature lines from spending most of his life on a baseball field.

Charlie Avery.

What is he doing here?