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CHARLIE

It feels too good to be true.

I love her. She loves me.

And we live happily ever after, right?

Isn’t that how it works?

Is the charmed life I’ve lived up until now about to somehow get even better?

That’s what it feels like as we fly back across the country, sitting side by side in the massive seats on the Eagles’ private jet (which she nearly refused to get on and I had to call Stew, interrupting him in the middle of his quest to get her un-fired, from the tarmac to insist she hitch a ride back with us).

She’s got her laptop open, scrolling through some documentation she has on the current Yankees roster with one hand and the other is firmly in mine.

We’re probably over Kansas or Missouri when her fingers squeeze, tightly and not that affectionately.

“What’s up?” I ask, leaning into her a bit.

She points to a message on her screen from an unknown number with a +81 at the beginning.

A Japanese number.

— Daniel Wilson is no longer my agent. I will be in touch soon.

Kai Nakamura. It has to be.

I knew that kid was special. He saw through Wilson and fired his ass before they even inked a deal. It takes guts. It takes balls. And that’s the kind of player I want playing for me for the next dozen years.

“It worked,” she whispers. “The plan, taking him to the game, introducing him to the boys. It . . . fucking worked. I knew it.”

Lifting our joined hands to my mouth, I press hard there in place of what I really want to do, pull her out of her seat and into my lap and kiss her until she’s breathless from it and – if it were just the two of us in this cabin – join the mile high club right here in my seat.

But we’ve traumatized poor Javy and Gregory enough for one day.

She’s still staring at the screen, expressionless, until she laughs.

“What?” I ask, confused, and she turns to me, laughing so hard that tears start to form at the corners of her eye.

“I managed,” she says, inhaling and trying to fit her words in around her laughter, “I managed to nail the top free agent in the last five years and get fired in the process, only to get a job with the cross-town rivals. We’ll probably have to face him in the World Series in October.

God, baseball is always so incredible, even off the field. ”

I think back to Stew, waiting for us in Brooklyn, probably jumping through a shit ton of hoops to get in front of Hannah Vinch today after she axed Frankie, to try and make it right.

I know my old manager. I know what he’s capable of.

And I know it won’t be long until the news that Nakamura fired the top agent in the game is everywhere.

And the thought pops into my head and then out of my mouth before I can stop it.

“What if you didn’t leave?”

“What?” she asks, brow furrowed. It hadn’t occurred to her, at least not yet. And I’d be thrilled to be ahead of that incredible mind of hers just once, if it didn’t mean what I think it means. It didn’t occur to her because, as far as she’s concerned, she’s already gone.

And why not? After the way Vinch treated her. Of course she wouldn’t really consider coming back, not when she has another option and that option is actually a major step up from where she is right now.

But it’s too late. I can’t take the words back, so I double down.

“Stew’s going to talk ownership around, especially now that Nakamura is probably headed to Brooklyn. What if you stayed with . . . us.”

Not us, me. Stay with me.

She knows that’s what I’m saying.

Stay with me. Win a championship with me. Marry me.

All of those things. Together.

“I . . .”

“Did you guys see this?” Gregory cuts in, from the other side of the cabin.

“Nakamura fired Dan Wilson this morning. It’s everywhere, beat writers had it first, but now it’s confirmed out of Nakamura’s camp, from his old team, the Yomiuri Giants.

They say that he still firmly wishes to sign with a major league team and that there will be an update on his decision in the coming days as the prospective teams send in their final offers. ”

Frankie doesn’t say anything about the text she got. And neither do I.

Which leaves Javy and Gregory to speculate on where they think Nakamura might end up.

But she knows.

And it might change everything.

There’s nothing to do but wait. We land in Teterboro, get in the cars and head back home. Javy and I in one car back to his house to drop off our stuff, Frankie and Gregory in another.

Javy’s texting Maria that we’re on our way when I blurt it out.

“I told her I love her.”

He drops the phone and, by the time he’s managed to fish it up, I take control back over my own freaking mouth.

“Well, that’s good, right? Especially after all the shit I had to listen to last night.

Fucking like a couple of kids who can’t keep their hands off each other or their voices down.

” He mutters something else in Spanish that I almost understand, but choose not to think too hard about. “Did she say it back?”

“She said it first.”

“Knew she had bigger balls than you.”

“No argument here.”

“So, what’s the problem? This is good, right?”

“It is. It’s good.”

Javy lets out a low whistle. “Even better. Same city, though you might want to split the difference, live in maybe Upper West Side or some shit.”

“Man, real estate? Really?”

“Yeah, sorry. So what’s the problem? Is it just that you’re a fucking greedy bastard and you want her near you all the damn time and fuck the Yankees?”

“Yeah, exactly. Fuck the Yankees.”

“You gotta let it go, brother.”

“It’s more than that, though.”

“What?”

“She’s got a thing about being with a guy in baseball and, when she got fired, that’s when . . .”

“So you think she won’t want . . .”

“I don’t know, I’m actually kind of afraid to ask, and she hasn’t said anything.”

“Shit,” Javy mutters. “What are you gonna do?”

“I can’t stand in her way. This is the only thing she’s ever wanted. I’m gonna . . . I’m gonna head over there and tell her that. That she should take the job and it’ll . . . it’ll be fine.”

Javy clicks his tongue. “I’m sorry, man.”

“Yeah, me too.”

The driver takes Javy home first and then drops me off at Frankie’s place.

I buzz her a few times. She should have beaten us here, until it hits me. She wouldn’t have gone home. She’d have gone to the Stadium, to clear out her office, because . . . because she’s done and it was fucking unfair as all hell for me to ask her to not be.

I jog back down the steps of the brownstone and nearly run into a guy turning into them.

“Sorry,” I say, shifting around him.

“Hey, aren’t you . . . Charles . . . Charles Avery?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Shane Sullivan,” he says, with meaning, and holding out his hand like I’m supposed to know who the hell he is.

“Have we met?”

“No, no, but you used to work with my wife. Francesca Sullivan.”

“Ex-wife,” I correct, instantly. This is the dickhead that followed her across the fucking country and moved in downstairs like that wasn’t fucking insane.

“Yeah, obviously,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“Frankie and I are working together again.”

“That’s right.” I’ll give him this, he plays dumb very, very well. Too well. “You took the Eagles manager job. Good for you. I was always a big fan when you were in LA , but maybe I should root for the Eagles now.”

“What?” I snap, trying to keep the voice in my head that’s bellowing for me to just knock this guy into next week under control.

“I said maybe I should root for the Eagles now. You know, living in Brooklyn it just makes sense.”

“You’re a Dodgers fan, though.”

“Well, yeah, but . . . “

“You don’t just do that.”

“Do what?”

“Switch alliances. You’re a Dodgers fan. That’s who you cheer for. You don’t just fucking decide one day to root for another team because it’s convenient.”

“ You switched teams.”

“It’s my job, that’s what I do. You’re just a fucking scumbag who can’t be trusted to honor a promise he made.”

“Listen, I don’t know what Frankie told you . . .”

“Save it, shithead. Don’t root for the Eagles. Or the Dodgers. Baseball doesn’t fucking want you and neither does Frankie.”

And with that I know exactly what I need to do, and it might not make everything right, but it’ll be a decent start.

A few phone calls and a couple of hours later, with my plan set into action, I head for the only place I think she could be: Russell Field.

Gregory’s camped out at his desk, as usual, and he sends me back with a flick of his head and pleading eyes. I’m not sure if he wants me to talk her into staying or if he just desperately hopes I don’t intend on defiling her office while he has to listen.

She’s not at her desk but standing up staring out the windows onto the field, but once I move to stand beside her, I’m not sure she’s even seeing it.

“They don’t have views like this from their offices in the Bronx.”

A soft huff of a laugh answers me, but not much else.

Glancing around, her office doesn’t look any different.

Nothing is packed, the desk is organized with her laptop there, open and waiting for her, the phone beside it.

No boxes or storage containers. She’s even dressed for work, in one of her pencil skirts with a long-sleeved blouse tucked into it, not the jeans and t-shirt that someone would probably wear to clear out their office.

“Is this what you’ve been doing all day?” I ask, tentatively.

“No, I . . .” she trails off and finally turns to me.

“Did you go to the stadium?”

And the way I say it, she knows the difference. Lots of teams have stadiums, including this one, but when you’re in New York and you say, the stadium , you mean the big ballpark in the Bronx.

“I did. I didn’t want to give Forbes a chance to change his mind. I went there and we had a good long talk and he offered me the job.”

“And did you take it?” I ask, trying desperately to keep my voice neutral. Her little smirk is enough for me to know that I didn’t succeed.

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“I wanted to talk you about it first.”