Chapter

Twenty-Two

I t was a brutal battle, the kind that left bodies aching and nerves frayed. Detroit wasn’t a flashy team, but they were relentless, clawing their way up the wild card standings and forcing this one-game playoff against the Knights. And now, here they were—deadlocked at one apiece in the ninth inning.

The energy inside the stadium was electric, charged with a mix of hope and desperation. Their home crowd was a thunderous, roaring beast, rattling through the steel bones of the ballpark. But maybe it was too much. The pressure, the expectations—it weighed heavy on the Knights, making their movements stiff, their plays just a fraction too slow. Stupid mistakes had piled up like storm clouds, each one a crack in their foundation.

Now, Detroit had a runner on third with two outs. Tension coiled tight, fraying every nerve, every muscle. Jason could feel it pressing in on him, suffocating.

He called time and motioned his infielders to the mound.

“Okay, guys, we’ve got this.” His voice was firm, cutting through the buzzing adrenaline and uncertainty. “We’ve been counted out all season, and we’ve fought our way back every damn time.” A few whoops of agreement rang out, but he lifted a hand. “Stay locked in. No hero plays. We go for the sure out at first. No mistakes. Play smart, play clean. Got it?”

A chorus of nods followed, gloves smacked together in solidarity, and the team broke back to their positions.

Jason crouched low behind the plate, his body coiled like a spring, eyes locked onto the batter. The familiar rhythm of the game should have been calming, but something pulled at the edge of his awareness. A flicker of movement just above the Knights’ dugout. Auburn hair. A flash of something he couldn’t place. His heart stuttered, but before he could focus?—

Crack!

The bat met the ball with a sharp, punishing sound, and Jason’s gut clenched.

A hard-hit grounder shot straight between him and the pitcher’s mound. Cody was already moving, cutting it off, but the ball took a brutal hop, twisting last-second. He barely managed to glove it, his throw wild—off balance, off target.

Jason moved on instinct.

The ball veered into the first base line, dangerously close to the runner’s path. Time slowed to a crawl. He lunged, gloving it clean, his body twisting as he reached to tag the runner barreling down the baseline?—

Impact.

The collision was a white-hot explosion of pain. The runner’s momentum wrenched Jason’s arm back at a sickening angle. His shoulder gave way with a sharp, violent pop.

Then—nothing.

Blackness swallowed him whole.

Seconds, minutes—he had no idea how long he was out. When the world finally reeled back into focus, Jason found himself staring up at a circle of anxious faces. His teammates, the coaches, the trainer. Their expressions told him everything before the pain even fully registered.

A deep, slicing agony radiated from his shoulder, pulsing in time with his heartbeat, making it hard to breathe.

The trainer’s face was grim, his silence heavier than words.

Jason didn’t need to hear it. He already knew.

His season—his career—was over.

J ason lay back on the athletic training table, staring at the ceiling, the dull roar of the crowd above the locker room a cruel reminder that life didn’t stop just because his had come to a screeching halt. The game had gone on. The team had gone on. And now, without him, baseball would go on.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew his shoulder was done—shredded, ruined. The second he’d reached out to tag the runner, he had signed his own death warrant. The moment his arm wrenched back, he had felt it—the end of everything.

He could blame Cody Patterson for another off-target throw. He could blame the team for not locking in a playoff spot sooner, avoiding this brutal, do-or-die game. He could even blame himself for still caring, for daring to think that maybe—just maybe—he had more time.

But it didn’t matter. The result was the same. His career was over. His job, his purpose—gone. And Stacia… He let out a slow breath, shutting his eyes against the fresh wave of pain. He had driven her away, pushed her until there was nothing left between them. Maybe that was for the best.

A sudden explosion of noise shattered his brooding. The announcers on the television went wild, their voices climbing into an excited frenzy. The trainers around him let out whoops of celebration.

“What happened?” Jason muttered, forcing himself to crack open an eye.

“Homerun. We won, Friar! We’re headed to the playoffs!”

The words barely registered. The replay of the final play looped on the screen, but Jason tuned it out, his pulse a slow, dull thud against the inside of his skull. The team burst into the locker room seconds later, voices loud and triumphant, the unmistakable pop of champagne bottles filling the air, the sharp tang of alcohol mixing with sweat and victory.

Jason exhaled sharply.

“Close the door on your way out, Tommy, ’kay?”

The athletic trainer hesitated, sympathy creasing his face, but instead of murmuring some hollow platitude, he nodded and stepped away, leaving Jason to his solitude.

The shoulder had been popped back in, ice packed tightly against the joint, numbing the worst of the shooting pain, leaving behind a dull, relentless ache. If only ice worked on everything. If only it could freeze out the raw, gaping wound inside him—the pain of losing it all. Hell, if it were possible, he’d sink himself into a vat of ice, let it numb him to the core, until he felt nothing at all.

But life didn’t work like that.

He had made the fatal mistake of caring—about the team, the playoffs, Stacia. And now, like everything else, it had all gone down the drain, leaving him here, drowning in a pain that no amount of ice could soothe.

The noise outside surged as the training room door cracked open, then shut again, muffling the celebration.

“Hey, man, is it as bad as it looked?”

Jason didn’t bother looking up. He knew the voice. Cody Patterson.

He opened one eye, took in the kid’s pale face, the way his hands twisted in the fabric of his champagne-soaked jersey. The kid looked wrecked. Good.

Jason let his eyes slide shut again. “It wasn’t your fault, Patterson. This damn shoulder was a ticking time bomb. Bound to happen eventually.”

“If I hadn’t thrown off-line?—”

Jason shot up so fast the pain nearly knocked him flat again, but he ignored it. With his good hand, he grabbed a fistful of Cody’s jersey, yanking him close. “If it wasn’t tonight, it would’ve been another night. A week from now. A month. A year. Big fucking deal. It’s done.” He shoved him back, breath coming fast, pain lancing up his arm. “Now, go celebrate your win.”

Cody hesitated, the weight of guilt pressing in the air between them. “You saved our season, man. Not just today—the last two months. We wouldn’t be here without you. I don’t know how we move forward without you.”

Jason didn’t move. Didn’t even blink.

His gut twisted, but he refused to acknowledge it.

He could feel the anger rising again, boiling over, searching for a target. He let it burn through him, let it scorch away any weakness, any regret.

“Big fucking deal,” he bit out. “Go win your damn games. Leave me the hell alone.”

Cody stood there a moment longer, then the door opened, bringing a fresh wave of celebration before it muffled again.

Jason should have felt guilty for shoving the kid away, but the pain swallowed it whole. He let his head drop back against the wall, let his body sink into the too-thin padding of the table. He imagined the ice spreading, numbing, dulling everything inside him.

The door opened again.

“I said, get the fuck out of here!” He grabbed the nearest pillow and hurled it toward the door. It landed with a soft thud against the wall.

But the scent that followed stopped his breath in his chest.

A hint of vanilla and jasmine. A familiar click of heels on concrete.

His gut clenched. His body tensed, a reflex more ingrained than anything he had ever done on the field.

Stacia.

His throat worked, but when he finally spoke, his voice came out flat, emotionless. “What do you want? I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again.”

Guilt, regret, grief—they swirled in his veins, thick and suffocating.

“Tough.”

The thin padding beneath him dipped as she perched on the edge of the table, her body just barely brushing his leg. She reached for him, fingers ghosting over his injured shoulder, and he jerked away, pain flaring sharp and hot. He swore viciously. “Get the fuck away.”

“No amount of swearing is gonna push me away, Jason,” she said softly. “What can I do?”

The ache in her voice sliced through him like a blade.

He forced himself to look at her, at the way her eyes shone with unshed tears. “Not a goddamn thing. You can’t fix this, Stacia. No one can. My career is over. My life is over. I don’t need you. I have nothing left to give.”

Her hand hovered near him, trembling slightly, before she pulled back. “I don’t believe that,” she whispered. “We’ll find the best doctor. You’ll play again.”

Jason swung his legs off the table, putting distance between them. “You don’t get it. I was always one bad break away from this. I was on borrowed time. No doctor can perform a miracle.”

The heat inside him churned, seething, rising—an unstoppable eruption.

“What do you care?” he snapped. “We’re done. You got what you needed—your rebellious little fling, your perfect image. My career? It’s gone. Over. And now you can go back to your life, back to Daddy’s campaign, and pretend this never happened.” His voice dropped, low and bitter. “Because that’s all it was, Stacia. Just sex and business. You got what you wanted, I got a few more months of a career, and now it’s over.”

The words tasted like acid, like self-destruction.

He felt the moment she broke, the way the hurt flickered across her face like a shadow before she steeled herself.

She swallowed hard, blinking against the emotion in her eyes. “Jason, if you ever need anything—” her voice wavered, just slightly—“you just have to call.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t dare open his eyes.

He waited until the door finally clicked shut.

Too late. She was gone.

J ason sat on the exam table, his fingers curled into the edge, his gaze fixed on a crack in the linoleum floor. He refused to look at the X-rays displayed on the lightboard, refused to acknowledge the proof of what he already knew deep in his gut. His career wasn’t hanging by a thread anymore. It had snapped clean through.

The door creaked open. The doctor entered, his face unreadable as he flipped through Jason’s chart. Silence stretched between them, heavy, suffocating. Finally, the doctor lowered the folder and met Jason’s gaze, his expression grim.

“I told you last year that your shoulder couldn’t take another injury,” he said, his voice low, careful. “This one, the dislocation—it wasn’t just another setback. It was catastrophic.”

Jason’s stomach tightened, but he didn’t react, didn’t even blink.

“We could try surgery again,” the doctor continued, his tone professional, but laced with something close to pity. “Tighten the muscles and tendons, go through rehab, but the bottom line is, you’ll never play baseball at the pro level again.”

The words landed with a dull thud. Jason had braced for them, had felt them coming like a slow, inevitable train wreck. And yet, hearing them spoken out loud felt like taking a fastball straight to the ribs.

Still, the numbness held firm, blanketing everything.

“So, that’s that.” His voice was flat, empty. He pushed off the table, his boots hitting the floor with a solid thunk. “Can I get dressed now?”

The doctor frowned. “Jason, did you hear me?”

Jason grabbed his shirt off the chair, barely sparing him a glance. “Yeah. I heard you. I’m never playing baseball again. My life is over. Anything else?”

His fingers fumbled with the buttons, his left hand clumsy, the fabric slipping through his stiff, uncooperative grip. Frustration coiled in his chest, tightening his breath.

The doctor hesitated, then sighed. “You should still consider the surgery.”

“What for?” Jason barked, his head snapping up. “It won’t change a damn thing.”

“It will stabilize the joint,” the doctor said evenly. “Reduce the pain.”

Jason let out a sharp breath, his jaw clenching so hard it ached. Pain. Like that was the problem. Physical pain, he could handle. That was nothing. It was the emptiness stretching ahead of him, the unbearable void of what came next, that made his chest feel like it was caving in.

“Fine,” he bit out. “Schedule it. I’ll be there.” He yanked his shirt over his bad shoulder with a sharp, punishing jerk, ignoring the pain that lanced through him. “Not like I have anywhere else to be.”

He stalked out of the office, barely registering the doctor’s concerned look.

The numbness followed him, thick as a fog, clouding his thoughts, dulling everything except the single question that gnawed at him with every step.

What the hell was he supposed to do for the next forty or fifty years?

Relive old memories? Drink himself into oblivion? Smile and wave at old-timers’ day while they trotted him out like some relic of a past era?

No.

No fucking way.