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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Kelton

Somehow I thought the field would make me feel better, but the longer I hit, the more anxious I become. I refrain from looking at my watch knowing that they are probably already on their way to the airport or worse, in the air flying back to Chicago.

I never expected this to be so hard.

I had no idea what it would do to me seeing her again.

I’ve thought of her often, learning about her from my sister, without ever having to ask her how Em is doing. My sister tends to talk and excessively, there is little I can’t find out by just letting her carry on.

I expected this trip would be nothing more than us catching up.

I figure we’d smile, laugh, and share a few memories. Yes, I knew the attraction would be there but this was more than an attraction.

What I feel is uncontrollable, it’s a need so strong it is hard for me to process. A connection that seems to have only strengthened with the time that’s passed since the last time we were together.

I thought Emerson felt the pull too. The hardest part now is knowing that it may all be one-sided. I knew staying at my place would have triggered an argument in the end, and that isn’t how I wanted to send them off.

My sister, I knew the two of us would get over it, we always do. But with Emerson, she seems to bring out the brutally honest part of me that doesn’t always get the chance to think before he speaks.

It gets messy.

Messy isn’t the best way to say goodbye.

Truth is, I don’t want to say goodbye.

I hit the last round of balls, missing a couple due to my focus being anywhere but here. Then when the machine powers down and I’m left with silence, it all hits me. Dropping the bat I turn around, my hands on my hips and my focus at my feet.

Disappointment hits me, and hard. My chest aches, my stomach twists in knots. Lifting my chin, my hands fall from my hips and I take a step only to halt.

There standing on the opposite side of the batching cages are Emerson and Alizabeth both staring at me, with Jerry a few feet behind. He mouths sorry, and his shoulders sag in defeat.

I should have known sending him to face my sister, expecting she’d be pissed, was unfair. Liz can be brutal, stubborn, and not so pleasant when she’s angry. It’s like walking into a lion’s den with steaks hanging from your belt.

“Trying to hide out in an area that has things I can easily use as weapons is not your smartest choice.” So it begins. Liz purses her lips, arches her brow, as if to say, test me.

On most occasions I’d take that option because firing her up is always fun. Yet today I didn’t have it in me.

So instead, I make my way to the gate, push it open and step outside.

“You sent your goffer to ship us off like a UPS package.” Liz throws her hands up in the air and I do my best not to laugh at the displeased look on Jerry’s face.

“Woman, who you calling goffer?”

“Oh shh.” She waves her hand at him and his scowl deepens. “Did you seriously just shush me?”

“Will you get your panties out of a bunch, drama queen.” Liz rolls her eyes, and I swear Jerry’s face is getting redder by the second. “I don’t have time to deal with your hissy fit.”

Suddenly Liz is lifted in the air and tossed over Jerry’s shoulder. I have to give him credit. He has balls. Slapping her ass he carries her off, while she’s kicking and swatting at his back. By the way she is yelling and the words she chooses, he may want to run the second her feet hit the floor.

“She is going to kill him,” Emerson says with a laugh. I’m surprised by how relaxed she seems. I watch her watching Jerry and my sister walk off and I can’t control the nervous energy coursing through me.

Then when she looks over to find my focus is on her, I instantly notice the reddening in her cheeks.

“Did you listen to your messages?”

I only shake my head.

“Why did you leave without saying goodbye?”

“Because goodbye is too final, and it’s too hard.”

Emerson holds my stare, neither of us saying anything. The uneasy feeling in my stomach only worsens with each passing second. I expect her to say something like, did we honestly think this could work out? Or maybe, it was fun, but I have to get back to real life?

At least those are the things I don’t want to hear, but my mind has been playing fucking games on me since I left my apartment earlier. So when she finally does speak I feel like the weight of the world is being lifted and every muscle in my body seems to relax.

“Goodbye doesn’t have to be forever.” Em tucks her hands into her pockets, taking a step closer. “I know you overheard us earlier. But if I don’t tell myself all those things, giving myself a little nudge, then I don’t think I’ll be able to get on that plane.”

“Then don’t,” I say without a moment of hesitation and she smiles.

“I do have a life back in Chicago.” My shoulders tense once again. “But that doesn’t mean for a second that it isn’t killing me to know that you’ll be here and I’ll be there.”

“But we don’t have to be.”

“We do,” she tells me placing her hand on my forearm and chills cover me, as I fight the shiver. I miss her though and it’s been less then twelve hours since she was in my bed, cuddled up. If I feel like this now, how will I feel after a week, or even a month.

“Kelton.” I refocus, finding her watching me with concern etched around her eyes.

She’s squinting, her head tilted slightly to the side.

“Why can’t we just stop focusing on the bad and decide that we will make this work?

Decide that no matter what one day we will be back here, together, or if you end up somewhere else, I’ll be there at your side. ”

“I’m here for three more years, signed a five-year contract with a no trade clause.”

She smiles.

“Please tell me it won’t take that long to get you back here.”

“We’ll talk, we’ll figure it out, but what we don’t have to do is finalize every detail right now. I may be going back to Chicago, but I,” she places her hand over her heart and my own beats faster, “I,” Emerson repeats, “am not going anywhere.”