Page 54 of Home Safe
Chapter forty-two
Griffin
ME
At what age did you stop believing in Santa?
DANAE
I never believed in Santa.
ME
Seriously?!
DANAE
My parents never did Santa. They were too serious about everything to engage in something so impractical. And they probably wanted the credit for the gifts they gave me.
ME
That’s seriously sad.
DANAE
shrugging emoji
ME
Did you get lost? No question for me today?
DANAE
Oh, ummm, what’s your favorite color?
ME
Green. Specifically the shade of your eyes. That I’m counting down the days till I get to see again.
When Danae hasn’t responded to my flirty text after fifteen minutes, I hit the call button. I need to be on the team bus to the stadium in ten minutes, but I’m going to use all ten of those minutes getting to the bottom of why Danae has been acting so weird the past week.
There was another minor incident with the press, which could be to blame.
Someone managed to get a photo of Danae and Jason watching a game in the suite and sold it to a tabloid.
The basic facts of Jason’s adoption case were dredged back up—which made it easy to get the article taken down in under twenty-four hours.
Still, I know it spooked Danae all over again with the adoption hearing approaching, despite reassurance from Jason’s social worker that it wouldn’t be held against her.
She was evasive most of the week I was in KC for our two series at home and quieter than usual the one time I did see her.
She said she didn’t want to risk rocking the media boat by coming to any home games again until after the adoption is finalized, which I completely understood.
Still, it killed me not to have her and Jason there.
Their absence combined with her acting so cagey has me second-guessing everything about myself and our situation.
We’re in the middle of a ten-day stretch of away games, in the middle of a seventeen-day stretch of daily games.
For the first time in my life, I’m cursing the man who decided that baseball should be a 162-game season.
Connecting with Danae has felt next to impossible with her cold shoulder on top of my packed schedule.
She doesn’t know that I got special permission to miss a game so that Sam and I can fly home after tonight’s game in order to be there for the court hearing tomorrow.
I still want to maintain the surprise, but it’s time to cut to the chase of what’s behind her mood. I can’t take it anymore.
The call goes to voicemail, so I immediately dial her again .
“Hello?” she answers, sounding annoyed.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she answers.
“There’s an ‘everything’ behind that ‘nothing’ if there ever was one,” I say.
“Babe, you’ve been acting closed off ever since the morning after we fell asleep on the couch together.
Are you upset about that for some reason?
Or upset with me for setting Jason off that day by calling him the wrong name? ”
“No, it’s not that,” she says, voice exasperated.
“Ha! So it is something ,” I say. She audibly huffs. “Danae, please open the window to the thought factory. I can’t figure out what’s going on when I can’t see you.”
“How long until you retire from baseball?” she asks. Her sudden assertiveness catches me off guard.
“What?”
“How many more years will you be playing baseball?” Danae asks.
“I can’t say that for sure. There are too many variables,” I say.
“Ballpark guess,” she demands.
“I mean, some guys push forty before they retire, but shortstop is a pretty demanding position physically, so thirty-six or thirty-seven is probably more realistic,” I say. “But you can’t hold me to that—it’s not a hard and fast rule.”
“So, anywhere from three to five more years, give or take?” Danae clarifies.
“I guess so. Why? What point are you getting at?” I ask.
“I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for how much longer it will be until I get to be with just Griffin,” Danae says, voice thick.
“What do you mean?” I ask, my blood pressure barreling higher. “You are with me, with Griffin. What’s stressing you out so much?”
“I don’t know, Griff! I’m really overwhelmed by . . . e verything. My anxiety is on high alert, and I’m really wishing that Griffin the person was free of Griffin West, The Wizard of Defense right now,” she says, then abruptly halts at what she said.
We’re both silent for a beat, but I start pacing the room .
“This is who I am, Danae. You’ve known that from the first day we met,” I say, the irony suddenly hitting me. “Well, from as soon as you knew who I was.”
“I’m sorry,” Danae says before she sighs deeply.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t know what I mean.
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even answered your call, should have gotten my mind in a better place before we talked.
There’s just been a lot of . . . never mind.
I need to go. I promised Jason we would go to Lego Land today, which was a huge mistake to promise something exhausting that requires driving downtown and figuring out parking and generally stressing me out when we have court tomorrow.
Can we please talk when you get back to KC later this week? ”
“Fine,” I say, voice hard with frustration.
Sighing, I swallow down the desire to tell her we can talk tomorrow, still not wanting to ruin the surprise factor.
But I can’t leave the conversation hanging this way, not when she thinks I won’t talk to her again before her big day.
“Hey, good luck tomorrow. Have Kara take tons of pictures. I love you.”
Her voice sounds pained when she replies, “I love you too.”
There’s a loud knock on my hotel room door right as I hang up.
“Griff! You've gotta be on the bus in two minutes! Adrian texted me that you’re not down there!” Sam’s loud voice is extra annoying in my current state of mind.
I swing the door open, and her brow immediately furrows. “What’s wrong with you?” she asks, coming in.
“Bad conversation with Danae,” I say.
Sam hums. “You guys have seemed a little off lately. What gives?”
“I don’t know the whole of it, but the short of it is that she can’t accept me for who I am,” I say.
Sam quirks an eyebrow. “Um, okay. That’s one very dramatic way to look at things, but it doesn’t sound very Danae-like. What makes you say that?”
“She was grilling me on how many years I have left until I retire, complaining that she wishes I could be separate from the Wizard of Defense, when she can’t accept that the Wizard of Defense is me.
Griffin West, the baseball player—that’s who I am.
I don’t know how to sustain our relationship if she won’t see that,” I say, pacing and throwing my hands up in the air.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Sam says, and I glare at her. “Don’t you dare push Danae away for the very reason you love her.”
Narrowing my eyes, I take the bait. “What do you mean?”
“Griff, have you never figured out why you were so drawn to Danae in the first place?” Sam asks.
I shrug. I begin listing off the things I love about Danae, “Of course, I know why I’m drawn to her. She’s tenderhearted and empathetic, she’s—”
“No, not all the things you grew to love about her,” Sam says, cutting me off.
“I mean the reason your heart altered its orbit around her in the first place. Before you knew all of those things, you were drawn to Danae because she sees you . She cares about you, Griffin. Not the baseball player. Not the persona. The person.”
My eyebrows knit together, and I know I’m scowling when Sam laughs.
She takes a deep breath before diving in.
“Listen, for being exceptionally socially aware, you’re acutely lacking in the self-awareness category.
You got injured last year and came face-to-face with the expiration date on this whole persona that’s wrapped up in your baseball career.
Even though you clawed your way back to playing, for a minute there, you were confronted with the possibility of who you are without baseball.
Deep down, you’re scared to face that idea—but that’s who you are to Danae.
Just Griffin, not the baseball player. The baseball was a downside to her.
I think the suppressed, scared part of you was finally at peace finding someone who wouldn’t move on when your professional baseball era ends.
She’s going to care about you long past the death of the Wizard of Defense persona.
So don’t fault her for the very reason you love her. ”
Sam’s words click into place as visions of my first interactions with Danae scroll through my mind. I drag a hand down my face. “You’re right,” I state simply.
“Yep,” Sam gloats.
I shake my head but smile at her. “Where’d you get so smart?”
“Therapy,” she quips, smirking at me. “You gonna be able to pull yourself together and play well today, or is this about to be a train wreck I have to watch in slow motion?”
Lightly punching her on the arm, I roll my eyes. “I’m gonna play lights out, and then we’re gonna hop on a plane so I can be there for the woman I love.”
“That’s the spirit!” Sam says. “High spirits are good because Coach is probably about to chew you up one side and down the other for being late to the bus.”