Tossing some pillows, I hunt for my phone, but it doesn’t show up. “You see my phone?”
“No, maybe you left it somewhere last night?” Coach Reid watches me from the patio.
“Fuck!” I hiss.
“You need to hit the sauna,” he says again.
“I’ll be good, Coach.” I dash for the door, tearing it open.
“Tobias, wait!” Coach Reid shouts behind me, but I’m already gone.
And when I get back to my room, Meyer is stepping from hers.
There’s a chair propping her door open, and she has Bailey’s car seat in one hand, diaper bag in the other.
She’s leaving?
I skid to a stop, her eyes popping up to mine the second my feet are planted.
She gasps, her lips parting. “Tobias.”
I wince.
The way she whispers my name, as if her body aches but her mind has reached acceptance, makes my throat burn.
“Hey.” I approach her, and when she shifts, subconsciously twisting until Bailey is shielded from my view, my hand darts out, seeking the stability of the wall beside me.
As I grow closer, I find her eyes rimmed with red, cheeks stained nearly the same exact color.
She’s been crying and the realization knocks the air from my lungs, but at the same time, something settles within me, allowing another full breath to take the last’s place.
She thinks I fucked up, and that means, in her perfect little mind, there’s something to be fucked up. On the other, for her to assume what her gorgeous eyes are telling me makes my stomach ache, but why wouldn’t she?
It’s what the school paper loves to focus on, my shit off the field. It doesn’t matter if you read it or not, it’s damn near impossible not to prejudge off of the quick glimpses you can’t get away from. They plaster the things in the halls of every building and post on every social media site in existence. But that’s not the worse part. That’s understandable, something I can’t and haven’t been able to get away from.
What’s twisting my insides is the fact that she could possibly believe, even for a second, that she meant so little to me after the time we’ve spent together, but again, I can understand it. I hate it, but I understand it.
How could she possibly know to the full extent what she means to me, when I’ve yet to spell it out for her? She knows I want her, but she could easily, subconsciously, translate that back to the headlines she reads over time.
Tobias Cruz, The Playboy Pitcher strikes again ...
No.
Not this time.
I dart forward, gently taking her face in my hand. She turns away, but I push closer, and she holds her breath as if the thought of breathing me in is too much.
“Meyer, look at me,” I rasp, my hand sinking into her hair. “Baby, please ...”
She licks her lips, blinking hard, and when she finally meets my gaze with her own, an emptiness lurches in my chest.
Her eyes are desolate, and they serve as a punch to the gut.
We didn’t exactly make plans for last night, but in my head, we didn’t need to. We had plans and our plans consisted of us, together. End of fucking story.
I don’t know what happened last night, but I didn’t do anything I’d regret.
There’s no way.
I wouldn’t.
Not to her.
Not to them.
I don’t even care to look at another girl anymore, let alone touch one, and it’s been that way for weeks now, long before her smile shifted.
It has shifted.
We have shifted.
My head begins to shake. “Listen—”
“I didn’t mean to assume anything and you don’t owe me an explanation.” Meyer’s tone is pleading, as if she’s begging me not to speak. “We’re—”
“Say friends, I dare you.”
Her eyes squeeze shut, a single teardrop sneaks its way out as she does, and serves as a rope around my neck, cutting off my supply of oxygen and leaving my lungs starved.
Her nostrils flare and she straightens her spine. That’s when she opens her eyes.
If they weren’t clouded, the void expression within them might just kill me on the spot, but the moisture lets me know I’m in there. You have to care about someone for them to have the ability to hurt you.
“I’m a mother.” She nods. “I’m a mother and I’ve been irresponsible.”
“No.”
“Coming here was a bad idea, I knew that. It was reckless and ...”
“Don’t say it.”
“I should have never been assigned to you.” She swallows, resolve slipping over her and making my fingers numb. “I shouldn’t be here, and I really shouldn’t have brought my little girl. I made a mistake.” She swallows, the honesty in her tone just about burning my skin from my bones. “I knew the life you lived and I never should—”
Her words halt on her lips when the door she’s standing in front of opens, the door that leads into my hotel room.