Officially Over It - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,35

things. Took your parents to do fun things. Even paid for our vacations once you started in the majors. I wanted to buy myself nice things, too. And I ended up doing the dumbest thing and accruing student loans to do it.”

He looked over at me in surprise. “No shit?”

“No shit,” I confirmed. “Sadly, you married a woman in debt up to her eyeballs. I’m slowly paying it off, but I have like twenty thousand dollars in student loans.” I paused. “They should really tell you that it’s a stupid idea to take out student loans. The loan officer at school just gave it to me. Even though I didn’t need it. And it was addictive. Having money now that you don’t have to pay back until you’re finished with college? That’s addictive to teenagers.”

He shook his head at me, and I felt like the stupidest person on the planet.

“I went on my own spending spree you know,” he said, surprising me because he’d defended my choices. “I bought my truck. A bike. My condo. Our vacations. I was buying all this shit and I didn’t even need it. It was my dad telling me to cool my jets that finally made me realize I needed to start taking better care of the money I had while I had it. That’s why I have such a hefty cushion now even though I only played the five years of my contract.”

I looked at him in surprise. “You should’ve never quit.”

I still didn’t know exactly why, to be honest.

I wished I had the courage to ask.

“You’re wanting to know why I did it,” he guessed.

I shrugged. “If you want to tell me.”

He sighed and ran his hands down over his face roughly.

“Fuckin’ Eerie.” He looked over at me then. “She was the reason that I quit.”

My brows went up. “What?”

“Well, not really all the way. In a roundabout way. She’s a big part of why,” he admitted, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “That last year I played? A couple of reporters took a big interest in me because of my back story. My dad. My biological father. Things like that. And the reporters were all, thank God he didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. What a waste. Then they found out about my fertilizing Eerie’s eggs situation when she was sick. They hounded me incessantly. And one day when I woke up, I realized that this was never what I wanted. I just wanted to play baseball. And I could go play on a pickup league with a bunch of guys on a Wednesday night and still get the same thing out of it that I was getting out of playing in the majors. So I… quit.”

I stared at him wide-eyed.

“You quit because people were butting into your business?” I blurted. “Nathan, what the fuck?”

Nathan shrugged. “You don’t know what it’s like. They were digging up stuff that even I didn’t know about my dad. Like, did you know that he and my mother were getting a divorce? I didn’t. I was always under the impression that they were happy.”

“I thought that Wolf was the one getting a divorce when that happened,” I said, my voice sounding confused.

“He was,” Nathan confirmed. “When his wife was killed, and he was almost killed, they were in the process of getting a divorce as well. When I asked my dad if he knew that my parents were getting a divorce, too, he seemed really surprised. As if he hadn’t realized that. As far as he knew, they had a great marriage.”

I sighed. “It sounds like KPD needs to hire whoever figured out all that mess when it came to your family.” I paused. “But I still don’t think you should’ve quit. I mean, you could’ve been a bazillionaire.”

Nathan snorted out a laugh. “I highly doubt that. But you’re right, I could’ve made more money. Sold my soul to the devil, so to speak.”

I pressed both hands over my eyes as my muscles practically burned with weariness.

“How long do we have to sit here?” I wondered. “I have to pee.”

Just as I finished asking my question, our neighborhood drug dealer came running around the corner of the complex, climbed up a set of stairs beside us, and slammed through the door of an apartment.

Moments later a cop came prowling around the side of the duplex looking pissed.

Saint.

“When did Saint get a police dog?” I asked curiously.

“That’s new,” Nathan admitted. “In fact, we’re at like