The Ninth Inning (The Boys of Baseball #1) - J. Sterling Page 0,79

phone, my fingers hovering over the screen as I tried to figure out exactly what to say to Cole. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin his game, but it was too late for that now. Logan had already crashed the cars head-on at full speed. All I could do at this point was hope we walked away from the wreckage, intact.

Lauren had driven me earlier that afternoon to pick up my car. It had been sitting all alone in the parking lot, the last reminder of a night I couldn’t remember but also wanted to forget.

I paced around the apartment until Lauren begged me to stop. But I couldn’t sit still. The second I sat down, I would hop back up again. Stillness allowed my nervousness to fester and multiply. Walking around kept it at bay even if it didn’t look like it from the outside.

Lauren peeked around her bedroom doorframe and asked, “Do you want me to leave before he gets here?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said before changing my mind. “No. You should stay. Can you stay?” I knew that when it was all said and done, I was going to need my best friend.

“Of course I’ll stay,” she said, trying to sound reassuring and calm. “It’s going to be okay.”

“It’s not. It’s not going to be okay. There’s no way that Cole can get past this. Especially when I don’t have any answers for him.” I continued walking as I waited for him to arrive and put the final nail in the coffin of our relationship. It had been fun while it lasted.

The team had landed at the airport an hour earlier. I knew that Cole had to wait for his luggage and get on the team bus to the baseball field before he could get his truck and come here. It seemed so unfair that, only a few days ago, I had been saying I love you for the first time, and now, I was awaiting our fate, knowing in the back of my mind that it wouldn’t be good. The weight of it all sat in my lungs like bricks. Heavy and concrete, making it hard for me to breathe.

My phone rang, and I knew that Cole was here. My legs started shaking, and I felt like I might have a panic attack even though I’d never had one before. I pressed some buttons on my screen, and I knew he was on his way inside. How the hell am I supposed to face him?

The door opened slowly, and Cole walked in, looking distraught and tired. I wondered if I looked the same to him. I’d been crying most of the day, and my eyes were puffed up and swollen. I hadn’t even bothered to put on makeup.

“Hey,” I said as his blue eyes clashed with mine from across the room.

He started to move toward me before stopping himself, and that single action, that moment where he stayed away from me instead of coming closer, told me everything.

“How was your last game?” I hadn’t looked at the score or how he had done because I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“I hit like shit. Went oh for four,” he said like he couldn’t have cared less about the one thing he loved more than anything else on the planet.

“I’m sorry,” I said because I was. I knew that I was the reason he hadn’t hit well and that Logan was probably throwing a party over what he’d accomplished.

“Can we not talk about my game?” His expression twisted, his eyes pulling together as his body tensed, and I knew that nothing I said was going to relax or calm him. “What happened last night, Christina? You have to tell me. I need to know. I’m going out of my fucking mind.” His voice broke, and it took my heart with it.

“I don’t—” I started to say as the tears spilled. I promised myself that I’d be strong. That Cole didn’t deserve to feel sorry for me, but I couldn’t help it. The tears refused to stay put. “I honestly don’t know what happened. I don’t remember the end of the night.”

He looked around before pulling out a chair at the dinner table and sitting down. “Tell me what you do know,” he said.

I moved across the room to join him at the table, a box of tissues in my hand. I sat down, put the box in front of me, and proceeded to tell