The Ninth Inning (The Boys of Baseball #1) - J. Sterling Page 0,93

devastated me when she never tried to reach out. Not once had she texted to tell me she missed me or that she was sorry or to beg for my forgiveness. She’d gone completely silent, and that hurt more than anything else ever could have. Her silence had made me feel worthless and forgettable.

“What took you so long?” I asked.

“What do you mean? So long to what?” She was confused.

“You haven’t said a word to me in weeks. You let me walk away from you without a fight. You just let me go like it didn’t even matter that I was leaving.”

She looked completely shocked. She had expected a way different response from me, and I couldn’t blame her. If the situation had been reversed, I would have expected one too.

“I,” she stuttered, “I … didn’t know how to fight for you when nothing had changed.”

“But you didn’t even try.”

“I didn’t know you wanted me to.”

“Everyone wants to be fought for. Even us guys.”

Logically, I understood why she hadn’t reached out to me. But emotionally, I hadn’t been prepared for it. Her absence had triggered something deep within me that I’d kept buried for the majority of my life.

She hopped into the truck bed, uninvited, and sat next to me. “I’m fighting for you now. I’m fighting for us now. But I can’t do it by myself.”

“I need some time,” the words slipped out before I could catch them, and I watched as her blue eyes crumbled before she quickly pulled herself together.

“You need some time?”

“Yeah. I need to sort through some stuff. You gotta give me at least that.”

She bit on her bottom lip, and I could tell that this wasn’t at all how she had wanted things to go. But I was currently a fucking mess inside. A tornado of emotions and feelings and past issues I’d never dealt with or even acknowledged until now.

“I really need to go.” I stood up, hopped out of my truck, and walked over to the side where she was.

I extended my hand to help her out and then pulled her into my arms and held on tight.

“I’ll give you space, Cole,” she said against my chest, her breath hot. “But are we okay? Are we not okay?”

Releasing her, I took a step back. “I’ll call you,” I said, not answering her question because I didn’t have any idea what we were, and I didn’t want to lie.

She stood still as I got into the driver’s seat and started up my truck. As I pulled away, she was still standing in the same spot, her arms wrapped around her middle. I knew that leaving her like that was a little fucked up, but I couldn’t … I couldn’t pull my head together with her standing there, looking at me like I was crazy for not making this easier.

Apparently, I had mommy issues, and they couldn’t be ignored any longer. They had busted out of the box I’d kept them in and refused to go back inside. I needed to talk to my dad and get his perspective, his advice. I got onto the freeway and headed for home.

When I pulled into the driveway, all of the lights inside the house were on, and my dad’s work truck sat outside. I hadn’t called him or given him any warning that I was coming over. I knew he wouldn’t care, but he wasn’t expecting me.

I knocked on the front door a few times before opening it and walking in.

“Cole!” my dad said with a smile.

He looked tired, the bags around his eyes deeper than I remembered them being. He had missed a lot of my games lately because he was working long hours on some new housing development over an hour away.

“Hey, Dad,” I said before giving him a bear hug.

“I was just making dinner. You hungry?” He headed back into the kitchen and stirred at something on the stove before opening the oven door and peering inside.

“Sure,” I said because whatever it was, it smelled delicious.

“Go set the table,” he said with a nod, and just like that, we fell into our old routine.

It used to be like this every night after I’d come home from baseball practice and he’d come home from work. He cooked, and I set the table.

“You’re lucky I bought extra at the store; otherwise, we’d have to go out.”

“What is it?”

“Salmon.” He waggled his eyebrows.

I swore my mouth started watering on the spot. I couldn’t remember the last