Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
And that feeling in her chest was far from relief. It was crushing agony. A momentary spark of hope had lifted her and now she plummeted to the ground, her legs heavy enough to sink into the earth if she didn’t move. Move.
But . . . wait.
Why had Elton texted her to meet him at the dog park if he’d planned on going through with this asinine matchup, instead?
Maybe Grace’s take-no-prisoners personality was rubbing off on Chloe. Or maybe she was simply too heartbroken to be nice or too exhausted to second-guess herself. Whatever the reason, she marched with a building head of steam in the direction of the field, Pierre trotting beside her in the grass, not stalling for once. Did he sense the gravity of the situation?
“We win, you show up to our next home game in our jerseys,” Mailer was saying.
“And when you lose?” Elton scoffed.
“How about this? Your prize is you don’t get your asses kicked,” Corrigan barked, before hesitating and leaning to look past Elton to his hoard of teammates, his voice softer when he said, “Obviously, the lady would not be included in an ass kicking of any kind.”
The brunette ran a hand down her ponytail, which was cascading down from the opening of her cap. “Aw shucks, that’s so sweet.” She wrinkled her nose. “But I think I’ll stick around and give you the junk punch you so clearly deserve.”
Corrigan’s eyebrows shot sky-high. “Fair enough.”
The girl smiled back, sweetly. While grinding her fist into her glove.
Chloe liked her. A lot.
And that was the beginning and end of what she liked about this morning.
“Hey, Elton,” Chloe said, slowing to a stop beside the rangy baseball player, the leather dog leash biting into the palm of her hand.
“Chloe!” seemingly every Bearcat shouted happily at once, many of them converging on her with open arms to give her a hug. She whipped up a hand to stop them in their tracks.
“Uh-oh,” Mailer muttered, stepping back. Pausing. Frowning. “Hold up a second, what is Chloe doing here?”
“That’s what I would like to know,” Chloe said, squaring off with Elton, whose eyes were hidden behind a pair of wraparound Ray-Bans.
“I invited her,” Elton responded to Mailer, grinning. “She’s here to cheer the real baseball players on.”
“Excuse me?” sputtered Chloe.
“Excuse her?” Corrigan echoed, rearing back with visible affront.
Chloe was vibrating, head to toe, a week’s worth of frustration shooting upward from the soles of her feet to occupy her throat in a wreath of spikes. “Did you invite me here under the false pretense of a doggy date, just so you could piss off my friends?”
“I don’t know, did I?” He shot the Bearcats a wink. “And did it work?”
Cue the eruption of the century.
Hockey players converged on baseball players, everyone arguing at the top of their lungs. Gloves were thrown down into the dirt. Off to the right, there was a heavy sigh and the rustle of chain-link, Burgess inserting himself in the middle of the fray with an air of exasperated patience. “Just a reminder that we’re all adults here,” said Sir Savage. “Let’s take a second to locate our maturity.”
“Some of us never had any to begin with,” Elton said, taking a step closer to Chloe. “Obviously she figured that out and made a better choice.”
“Get any closer to her and I will use your kneecaps for batting practice.”
Chloe’s world froze at the sound of Sig’s voice behind her.
Her bruised heart climbed through her aching throat into her mouth, fingernails curling into her palms and possibly drawing blood. How could everything be right and wrong at the same time? Sig was there, the heat of his chest warming her back. She could see his shadow on the ground, those broad shoulders, the outline of his beloved head in a baseball cap, his dark hair doing that hockey flow flip at the back and sides. More than anything in this life or the next ten, she wanted to turn around and leap into his arms.
But she couldn’t.
She’d cut him off, for one.
Severed the thing in their lives that brought them the most joy.
And . . . she didn’t know if anyone present had seen the article. Almost certainly, Sig’s teammates knew about the insinuation made by the reporter in the Globe. But hadn’t they already been aware of the odd relationship between Sig and Chloe prior to that?
Hadn’t everyone?
Did these baseball players know, though? Did Elton?
Chloe’s brain told her not to turn around, because she wouldn’t be able to diffuse or dampen the happiness she felt, just to be close to him, but her heart overruled her mind and she turned, anyway, letting the sight of him smooth the rough-edges inside of her created by their weeklong separation.
Sig’s wild-eyed gaze, however, remained fastened over her head. On Elton.