Page 43 of Stetson
“Not without talking to them.”
“Who is ‘them?’”
Exasperated, I scrubbed my hand through my greasy hair.Ew. “You’re smarter than that.” I didn’t entertain her further conversation. It was well past time for me to leave. “No oneis entitled to what I do in my private life. That was the case with Levi, and it’s the same now that Stetson’s in the picture. It’s not justmyreputation on the line anymore. I’m not putting out any statement until I’ve talked to them first. We’re done here.”
I pulled my cap back on and put on my sunglasses. As a kid watching the tabloid shows, I often wondered why celebrities wore them all the time. Now I understood. When you had a million cameras flashing in your face, you did good to see six inches in front of you. Even glasses only did so much, and I used my hand to shield myself from the offending lights.
Names cycled through their onslaught of questions. “Barrett, Levi, Stetson…”
I ignored them, pushing through the crowd until I sat in the back of a car. Naturally, the driver went toward the team’s hotel.
Fuck it.
I fished through my bag and pulled out some cash, reaching forward to hand it to him. “Could you take me to the airport instead?”
“Sure thing.”
I could shower in the airport lounge, and sleep on the plane. It would be easy to hop a flight to Raleigh for our next game.
I wanted to go home.
22
STETSON
This was bullshit.This whole fucking situation was absolutebullshit.
We’d been on the plane to Orlando when the news broke. Like something off of a TV show, our phones pinged one after the other. I’d been trying to sleep, and the noise woke me. In my groggy state, I was the last person to check my notifications. By that time, my whole team was staring at me. When I saw thatprivatepicture of me and Barrett, I wanted to crush the device in my hands.
Vicky. It had to be Vicky.
I saw the look she gave us. She was clearly less than impressed that night. I guess it proved that money can’t buy everything.
Low murmurs started through the plane, but the coaches and managers were quick to shut them down. Each and every one of us had a job to do, and worrying about some tabloid headline wasn’t going to help us.
My team was less than concerned with the fact that Barrett was “in a relationship.” In their eyes, I’d been caught red-handed: I was sleeping with the enemy.
The Stetson from six months ago would have spat the truth out with a smile on his face, but the new and improved me knew better. I wasn’t the only one who had feelings invested here. Even I knew that polyamory could be more unmentionable than cheating. Hell, there were people who would swear on their life that polyamorywascheating, no matter how you painted it.
So I gritted my teeth and sat through the rest of the flight.
When we deboarded in Florida, I was immediately uncomfortable. My suit was itchy, and my tie was way too tight. I tugged at the offending fabric, following close behind the team managers. Though the moment we stepped out of the airport doors, I was ambushed. Camera’s flashed left and right, and I couldn’t tell which way was up. There were so many different voices around me that I couldn’t distinguish one from the other. Finally, someone grabbed me by the bicep and tugged me through the crowd. I didn’t see who it was, but they let me go with a slight shove.
Practice was awful. We were forbidden on addressing the situation, and that infuriated me. We shouldn’t have had to spinanything. Barrett and I were just two men who were sharing a private moment, and that had been invaded. The simple thought had me reeling. I could practically feel my blood pressure rising by the second. I hadn’t read the whole article. I couldn’t. The longer I stared at it, the more red flooded my field of vision.
Fuck, I was supposed to be practicing my curveball.
I reared my arm back and threw the ball, and it wasn’t until I heard a groan of pain that I snapped back to the present. My opponent clutched his side, and I knew I’d gone wide with the ball. Damn, that thing must have been going eighty miles an hour. I cringed, but before I could open my mouth to apologize, I was told to take a break.
Defeated, I trudged toward the clubhouse. I felt eyes on me the entire way, but I resisted the urge to meet them. I was barely keeping a handle on my temper, and I could practically hear Levi’s voice in the back of my head.
“You need to get it together or you’ll never have any hope in making it in the majors.”
I needed to be careful. I was a professional baseball player, and I had a lot of eyes on me. Nearly everything I did was televised. There was no going back if I screwed up now.
That was easier said than done. I was too in my head, and it affected my game. I wasn’t pitching as I should, and got swapped by the second inning. Unfortunately for me, the batting lineup didn’t change. I was back at home plate before I knew it.
The catcher spat something out behind me, but I couldn’t make out what it was. Only that it wasn’t anything good. At my wit’s end, I dropped my bat and turned to face him. “What was that?”
