“That’s right. You’re a Midwest boy.”
“Way more time out of it than in now, but, yeah, it was home.”
“You never went back?”
A lot of guys make their off season home back wherever they’re from, finding comfort in the familiar.
“As soon as I got toLA, I never wanted to be anywhere else.”
“Until now?”
“It stopped feeling like home after . . .” he trails off. “I lovethat city, and it’ll always be special, but one season without going to the ballpark every day was plenty. Watching the game move on without me, it was . . .”
“Impossible,” I finish for him, because I know that feeling all too well. “Like you’ve lost a part of yourself and nothing will ever fill the hole it left behind.”
He misses a step and his foot catches mine as I trip into him. He catches me easily, hands steady at my hips, drawing me into him to keep me from crashing to the dance floor.
“How could you possibly know that?”
Chapter 8
CHARLIE
“What do you mean?” she asks, stepping further away from me, her face suddenly clouded over with an emotion that I don’t recognize, pulling free from my grasp and my hands flex into fists, instantly missing the feel of her warmth against them.
I shrug, trying clear my mind, trying to rid it of the need to reach out for her. “Look at you, you’re living your dream, how do you know what it feels like to lose it?”
“How do I . . . are you serious right now?”
Shit. That look I know well. Furrowed brow, hands on her hips, eyes narrowed dangerously. What the hell did I just say? I can’t even remember.
“I . . .” I try to gather my thoughts again, something about dreams and, yeah, that’s it, she understood, she gets me and it’s confusing as fuck that, somehow, she’s mad about it?
Then she’s gone, pushing past me off the dance floor ,weaving her way through the crowd that’s still locked on the Montana vs Montana State showdown, and I try to follow her path with my eyes, but then it hits me that we didn’t pay yet for our meals. The last thing I need is some hit job in the press that I skip out on my meals in the middle of Small TownUSA. I go back to the table to toss some bills on it before racing out into the night.
I have no idea what I did to set her off, but clearly I hit a nerve.
I follow as fast as I can. The hotel is only down the street from and, with the game going on, there’s barely anyone blocking my view. If my knee wasn’t held together with spit and a prayer, I’d try to sprint down the sidewalk and catch up with her. But it is, so instead I set a steady pace, keeping her in my line of sight as she stalks into the hotel.
I make my way into the lobby just in time to see the elevator doors close with her behind them, so I call for another one and wait.
What the hell did I say? I was caught up in the moment, marveling at the way she understood me so well and then . . . she was gone.
Thankfully I have a room key in my wallet, sparing me the indignity of knocking on the door until she deigned to open it.
She’s standing in the center of the room, her back to me, staring out that window, the view even more nondescript now that it’s too dark out to see the mountain range coloring the horizon.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I begin, but she cuts me off, raising a hand and stepping right up to me, nearly chest to chest.
“Don’t, it’s not . . . I’m not mad at you.”
“You’re not?”
Shrugging, she throws her hands up in frustration. “Not entirely, I just . . . you really don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what? Frankie, talk to me.”
“Do you know how many dreams I’ve lost?”
