“Mr. Driskill is booked solid through the end of the month,” his assistant, Bethany, regretfully informs me.
“Bethany, it’s me. Is that the truth or is he avoiding me?”
The pause on the other end of the line is confirmation enough. My head sinks to my chest.
“I’m sorry, Connor.”
“Let me know if anything opens up in his schedule.”
“Will do, dear,” she says kindly before disconnecting the call.
I hang up my desk phone and run a hand down my face. For the first time, genuine concern over the security of my job drops anchor in my mind. Lauren is his only child and I broke her heart. If he doesn’t want to keep me around then who am I to blame him?
Over the past month, Lauren has reached out several times, but I haven’t responded. She could easily storm into my office and corner me into a conversation, but she hasn’t. Maybe she’s at a loss for words the same way I am. I don’t know what else I can do other than hope, sooner rather than later, she understands for herself that ending things was the right thing to do. For both of us.
I didn’t sleeplast night. Whether it’s panic, excitement or sheer adrenaline that propels my steps from my building to Drew’s, I’m unable to harness the nerves coursing through my veins into anything other than something akin to a teenager who drank four too many Red Bulls.
I still haven’t heard whether or not Gretchen is coming to the game today. Every time I thought to text her, I couldn’t follow through.
As much as I want to be her person again, I can’t text her like nothing has changed, like it wasn’t me who ghosted her for three years. Apologies and explanations have to come first. If she can forgive me, maybe we can forge a new friendship. And this time,God willing, maybe that friendship can exist out in the open. I won’t hold my breath for more because, frankly, I don’t even deserve that much.
By the time I turn down the hallway to Drew and Reagan’s apartment, I’ve accepted that I’ll probably be third wheeling it today. When she sat across the table from me at that dinner nearly six weeks ago, it was painfully obvious how uncomfortable I made her. Why would I expect her to want to spend all afternoon at a baseball game with me?
I rap my knuckles on Drew’s door.
A few seconds later the door swings open and my face splits into a stupid big grin. She came.
“Hi,” Gretchen says, beaming a smile that’s as beautiful as it is haunting.God, I’ve missed that smile.I don’t deserve that smile. Maybe it’s only there because it’s disorienting to come face to face with a person you haven’t seen in so long, but hell if it doesn’t ignite a flicker of hope in my chest that wasn’t there before.
I step inside. “Hi.”
Drew and Reagan move about their bedroom around the corner and I steal these few beats of privacy to take her in.
Gretchen has an effortlessness about her. It’s something I recognized from our first FaceTime. The call connected and a radiant smile and big, beautiful eyes filled my screen. A simple NYU hoodieand hair pulled into a knot on top of her head and the breath caught in my lungs.
Even now, in her cut-off denim shorts, vintage Cubs t-shirt and her dark hair swept up in a ponytail that she’s threaded through her baseball hat, she’s perfect. She’s all any guy would see when they enter a room—a goddess, you might say.
“You came,” I say.
“I came. I don’t know if you remember, but our hometown is boring as hell.”
A husky laugh tumbles out of me. She smiles again and…damn. I want to be more than just her friend.
Come to find out,the four tickets we have aren’t together. It’s two seats on one row and then two more seats directly behind them. Before anybody can suggest otherwise, Reagan announces she and Gretchen will sit together while Drew and I take the upper row.
If the Uber ride was any indication, it’s best I’m not seated next to her. In a dramatic display of chivalry, Drew declared that the front seat was Reagan’s, which left the three of us to squeeze into the back of the small sedan. Gretchen slid into the middle seat while Drew and I took the window seats. Her entire right side, from shoulder to knee, aligned with mine—pressedinto mine—and it was the most alive I’ve felt in years. Definitely a feeling I should avoid with her brother right there.
By the top of the third, I couldn’t tell you what teams are playing because I’m too busy scowling at the two drunk guys seated next to the girls. Reagan has the aisle seat, but Gretchen is stuck right next to an obnoxious asshole who doesn’t even attempt discretion every time he checks her out.
The girls seem unfazed, if not unaware, but every time he checks out Gretchen’s legs and then leans into his buddy’s ear to whisper some off-color joke, my hands squeeze into fists.
Drew leans in, voice quiet. “Can you believe these guys?”
“Dude, I know!” I whisper back. “I wanna punch that one in the throat.”
Gretchen and Reagan share a laugh over…something—I don’t know what because all I see is red—and then she’s on her feet, squeezing past Reagan to go to the restroom. She makes it three steps up the path before Tweedle Dumb Drunk is out of his seat, trailing after her.
“Oh, hell no,” I mutter. Drew jerks his head for me to follow after his sister as if I wasn’t already on the move to do so. I step over him into the aisle. He hikes a leg over the empty seats below and drops into the seat next to his wife while I rush up the stairs to the concourse area.
