I’m about to deny it, but I don’t. I’m sure she’s seen the news. I’m sure she knows I’m benched right now. I’m sure she knows what an ass I’ve been; it’s all over the tabloids. The bad boy of baseball.
She takes a deep breath. “There’s so many things I need to tell you, things I regret and I wish I’d done differently. But I can’t.”
Frustrated, I tell her, “Fine, you don’t want to talk about it, fine. But answer me this. Your family has money. Why are you doing this?”
She looks at me, and her eyes pool with tears. My first instinct is to reach out for her, but I stop myself. Her voice is husky and filled with emotion. “My family disowned me.”
I gasp, because of all the things I imagined, I would never have thought that. “What? Why?”
But before she can answer me, an alarm goes off on her phone. She turns it off and tells me hurriedly, “I have to go, Carter. I have to get home.”
She almost looks frantic, and then she looks at me with pleading eyes and says, “Please, I really have to go.”
I jut my chin at her, not wanting to ask, but knowing I have to. “Why? Do you have a man you have to go home to?”
“What? No!”
I don’t take time to think about how her answer makes me feel. I get out of the car and I’ve barely shut the door before she’s backing out of the driveway and spinning her tires as she drives down the road.
7
Carter
I barely get any sleep at all because all I can think about is Hanna. I get up early and instead of reaching for a beer, I have a breakfast protein shake and drive over the gym at the stadium clubhouse.
I’ve always enjoyed working out, and today’s no different. I can tell I’ve let myself go a little as I’m covered in sweat and huffing and puffing, but I don’t give up. I keep busy, first running on the treadmill for a half hour to loosen up, and then moving to the weights. When I’m drenched and covered in sweat, my coach walks in. “I’m surprised to see you in here, especially this early.”
I keep lifting. “I needed to work out, Coach.”
He nods his head. “You know when I put you on leave, I didn’t mean I wanted you to go to the bar every night.”
I should be mad that he’s checking up on me, but I’m not. Instead of giving him attitude, I tell him the truth. “I haven’t drunk in three nights. I’m at the bar to see an old friend.”
I finish my reps and drop the weights at my feet. I’m about to move to the dead lift track when he stops me. “I’ve heard about you, Carter. From your old coach and your teammates. If I go by what they say, I should just cut you from the team and be done with you. But I was there your senior year, at your state championship game. I know what you’re capable of. But somehow you’ve lost your way. This is your last chance, Carter. Stop the booze, stop the women, stop the drugs…”
I start to deny the drugs, but he gives me a look like Don’t waste your breath.
I stare at him for a full minute and see the truth in his face. And I finally get it. I either get my shit together or I give up baseball.
Instead of the smart-assed answer I would normally give him, I just nod my head. “Okay, Coach.”
The coach walks off and I go to the treadmill to run some more. I have so much to think about. Everything with Hanna has my head all screwed up. What does she mean her family disowned her?
She comes from a well-to-do family. And they were always good to her, good to me. I can’t imagine them doing that to her. Why would they do that to her?
I have so many questions and no answers. She said she had tried to reach me, but at the time I didn’t want anything to do with her. As a matter of fact, I would have been happy to have never heard her name again. I was so tired of hearing from my agent that she was calling for me that I finally told him to quit telling me if she called. At the time, I was dreaming about her every night, and I thought it was because she kept trying to reach me. I had hoped if I didn’t hear about her anymore, I wouldn’t dream of her. I would forget her. But that didn’t work either. There hasn’t been one day in the last two years that I haven’t thought about her.
I need closure. I need to move on. But I also know that I can’t just walk away like this. She obviously needs help, and no matter how much I know I need to turn the other way, I can’t. She still has a hold on me, and it sickens me that I’m that weak. She had told me she loved me and then basically shit on me. I should hate her. I should want her to hurt as much as she hurt me, but even thinking it, I know I can’t do that. I know I need to talk to her and try to put this all behind me. We can talk and put this all on the table and then hopefully bury it.