Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Afterward, we lay on our sides, limbs tangled atop twisted sheets, hot and sweaty and panting.
That’s when I thought I heard him say something crazy.
“What?” I whispered, struggling to hear him over my thundering heart.
“I don’t want to leave here tomorrow.” He pushed my hair back from my face. “I want to stay.”
Thirteen
Tyler
She paused, like maybe she hadn’t heard me right. “You want to stay?”
“Yeah. What do you think about that?” It was so dark I couldn’t see her expression, even though our faces were only inches apart.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Tyler, I’d love that.” She sounded surprised. “Did you think I might say something else?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
She laughed. “What would give you any doubt? I spent last night in your hotel room. I gave you a blowjob in my office. I was ripping your clothes off the second we walked in the door tonight. I am currently naked in your arms—all these things are indications that I like being with you. A lot.”
“Good. That’s how I feel too, although right up until a few minutes ago, I was planning on getting on a flight tomorrow afternoon. Or is it today already?” I tugged a strand of her hair. “I lose track of time when I’m with you.”
“I think it’s today already. But I have the same problem.” Another pause. “So . . . how long would you stay?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe the rest of the week.” I hadn’t thought it through at all—I just knew that I wasn’t ready to leave yet. This place or her.
“What made you change your mind?”
“Well, I’d be lying if I said the sex wasn’t part of it. Does that make me an asshole?”
“Hmmm. Let me think about that.” She tapped her chin. “No, I don’t think it does. Because it’s sex with me. Unless, of course, you’re having sex with other people in this town I don’t know about.”
I laughed. “Uh, no. I’m not having any other sex, in this town or any other town, frankly. And I haven’t in a long time.”
“Really?” She tucked both hands under her cheek. “Why?”
I wound the strand of her hair around my finger. “Just haven’t felt like it.”
“I thought pro athletes were supposed to be players. Women throwing themselves at you everywhere you go.”
“Some guys are players,” I told her. “And I’ll admit, there were plenty of willing women everywhere we went, and I used to like the attention. But I wasn’t really a player. The game was always my top priority. I never had sex in the three days leading up to a game I was starting, so that put a lot of days off limits.”
“Why no sex for those days before a game?” She giggled. “Did it zap your manly strength? Or were you just superstitious?”
“A little of both, actually. Some guys believe abstaining from sex keeps the testosterone pumping harder because you don’t get that release. But I was also superstitious.”
“I remember you telling me you always put your left sock and shoe on first.”
“Always. I still do. It’s a whole process.”
She laughed. “What else?”
“Well, my number was eight, so on game days I used to do everything eight times. I’d swipe my deodorant on eight times, flip every light switch eight times, blink eight times at every stoplight on my way to the clubhouse.”
“Wow. And you believed all those things helped?”
“I must have. I couldn’t not do them.” I thought back to the painful weeks after the first wild pitches. “When everything fell apart and I couldn’t throw anymore, I was even worse for a while. I was doing it all the time, game day or not. I was completely compulsive, convinced that if I was better about it, my arm would come back.”
“How’d you finally stop?” she asked, a little quieter.
“It wasn’t working, for one. Therapy helped too. And then I finally just quit playing. It was sucking the life out of me, trying to be something I wasn’t. I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
She snuggled closer to me, looping one arm around my back and resting her forehead against my chin. “Does it make you sad to talk about it?”
I wrapped one arm around her shoulders and put one hand beneath my head. “Usually. Sad or angry.” I paused and realized something. “But I don’t feel that way right now.”
“You don’t?”
“No. And you know what? I didn’t feel like telling a single person to fuck off today. I actually had a really good day. Best one I’ve had in a long time.” For a moment, I wondered about that. What had made today so much better? Was it because of the sex last night? Seeing my sister so happy? Being around baseball again? I wasn’t sure.
When I’d arrived here, all I’d wanted was to get through Sadie’s wedding and get the hell out of town again. Go back to my cabin in the mountains where no one could find me and I was free to brood in peace. Now I felt differently—at least for the moment.