Moonshot (19 page)

I didn’t vomit. Maybe all I needed was to escape the situation. Maybe wiping my face down with cold water helped. What didn’t help was the bathroom door opening, Chase entering, and staring at me with a face of fury. “What was that?” he bit out. “You’re betrothed to that prick?”

“I was being polite,” I yanked at the paper towels and pointed to the door. “You’re not allowed to be in here. It’s the women’s bathroom.”

“And you’re the only woman within a hundred feet. And it didn’t sound like you were being polite. It sounds like you’re childhood sweethearts with this guy.”

“I wasn’t. I’m not,” I shot out, my phone buzzing in my pocket, probably my Dad, looking for me.

“Have you ever dated him?”

“No. Not…” I amended. “Not ever a relationship. Just isolated things.”

“Things?” he pressed, stepping closer, caging me against the sink. “Like what?”

“You know. Dates,” I managed, and this conversation would be a thousand times easier if I hadn’t
slept with Tobey
.

“And?”

“And what?” I exploded. “I haven’t done anything wrong!” But I had. Even if it was fresh off the heels of seeing him with those girls. Even if I was mad, and we weren’t exclusive, it had all been wrong. From the minute I stepped into his room, it’d been wrong.

“Have you kissed him?”

I flushed. I could literally feel the heat on my cheeks and watched his face pale, his features tighten. “You have,” he said, the words carefully controlled.

“I’ve known him a long time,” I said. “We’ve kissed before. It’s not a big deal.” Now was the moment I should tell him the truth. I knew that, yet it seemed the stupidest decision ever.

“Just kissed.”

“No.” The word was a rough exhale from my lips, and he closed his eyes in response, his fist flexing and unflexing, the motion one of bare control. I was almost afraid to continue, this side of Chase one I’d never seen. “I slept with him.” My mind begged, silently, for him not to ask questions, for him to take the information and leave, for this to be a brief fight that would continue later. Instead, he asked the one question I hoped he wouldn’t.

“When?”

I looked down at my shoes, my weight heavy against the sink, my voice small when it came. “The night we first … when I saw you with those girls in your room.” I lifted my head. “When you had left me alone in the room and went to do drugs.” The final sentence had fight in it, and his eyes flared.

“So ... you told me no. You
stopped
me. And then you went to
him
? And let him do
that
?”

“We weren’t … us … then. We weren’t anything then.” I sobbed the words, my heart breaking as he looked at me in a way I’d never seen, like I wasn’t the person he loved, like
we
weren’t in love.

“I loved you…” He stepped back from me, his voice gruff, cracking on the syllables. “I loved you from the minute I saw you. I thought…” He brought his hands to his head and turned away from me. “I thought it was the same for you.”

I did. It was
. I never had a chance to respond. He pushed on the door, and, before I could get a word out, was gone. I sagged against the sink in the empty room, my hands gripping the edge of cold marble. Unable to control myself, I burst into tears.

I should have chased him. I shouldn’t have worried about anyone seeing, or anyone hearing, and just run after him. Tugged on his arm and told him everything that I felt. How much I regretted that night with Tobey. How little it had meant to me. Instead, I let him go and cried, alone in that bathroom stall.

I should have chased him, but I didn’t know. I didn’t know that it would be the last time I would see him.

56

Each step away from her was agony and relief, all at the same time. His chest tight, he rubbed at it, unsure if it was physical symptoms or just heartache. He didn’t understand how she could do it. He’d have sworn, having her in his bed, that she was a virgin. From her reactions, her hesitancy. He’d thought that everything they were doing was special, had taken his time with her, had thought of her virginity as this precious fucking gift that they were preserving, her first time one that would be done right, and only when she was really ready. The concept that, less than a month ago, she’d been in Tobey Fucking Grant’s bed, had him
inside
of her, was mind blowing, and against everything he thought about her, every way he looked at her.

He breezed through the exit door and toward the employee lot, two security guards standing at his approach, one tipping his hat at Chase before holding out a hand for his pass. He yanked at his bag, pulling out the card and passed it to the man, who held it at the card reader. It lit red, and something inside of Chase snapped. He took a deep breath, watching the man scan it again, the same result produced.

“You know who I am, just let me through.”

“Mr. Chase, if you could just step to the side.” The man had an attitude, the tone one used on misbehaving delinquents, and it pushed tacks into the thin skin of his self control. Any minute, Ty and her dad would come outside. Any minute she’d be feet away, her eyes on him, those begging eyes, and he would lose his mind.

One of the guards stepped to the phone, his eyes on Chase, and who the fuck could he be calling, why the fuck were they keeping him here, and they needed to fix their machine and open the damn gate. He pushed forward, past the man and reached for the handle, the man shouting a protest, and when hands closed on his arm, the final thread of his self-control snapped.

A little known fact about Chase Stern: At fifteen, he was an amateur boxing champ, a career that could have brought him much success, had he not instead focused his fast hands and hand-eye coordination on baseball. It didn’t take much to drop the three-hundred-pound security guard. One right cross on the man’s left jaw did it.

One right cross that changed everything, instantly, for them.

57

“This isn’t like you.” Dad was worried, I could hear the strain in his voice. I pushed open the door to the bathroom and came face-to-face with him. I ended the call and dropped it in my bag.

“I wasn’t feeling well,” I lied. “Something I ate. You know. Diarrhea.” It was a crude but effective answer, his face relaxing, though worry still pricked his eyes.

“Want me to get the team doctor? He can give you—”

“Oh my God,” I interrupted him. “I am
not
going to Dr. Z about this.”

“It’s a long way home. Do you think you’ll make it?”

“I’ll be fine.” I nodded to the door, ready to get out of here. “You ready?”

There was a commotion at the end of the hall, a group of security guys hauling someone away, and his eyes flickered to that before returning to me. I swallowed, hoping that all traces of my cry were gone, the last few minutes spent fixing my makeup. “Okay,” he said slowly, suspicion lacing his words. “Let’s go home.”

We rode home in silence, the only break when he asked me, twice, how I was feeling. It felt wrong to lie to him. But on the other hand, I’d been lying to him for a month. But those lies hadn’t been so blatant. They’d been lies of omission, me telling him goodnight and then walking out of my hotel room. He’d never asked me, the next day, if I had done anything other than go to bed. He’d had no reason to.

But now, the air in the truck thick with distrust, I felt the pain of lying, the guilt of everything I had kept from him. I hadn’t told Chase about Tobey, and look where that had gotten me. Chase stormed off, and I couldn’t even call him and properly apologize. Not until I got home and had some privacy. Dad wouldn’t storm off if I told him about Chase. But he would be disappointed. And hurt. And would probably never let me stay in my own hotel room ever again. The thought of going on the road and not spending time with Chase … the concept was a physical ache in my chest. Before, I had loved our life on the road, Dad and me, the team, the life. But love had dulled that. Love had made everything brighter, my smile bigger, my days longer. Every secret smile from him, every stolen touch, had been a shot of happiness. Every night we’d spent together had been a step deeper into our friendship, a cut deeper into my heart. I should have told Dad. Right then, before anything else happened. But I couldn’t risk ruining the remaining weeks of the season. I couldn’t risk a moment away from him.

After the season. That was when I would tell Dad.

At least that had been the plan.

When I got home, I called Chase, but his phone went straight to voicemail. I didn’t leave a message. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and took a quick shower, washing off the clay and dust of the game before putting on pajamas and getting into bed. I tried to call him again, with the same result. I opened a text and struggled with the words, part of me still stubbornly mad, a month after that night, about what I had seen in his room. We hadn’t been dating, so I hadn’t, technically, done anything wrong, especially not after what I had seen.

But I knew where his hurt and anger lay. In the lost opportunity. I knew because I felt the same way, I hated myself for not giving that moment to him, to us. I hated that I’d lost my virginity through anger and resentment and not in a night of love and passion. I hated that it had been Tobey pushing into me, and not Chase. I hated the look I had seen in Chase’s eyes. The loss of some bit of reverence that he had had for me.

I turned on the TV as a distraction, something to keep my mind off him. Instead, with a somber Scott Van Pelt speaking into the camera, I watched our fairy-tale summer shatter.

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