Dream Girl Drama (Big Shots #3)

Chapter Twenty-One

Chloe blinked gritty eyes at the screen of her phone.

Doggie date?

The number was unknown... but she had an idea who it was. Elton. That baseball player with whom she’d exchanged numbers in the park. She’d deleted his number, but apparently, he had not done the same with hers. And she wasn’t in the mood for this. Not remotely.

Every part of her body ached. Her lower back throbbed from sitting on a wooden stool in perfect posture for hours on end. Her arms hurt from being elevated without cease. Her fingers were stiff. Yet she would go back to Grace’s today and do it all over again. What was her other option? Stay here and think? No. God, no. She couldn’t do that.

A week had passed since she’d spoken to Sig.

This was the time of day she wanted to call him the most. He wasn’t a morning person, either, and they would grumble together over the phone. Pep talk each other into moving, getting out of bed. His voice was so gruff in the mornings, his humor a little less sharp than usual, kind of like he was still in the process of waking up. He’d stay on the phone with her until her morning Pop-Tart was ready, then he’d promise to see her later.

Chloe made a hoarse sound and turned the phone upside down on the mattress.

The way she missed Sig was inhuman. She was pulverized.

An apparition haunting her own life.

There were positives and she tried to focus on those. For one, she’s transcended her own God-given abilities on the harp. Grace’s directives were beginning to click with ease. She’d begun anticipating her mentor’s advice and implementing it without having to be asked. The music she made now was somehow more satisfying. Smoother. Like it had been languishing for years, waiting for her to come and do it justice. She was better than she’d thought—and that made her proud. Of herself. When she stopped and let herself feel it. Which wasn’t often, because when she stopped to think, melancholy and heartbreak flooded in and carried her away on a tide she couldn’t control. But she could control the harp. Her fingertips. So she’d get back on the stool today and bury everything under notes.

The second positive this week had been walking past newsstands while taking Pierre for his evening stroll and seeing Sig on the cover of the Sports section. “Hat Trick for Gauthier.” He’d done it. Gone out and played not just the game of his life while on the road, but games . Pride overflowed her, made it hard to breathe. She’d done the right thing. For him. For them. For her.

Why did it have to feel so terrible?

A canine snarf forced Chloe’s eyes open to find Pierre standing at the edge of the bed. She’d already taken him for his 5:30 a.m. jaunt—accompanied by her landlord, as she’d been doing every morning for the last week. “Mister Sig asked me to go with you on these early walks,” Raymond had said, by way of explanation.

Of course Sig did that.

Of course he did.

Pierre sat down with a blustering sound, looking up at Chloe expectantly. She’d really been giving him the bare minimum this week, hadn’t she? Walking him, feeding him, petting him when she could muster the energy. The poor pup deserved better.

“What kind of a dog mother am I?” she murmured, her voice muffled by the pillow. “You deserve to go on a doggie date, don’t you, boy? Do you want to go see your friends at the dog park?”

Pierre’s tongue lolled out, his butt scooting forward an inch on the carpet.

“That looks like a yes. Okay.” Chloe turned the phone over again and punched out a stiff-fingered text to Elton. “I’m a little surprised he reached out, aren’t you, Pierre? Considering I brought four hockey players down on his head the first time we met.”

The afternoon Sig had kissed her up against the door.

His touch, his voice, his scent remained fresh in her head, like he’d just been there.

You’re going to feel my weight on top of you, Chloe. You’ll feel it behind you. Beneath you. You’re going to feel the weight of me, of us, everywhere.

You’re going to trust me to find a way for us, even though it’s getting harder. You delete everyone else, but you don’t ever delete me. Ever.

Chloe fairly dove out of bed and speed walked to the bathroom, as if those memories were hot on her heels. They found her and plagued her as she went through the motions of brushing her teeth, running a comb through her hair, sighing when it refused to cooperate, and fashioning her locks in a messy bun. She cleansed her face and did her best to conceal her lack of sleep with a quick, natural layer of makeup, but proceeded to look like hell.

“Oh well, Pierre,” she said a few minutes later while pulling on yoga pants and a Bearcats sweatshirt. “It’s a dog park, not a fashion show, right? And, anyway, you look good enough for the both of us, don’t you?” She reached down to snap on his leash, scratching his head for good measure. “Yes, you do, goodest boy.”

It was only a five-minute walk to the park, though it took ten because Pierre kept stopping to taste the air. Chloe let Saturday morning in the North End wash over her, trying to glean what comfort she could from the familiarity of locals meeting for brunch, crisscrossing with tourists on the Freedom Trail, the scent of coffee and bacon drifting down cobblestone streets. The sky was overcast and her sweatshirt was definitely warranted, but spring was beginning to kick in, the promise of warmer days giving the temperature a slight lift.

When she reached the dog park a few minutes later and found it empty, she frowned.

Elton had liked her text response. Had he changed his mind? Stood her up? Or was he just running late. Chloe had just slipped her phone out of her front pocket of her sweatshirt when she heard the commotion. Men’s voices. A lot of them. Loud ones.

Coming from the neighboring baseball field.

Were some of those voices familiar?

She stepped into the gated area and started to close it behind her, her chin jerking up when she heard someone say, “Suck my balls.” And that someone was Corrigan. Not a doubt in her mind. And where Corrigan went, so did Mailer. What were the Orgasm Donors doing at the baseball field at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday morning...

Chloe’s mouth fell open.

They hadn’t gone through with that ridiculous challenge, had they?

Certainly not.

But she found herself exiting the penned dog park and marching up and over the small rise, anyway, just to be sure. When the baseball field came into full view and she saw the parties assembled, she resolved to never again underestimate the competitive nature of professional athletes. Although they were being noticeably unprofessional this morning, if the “suck my balls” comment was any proof.

Corrigan and Mailer were shoulder to shoulder, facing off with Elton, who had a whole baseball team of men—and one young woman—standing behind him, attempting intimidation by crushing their fists into their leather gloves. Burgess was leaning against the chain-link fence, arms crossed, as if he’d just come in case an adult needed to step in. Several other members of the Bearcats team were also in attendance, and she couldn’t help it, her eyes raced furiously from face to face, trying to locate Sig, but he wasn’t there.

And that feeling in her chest was far from relief. It was crushing agony. A momentary spark of hope had lifted her and now she plummeted to the ground, her legs heavy enough to sink into the earth if she didn’t move. Move.

But... wait.

Why had Elton texted her to meet him at the dog park if he’d planned on going through with this asinine matchup, instead?

Maybe Grace’s take-no-prisoners personality was rubbing off on Chloe. Or maybe she was simply too heartbroken to be nice or too exhausted to second-guess herself. Whatever the reason, she marched with a building head of steam in the direction of the field, Pierre trotting beside her in the grass, not stalling for once. Did he sense the gravity of the situation?

“We win, you show up to our next home game in our jerseys,” Mailer was saying.

“And when you lose?” Elton scoffed.

“How about this? Your prize is you don’t get your asses kicked,” Corrigan barked, before hesitating and leaning to look past Elton to his hoard of teammates, his voice softer when he said, “Obviously, the lady would not be included in an ass kicking of any kind.”

The brunette ran a hand down her ponytail, which was cascading down from the opening of her cap. “Aw shucks, that’s so sweet.” She wrinkled her nose. “But I think I’ll stick around and give you the junk punch you so clearly deserve.”

Corrigan’s eyebrows shot sky-high. “Fair enough.”

The girl smiled back, sweetly. While grinding her fist into her glove.

Chloe liked her. A lot.

And that was the beginning and end of what she liked about this morning.

“Hey, Elton ,” Chloe said, slowing to a stop beside the rangy baseball player, the leather dog leash biting into the palm of her hand.

“Chloe!” seemingly every Bearcat shouted happily at once, many of them converging on her with open arms to give her a hug. She whipped up a hand to stop them in their tracks.

“Uh-oh,” Mailer muttered, stepping back. Pausing. Frowning. “Hold up a second, what is Chloe doing here?”

“That’s what I would like to know,” Chloe said, squaring off with Elton, whose eyes were hidden behind a pair of wraparound Ray-Bans.

“I invited her,” Elton responded to Mailer, grinning. “She’s here to cheer the real baseball players on.”

“Excuse me?” sputtered Chloe.

“Excuse her?” Corrigan echoed, rearing back with visible affront.

Chloe was vibrating, head to toe, a week’s worth of frustration shooting upward from the soles of her feet to occupy her throat in a wreath of spikes. “Did you invite me here under the false pretense of a doggy date, just so you could piss off my friends?”

“I don’t know, did I?” He shot the Bearcats a wink. “And did it work?”

Cue the eruption of the century.

Hockey players converged on baseball players, everyone arguing at the top of their lungs. Gloves were thrown down into the dirt. Off to the right, there was a heavy sigh and the rustle of chain-link, Burgess inserting himself in the middle of the fray with an air of exasperated patience. “Just a reminder that we’re all adults here,” said Sir Savage. “Let’s take a second to locate our maturity.”

“Some of us never had any to begin with,” Elton said, taking a step closer to Chloe. “Obviously she figured that out and made a better choice.”

“Get any closer to her and I will use your kneecaps for batting practice.”

Chloe’s world froze at the sound of Sig’s voice behind her.

Her bruised heart climbed through her aching throat into her mouth, fingernails curling into her palms and possibly drawing blood. How could everything be right and wrong at the same time? Sig was there, the heat of his chest warming her back. She could see his shadow on the ground, those broad shoulders, the outline of his beloved head in a baseball cap, his dark hair doing that hockey flow flip at the back and sides. More than anything in this life or the next ten, she wanted to turn around and leap into his arms.

But she couldn’t.

She’d cut him off, for one.

Severed the thing in their lives that brought them the most joy.

And... she didn’t know if anyone present had seen the article. Almost certainly, Sig’s teammates knew about the insinuation made by the reporter in the Globe . But hadn’t they already been aware of the odd relationship between Sig and Chloe prior to that?

Hadn’t everyone?

Did these baseball players know, though? Did Elton?

Chloe’s brain told her not to turn around, because she wouldn’t be able to diffuse or dampen the happiness she felt, just to be close to him, but her heart overruled her mind and she turned, anyway, letting the sight of him smooth the rough-edges inside of her created by their weeklong separation.

Sig’s wild-eyed gaze, however, remained fastened over her head. On Elton.

His pupils blocked out every bit of brown, his thick chest rising, falling, his hockey body poised to throw down at a split second’s notice.

“Did you fucking hear me, or not?” Sig’s jaw popped. “Step away from her.”

“Sig...” Burgess said, a wealth of meaning in his tone.

“You heard the man,” Mailer chimed in. “She’s ours.”

“I didn’t say ours,” Sig corrected Mailer without taking his attention off Elton.

Mailer coughed. “You were thinking it.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Finally—finally—Sig looked at Chloe, blinking several times, chest plummeting, before hitting Elton with another warning look. “You brought her here just to be a dick. You’re going to delete her number now, because you don’t deserve to have it.”

“Whatever.” Elton shrugged, sauntered the few steps that separated him and Sig, lowering his voice, so only Sig and Chloe could hear it. “I hear she’s taken anyway.”

Sig’s eyes collided with Chloe’s.

There were too many emotions to name in that look. Hunger, concern, apology, misery.

“I wasn’t going to play,” Sig said, shrugging off his jacket. “But the possibility of hitting you with a line drive between the eyes it too tempting.”

Elton smirked. “My sister, Skylar, is pitching and she’s D1 all-American. You’re welcome to try.”

Sig started to respond, but Skylar appeared out of nowhere, slapping her brother, apparently, in the chest with her glove. Hard. “Asshole. Can’t believe you pulled something like that.” She hit him again for good measure, before heading for the pitching mound and calling over her shoulder, “I’m telling Mom.”

Frowning, Elton stomped after her. “You better not.”

Everyone dispersed around Sig and Chloe, but they didn’t move.

“Hey,” Sig rasped, a muscle sliding up and down in his throat. He took his cap off and slapped it back on. Then he took a giant step away from Chloe, nearly causing her stomach to land in the grass, the distance between them—and the act of him putting it there so viscerally—nearly intolerable.

It’s the right thing.

She’d done the right thing.

He obviously realized that, too.

Why was that so blindingly painful?

“I’m sorry that happened to you. For him to have the freedom to call you like that... and squander it?” He massaged the center of his forehead. “I’m sure you’re dying to get out of here. Away from all this testosterone.”

“And miss Elton’s comeuppance? I don’t think so.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “If they start to win, just incite a brawl.”

Affection warmed his face. “Once a hockey girl, always a hockey girl, huh?”

Chloe swallowed a painful lump. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Sig said, sounding winded. “Stay where I can see you.”

“Okay.” Hug me. I can’t stand this. We’ll try again tomorrow to stay away from each other. Please, everything hurts so bad. I need you. “Sig—”

A shrill whistle came from the pitcher’s mound. “Are we going to play baseball, or what, boys?”

Sig gave her a final, long look, his hand flexing at his side... nodded once, firm, and walked away. Chloe followed, dragging her broken heart behind her like a string of noisy tin cans that only she could hear.