Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
kendra
Burying myself in work only provided a bit of relief. I ran through the interaction with Tucker, and his threat couldn’t have been louder.
Then, after the shower incident with Jonathan—the guilt bit into me as I realized I had used him. After seeing Tucker, it was like I needed the reminder that he couldn’t hurt me, that seeing him didn’t affect me. It did, though. And Jonathan felt it.
I rang my sister’s doorbell, and she opened the door with my nephew giggling in her arms. He leaned into me, and I grabbed him from her, burying my face in his neck and blowing raspberries until he squealed with delight.
“Hey, we were just heading upstairs to get his pajamas on. Come with me?”
I nodded and followed my sister through her home, remembering the first time I visited when only Sam lived here.
Kelsey had added some warmth to the decor, and it had transitioned from a cold bachelor pad to an inviting family home.
Crew’s toys littered the family room, and Kelsey had her romance novels scattered over the coffee table.
I carried Crew to his bedroom, now across the hall from the primary suite and adjoining nursery, which was now vacant.
I knew Kelsey and Sam were trying for a second baby, and it hadn’t happened yet.
A fact that had been highlighted by Kylie’s unplanned pregnancy and break-up with Luc.
No, it was not something I planned to bring up unless she did first.
Crew helped me pick out his favorite dinosaur pajamas and accidentally bopped me in the head with his toy as I struggled with the snaps.
“Why the hell would they put these snaps on clothes for infants and toddlers? Do these designers ever think?”
“They think about as much as I did when I was in the store, and Crew was shouting ‘Dino!, Dino!’ Do you think I noticed the snaps? No, I was so happy he’d learned a new word, I would have bought anything.”
Kelsey and Lindy, one of the other WAGs had recently started a podcast together, which covered general topics related to motherhood but also followed what it was like to be a baseball wife.
Lindy Griffen’s Instagram and TikTok following had helped the ratings explode.
I had heard this same skit replied dozens of times when the post went viral.
“I heard some rumors about Elijah—”
“Um.” I knew what Kelsey was asking, and yes, Elijah was a dirty pig on the road.
In the meantime, Lindy had created a very public persona of the perfect family with a doting husband.
On the surface, it looked like she had it all.
I wasn’t sure how Elijah explained the Z-pack he brought back to her from the team doctor when they diagnosed him with chlamydia. “What did Sam say?”
“Sam told me that this shit happens and WAGs don’t tell WAGs if their husband is cheating.”
“Sam is right. At the end of the day, if you told her what you thought was happening, it could throw off the balance of the team. And she probably knows.”
“I don’t think she does. And it makes me think…”
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about with Sam.”
She was quiet. “I didn’t either. Until I saw how prevalent it was.”
“The only thing you can do is talk to your husband about it. Communication.”
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, last year I traveled with him for most of the time. It’s not sustainable for me to follow him wherever he goes, not with Crew, especially not once we have more kids.”
“Speaking of that, how is that going?”
“We’ve both got our own pints of Ben it’s only been a couple of months. It will happen. The timing might be less than ideal.”
Kelsey and Sam were trying to time their second baby’s arrival around the off-season. If it took much longer, the baby might arrive during spring training. The MLB provided paternity leave for only five days, which wasn’t much when there were so many road games.
“I ran into Tucker on my run today.” I shouldn’t have dropped that on my sister while she was trying to get my nephew to fall asleep.
“What?” The alarm on her face matched the feelings of disgust still running through my veins. “My God, let me get him settled. Shit.”
“Sh-it.” Crew’s voice repeated Kelsey’s swear.
“Oh, fuck!” Kelsey fumbled as she tried to cover up her swearing, only making it worse.
“Truck!” Crew yelled out, eager to join in the fun. He hadn’t yet perfected the f-sound, thankfully.
“Why don’t I go wait downstairs while you finish?”
“Please. I chilled a bottle of wine. Why don’t you get it ready? It sounds like we’ll need it.”
I made myself at home in Kelsey’s kitchen and had two bottles of wine poured and ready when she came down the stairs after putting Crew to bed.
“Okay. Dish.”
“Today was my fourteen-mile long-run. He popped up next to me while I was struggling through it. It was already one of those days where I couldn’t get my body and my brain to sync.”
“What happened?”
“He basically threatened me.”
“How the hell does he think he can threaten you? Don’t you have a rape kit sitting in New Hampshire?”
“Yeah, but Kelsey, he’s got videos of us…”
“Videos?” Her eyes widened as she understood what I was saying. “What did he say he would do with the videos?”
“He said they would be used as evidence to support that what happened was consensual. And, he threatened to send them to Jonathan.”
She swallowed a huge gulp of wine and looked down at her hands. “Fuck.”
“You didn’t tell Sam, did you?”
“No. But I need to.”
“Kelsey, you don’t. What is it going to help? Tucker is his teammate. He won’t be able to do anything and keep the peace on the team. And it’s not like I’m going to press charges. I don’t want any of that splashed all over the news.”
“What do you think Jonathan would do if he found out?”
“I don’t want to find out.”
“Why? Because you don’t trust him to support you? Or because you don’t think you deserve the support.”
Fuck me, my youngest sister had always been the most perceptive. I brushed away the tears that had welled up and fell into her open arms.
“I ended up pushing through and finishing my run.”
“Why?”
“Same reason you would have. I didn’t want Tucker to have any more control over my life than he’d already taken.”
“And? Did it work?”
“No, Jonathan hates that I’m out there alone for my long runs. He found me in the shower. I was a mess.”
“You didn’t tell him, did you?”
“No. I fucked him in the shower instead.”
“You—”
“Used him. I used him. And now I feel like I’m about to fuck up the one thing in my life that’s good and pure. How the hell am I going to fix this?”
“You need to tell him everything, Kendra.”
“He can’t know. How can I do that to him? It will put him in the worst position as the owner of the team.”
“What do you think is more important to him? His role as a team owner? Or his role as a man? Because I sure as hell know that Sam would die if something happened to me.”
“I’ll figure something out.”