Chapter Seventeen #2
She’s quiet. Her jaw sets in the particular way it gets when she knows she’s lost the argument and hasn’t decided what to do with the information yet.
“She’s going to hurt you,” Lena says. The strategy has drained completely out of her voice.
What’s left sounds more like simple tiredness.
“She’s not built for this world. The attention, the scrutiny, the way everything you do ends up on a screen somewhere.
She’s going to look at all of it and run. ”
“Maybe.”
I think about Ava in Box 214 with her cap pulled low, watching me pitch in the fifth inning.
I think about three tattoo sessions and her hand steady against my ribs, the design going down clean and exact, her voice going quiet and certain in equal measure.
I think about her telling me she won’t be the reason my career implodes, the most self-sacrificing, infuriating, completely Ava thing she’s ever said to me.
“That’s her choice to make,” I say. “Not yours.”
Lena picks up her champagne and studies the glass. “Did you come here to yell at me?”
“I came here to end it.” I hold her gaze.
“The photos, the posts, the contact, all of it. It’s done, Lena.
And I need you to understand that it’s done because I’m clearly and directly asking you to stop.
Not because I’m angry. Not because of what the blogs might do with another photo, but because what you did damaged someone who deserved better, and it needs to stop. ”
“She seems like she can take care of herself.”
“She can. But she shouldn’t have to take care of herself from you.”
The room moves around us, voices, music, and the low percussion of too many people in a shared space. Somewhere behind me, I hear my name in a conversation I’m not part of. The gala goes on. The auction sits pristine and patient under the lights.
Lena looks at me for a long time. I let her.
“I’ll take the post down,” she says eventually. “The throwback.”
“And the blogs?”
“I can’t un-ring that bell.”
“No, but you can stop ringing it.”
“Fine.” She smooths the front of her dress, a gesture so familiar it almost aches. “For what it’s worth, and I know it isn’t worth much right now, I never specifically wanted to hurt her. I wanted to complicate things for you.”
“I know.”
“And I’m sorry it landed on her instead.”
It’s as close to a genuine apology as Lena gets, and I’ve known her long enough to recognize it when it arrives.
I nod once. “Take care of yourself.”
“You too.” She looks at me one more time. The calculated warmth is entirely gone now, replaced by something closer to the person she is when the phone isn’t in her hand. “She’s lucky. In case you were wondering.”
I don’t answer.
Instead, I walk back through the gala, taking the obligatory handshakes. The conversation with the foundation director, and the photograph with two kids in Wildcats jerseys who can’t believe they’re standing next to the starting pitcher.
I smile for the photo. Sign the jerseys. Shake hands. It’s muscle memory at this point. Smile, sign, and keep moving.
Mack materializes at my elbow the second the kids move on. “Well?”
“Handled.”
“You’re not in handcuffs, so I’m calling that a win.” He flags down a server for two glasses of water. “She admit it?”
“Enough.”
“What does enough mean in practical terms?”
“She knows I know, and she’s agreed to stop.” I take the water glass. “Whether she follows through is her call.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then I deal with it again.” I look across the room to where Lena has rejoined her group. She’s laughing again, phone back in her hand, but when she catches my eye across the space between us, she looks away first.
Good enough for me.
I turn toward the exit.
“You’re leaving?” Mack says. “We’ve been here forty-five minutes.”
“I showed up, had a conversation, took a photo with two kids in jerseys… my obligation quota is fulfilled.” I hand him back the water glass. “We’re done here.”
He falls into step beside me. “So, what now?”
“Now I fix the other thing.”
“The Ava thing.”
“The Ava thing.”
“Which involves what, exactly?”
I push through the hotel door into the night air.
It hits my face cool and clean after the compressed warmth of the event.
The city sprawls out from the hotel entrance in every direction, all noise, light, and relentless forward motion, completely indifferent to one man standing on a sidewalk trying to figure out how to undo two weeks of damage in a single conversation.
“An apology,” I say. “A real one.”
I button my jacket against the breeze and stare up at the city lights. This ridiculous city that somehow managed to put a baseball stadium and a tattoo studio on opposite sides of the same street, and two people stubborn enough to keep finding each other anyway.
“I let things escalate to the point where she paid for my history. I knew Lena was watching, and I didn’t deal with it fast enough.”
“You didn’t know she’d go that far.”
“Doesn’t matter. The fallout landed on Ava either way.” I start walking toward his car. “I can’t undo the photos, the blogs, or Coach Bishop hearing about it. But I can stand in front of her and own every bit of it without making excuses. Without flinching.”
“And after the apology?”
“I’m hoping she lets me make it right.”
Mack unlocks the car. I drop into the passenger seat and stare through the windshield at the hotel entrance we just walked out of.
The gala continues behind those doors without us.
The silent auction will close in an hour.
Someone will win the signed jersey, someone will go to the resort, the foundation will hit its fundraising target, and everyone will call it a successful evening.
Lena will go home and think about whether to take the post down tonight or tomorrow. She’ll make the calculation she always makes, what serves her best, what costs her least. I know she will because it’s who she is, and nothing about tonight fundamentally changed her.
But I said what needed saying, clearly and specifically, in a room full of people she wouldn’t want to embarrass herself in front of.
Sometimes the pitch doesn’t get the strikeout. Sometimes it gets you ahead in the count. Sometimes that’s enough for the inning.
My phone sits in my jacket pocket. I don’t take it out.
The apology I owe Ava doesn’t belong in a text.
It belongs in front of her, both feet planted, without a door to walk through if she says no.
No charm. No angle. No version of Reece Steele performing anything for anyone.
She’s the one person who has always been able to see straight through the performance anyway.
Trying to polish this into something smooth would be an insult to both of us.
I think about her standing in her studio the night her dad’s truck pulled up outside.
The way she went completely still at the counter, not panicking, not running, holding it together with both hands.
I think about her telling me she’s been watching for the other shoe to drop her whole life, waiting for things to go wrong because they always do.
And I think about the fact I let Lena hand her exactly that, the thing she’d been bracing for, and I didn’t get there fast enough to stop it.
I’m going to get there fast enough tomorrow.
Tonight, I handled one problem.
One down. One left.
And the one left is the only one that matters.