chapter 98
Chase
It’s less than two weeks. Deal with it. This team has been my world for twelve years. I’m leaving it and everything I know for you.
Ty
I was going crazy from not going to the field, my nightly runs taking Titan and me through the ivy-covered elegance of our neighborhood. The run was boring, but safe, the field too risky, security increased, the chance of Chase there too great.
The other issue, one I didn’t want to face, was that he might not be at the field.
I would spend two hours running, throwing, sweating …
all in an empty stadium, my eyes scanning for a strong build I wouldn’t find.
It would be a blow that I didn’t want to take, my psyche much more comfortable with the thought of him there, waiting.
It was a fucked-up thought process, but one that still had me running down a cobblestone street, past private security gates and expensive lanterns, my fingers itching for a glove and ball.
One week, and I would leave my husband. Tonight, he had reached for me, his touch tender as he’d undone my dress, sliding it over my shoulders and down to the floor.
I hadn’t known what to do, how to act, my kiss reluctant when he’d turned me to him.
“I’ve got to go for a run,” I’d whispered.
“Can we do this when I get back? Take a shower together then?”
He’d studied me, his fingers running down my arm, closing on my hands and bringing one up to his mouth, a kiss brushed over my knuckles. “Don’t take too long,” he’d said.
I was now on my sixth mile, my legs pounding up the hill, the night cold against hot muscles, my breath hard.
I was far from home, the buildings unfamiliar, and I had a surge of exhilaration at the thought that I might be lost. Then Titan’s tail brushed against my legs, his ears up, and I remembered my traveling companion, the animal that could find his way home with his eyes covered.
I couldn’t avoid Tobey forever. Maybe stalling was stupid, my quest for a ring just an excuse to put off the inevitable.
Maybe I should run home, right then, and tell him I was leaving.
I didn’t even have to mention Chase. I could just tell him that I wasn’t in love with him anymore. That I was unhappy.
The problem was that I still loved Tobey. There was still affection there. History there. We had created and lost a life together.
But I wasn’t unhappy. I loved my life, my team. I had spent so much time in pinstripes that it felt like my skin. And leaving Tobey, shaving the Grant off the end of my name … I would be leaving the Yankees too. Forever. Tears pricked the edges of my eyes at just the thought of it.
Stupid to feel such attachment to an organization.
But the Yankees weren’t just an organization.
They were a life force, etched in tradition and history, fortunes, fates and days made on the backs of some of the greatest bats to ever swing in this country.
I wasn’t just divorcing Tobey. I was cutting out half of my heart and giving the remainder to Chase.