Chapter 18
Miller
“So why was your week weird?” Ren stabs her plastic spoon into her melting ice cream. She tips her head, legs swinging underneath her, brushing the edge of the bench.
She brings the spoon to her mouth. Her throat moves softly as she swallows, and her tongue brushes along the pout of her bottom lip.
Something burns across the back of my neck, and I drop my gaze to the ground and the sand beneath my feet under the bench.
But her sandaled foot kicks out, toes painted white, and for the first time I notice the way the lines of her legs shift.
How the curve of her calves meet knees that seem like they need to be kissed better, the shape of her thigh as it disappears underneath the frayed denim edges of her shorts and—
“Miller?” she prompts, tapping the spoon against her mouth, tipped up into a smile.
“What? Uh, sorry,” I mutter, palming my jaw. “I was—”
“Distracted?”
Thinking about kissing your knees and everything about you better, actually.
“Yeah.” I nod, clearing my throat, looking back down at my own melting ice cream and the spoon abandoned in the bowl. “Yeah, sorry. Like I said, weird week too.”
Ren sets her almost-empty cup of ice cream beside her on the bench. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Uh, sure,” I say, looking back up with a sideways grin and try to deflect. “Think we should trade though . . . in keeping with our arrangement. I’ll tell you why my week was weird if you tell me about yours, too.”
She rolls her eyes fondly—crystalline blue, almost, under the setting sun and the reflection off the water. “You drive a hard bargain, but alright. You start, though.”
“Okay.” I tap a thumb against my cup before ditching it beside me, too.
I don’t know how to tell her that rib in my chest, the broken one protecting the home she’s building or whatever it is she’s doing in there?
It swings pretty constantly, the more and more people talk about us online.
That it’s moving so fast maybe I’m getting dizzy because when Yas texted me saying things were looking up, I couldn’t really tell which direction that was.
“Uh, so—you know how I told you I . . . wanted a trade? How much do you know about contracts and trades in professional sports? Like, specifically baseball?”
“Absolutely nothing.” Ren smiles, swinging her feet out again.
“Right.” I swallow and try to look anywhere but at her legs.
There’s a group of seagulls strolling along the shoreline of the water.
I try to watch them instead. But her feet kick into my periphery with every move, and all I can think about is her knees.
Pinching my eyes closed, I tug on the ends of my hair and start to talk.
“So, uh, I don’t really need to get into the specifics.
But I’ve got a good contract. Long. Lots of money, but it makes me expensive.
To keep and to buy. I’m, uh, worth it though. ”
Her feet stop swinging, and she shifts on the bench to face me. She angles her head, face lighting up with a soft smile when she murmurs, “You should do that more.”
“What?” I break away from the seagulls. She’s a better view. Hands fucking down.
“Compliment yourself,” she says simply. “Say you’re worth it.” She leans forward, brows lifting. “You are, by the way.”
All the space she takes up inside me grows.
I almost forget, looking at her, all lit up from the changing shades of the sunset that do something to the colour of her hair that makes me want to die—that there are all these other things living there too that tell me otherwise. That I’m not worth much of anything.
Not in comparison, anyway.
I grin, cocking my head, pretending Ren Jacobs isn’t settling down and carving out a plot of land beneath my rib cage.
“I’ll tell my agent you said that, next time she’s negotiating.
” Ren smiles again, and I think my heart opens its front door.
“But, uh, my GM—Olson—you met him at the gala? I asked him for the trade at the start of the season, but he, uh, needed to think about it because of the . . . media, obviously.”
She gives me a soft smile. “Right. One of the hopeful byproducts of us being seen together.”
“Uh, yeah. And I mean, it’s been a lot going from playing beside Matty to under a banner meant to memorialize him.
But I’ve still been playing well . . . It’s more just .
. . all the baggage could jeopardize the return Olson could get for me.
” I chew on the inside of my cheek, waiting for the inevitable clench in my chest, the pinch of pain behind my eyes whenever I’m forced to talk about Matty.
To think of him as anything but the best person I’ve ever known.
It comes, but it’s duller than usual. More distant.
But I feel the hammer of the pictures she’s hanging up along my chest wall all the way down to my feet.
Swallowing, I keep talking. “GMs don’t typically run around trading their star shortstops if they don’t have to .
. . but he, uh, it’s looking like it’s .
. . working. Yas and my agent, Shay, seem to think he’s coming around. ”
“What does that mean?”
For some reason, I’m nervous to keep looking at her, so I watch the seagulls again. “That, uh, seems like he might . . . work to trade me. Somewhere I could start fresh. Start over. Without some of the . . . legacy of it all.”
“Oh,” she breathes quietly, and I can see the perfect blue of her eyes blinking in and out in my periphery. “That was . . . quick. Is that—this is what you wanted, right? It’s a good thing?”
“You ask me that when we met, my bags would have already been packed,” I say dryly. “But now? I don’t know. Leaving doesn’t . . . feel like the most important thing.”
Ren considers, full lips moving as she chews the inside of her cheek. “What is important to you now?”
“Uh—” I take one last look at the seagulls, bracing my hands against my knees when I shift to face her.
Still beautiful. Still better than the birds.
Better than anything, probably. I gesture between us with my tattooed hand, the piece of Matty I’ll always carry around.
“This is. Trying again. Helping you . . . realize.”
You are. The words paint new colours on those new walls she’s building in that new house, but I don’t say them out loud.
She inhales. “Realize what?”
“That there are a lot of fucking reasons to be you. And there always were.”
She starts blinking, eyes sparkling, when she repeats quietly, “Oh.” She takes a steadying breath, lifting her shoulders in a tiny shrug.
Her voice pitches a bit too high, and she keeps blinking.
“But what about at the end of the season? Your list will be done, you’ll have tried again and gotten what you wanted .
. . and hopefully I’ll have found at least one thing to love about myself. ”
She says it all with this breathy laugh, like we’re just putting check marks beside a to-do list you might find on someone’s desk at their day job.
Not like we’re pieces of former people and former lives, all jagged around the edges, except, maybe, with each other.
Not like the whittled-away edges of her might fit right beside the broken ones of me.
Not like the world isn’t real when I’m with her.
And not like she might want her knees and bruises and all those painful parts of her heart to be kissed better by the likes of me.
“Then I guess, uh—” I grip my jaw and try to swallow down the way that hurts. Burns a bit, not unlike the way talking about Matty did before her. “If he follows through . . . I’ll decide at the end of the season.”
She nods along, too quickly. “Don’t rush into anything. Take your time.”
“Yeah, sure. No rush,” I echo, but it sort of rings out, all hollow, and I’m not really sure why. So I clear my throat, asking, “What, uh, why was your week weird?”
“This is kind of”—she waves her hands, smiling, but her eyes still shine—“coincidental. Graham called me into his office at the end of the week. He had an . . . opportunity he wanted to pass along.”
“What opportunity?”
Ren turns to the water, maybe towards the seagulls, and she tilts her head to try and stop me from noticing the way she drags a knuckle across her lash line. But I don’t think there’s much about her I wouldn’t notice at this point.
She shifts back to face me. “Well . . . as we know, Scott stole my job opportunity here. And I don’t think—I wouldn’t be competitive most places—I need my PhD.
I know that’s on my list, but Graham has a colleague who’s looking for an assistant curator at a museum in Halifax.
It’s . . . smaller. So my lack of . . . qualification wouldn’t matter as much.
I know I wanted to apply to school, but who’s to say I’d even get in this fall with the new application cycle?
So maybe . . . this is my only shot at it. ”
Her voice catches on the word smaller. And I think of her, taking up all this space in me, and I can’t imagine a world where Ren should try to contain herself in anything defined as small.
“They, uh, have good fossils?” I ask.
A laugh tries to gather in her throat, but it drops to nothing when she looks back out at the water. Her voice drops, too. “Not like mine.”
“Is that . . . what you want?”
She worries at her bottom lip. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“So we might both . . . move? Like, far apart?”
I hate the sound of the words as soon as they’re out in the world, and I hate what they mean even more. They feel wrong.
The idea of living somewhere where she isn’t does too.
She woke me up, and I think a world without her would be a really, really tiring one.
“I guess.” Ren shrugs before bumping my shoulder with hers. “We could be pen pals.”
I still at the contact. But I swallow down whatever feels like shit at the thought of her absence and toss her a sideways grin. “What happens to our kid, then?”
Her bottom lip dips into a pout. She turns back to me, confused. “Our kid?”
“How quickly you’ve forgotten our custody arrangement.” I click my tongue, widening my eyes. “Which, by the way, you haven’t kept up your end of the bargain. Haven’t seen our trophy in weeks.”
A laugh shakes her shoulders. Whatever clouds living in her eyes clear, and they sparkle again, more than the water stretching beyond us, when she throws a hand in the air. “I’m so sorry, Miller. Please don’t take legal action. I promise, we can swap tonight.”
I cock my head. “I did have my lawyer on speed dial, but as long as you pass him off tonight, won’t need to hit call.”
“I promise.” She points a singular, slim finger at me, face scrunched up all serious.
“You can get him tonight. You’re all into chivalry.
You take me home, make sure I get in safely.
” But then she straightens, mouth popping open, indignant.
“I just realized I’ve never seen your place.
Don’t tell me—it’s like an overgrown frat house. You are twenty-seven, after all.”
“No.” I snort, but I pinch the bridge of my nose. “No abandoned beer bongs littering the floor. It’s clean but, uh—”
“But what?” she asks, suspicious, before her voice turns teasing. “Miller, where do you live?”
“Not far from the stadium.”
“Don’t tell me—”
I grin, nudging her shoulder with mine. “The stupidest, douchiest, sprawling King West penthouse money could buy.”
She laughs, tipping her head back, revealing the lines of her neck that aren’t unlike the ones of her legs. The dip at the hollow of her throat that could probably use a kiss too, and her hair tumbling down her back. I think I wouldn’t mind running my fingers through it.
I watch for a bit too long, and when she comes back down to earth, she starts when she notices me staring. Her palms find her cheeks, worried, when she asks, “What? Do I have ice cream on my face?”
“No.” I shake my head.
“Then what are you looking at?”
I shrug, mouth tipping up at the corners. “Just thinking about what you’ll say when you finally lay eyes on my place. Probably never live that down.”
“Well, if you aren’t far from the stadium, you aren’t far from the aquarium. Next thing on my list. Maybe I can see it before we go.” She nods softly, before she angles her head in concern. “And the next thing on your list is catch.”
“Yeah, uh—yeah.”
“If you’re not ready for—” she starts.
I interrupt with a shake of my head. “Nah. It’s okay. Gotta, uh, rip the Band-Aid off, especially if this”—I wave a hand between us—“worked and it really might be time limited. Pressure’s on if you’re taking a new job and I’m waiving my clause.”
“We’ll see. The competition is open for a few more weeks,” she murmurs, turning back to the water again. “Do you leave tomorrow?”
Shifting on the bench, I turn back to the water too, my shoulder brushing hers. “Yeah. I’ll be gone for about a week and a half. Back-to-back away series.”
“Where are you going?”
“Uh—Boston. New York.”
“Big games,” she remarks, and her shoulder bumps mine again, but she leaves it there, resting against me. “Let’s make sure you get the trophy tonight, then. He might be good luck.”
I smile faintly, looking out at the last rays of the sun swelling over the lake. “Deal.”
“Miller?” she says, so quiet I can barely hear her above the final calls of the birds, the lap of the waves against the shore.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for taking me to the thrift store. It made me happy.”
Swallowing, I nod out at the water. “Anytime.”
Even if it is just a list to her, even if it is just time limited, even if she’s just temporary, even if the idea of her absence hurts just as much as Matt’s, I can’t think of anything more important to me than that.