Chapter 8 #2
I grabbed my toiletry bag and headed into the bathroom. Hot water rinsed the airplane off me, and when I stepped back into the room with a towel around my waist, Dylan already had clothes laid out on his bed.
“My turn.” He scooped up his things and disappeared into the bathroom.
I pulled on a button-down and jeans, then checked my phone while I waited. A few minutes later, the shower shut off. Dylan came out with damp hair, tugging on dark jeans and a short-sleeve shirt that made his shoulders look even broader than they already were.
“I’m ready, and I could use a drink,” he stated as he combed his hair.
“Me too.”
We took the elevator back down. The restaurant off the lobby had a bar along one side and large windows facing the water. Tyler and Hayden sat at a table near the glass, drinks already in front of them. Tyler lifted his hand when he spotted us.
“You two clean up nicely. I almost believe you’re adults.” He grinned and opened his arms for a hug from Dylan.
“You could’ve led with ‘I missed you.’” Dylan hugged him.
“Yeah, of course I missed you, but my baby brothers are growing up,” Tyler teased, pulling me into a hug too.
“We’re twenty-two, for fuck’s sake.” Dylan embraced Hayden.
“Don’t mind your brother,” Hayden said. “He’s getting all sappy knowing we’re going to be fathers.”
“I can’t wait to be Uncle Jase.” I smiled. “I’m just glad it’s you having a baby and not Cammie. If it were her, I’d have to murder the father, and that would fuck up my baseball career.”
“Maybe we’d be cellmates,” Dylan joked, clearly implying he’d help me kill the guy.
“I wouldn’t go around talking about murder with all the Secret Service agents around,” Tyler stated as we all took our seats at the table.
“They should be at the house, not here, right?” I asked.
Tyler lifted a shoulder. “We don’t know. They could be in plainclothes.”
Hayden cleared his throat. “Is camp treating you two okay so far?”
“Mostly.” Dylan picked up his menu. “They’ve had me running for three weeks straight. My legs felt like Jell-O every night.”
The server came over, and we ordered drinks and meals. Once she walked away, Hayden leaned his elbows on the table.
“Give me the rundown,” he insisted. “I want details.”
Hayden worked in Boston as a sports photojournalist for his family’s paper and taught photography at Hawkins University, where he’d met Tyler when Tyler was his student. Whenever we talked about camp or games, he always wanted every detail.
“Red Sox staff watches everything,” I replied. “They track every ground ball, every swing, every mistake. It’s intense, but I love it.”
“The Crushers’ do the same thing,” Dylan added. “They have me running a lot of those flat agility ladders and footwork drills.”
Tyler grinned. “You both sound miserable yet happy at the same time.”
“That’s pretty accurate,” I agreed.
Hayden took a sip of the water already on the table. “You worked hard for this. It’s good to see it start to pay off.”
The server brought our drinks, then our food once it was ready. We kept the conversation going until the check landed on the table, and Hayden grabbed it before anyone else could. “We’ve got this,” he told us. “Consider it a bribe to make you behave tomorrow.”
Tyler had promised to buy us a drink for being drafted, so dinner was an added bonus, and I wasn’t going to argue about them paying.
Dylan lifted his hands. “Like we could get away with anything with all the Secret Service around.”
I looked over at Dylan, wondering how Faye would handle us getting into her room to meet her after cake, but I didn’t say anything.
“What?” he questioned.
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“What are you two up to?” Tyler pressed.
“Nothing.” I held my hands up in front of my chest. “We swear.”
Besides fucking the president’s daughter …
“You better not,” Tyler chastised. “We aren’t bailing you out of jail.”
“We’re angels,” Dylan teased.
“Pretty sure nothing can be as bad as what happened at our wedding,” Hayden stated.
Fallon being shot during their reception had been terrifying, and I wasn’t sure anything could be worse than that.
“True.” Tyler yawned.
We walked back through the lobby together and stopped at the elevators. Tyler pulled each of us into a brief hug.
“Three o’clock shuttle,” he reminded us. “I’ll already be at the house with Fallon, but ride with Hayden.”
“We’ll be there,” I replied.
The doors opened, and we headed inside, taking the elevator to the second floor, where we all got out. We said our goodbyes, and then Dylan and I headed to our room. Once inside, he dropped his wallet on the dresser and collapsed onto his bed.
“I’m done,” he groaned. “If I close my eyes, it’s over.”
“Set an alarm first,” I told him, kicking off my shoes. “I’m not missing that shuttle because you slept through it.”
He rolled onto his side and reached for his phone. “Fine. Two alarms.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened the clock app. “I’m setting mine too. I trust you, but not that much.”
“That’s fair,” he replied.
I thumbed in a couple of alarms for late morning and tossed the phone onto the nightstand.
Dylan shoved his face into the pillow. “Tomorrow’s going to be wild,” he mumbled.
“Yeah, it is.”