Chapter 31
The video call was scheduled for nine.
She'd been looking forward to it all week.
Business. Riley, Banks & Green. The firm.
Something that was still hers regardless of what happened with the rest of her life.
She'd been studying Beck's last contract for two weeks on her own.
Nobody at the firm knew. The language, the structure, the clauses that protected the player and the ones that protected the club.
It was interesting work. Engaging. As long as she didn't look at the name on the front page.
Addison would handle the direct communication with Beck and the Braves.
Morgan would handle the facility side. Kirstin would handle the legal framework.
Clean lines. Professional distance. She wouldn't have to see him or talk to him.
She could do this from Jacksonville if she had to. She could do this from anywhere.
She poured coffee. She sat at April's kitchen table with her laptop open and her notes beside her and the contract printed and tabbed. She clicked the link.
Addison and Morgan were already on, sitting together at the Riley/Banks office.
Of course they were. Addison in the chair behind her desk, Morgan perched on the edge of it with her legs crossed.
They were smiling when the call connected and the smiles were real and Kirstin's shoulders dropped an inch before anyone spoke.
"Hey girl," Addison said. "We miss you so much."
The warmth came through the screen. Two friends who meant it. She'd missed this. Not just them. The ease of being known by people who didn't require the show.
"I miss you guys too."
"How are you?" Morgan said. "And don't bullshit us. You know you can't bullshit us." Morgan pointed her thumb at Addison. "Maybe her, but not me."
All three of them laughed and it came out real and unguarded and Kirstin missed the island.
Not just Beck. The island that Beck was on.
The office with the tin roof and the corkboard and the sign.
The coffee that Addison made too strong and the couch that Morgan had claimed the first week and never given back.
She missed all of it. But it was Beck she missed. And Beck was leaving.
"I'm not good," she said. "I miss you guys. I miss Jon. I miss the island."
"You miss Beck," Morgan said.
Kirstin turned from the screen. On the wall behind the kitchen table, April had hung a photo of Kirstin's grandmother.
Black and white. Jacksonville, 1971. A woman standing outside a restaurant with her arms crossed and her chin up and an expression that said try me.
Kirstin stared at her for a moment. When she turned back to the screen, two tears had escaped but she held the rest.
"I miss the Beck that didn't lie to me."
She watched their faces change. Addison's jaw tightened. Morgan's whole body shifted forward.
"What?" Morgan said. "Beck lied to you?"
She was ready for this. She'd tell them. They deserved to know why she left. Beck wasn't a liar. He hadn't even lied directly. But calling it a lie made it easier. It gave her an excuse to keep the wall up and she needed the wall because behind it she was falling apart.
She opened her mouth to explain.
That's when their faces moved. Both of them turned toward something off screen. The office door. She heard a voice she didn't recognize for a half second and then recognized completely.
Luke. And behind Luke, another voice. His voice.
She heard them come into the office. The laptop camera was aimed at Addison's desk and Morgan was still half on it but her head was turned and the side of Morgan's face was visible and the expression on it was changing from concern to something hotter.
Morgan stood up.
"Ethan Beck." Morgan's voice was loud enough that Kirstin pulled back from the screen. "Did you lie to her?"
Morgan was gone from the frame. Addison was still there, sitting very still, her eyes moving between the screen and whatever was happening in the room behind her. Caught between all of it and unable to stop any of it from colliding.
She heard Beck. "What?" A pause. "What did she tell you?"
"Go ask her yourself."
Silence. Then movement. Then Beck appeared behind Addison's shoulder. He was leaning down, looking at the screen, and Kirstin saw his face and everything she'd been holding for three weeks cracked.
He was leaner. The jaw was sharper. The eyes were the same eyes but the skin under them was darker and the stubble was longer than he'd ever let it get and he'd been running on coffee and batting practice and nothing else for weeks.
Someone had taken the Beck she knew and worn him down to the frame.
"What did you tell them, Kirstin?"
Her voice came out steady. She didn't know how. "I told them you lied to me. Because you did."
She watched him scan the room. She watched him do the math. The call. The contract on the table behind her. Morgan standing somewhere off screen with her arms crossed. Addison in the chair, not moving, not speaking. Luke somewhere near the door.
"Tell them whatever the hell you want." His voice was quiet and that was worse than yelling.
"Tell them you told me to go to hell when I told you I missed you.
Tell them you think I'm a liar because I lost something special to me and I'm a selfish asshole for wanting it back.
" He straightened up. His eyes went around the room.
"Tell them, Kirstin. Tell them how I begged you to talk to me.
Begged you to come home. But you were busy. "
He stepped back from the screen.
"I don't have time for this shit."
She heard his footsteps. She heard the door.
The screen was Addison. Just Addison. Sitting at her desk with her hands flat on the surface and her eyes closed. Morgan came back into the frame slowly, standing behind Addison, one hand on the back of Addison's chair. Neither of them spoke.
Kirstin stared at the screen. Her coffee was cold.
The contract was on the table with his name on the front page and the name wasn't a client's name.
It was Beck's name. Ethan's name. The name she'd said in the dark in his kitchen, the name she'd said with her hands in his hair, the name that had nothing to do with baseball or contracts or Atlanta.
"Is he okay?" she said.
Addison opened her eyes. She looked at the screen. The professional composure was gone. What was left was Addison from the Bronx, the one who loved her friends hard enough to tell them the truth they didn't want to hear.
"No," Addison said. "He's not."
Morgan leaned into the frame. Her eyes were red. Morgan Riley, who could talk anyone through anything, who could fill a room with noise and warmth and the energy that made everyone around her feel braver, was looking at Kirstin through a screen with nothing to say.
"Come home," Morgan said.
The call ended. Kirstin sat at April's kitchen table with the laptop open and the contract in front of her and the coffee cold and the photo of her grandmother on the wall behind her.
The woman in the photo was still standing with her arms crossed and her chin up and the expression that said try me.
Kirstin closed the laptop.
She went to the guest room. She pulled her bag from the closet. She started folding clothes.
April appeared in the doorway. She leaned against the frame and crossed her arms and watched her daughter pack. She didn't ask where Kirstin was going. She didn't need to.
"Drive safe," April said. "Call me when you get there."
"Mom."
"I know, baby."
Kirstin zipped the bag. She stood up. April was in the doorway and her face was calm and certain and proud. The pride of a mother watching her daughter finally stop running from the thing that scares her.
"He's a good man," April said.
"I know."
"Then go tell him that."
The 4Runner was in the driveway. She put the bag in the back. She sat behind the wheel. The engine turned over and she pulled out of April's neighborhood and onto the highway and she didn't look back.