Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Asher
So this is Brayden Forsyth.
If I really thought about it—which I did, in between watching Savannah fix her lip gloss and re-mascara her eyelashes and joke with me and fill out a crossword puzzle in exactly three minutes while fanning herself in the humidity—Brayden is pretty much what I would have pictured.
A man who let his new wife swelter in the Georgia heat lecturing me on team culture.
Well, buddy, your culture is garbage if you think some on-field stretching is worse than not even coming to meet your wife at the door.
What does she see in him? His face is passable, if you like that smug jock look—straight nose, strong chin, eyes the color of an angry ocean.
The kind of dime-a-dozen straight guys clubhouse houses are full of and who I make it a point never to notice.
He’d be tall if I wasn’t slightly taller.
He’d be in shape if I didn’t lift heavy and run far.
He swaggered out onto the field like he’s never had anyone tell him that he didn’t belong there: that he wasn’t too gangly, too cerebral to be a ballplayer.
I bet he never drove all night to do a showcase for the only team that gave him a chance to play—the bottom-scraping Chicago team that could barely cobble together fifty wins. I bet he’s never had to try.
The only thing that makes him not a total fucking asshole—so only ninety-nine percent of one—is how he’s smiling as he’s answering texts on his phone, laughing to himself so quietly, I’m not even sure he’s aware he’s doing it.
Some part of me hopes he’s texting someone else so that Savannah has an excuse to dump his ass. But she moved across the country. She doesn’t deserve to have her heart broken if she really loves him. He must have good qualities buried under all that bravado and hair gel.
He looks up from his phone, a curl to his lip. “You need something?” As if he didn’t come out on this field to specifically fuck with me.
That decides that. “Not anything from you.” And I don’t bother to wait for his reply—not his sneer, not his fist—before I carry my yoga mat off the field. Well, I don’t need a warm welcome from him. After all, I already have one from the wife he’s so fond of ignoring.
For the rest of the day before our game, every time I look up, there’s Brayden.
In the dressing room, yanking his shirt over his head.
In the weight room, lifting a comically heavy set as if he’s trying to prove a point.
Midway through his workout, he goes over to the aux where music is being piped in through the communal speaker.
“Whoever picked this—your taste in music sucks,” he declares to the room.
Most guys are working out with their own headphones in. A few look up from various weight machines as if they didn’t notice the music at all.
“I picked it,” I say finally. “It’s called indie.”
“It’s called boring,” he scoffs. “New guys don’t get the aux.”
“That’s right,” Isaiah McDonald, the second baseman, intervenes, pulling my phone from the docking station.
“Rookies don’t get the aux.” He hands my phone to me with the air of bored impatience only veteran ballplayers can manage.
He’s played in the league for ten years. I probably shouldn’t piss him off.
“You want me to make you a playlist?” I ask McDonald, expecting him to roll his eyes at me the way Brayden did. The way most of my teammates in Chicago had. It doesn’t matter if I don’t fit in here: I fit In on the field and that’s what matters.
McDonald laughs instead. “Would it be all boring shit?”
“Probably.”
“Then sure.”
Behind me, Brayden sighs like a balloon slowly deflating, then mutters something that sounds like figures before he goes back to punishing himself on the weight machine.
After my workout, I change into my batting practice uniform.
Brayden is here—of course—listening to his headphones like he needs to wash the sound of indie rock out of his ears as I busy myself going through the team-provided T-shirts.
I glance over. He clenches his eyes shut as if he doesn’t want to be caught watching me. Huh.
More rifling through T-shirts. Another glance. This time Brayden doesn’t quite get his eyes closed. Yeah, so he’s definitely looking at me. Fuck this. I turn and look right back. “What the fuck is your problem?”
Brayden’s shoulders rise like he’s not used to people being that direct with him. The South is polite, everyone said. More like passive fucking aggressive. “I’m having a party this weekend,” he says. “For the wedding.” As if he can’t say because I got married. “The whole team is coming.”
Which isn’t an invitation. “Are you telling me or inviting me?”
For that I get an eye roll. “Only because you gave Sav a ride.”
Usually team parties have mid beer and terrible music but most of the guys on the Peaches have been fine so far—Brayden very much excepted. I can’t think of any place I’d rather be less than at a party with him. But if Savannah is going to be there…
Everything tells me I should stay away from her: she’s her own person who makes her own decisions and she’s decided to be someone else’s wife. For now.
I’ve seen enough bad marriages in my life to know when someone is in one.
She should know that she has options. Like annulment or divorce.
Or throwing Brayden in the ocean. “Sure. I love parties,” I lie.
“Just tell me when and where. Or”—I grab my phone from my pocket—”I can probably just ask Sav for the details. ”
So I walk out of the clubhouse with Brayden’s eyes boring holes in my back. Take a fucking picture, asshole. It’ll last longer than your marriage.