Chapter 32 #2
Coop hisses. “Bro, she shouldn’t have to tell you what she needs. You should be there with her.”
“But Doug said to stay apart—”
“So?” Coop asks. “Do you love her?”
“Yes,” I say.
“It’s not that easy,” Logan says. “This is your entire career.”
“I don’t know if I care about that,” I say honestly.
Logan’s jaw falls open. “This was Mom’s dream for us. For you.”
“When I’m on my deathbed, I’m not going to be wishing I’d played one more inning, Logan! I’m going to wish I’d made one more memory! I don’t care about baseball if I can’t have Scottie.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Coop asks.
“Scottie told me to stay,” I remind him, feeling like I’m going crazy, being pulled in opposite directions until I’m about to rip apart.
“I repeat: So?” Coop asks. “Go after her!”
“That’s not Lucas’s way,” Logan says.
“What do you mean?” I ask, my head snapping toward his.
“I mean, you’re not the guy who goes after something. You let things happen.”
I stiffen. “That’s not true.”
“It kind of is,” Logan says. He’s not being harsh, but the words still sting. “You’ve always been the ‘it’s fine’ guy. The ‘I’ll wait’ guy. The ‘whatever happens happens’ guy.”
“That’s called being a team player.”
“That’s called being scared,” Logan says.
That word stings even worse.
“I’m not scared,” I say, not sure why I feel so defensive.
Logan shrugs. “Then why are you sitting here?”
I look at my hands in futility—hands that throw a hundred and two miles per hour but won’t just reach for what I actually want. Is Logan right?
Am I scared?
I’ve spent my life as a bridge. A shiny wrapper, a helium balloon—the guy you use to get where you’re going, but never the guy you want with you in the end.
I was the setup man for the eighth inning, and now I’m the man they set up to take the fall so Jake can have his “clean start.” The bridge his agent walked all over to get a seven-figure endorsement deal.
I told myself that not crossing Scottie’s line was a show of respect. Even now, arguments rise and fall on my lips—protests about ruining her career, proving Doug right, justifying Jake’s tabloid smear.
But it’s crap.
Logan raps his fingers on his knee, reminding me of Scottie’s nails. Of the clacking of Mom’s keyboard. I wanted Mom to live so badly. It’s all I cared about—everything I thought about, everything I worried about.
And she still died.
That’s when I learned the worst lesson of my life: that wanting something doesn’t mean you get to keep it. So I stopped trying to own the end of the game.
I’ve embraced the persona of the Setup Man because it’s safe—I do the work, I hand off the ball, and I don’t have to be the one standing there when the final lights go out.
I don’t have to be the one who fails if I never try to win.
I’ve been playing for a crowd that doesn’t matter because I’m so afraid that if I stop being a human light bulb, everyone will leave the stadium.
I’ve proved her worst fear true.
Coop leans forward. “She’s trying to sacrifice herself, man. She’s been taking the hit for Jake for years so he doesn’t have to.”
“No,” I say quietly. “It’s because she wanted her family to notice her.” The realization hits harder than a comebacker to the ribs. “She knew they wouldn’t come find her, so she stayed in the one place she knew they’d always be—watching over Jake.”
“Ouch,” Logan says.
Coop studies me. “By sitting here, you’re proving her right again. People don’t come looking for her. Not even you.”
Not even me.
The truth drops like a bomb: my lifetime of passivity has hurt the woman I love.
“You gotta go after her, man,” Coop says. “You can’t just let this one happen.”
My heart starts pounding as images flash through my head—Scottie folding her arms, stepping back from me in the lot, saying Watch me.
She doesn’t need a public declaration. She needs the one thing her family never gave her: someone willing to come find her.
Someone who refuses to let her disappear.
Someone who doesn’t stand there and hope she comes back on her own.
But—
“Logan,” I say, my chin quivering. “I don’t want you to get hurt by whatever happens next.”
Logan’s mouth pulls to the side, but he sniffs and shakes his head. “All I needed was to be part of the conversation, Luke. I love you, man. I want you to be happy. And no one makes you happier than Scottie. Go.”
The second I have his permission, I rush him, giving him a tight hug. Pounding his back and crying in his ear. “I love you, bro.”
“Love you, too.” He sniffs, squeezes me, then pushes me away. “Now go.”
I’m already halfway to the door when I turn. “Wait! Can you guys do me a favor?”
They both look over.
“I need you to call Pinnacle Perk Coffee …”
***
The hallway blurs past me, hotel carpet muffling my steps. I don’t bother waiting for the elevator. She’s only four floors above me.
She could be gone in four floors.
I shove open the stairwell door.
Concrete.
Echo.
The metallic slam of the door reverberates behind me as I take the stairs two at a time, one hand sliding along the rail to keep from missing a step. My lungs are on fire halfway up, but it’s not from exertion.
It’s from fear.
That image of Scottie folding her arms. Stepping back from me. Saying Watch me—
No.
No, I won’t.
By the time I reach her floor, my pulse is pounding hard in my throat. I rush down the hallway past a row of closed doors and a housekeeping cart until I reach hers.
I don’t hesitate this time. I pound.
“Scottie!”
Nothing.
I pound again, harder this time, the sound echoing down the quiet hallway.
“Scottie!”
Silence presses back at me. No footsteps. No rustle from inside. Not even the faint sound of the TV.
My phone is already in my hand. I call her.
Straight to voicemail.
My stomach twists.
I try the handle.
Locked.
I knock again anyway, because there’s still a stupid, desperate part of me that thinks if I just make enough noise she’ll open the door and glare at me and tell me to stop making a scene.
She doesn’t come out.
I try her again.
Voicemail again.
Where could she be? Breakfast is still going, right? Or maybe she’s punishing herself at the gym?
I bolt for the stairwell and run down to the fourth floor, where the gym is. Throwing the door open, I call for her.
“Scottie?”
I zip past the treadmills, over to the weights. She’s not here.
Back to the stairwell, downstairs to the dining room. The smell of hotel coffee, half empty tables. But no blonde hair, no sunglasses. Nothing.
Nothing.
My stomach sinks lower with every second.
If she’s not here, she’s either already gone or—
Or she’s upstairs packing and just refused to answer.
I turn so fast my shoulder clips the wall and bolt back toward the staircase, skipping the elevator entirely.
This time, I’m running fourteen flights, but the burn in my legs barely registers as I take the steps two at a time, my hand slamming the rail to keep my balance when I nearly miss one.
By the time I reach her floor again, my lungs are on fire and sweat is gathering at the base of my neck. I rush back past the rooms and the housekeeping cart again and pound and call and pound some more.
“Scottie!”
A door down the hall opens and the woman with the housekeeping cart peers out, eyes wary. “Sir?”
I turn toward her, panting. “Have you seen—”
“The blonde woman?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“She checked out.”
“What do you mean, checked out?”
“She left a few minutes ago with her suitcase.”
Minutes?
How did I miss her?
It doesn’t matter.
I’m already racing back down the stairwell.
If I have to chase her to the airport, I’m not letting her disappear on me.