Lane nodded. “You rush that arm too fast and you’ll tear something.”
“That’s what I told him. That’s why he needs you,” Duff said.
Lane looked at her father and remembered what this was really all about. She was here to make sure her father was okay. Roy was nothing but a sideshow. A particularly attention-grabbing sideshow.
Lane turned to Roy. “If I do this, it doesn’t mean I forgive you for what you did. You would be nothing but a body to me.”
“Damn it, girl,” Duff said. “How many times do I have to tell you you should be indebted to him, not angry with him?”
“You’re wrong, Duff,” Roy said. “You weren’t there. What I did was crappy and I know it. I never got the chance to say it then. I don’t know if you ever got my letter—”
“I tore it up and threw it out without opening it.”
Which in hindsight, made her feel like a spiteful, immature girl. Setting her up had been wrong. There was no refuting that. She’d thought they were friends and by manipulating her into that position, he’d hurt her. Some of Danny’s teammates actually had been laughing as she had to make her way out the door of Roy’s place that night. That’s when she’d figured out the other guys on the team had known. Everyone had known Danny was cheating on her.
She had to get tested for STDs because Danny couldn’t remember all the women he’d been with and couldn’t remember if he’d used a condom every time. The humiliation of that, of knowing how little she meant to him, had been crushing.
She would never be sure why Roy had done it, either. Why he hadn’t just told her the truth rather than let her find out that way. But, at the end of the day, he hadn’t forced Danny to bring that woman to the party. Hadn’t forced Danny to cheat on her for who knew how much of their marriage. That was Danny’s doing.
Worst of all, even though he’d initiated the kiss, that crazy kiss that had seemingly come out of the blue, she had been the one to respond. That was all on her. Five years ago it had been so easy to block out that part of the night and wallow in the pain and suffering of the divorce.
Danny cheated on her and Lane left him. That was a much simpler narrative than the truth. A truth she’d never told anyone. She had fallen out of love with Danny and had been struggling to hang on to something even while she was realizing she was attracted to another man. Yes, definitely much harder to wrap her brain around that.
“Anyway,” Roy said. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“You really need to throw again? This isn’t some joke to you?”
“Lanie, standing here in front of you...this is definitely not a joke.” He shrugged. “Pitching is the only thing I know how to do. The only thing I’m good for.”
Again, the sense of defeat in his words startled her. This wasn’t the Roy Walker she’d known five years ago. The ass whom she had always called out for his bullshit.
In a weird way she found herself missing that person—which made no sense to her at all. But since nothing in her life made sense right now, Lane figured this little episode was par for the course.
She had no job. She had no life. She had a father and a sister who, although they had betrayed her, did seem to need her.
And Roy. Roy Walker needed her and that was about the craziest thing she could imagine happening today.
“Fine. I’ll do it. It’s not like I have a choice, right? You’ve got my father involved. But don’t call me Lanie again. You don’t get to do that.”
Duff clapped his hands together, startling Lane. This wasn’t about Roy. She wouldn’t let it be.
“Now we’re talking,” Duff said. “You two get to work and turn that arm of his into a weapon.”
He pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes and settled in for what appeared to be his midday nap.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you didn’t tell me about Roy,” Lane said to her sister as soon they were alone. Scout and Duff had just gotten home and he’d immediately sought his favorite chair in the living room.
As for Lane, following her confrontation with Roy, she had left the stadium and headed to Duff’s house for some alone time. While she’d agreed to work on Roy’s arm, she needed at least twenty-four hours to process seeing him again before she could work up the courage to actually touch him.
And yes, she would have to touch Roy Walker. The reality of that was hitting her.
After she’d left the stadium, Duff had apparently decided he wanted to make his famous burgers for dinner, which translated into Scout putting the ingredients together and making the raw patties, then Duff slapping them on the grill, adding cheese and calling it a cooking miracle.
It was a time-honored tradition in the Baker household.
“Shh, Duff’s sleeping,” Scout hissed as they unpacked groceries she and Duff had picked up.
It wasn’t beyond Lane’s notice that Duff slept a lot. As if that trip to the grocery store had expended all the energy he had so he needed to refuel for dinner. How the hell did he think he was going to manage the club this year? That was a conversation for tomorrow.
Scout not telling her about Roy was a like a slap in the face. Lane felt blindsided and more than a little betrayed. Which were not feelings she wanted from her family.
Her sisters were her core. Her sense of safety in the world, along with Duff. When she’d gone through her long and bitter divorce from Danny they had been her rocks. Sitting with her when she cried. Laughing with her when they knew she needed to be pulled out of a mood. Supporting her when she struggled with the pain of the breakup. True, she’d stopped loving Danny before the actual breakup, but that didn’t mean separating their lives hadn’t been hard.
The worst part of the divorce had been dealing with her own sense of failure. The acknowledgment that she couldn’t make her marriage work. That she had been unable to see Danny for who he really was before she married him. That her love for him had been a fleeting thing at best.
Whether Danny had ever returned that love was hard to know. The awful truth was that his infidelities had started months after they were first married.
How could she have not known? That cluelessness alone had rocked her to her core until her sisters made her see that Danny’s behavior wasn’t about anything lacking in Lane. It was just who Danny was.
A character flaw Lane had failed to identify in her mission to find a person she could build a life with. How the hell could she screw it up so badly? How could she be totally unsuccessful at the one thing she’d been so committed to doing right?
That was why Lane hadn’t once, in the five years since leaving Danny, ever considered taking the chance on love and long-term commitment again. Which didn’t make dating easy. The one time she’d gotten remotely close to someone she had felt honor bound to tell him their
