harder. That if we married, we wouldn’t make the same mistakes he made. That we would find a way to be happy. Danny and I...we can be happy. Again. I have to believe that. I have to.”
Roy pushed away from the door and advanced on her. He watched her, waiting to see what she would do, but she didn’t move. Until he was close, so close their thighs were nearly touching.
“What if there is something else? Someone else.”
She put her hand on his chest. She wasn’t pushing him away, but it was her signal to stop. So he waited and just breathed her in.
“I can’t...”
“I can.” Without another word his head dropped and his mouth was on hers. And it was like no kiss he’d ever felt before. Not even his first. This was the thing he wanted. For so long and he hadn’t even realized it. Now she was here, and he was kissing her and—
“No!” She backed up, almost stumbling to get away from him. “This is not who I am.”
“Lanie, I know that.” God, how he knew that. Her loyalty was unquestionable. But she had to see that with Danny, it was undeserved.
If she gave it to Roy, if he could have it, he would revere it and never betray it.
“Don’t call me Lanie,” she said. “You can’t call me Lanie and you can’t... I shouldn’t have come. This was a mistake.”
“Lane, I’m sorry.” Roy ran a hand through his hair. This wasn’t how it was supposed to play out. He was supposed to be saving her. Not taking her. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I know you would never do that to him. But you have to know though this wasn’t some half-assed pass. Tell me you know that. At least give me that.”
She stared at him and he hid nothing from her. She might as well see it. Might as well know what she meant to him. What all those conversations and outings together had meant to him.
Everything.
“I need to leave.” She grabbed her coat and he didn’t stop her. After all, wasn’t this what he wanted. Her storming out before Danny got here?
Only it was too late.
She opened the door and on the other side was her husband. Who had a woman with long blond hair, wearing a halter dress and stiletto heels, pressed against the wall. His hand was on her breast, his tongue was in her mouth and he was grinding against her.
He stopped kissing the woman. “Dude, we’re going to need your room for an hour.”
Then Danny turned his head, saw his wife and the expletive that fell from his mouth was totally accurate.
“Lane, what the hell? Dude,” Danny shouted at Roy, “you said no wives!”
As this weird buzzing noise filled his head, Roy tried to think through what was happening. The crazy thing was he really hadn’t expected the plan to work so well. Here he was, this grown man, not some actor in a soap opera, who had devised a nefarious plot. It should have completely backfired.
Only nope. It had worked to absolute freaking perfection. Which, of course, meant that it really did backfire.
Lane faced Roy. Not her cheating husband. Roy. “You knew he was coming? You knew he was coming with someone?” Her voice had a raw, harsh quality he’d never heard from her before.
Since it was hard to form words while his head still buzzed, he simply nodded.
“You did this? To me? On purpose? I thought—I thought we were...friends.”
Friends. She thought they were friends. She cared about him at least that much.
He’d had that and now he’d lost it. He could see it in her face.
“You bastard.”
The word hit as if she’d stabbed him in the gut. Yes, he’d done this on purpose. He’d humiliated and inflicted pain upon the only woman he thought could ever really matter to him.
Roy held up his hands as if to remind her she knew what an ass he could be.
He could see her shake as she approached him and he kept his hands down, opened himself to whatever she would say next.
She slapped him. Hard, across his cheek. As punishment, it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
“I hate you for this. I hate you, Roy Walker.”
Then she walked past Danny and his flavor of the moment without so much as a word.
* * *
ROY LATER LEARNED that Lane moved out of her home that night. She and Danny were divorced six months later. The Founders’ season collapsed as the locker room never got over the pure hatred the star pitcher and shortstop felt for each other. And Lanie left her sports therapy business, putting the world of professional baseball behind her.
Roy heard she’d taken a job working at a veterans rehab facility. Helping soldiers with missing limbs adjust to their prosthetics. Sounded like something Lanie would choose to do.
At the start of his final game in baseball, Roy focused on doing what he’d promised himself he would. Go out on top.
And he did. Pitched a “no-no.” No hits. Only one walk. It wasn’t for the playoffs, or for the World Series win. Just the end of a lousy season, but a great career.
In his heart Roy knew he did it for her. The princess of baseball deserved such a tribute. Even though he doubted she watched.
After, he changed out of his uniform, got into his car and drove away from the stadium and the game that had been his life since he was six years old.
It was time to start a new life. Maybe in this new life he could forget Lanie Baker ever existed. The way she had so obviously done with him. He’d written her a letter to try to explain why he’d done it and, more importantly, that he was sorry.
He never heard from her.
Yes, it was definitely time to move on and forget his princess. After all, everyone knew the villain didn’t get the princess. Only the hero did. And Roy was never the hero.
A few months ago
“YOU’RE BROKE.”
Roy looked at his accountant and blinked. Frank’s face remained unchanged and entirely serious.
Roy knew the news would be bad. But not this bad. “That can’t be right.”
“You chose not to file for bankruptcy,” Frank reminded him. “I told you to.”
Stubbornly, Roy had refused. Bankruptcy had seemed like the coward’s way out. He’d taken the products from his vendors in good faith and he was a man who paid his debts. All of them. This meeting today was to discuss what was left.
Apparently
