Swing (Landry Family 2)

My head hangs, my heart skimming the floor. Never did I dream they would trade me. Is this even happening right now?

“Take some time,” Billy says. He stands and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Go home and think about it. Discuss this with Frank. Figure out what you want to do. You know I’m happy to pay you to stay here. I just know it’s probably not feasible.”

My entire body feels the weight of the world and my brain is a freeway full of racing thoughts and colliding ideas. It makes me want to vomit . . . which I do once I’m out the door and find the nearest bush.

The drive home took three times longer than it should’ve. I spent a good hour sitting outside of Arrows Stadium, trying to get my head wrapped around the situation before going home. To Dani.

I grip the steering wheel as I wait for the gate in my subdivision to lift. Every muscle in my body is sore. My jaw hurts from clenching it. My knuckle aches from slamming it into my steering wheel.

I might be coming out of shock. I don’t know. Things are starting to fill the void that seemed too deep to get across until now. I can only make sense of some of it if I block out what the media is going to say and the articles that will be put out as soon as this comes to fruition, one way or the other.

Swallowing this is so bitter I can barely manage to deal. How did this happen to me? I was king of the world only a few months ago. How did I fall so far so fast?

Taking the money the Arrows offered would be a joke. It would make me a joke. I think I make more money than that off of Graham’s investments every year. A player like me can’t play for that; I wouldn’t be taken seriously. No one would hire me as a spokesman. My jerseys would stop selling. It would be one, big disaster. They know that, which makes it even more humiliating that they even bothered to offer it.

San Diego is the only answer. Not one I like and not one I want to make, but I don’t have another choice. The money is generous and maybe they can build something around me. I grin, thinking about how awesome that would be—to win a championship with another team. One that didn’t really exist before me.

Pulling into the driveway and jumping out and locking the door, I’m in the foyer before I know it. “You here?” I call out.

She comes around the corner of the kitchen in a pair of yoga pants and a red t-shirt. “How’d it go?” she asks cheerfully. Her smile drops. “You okay?”

“I’ve been better.” My keys drop into a little dish on the table. I take her hand and pull her into the living room and onto my lap as I sit on the sofa. She returns my embrace and I take a deep breath, letting her settle over me and calm the turmoil within.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“I got traded.”

She stiffens in my arms, but doesn’t pull away. I go over the numbers, and still, she doesn’t respond.

“How do you feel about San Diego?” I ask.

She pulls away. Then stands, straightening her shirt. “Why do you ask?”

Her voice is eerily calm with just a hint at the end of something vulnerable. It’s the Danielle I met in the hallway: a tough front with a sweet interior she works hard to protect. But why now?

With a dose of unease, I say, “Because that’s where we’re going.”

Her back turns to me, her head bowed. “I’m not going with you.”

“What?”

“I’m not going.”

Scrambling off the couch, my brows pulled together as my heart misfires, I stand behind her. “I . . . But. . . . Dani?”

“Don’t go, Landry.”

The way she says my name, like a plea that she has no faith behind, hits me like the third strike. It wallops me. Breaks me. Leaves me looking and wishing I could do something different, but I can’t because that pitch has been thrown.

“I told you,” I say carefully. “I have to. San Diego is where it’s at right now.” When she doesn’t respond, I feel panic setting in. “I have to go where the work is. I’m not a carpenter or something with ten jobs to choose from and another forty years to work. I have maybe five years, Dani. Five years to do what I do. Baseball is what I do. You have to understand that.”

My trembling hand cups her shoulder, and with the care I’d give a wild grounder, I turn her to face me.

To my surprise, there are no tears in her eyes. Just a steely resolution that feels like a bucket of ice water.

“I do understand,” she says evenly. “I understand better than you’ll ever know.”

“Good,” I sigh, relieved. “Then come with me. Let’s do this together. Let’s pick out a house, on the beach if you want. Let’s—”