Swing (Landry Family 2)

Graham takes a long minute. “The real problem—is it the trade? Or Danielle?”

“She won’t go,” I say, sadly.

“And you have to go.”

I’m not sure if that’s a question or a statement. So I don’t respond.

“You can have a job and a girl, Lincoln,” he says. “But sometimes you can’t have the job and the girl.”

“But I want both. I need both,” I insist. “Baseball is who I am. It flows through my veins. It’s how I define my life. But she makes me feel so alive, so much more than a ballplayer,” I say, struggling to find the words through the haze of the alcohol. “I love her, Graham. I fucking love her.”

“Then you might have to let the job go.”

“Ah!” I yell through the room. The only light comes from the television and the blabbering idiots on the screen. It’s late. How late, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters right now except the pain stinging every aspect of my life.

“Why don’t you sleep off whatever you’ve been drinking and see how you feel in the morning?” he suggests.

“I’m going to feel like shit,” I sigh. “I need to go back to Arrows headquarters tomorrow and let them know which way I’m leaning. If I’m going to San Diego, they need to get the paperwork going.”

“You okay tonight?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“We always have choices, Linc.”

“Take that philosophy minor and shove it up your ass,” I laugh.

Graham chuckles and releases a heavy breath. “Call me if you need anything. Or if you just want to talk.”

I scratch my head. “You wanted to ask me something?”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” I yawn, stretching out on the sofa. My eyes get heavy, the voices on the television mute. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

My phone tumbles to the floor as I fall in a deep, nightmare-filled sleep.

Danielle

&n

bsp; The blinds are open. I know this without opening my eyes. I’m hesitant to do that because I can already feel that they’re swollen. My back aches from sleeping on the sofa in a wine-induced decision.

How much wine did I even drink?

My stomach sloshes and my head pounds in what can only be a red-wine staccato. It’s enough to be labeled as a verifiable hangover, one reason why I never drink too much. I hate this. Yet, it’s nothing, not a scrape, against the pain in my heart.

Forcing a swallow to hopefully somehow make the tickle in the back of my throat go away, the tickle that comes right before the burn between your eyes that lets you know the tear maker is firing up. That one little movement, the bobbing of my throat, sets off a riot inside me and suddenly I’m alive and feeling every ounce of horror I expected and then some.

As if someone set a weight on my lungs, I can’t breathe. Struggling to sit upright and not puke or press the headache into a full-fledged migraine, I battle to drag air into my body. It shouldn’t be a problem. I feel hollow.

“Damn it,” I cry, battling the agony that is swelling up and overwhelming me. I touch my eyes. They’re swollen and so are my lips. This is an ugly cry. This is what it feels like to lose, what I’m sure, is the love of my life so he can have his.

Still dressed in the clothes from the night before, the wine still heavy on my tongue because I apparently didn’t brush my teeth, I sit on my sofa and watch the sun come up through the bay window. There’s no beauty in it. The colors are lifeless, dull. Peace doesn’t come with the new day either and I wonder how long it will take to not wake up and think about him.

The clock tells me it’s too early to find Pepper and I’d feel like a jerk if I woke up Macie. It’s just me. Alone. And damn it if it doesn’t feel unbearable.

I miss his arms around me and the way he tugged me closer to him. The way his eyes looked when he woke up and his sleepy, sweet smile. The smell of him. The feel of his breath on my cheek. The way his laugh made me feel like the world was splashed with a rainbow.