Quit Your Pitchin' (There's No Crying in Baseball 2)

She was looking at him like he hung the moon and the stars.

Which pissed me the hell off, because an hour ago, George, I thought, hung my moon and stars!

Oh, hell fucking no.

I dropped five dollars on the counter and left without my coffee, fuming now.

I didn’t call him, though.

I needed to have this out face to face.

I would have an explanation.

I would figure out what was going on.

And I wouldn’t freak out.

At least, that was what I kept telling myself the rest of the drive home.

I hadn’t expected her to actually be in my apartment, though.

Kissing my husband.

I opened the door and froze, staring at what used to be my world, breaking into a million tiny pieces.

George looked over at me just as Melanie pulled back from her tippy toes, and smiled at me.

“Get out.”

Melanie’s brows lowered.

“Wrigs…”

“Both of you.”

“Wrigs…”

“I swear to God,” I said. “If you don’t get out of my house, I will fucking lose it. Just. Get. Out.”

Melanie reached for her purse and started toward the door, and I stepped aside even though I wanted to throw my shoulder into her and knock her into the door frame.

She passed me and I turned to find George still standing exactly where he had been.

“Wrigley…”

“I need you to leave.”

“Wrigs, I just…”

“I need you to leave, and I need you to do it now,” I repeated.

He tried again, and again, and again, and soon I just couldn’t stand it anymore.

I needed him gone, and I needed him gone now.

I’d seen all that I needed to see.

There was only so much you could take, so much you could understand when your ex-husband/lover/soon to be fiancé/whatever the fuck we were was caught kissing another woman. Two fucking times.

I wasn’t stupid.

I wouldn’t do it anymore.

I wasn’t dumb. I could read the writing on the wall.

And I was fucking done.

George frowned at me, stared at me so hard that I wanted to squirm.

Would’ve squirmed, in fact, had he not picked up his jacket and walked out the door moments later.

He didn’t stop to say a word, just walked past me and left with a quiet snick of the door closing behind him.

That was when I dropped to my knees.

I cried.

I cried for what felt like hours but was only likely around thirty minutes.

Then Micah woke from his nap, and I was forced to pull my shit together.

I received seventy-two phone calls from George. Twenty-two text messages. And eighteen voicemails.

Instead of answering them and letting him know that he’d broken my heart for the second time, I turned the phone off and ignored everything but my son.Chapter 22I plotted your death in my sleep.

-Unsent text message from Wrigley to George

George

Pissed off and hurt that she would do this to me again without asking for clarification, I did the only thing I did well.

Lash out.

Oh, and I invited my new friend to come while I did it, even though she and I meant nothing to each other. I even seated her in my ex-wife’s seats—the one that she used to sit in that I owned the season tickets for.

The move was calculated on my end, and desperate on Melanie’s.

She could care less about me, and everything about Gunner, my teammate—though Wrigs wouldn’t know that because she wouldn’t fucking listen.

Gunner was young than me, but his eyes didn’t look young. They looked old as fuck and haunted.

I knew the look well—and had for a very long time.

But, for the time being, this served both of our purposes.

I pissed off Wrigley, who really had fucked me up, and she grabbed the attention of the Gunner.

Win-win for both of us. Right?

Wrong.

I should’ve known that Wrigley wouldn’t stand for it.

I knew, eventually, she’d get over it and allow me in, but for the time being, it sucked that she didn’t trust me.

It sucked even more when she’d answered the door and acted like our two weeks and three days of bliss hadn’t happened, either.

And honestly, I was downright fucking tired of it.

She needed to trust me, and she didn’t.

Our marriage wouldn’t work if, at every single turn, she trusted a goddamn tabloid, or her asshole of a brother, over me.

“Yo, Furious,” Rhys called, sounding alarmed. “This is a game, not a beat down.”

I backed down from the man, Prawns, who was on first base.

The little prick had shoved Gunner so hard that every single person in the vicinity had waited with bated breath to see what Penn would do.

Penn, however, had unexpected backup in the form of me. Me, who’d been hit in the jaw by Prawns earlier in the game by a wild pitch.

“Don’t touch him again or I’ll knock your fuckin’ teeth out,” I snarled through clenched teeth to the little pecker.

Penn slammed his hand on my shoulder and said, “Thanks.”

I shrugged him off and said, “No problem.”

Then I walked back to my position at center field, passing Rhys as I did.