The Game Changer (The Perfect Game 2)

This girl pushed every goddamned button I had. And not in a good way. I half wished Melissa would walk past me and deck her. Lord knows I couldn’t. If it were socially acceptable to punch a girl, this might have been the time I’d actually consider doing it. If she were a guy, I’d knock her teeth down her fucking throat.

“I will do whatever I have to do to be rid of you. You hear me? Whatever I have to do. ”

“Are you threatening me?” she asked, her voice overtly raised.

“If I were threatening you, you’d know it. Sign the damn papers. ” I turned away from her, punching the bar door open with my fist.

“I didn’t think it was possible to hate her more. ” Cassie exhaled as she shook her head in disbelief. “Who does stuff like that?”

“Crazy bitches. I swear I’m never talking to another girl who isn’t you again. ”

That actually isn’t a half-bad idea. If I never talk to another female fan, I’ll never get in trouble with Cass and she’ll trust me again.

“Gran might get sad. ” Cassie’s sweet voice interrupted my new plan.

“Right. You and Gran,” I amended before continuing. “So, Chrystle filed a restraining order against all three of us the next day. ”

“Shut the fuck up! Against you, Dean, and Melissa?”

I nodded. “She said we threatened her life and she feared for her safety. ”

“Are you joking? That bitch better hope I never run into her or she will fear for her safety. ” Her fingers tapped the top of her plate, making a loud ping with each touch.

I laughed out loud. “I like it when you get all protective over me, Kitten. It’s cute. ”

“You should have had her locked up in an asylum or something when you had the chance. ” Her voice filled with anger, and I found myself amazed at the amount of craziness in my life over the past year.

“I still can’t believe Meli didn’t tell me any of this. I mean, after I saw you at your game that night, I called her right away. She told me to get over you. She said I needed closure, but she knew everything that you were doing the whole time. ”

I grabbed the back of my neck in discomfort at the memory of seeing Cassie with some other guy at my baseball game and also how irritated Melissa had become. “Yeah. She was pretty pissed at me by that point. ”

“Why?”

I tugged my neck to the left, cracking it before exhaling loudly. “She told me that I had a deadline. Either I told you by a certain date, or she would. ”

“When was the deadline?”

I looked away from her eyes, the truth still a painful reminder. “Before I left for spring training this season. ”

I watched as her mind worked, the pieces clicking together like a puzzle that only fit together in one particular way. She was making the connection between Melissa’s demands of me months ago and their conversation after seeing me at the game a few weeks ago. “But she never told me. I mean, she never said anything. And obviously, neither did you. ” She stopped, her forehead wrinkling with her continued confusion as she realized that Melissa threatened to confess everything to her, but never followed through. “Why didn’t she tell me? She knew how hurt I was. ”

I nodded. “I know. She said that you were finally happy here. That you were giving people a chance and you loved everything you were experiencing. And she was afraid if she told you everything that you’d go back to being sad and close yourself off. She figured telling you would only make you take steps back, instead of forward. ”

I watched as her forehead softened, releasing the tension. “Because of Joey?” she asked softly.

“Yeah. She said that even though it wasn’t the same, she could hear the subtle excitement in your voice whenever you talked about him. ” I forced a smile while my stomach churned and twisted with jealousy.

“So that’s why she pushed me so hard to go out with him. ” She stopped picking at her nail polish and looked at me. “You knew about him, right? I mean, before that night at the field?”

“Mm-hmm” was all I trusted myself to say in response. I had no right to be angry, but the thought of someone else with my girl made me want to punch holes in the wall. Or his face.

“From Dean?” she asked, her voice curious.

“Mostly. After Melissa got pissed at me, I think she enjoyed telling me you had someone else in your life. She blasted me one night after Chrystle had finally signed the papers, but I still hadn’t called you. I told her I was trying to figure things out, but she fucking flipped out on me, yelling and screaming into the phone. ”

I shuddered at the memory of making Melissa angrier than I’d ever heard her before. For a little thing, she sure was loud. “She demanded to know what the fuck it was that I still needed to figure out. Then she told me to leave you the hell alone and stay out of your life forever. ”

Cassie moved her hand to cover her open mouth, her eyes wide as she listened.