The Game Changer (The Perfect Game 2)

Shouldn’t She Be Hotter?

Cassie

Jack and I fell into a comfortable routine over the next six weeks. Matteo accompanied me to every home game, and the heckling basically stopped. Until Jack garnered his first lost for the team, that is. That night I was forced to hear a few choice things about how much “Jack sucked” and how I needed to “get his head on straight. ” The hard-core fans were rabid. When you won, they loved you so fiercely you could do no wrong. But the moment you lost, they stepped all over you on their way out the door.

We talked on the phone constantly when he traveled. He wanted me to come to as many away games as I could, but it wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. I spent most of my time wandering alone in a strange city or eating by myself in restaurants. From the outside, it seems so glamorous to be the girlfriend of a major leaguer, but it’s mostly sort of lonely. Not to mention the fact that seeing the other players constantly cheat on their wives made me sick to my stomach.

I had small bouts of insecurity every now and then, but I did my best to keep my fears in check. Jack tried his best as well, staying on the phone with me until all hours of the night, opting for room service instead of going out with the guys, no matter how many times I told him not to.

Baseball kept Jack gone for literally half of each month. The most consecutive number of days he’d been home at one time was seven.

Seven.

Trust was a tricky thing. At times, it seemed like a living, breathing entity that I shaped, built, and conformed to fit my needs in that moment. And other times, it moved like an uncontrollable emotion that ebbed and flowed like the tides in the ocean. One day I’d be perfectly fine and the next I’d be a wreck, convinced that Jack was no better than his teammates.

I wished our relationship were easier, but we were a work in progress. The hardest part was being OK with that. I had a choice when Jack first came back. I didn’t have to let him through my front door, but I wanted to. I needed to move forward and believe that he wouldn’t hurt me again. My heart longed to accept his actions and take a leap of faith, but my head refused to give in.

Stupid head.

Jack being on the road didn’t mean that the online posts about us stopped. They didn’t. And no matter how hard I tried to convince myself not to read them, I usually couldn’t resist. My own curiosity killed me. I’d read the things written about me or Jack and I’d swear I’d never read them again because they caused me so much anguish. It became a vicious self-deprecating cycle, and I needed to work on my willpower.

And Melissa, bless her heart, didn’t always help matters. She kept tabs on every site that posted about me or Jack, and even though she claimed to not share them all with me, it seemed like she alerted me to a new post every day. I was exhausted simply hearing about it all.

Determined to stay focused on work and not the press, I scanned the Internet at my desk, searching through old photographs and news clippings for another photographer’s research. An e-mail alert from Matteo popped up on my screen.

Want to grab lunch today? I have no clients and Jack’s still out of town.

I almost typed back “Yes,” but stopped myself. I enjoyed Matteo’s company, and we’d become really good friends, but I knew what would happen. Someone would see us together and take our picture. That picture would be plastered all over the Internet within minutes and most likely printed in the paper the next day with some false headline and trumped-up story from an “anonymous source. ”

I hated feeling like I couldn’t go anywhere with anyone when Jack was out of town, but all it took was one headline that screamed “While Jack’s Away, Cassie Will Play”

to stop me. The headline was printed above a picture of me and Matteo laughing over dinner and resulted in a number of Internet accusations, not to mention my needing to reassure Jack that absolutely nothing fishy was going on between Matteo and me.

That was a nightmare I had no intention of repeating. I quickly typed a response back to Matteo’s e-mail:

Working on a project. Sorry. See you when Jack gets home.

Hopefully my last line made it clear that I wouldn’t make plans with him until Jack was back in town.

I worked straight through lunch and by the time I left the office, I was famished. After sweating through the humidity on the non-air-conditioned train ride home, I decided to stop at a café.

“Good evening, Cassie. You want to order something to go?” the short round man asked. I’d only been here a handful of times, but Roman always remembered me and greeted me by name.

“Actually, Roman, I think I’ll eat here tonight. ” I smiled as he pressed his hands together with delight.

“You go ahead and sit anywhere you’d like. ”

“Thanks. ” I looked around at the empty tables before choosing one in the far corner near the window. Roman appeared at my table, an iced tea in hand.

“You need to see the menu?” he asked.

“I think I’ll just get your famous East Side sandwich and fries. ”

“You got it, pretty lady!” He grinned and it stretched across his whole face, forcing me to smile back in return.

I rested my back against the wooden chair and watched the people dash by. New York was such a busy city all the time. Day or night, snow or sun, people always rushed around.

My phone vibrated against my hip pocket. Pulling it out, I read the text message from Melissa.