The Other Game (The Perfect Game 4)

“I don’t know. She was pretty adamant about getting on that flight.”

“Yeah, but she hadn’t seen him yet. Maybe seeing him changed her mind.”

Melissa let out a huff. “The way seeing her changed his mind about the wedding? Fat chance.”

I threw my hands up in surrender as we walked up the stairs. “Hey. You always get so pissy with me when it comes to that. I’m not Jack,” I reminded her, and she laughed before letting out a soft gasp.

Following her gaze, I saw Jack standing alone in the parking lot, his jersey untucked, his baseball hat in his hand.

“Oh shit. Jack?”

Melissa’s sympathy came through loud and clear, both in her eyes and in her tone. She might be on Cassie’s side when it came down to it, but she had a soft spot for Jack and their relationship.

Jack turned toward our voices and looked at us blankly before recognition kicked in and he headed in our direction. He looked like hell, his posture defeated, and I sprinted down the steps to meet him.

“Come on, bro, let’s get you inside.” I wrapped an arm around his back and urged him up the staircase as Melissa unlocked the front door.

“Did you see her?” she asked once we were inside, and tossed all of her crap on top of the kitchen table with a clatter.

“I saw her.” Jack’s tone was cold as he tossed his hat on top of Melissa’s things.

“Well, what the hell happened? What did she say?” she demanded as she hooked her hands on hips.

“She left.” He shrugged, sounding completely dejected. “She’s moving to New York.”

“Well, of course she’s moving to New York,” Melissa said, as if his statement was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.

I placed a hand on his shoulder and tried to explain it better. “Melissa just means that Cassie has to start living her life for herself. She has to make decisions that have nothing to do with you.”

That got a reaction. Jack jerked his head up, his eyes burning holes through me. “I know that. You think I don’t know that?”

“Do you? Do you really, or did you think she’d just leap into your arms and you’d live happily ever after?” He needed to live in the reality of what his actions had done to her, what they had caused her to do in return.

He smiled. “I thought there might be some leaping,” he admitted, shrugging one shoulder.

Melissa’s mouth twisted into a snarl. “That’s bullshit, Jack. You expect her to give up her career because you asked her to?”

“I didn’t ask her to give up her career. I just figured she’d at least talk to me. Postpone her flight. Give me a fucking chance.”

“The way you gave her a chance before you married that skank?”

“Melissa,” I said softly in warning, wanting her to ease up a little. Jack looked wrecked enough, and her harsh words weren’t helping.

I placed my hand on her shoulder, and she relaxed slightly as she looked at me before focusing back on Jack.

His jaw was clenched; no doubt our words were swimming in his head as he tried to sort this all out. “You think it didn’t fucking kill me to leave Cassie that night? All I wanted to do was stay with her, beg for her forgiveness and—”

“But you didn’t,” Melissa spat back, every ounce of frustration that she’d built up on Cassie’s behalf spilling out. “You didn’t stay with her. You left her crying in a parking lot alone while you left with that bitch!”

“I know what I did!” he immediately fired back, the veins in his neck throbbing. “You think I don’t fucking know what I did? I have to live with it every second of every day. I fucked up, okay? We all know I fucked up!”

Jack slammed his palms on the kitchen table where Melissa had dumped her things, and we all watched as some loose change rattled and rolled onto the carpet below. He seemed to zone out, his eyes solely focused on the quarters and nickels on the floor.

“If you want to make it right, Jack, it’s not enough to just know what you did. You have to know what it did to her.” Melissa calmed down as she spoke, her voice no longer agitated. I knew she wanted him to see, to understand.

Jack swallowed hard and unclenched his jaw. “Tell me.”