The Hot Corner (32 page)

“Yeah. I get that. Which is why I’m here talking to you instead of kicking your ass. As I said, we all have our insecurities. You might have been entitled to them then. You were young and in love for the first time with a superstar in the making. It’s intimidating and enough to make you question your appeal. You have that excuse from the past. You don’t have it now. You know your appeal to him. You know he’s already played the field and ended up right back where he started, where he always wanted to be, with you.”

When she put it that way, it made a lot of sense. “I need to find a way to make him see that I won’t ever think that way again. I do trust him. I never should have stopped.”

“No. And trust is important in his world. He’s on the road for what, five months of the year? You can’t be with him for every game, though he’d probably welcome it. The truth is, there will be rumors about him no matter if he never even speaks to another woman. One photographer will capture a picture that looks damning, and you’ll have to know it’s not what it seems. Can you deal with it?”

I thought about it. “I can’t say I’ll like it, but I do trust him. So yes, I can deal with it, if he’ll let me.”

“Good. You need to show him that.”

A germ of an idea started to form. “I haven’t written the chapter about his love life yet.”

A slow smile spread across her face. “There you go, Ms. Writer. You are his love life, so that’s perfect. Show him what you’ve learned about him.”

I’d show him I’d always loved him, even when I’d thought I hated him. I’d show him I no longer saw him as the playboy he’d tried to portray to the world. I’d show him I was in it for the long haul, if he was willing to give me another chance.

“I can do that.” I got to my feet and headed toward the office to retrieve my laptop when Pam’s laugh stopped me. “Oh, sorry.”

She grinned as she stood. “Don’t be. You’ve just answered my concerns. You’re going to fight for your man. Call me when you have it done and I’ll come get it.”

“Does he know you came to talk to me?”

She shook her head. “Nah, I gave him a beer and a Xanax and sent him to bed while I stole his keys.”

I laughed. “I like your style, Pam.”

“I think I like yours, too. As long as you’re going to keep fighting.”

“I haven’t even started.”

She smirked. “Go to it, then. Happy writing.” She shot me a wave and left.

Pride wasn’t going to get in my way this time. I had none left and I didn’t want it. I only wanted Brad.

Chapter 27

Countless stories have been written about Bradley Reynolds’ love life over the years. I could tell you most of the women from his past have fond memories of him, and some even maintain friendships with him to this day. I could tell you one or two may bear him ill will because he couldn’t give them what they wanted, a committed relationship. I could tell you any number of exciting stories about romantic getaways or trysts in public restrooms, but you can get all that on the Internet. It’s funny how the media uses the phrase “love life” to talk about the newest, hottest celebrity relationships that end before the ink dries on the page. Shouldn’t they just call it what it is? A sex life. It’s fun and exciting, and maybe it’ll climb to love status, but nine times out of ten, it won’t. The simple truth is Brad’s love life begins and ends with one person. That person is me.

The first time I set eyes on Brad was in our sophomore English class. The girl next to me was swooning over him, and I looked to see what she found so awe-inspiring. When he turned around, I saw it, all right. Our eyes met. Then he smiled, and I was done.

I wasn’t surprised to find him waiting for me in the hallway. I was nervous, because he was easily the most beautiful guy I’d ever spoken to. I stammered my way through a couple of embarrassing sentences that didn’t put him off. He asked me to dinner, and so it began.

I’m pretty sure I fell in love with him over that first dinner, while he regaled me with stories of pranks pulled on road trips, rookie hazing, and growing up in a life of baseball. He was like a little boy when he talked about the sport. Despite all the hard work he put into it, he still had that refreshing love for the game that often goes away as players get older and more jaded. Not surprisingly, he still has that same love for the game now.

The first time I acknowledged I was in love with him was in English class. We had to pick a famous poem and read it out loud. Every guy in the class went with Robert Frost or Emerson for the nature-type stuff, rather than gooey romance. But Brad stood in front of the class with no notes and spouted off “A Red, Red Rose,” by Robert Burns, his eyes on me the whole time. I felt like I was going to overheat and melt into a puddle right there at my desk, which might have been preferable to what I did do, which was launch myself into his arms and kiss him in front of the entire classroom. Brad, being Brad, just kissed me back, then turned to the class and told them that was how it was done.

I couldn’t stop touching him, so we held hands through the rest of class. When class was over, we didn’t have to say anything. It was like we both knew we needed to be alone, so we headed straight to his dorm room.

I asked him if he’d meant it. I knew. I could feel it in the way he looked at me, the way he touched me, and the way he treated me, but I’d needed to hear it. I can still remember the moment as if it was yesterday instead of nearly a decade ago. “Of course I mean it. You’re my red, red rose. My Red. I love you.”

It would take a stronger woman than I not to fall in love with a boy who’d get up in front of a classroom and give a girl his heart, and then again so sweetly in private. I told him I loved him, too. And I’ve never ever felt for another man what I felt for him in that moment and every single moment afterward.

If we’d been nearly inseparable before that perfect October day, we became even more attached at the hip, or lip, after that. Brad and Dani, Dani and Brad; our names were interchangeable on people’s tongues. We were a unit. Solid. That’s not to say we never argued. We could throw down with the best of them. We were both stubborn, strong-willed people, so a fight was always full of drama, but making up was a lot of fun.

Brad was, for the most part, an amazing boyfriend. He never forgot the little things—whether it was showing up outside my class to walk me home, picking up a flower for me at the grocery store, or writing me a sweet note on a baseball, he always made me feel loved.

He showed me in so many ways that he loved me, from taking care of me when I had the flu to cheering me up when I was down. Once, I had one of those weeks that felt like everything went wrong. The computer ate a paper I’d spent hours on, I failed a calculus test, and I got into a fight with my mother over something trivial. And, of course, I dumped on Brad about it. He listened, held me when I cried, and wisely didn’t ask if I was PMSing. When I was done, he told me to pack a bag. Despite my protests of our being short on cash, off we went to Panama City. Brad used his “emergency” credit card to get us a hotel room on the beach, and he proceeded to make me forget all about papers and tests and angry mothers. Of course, he had one angry father to deal with the next month when the bill came, but Brad just laughed and said it was worth it. And it was.

Brad—handsome, desirable, sexy, sweet, a little shy, smart, quietly funny—always had women around him then, just like he does now. It came with the package, and it was something I thought I’d mostly learned to deal with. I might have threatened a girl who followed him to the bathroom when we were out celebrating an early anniversary dinner. And maybe I’d fantasized a time or a thousand about pulling some hair or throwing some punches, but I never did. Brad never gave me reason to. I was it for him, and he made that clear to me and to everyone else.

I wish I could say when that changed for me. What was the moment I started to doubt his love for me would last forever? Because the more I think about it, the more I’m sure I wouldn’t have believed what I saw that day in Omaha if I’d been as secure in our love as I’d thought I was. Like someone recently reminded me, I’d have taken the time to talk to him, or at least to hit him, when I saw him kissing his beautiful, blond best friend.

Rather than announce myself and confront the pair, I ran away like the child I was. And rather than tell Brad what I’d seen, I avoided and lied to him. Then I pushed him away, letting him think baseball had driven a wedge between us. In reality, the only thing that had parted us was my own idiocy.

I’d like to say I came to my senses and went after him, to tell him what I’d seen, ask for an explanation, and make things right as they should have been. But you all know that isn’t what happened, since you’ve seen him on the arms of a bevy of gorgeous women, each one more beautiful than the last. That’s because I kept my pride and I pushed him away, and the sweet, attentive boyfriend I knew became the fickle player the press scrambled to cover.

I, on the other hand, shut myself off from everybody who cared about me. I didn’t date for well over a year, and—not coincidentally—my first date came shortly after the first time I saw a picture of Brad with some woman in a bar. Yes, I claimed to want to know nothing about my ex but was secretly looking him up on the Internet when no one was around to see or judge me. I judged myself for it plenty.

Over the years I told myself I wasn’t keeping an eye on everything he did. It wasn’t like I sought out those magazines with his picture in them. They were just there. And I watched sports highlights because I was a sports lover, not because I wanted to know how he was doing. And, deep in my closet, buried behind a winter coat I’ve only used a couple of times on business trips, is a number three Dodgers jersey I just had to have because I liked the color, not because it had his name on it. Not because I used to wear Florida State jerseys with his name, not because both of us used to talk about how one day that name would be mine as well.

I dated, I smiled, I had a good time now and then, and I even got engaged to a man who didn’t make me feel a hundredth of what Brad did. I became the perfect corporate fiancée and went to boring dinners with a smile plastered to my face and acted as if I didn’t give a thought to the player on the other side of the country.

And then one day, the fiancé and I were in Atlanta on some business trip the same weekend the Dodgers were playing the Braves. I went to the game. I just had nothing better to do, or so I told myself. And I bought a ticket on the third base side only because it had a great view. And Brad didn’t take my breath away when he made a diving catch, or stole second, or scored the eventual game-winning run. At least, that’s what I told myself. I never told anyone I went to that game. I never told Brad until just now. As much as I tried to put him away, I never was able to. Not a year later, not seven. He was always it for me, even though I wouldn’t admit it to myself. I called off my engagement right after that weekend.

Almost a year later, my agent lowered the boom that they wanted me to write a book about Brad. I didn’t take it well. I tried to fight her on it, but she challenged me to prove I was over Brad by seeing him again. I saw through her manipulations and I could have shut her down. If I’d have stuck to my guns, she’d have dropped it and let me write what I wanted to. The truth was, though, I wanted to see him again. I wanted to show him just how over him I really was. That’s what I told myself, and even what I told him. But if I’ve learned anything about myself in this past month, it’s that I’m pretty good at lying to myself about my motivations.

What I really wanted was to be around him. I wanted to see if everything I used to feel for him was still there inside me. And it was. Despite myself, I fell harder and faster than I had the first time around, even though he wasn’t exactly the same Brad I’d known all those years ago.

The new Brad is confident bordering on arrogant, challenging, infuriating, deadly . . . he’s the kind of guy that mothers warn their daughters about and fathers fear because they know this is the man that can bring the heartbreak. I knew all too well he could hurt me, but still, I fell. Because the new Brad still has the old Brad inside him.

He romanced me. He took me on dates that reminded me of when we were kids, he called me when he was away just to hear my voice, he sent me baseballs decorated with sweet words just like he used to, and eventually he opened up and let me in.

But I kept him at bay, those thoughts that he’d cheated on me still on my mind, though new thoughts joined them. I started to wonder if I’d been wrong. His teammates talked about his loyalty, his exes—with one exception—admitted he’d never lied or cheated on them, and I started to remember just how he used to make me feel, because he’d done it again. In front of a stadium full of people, he made me feel like I was the only girl there. When he looked at me, when he touched me, I could feel it, just like I did when we were younger.

He told me about his father’s death, which had come right on the heels of my abandonment, and I finally had all my answers. His best friend had been there to cheer him on and to tell him about his father’s illness. She had feelings for him, and she kissed him. If I’d stayed a moment longer, I’d have seen that Brad stopped her. He only wanted me. Always. Still. At least, until now.

I won’t blame him if he walks away from me for good. I cost us so much time together by not believing in him, in us together. And maybe he doesn’t think I could handle his life now. God knows, there are more women, more rumors, and more innuendo. If I believed he’d cheat back then, I’d believe the same of him now. Except I don’t.