Page 168 of The Plan

I dwell on her words, and I can’t help but think about her late husband. Before I can respond, the door opens, and her daughter walks in. I keep my eyes on her and smile when she smiles down at Athena.

“If the thing I love is baseball, then yeah, it was worth it.” Vid looks up at me, and I look between her eyes. “If it was her on the line, then absolutely not. I would’ve let him kick my ass and not swing back once.”

A crease grows in Vid’s brows, and I realize I was thinking out loud. Before she asks what I’m talking about, she glances down at her phone in my hand. She looks back up at me and raises a questioning brow.

“Good,” her mom replies, and a smirk grows on my face. I tell her Vid is back, and they start talking as I pour Vid’s coffee. We make our way out, and once we’re in the car, they say bye to each other.

Most of their conversation was in Spanish, but I assume her mom told her what we spoke about because Vid doesn’t question me.

I glance down at my phone at the sound of an email coming in. “Can you check that for me, beautiful?”

“Uh oh.” I steal a quick glance at her just as she looks up at me from my phone. “It’s from your coach.”Fuck.He told August and me to look out for his email, but I thought he’d take more than a day to send it.

Vid starts reading it, and I cringe at how mad he sounds through a damn email. “You can just skip to the part where he says how long we’re suspended.” It takes her a second, and she has to scroll a bit.

“August has to sit out the next three games…” She scrolls a few times. “As for your idiot brother—wow, he is pissed. He hasn’t addressed you directly in the entire email.” I look over at her, and she gives me a worried look, which makes me worried about what the next line is.

“You have to meet with him tomorrow to discuss your punishment. Then the next two paragraphs are him calling the two of you every word for idiot.” I keep my eyes on the road andstart to think if beating Liam Walker’s ass really was worth it… Yeah, it was.

When I pull into Vid’s job, I walk over to open her door and walk her upstairs.

“Hey!”

A brunette with long hair turns, and I realize it’s Tori, the new coworker.

“I thought you didn’t work today?”

“I needed to.” She shrugs. “Asher’s former patients keep popping up. His shit was so unorganized.” I roll my eyes at the mention of that guy, but I’m glad I got him to quit because Vid seems to genuinely like this new girl.

I pull Vid’s hand, dragging her to me. “I’ll see you later, my love.” I kiss her and nod goodbye to Tori before leaving.

When I get back to my car, my phone lights up with a message, and I see August tagged me in a post. I open it and find a picture of two baby stingrays with the caption,‘I want one,’and a sad emoji. The logo in the back of the picture looks familiar, and I’m positive it's from Hazel’s job, so he must be there. August is constantly at work with Hazel. He’s so clingy.

I end up calling Hazel, but she ignores it, so I call August. “Hey, what’s up?” He sounds as perky as ever, and I can’t help but smile.

“Put your girlfriend on the phone.”

“For what?” There’s rustling on the other end like he’s making his way to her.

“So I can speak to her, August. Why else would I ask you to put her on the phone?” There's a pause of silence.

“Well, why didn’t you call her yourself? This is my phone. We don’t share one.” I open my mouth, but he keeps rambling. “You know, I was actually happy when I saw you called. I thought maybe you’d want to talk to me. I haven't seen you in days.”

“I saw you yesterday, August.” My tone is dry because we literally saw each other at our game, and then he came over. He’s being dramatic, like always.

“I already told you, seeing each other at games doesn't count. That’s ourjob. Do you not like hanging out with me anymore? Because I feel like ever since you moved out, I’ve barely seen you.”

“It hasn’t even been that long since I moved out?” I look around, confused.He’s like a golden retriever with attachment issues, I swear. I’m just now noticing this is the reason he wanted to be neighbors.

“Why do you sound like you don’t care?”Because I don’t.I sigh again and change my tone.

“I do care, and I do want to hang out with you. You’re at Hazel's job, right?”

“Yeah, wanna come?!” He sounds happy again, and I roll my eyes and put him on speaker before driving off.

“Yeah, sure!” My voice sounds weird to my ears with how chirpy I made it.

“Okay, see you here.” I chuckle at how quickly his mood changed. “I love you, bye.”

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