Page 20 of Home Run

“There you go then, something to add to your pro column. Shopping.” I laughed.

“Yeah, shopping. If I decide to keep it…” She left the end of the sentence hanging, though I knew exactly what she was saying.

“If you decide to keep it, then we’ll do the rest together. You’re not alone, Mills. We both got into this.”

There was something about the way she smiled at me that felt like she’d reached into my chest and stroked her fingers along my heart.

I would have bet a million dollars on my morning panning out very differently. But as I thought about it, it dawned on me that would have been a million dollars I’d have been happy to lose.

FIVE

MILLIE

Tanner: How are you feeling?

Millie: I’m okay. How are you feeling?

Tanner: Okay too. Did you tell your mom yet?

Millie: Today, have to do something first

“Is that Tanner?”

I shut off my phone and turned to Radley. “Yeah.”

“Has he freaked out yet?”

I shook my head. “No. He’s weirdly calm and grown up.”

“Huh.”

“I know. Of everyone in that apartment, Tanner was not the one I’d expect to keep his shit together.”

“Hey, I’m as surprised as you are.”

Jake Riley, Radley’s head of security, turned around from the front seat of the car. “Millie, we’ll wait here for you. Take as long as you need.”

“Thank you.”

Radley’s hand slipped into mine and she squeezed gently. “It’ll be fine.”

“I know, I just…he’d be so disappointed in me.” I rubbed against the pressure in my temples.

“He wouldn’t.”

The way Radley’s voice went up at the end said everything. My eyes met hers, my brows slowly raising.

We both knew how my dad would have reacted because her dad was the same.

They’d been best friends, serving together in the CIA before he’d died. In the time since, Radley’s dad had become Secretary of State. And he was still super protective of his little girl.

“My mom’s going to kill me. My brothers are going to kill Tanner. At least my dad is already dead, because you’d better believe hewouldkill Tanner. And know how to bury his body.”

Radley chuckled quietly, and I turned back to the window. As far as I could see were rows and rows of white headstones against a backdrop of lush green grass, all employees of the United States government in some capacity. It was busier than I’d seen it in a while, the pathways between the stones were occasionally dotted with families, or single people sitting in front of a stone, some had flowers, others had flags.

The summer tourists were heading to see JFK’s grave, or John Glenn and Thurgood Marshall. In the distance a funeral was taking place, transporting me back to the day we’d buried my dad. Four years had passed both immeasurably slowly and all at once.

One of the benefits of having Radley trailedby Secret Service all day meant we could get into places not normally accessed by the public, and today we’d used that to my advantage. Usually when I came to visit my dad, I’d enter through the main gates, show my ID, and walk a mile to the spot where he was buried. Today, we’d driven in, and Jake had gotten as close as he was able.

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