Page 57 of Single Glance

She smiled boldly back at me. “That is all I’ve ever wanted for you, Hads. For someone to love you just as fiercely as you love everyone else. I never imagined it’d be Cam, but now that it happened, it makes perfect sense. You two complement each other—when you’re not trying to kill each other.”

“So you don’t think I’ve lost my mind?”

“No,” she smirked back at me. “This might be the best decision you’ve made in a long time.”

“And you’re sure you’re not mad that I’m dating your ex?”

“Hads, I love Cam, but we haven’t been together in a long time. I barely remember what we were like together, especially now that I’m with Adam. All I’ve ever wanted is for Cam to find happiness. And you, Hadley, you make him so happy. I haven’t seen him like this in years, and I’ve only been back for a couple of hours.” She paused, chewing on her lip.

“What?”

Victoria tilted her head. “Are you all in with him?”

Her question caught me off guard. As much as I wanted to explore things between Cam and me, I was still holding back, refusing to give my feelings a voice. He’d alluded to caring about me, but without knowing his mindset, I refused to dive completely into this new relationship. It was my last line of defense, only the rubble remaining of my once-fortified walls. While Cam had already knocked down most of them, I couldn’t completely give in, not just yet.

“I want to be,” I said. “I-I’m trying.”

Victoria squeezed my hands. “That’s all I ask. Because Cam—he’ll move the world for you if you ask him. But ifyou’re not all in with him, it’ll break his heart, and I don’t want to see that for either of you.”

I nodded, soaking up her words, when my phone rang, breaking the tension. I released Victoria’s hands, pulling my device from my purse. When I saw my old neighbor’s name and number, my heart froze in my chest, terrified about what she had to say. Mrs. Majors never called me, not unless there was an emergency. Victoria’s brow furrowed across the table. “Everything okay?”

No. It wasn’t. But as I stared down at my phone, I couldn’t bring myself to answer, terrified of what waited on the other side of the line. After a moment, the call clicked off, and I breathed a sigh of relief—at least until the voicemail notification sprung up on the screen. I lifted myself up from the chair, my legs already shaking with adrenaline. “I should check this. Be right back.”

As soon as the porch door closed behind me, I lifted the phone to my ear, hearing the scrambled message. Words like hospital, ambulance, and intensive care rose above the rest, making me almost cry out with guilt. My hand shook as I tucked them back into my pockets.

My mother had a heart attack.

While I was having the time of my life, my mother had been alone, fighting to survive. Now, she was sitting in a hospital room, unsure if she’d see another day or two. I rushed inside, telling Victoria I had to go, telling her I’d call her later to explain what happened. My feet barely touched the stairs as I rushed into Cam’s room, grabbing my bag and shoving a couple of outfits inside. As I rooted around my stuff, trying to find my car keys, the door opened.

My throat constricted as I turned around and locked eyes with Cam. “Hadley, what’s going on?”

FORTY-THREE

“Nothing yet.”

The words from my agent should have given me some relief, but it only added to the anxiety brewing in my chest. I’d asked him to look into the trade conversation after my meeting in Benny’s office yesterday. There wasn’t anything Theo could do to stop it, but I couldn’t live with this hanging over my head for another month. With the trade deadline not until the end of July, it would be weeks until I’d be able to fully exhale, knowing my future was secure until the end of the season.

I ran my hand over my brow. “And you haven’t heard which teams are asking about me?”

“No,” Theo answered. “I’ve tried asking informally, but teams are protective about agents poking around mid-season.” He paused, and from experience, I knew this next statement was going to hurt. Theo was one of the best sports agents out there, having moved from representing actors to athletes in the past couple of years. I was below his usual radar, but Gray reached out to him on my behalf. Theo was a shark and would go to battle for hisclients. He’d been instrumental in getting me to the Hawks’ farm team, all because he knew this was where I wanted to be.

“I’m going to be honest with you, Cam. If there is a trade option on the table, the Hawks might take it, and there’s not much we can do about it.”

“I’m aware of that,” I ground out.

“All you can do is keep your head down and play the best game possible. Make yourself invaluable as a player. They won’t trade you if they think you’ll take them all the way.”

I exhaled slowly, staring out at the vast valley below me, highlighting the lake anchoring the town. Was I that player anymore? The last few games, my mind hadn’t been in the game, to say the least. Between Emilia and Hadley, baseball was becoming less of a dream and more of a barrier to the life I wanted. If I could have it all, I wanted to grab the opportunity with both hands, but if I had to choose, my direction was clear.

“If the trade happens, would you be able to get me out of my contract?”

Theo sucked in a sharp breath. “Are you serious right now?” My silence answered him. “Fuck, Cam. Maybe, but it’s going to come with some serious fines. We can ask them to release you, but you’ve got a lot of years left on paper.”

“I know.”

Theo muttered something under his breath. “I’ll read through your contract again and see what options we have. But if you make this choice, there’s no going back. You’re too new to change your mind in a year or two. So, if you want to go down this path, make sure you’re fucking sure. Don’t throw your future away because you’re pissed.”

That was the thing—I wasn’t throwing my future away.Sure, my life would look different when it no longer revolved around baseball, but every day I spent with Emilia and Hadley, the more I was sure they were my future. I wanted to spend my days with them, not video chatting from the other side of the country. It was one thing if I got to come home to them during the season and spend my nights in Hadley’s arms. But leaving them behind for long stretches, unsure when our paths would cross again, wasn’t an option anymore.

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