Page 96 of Triple Play

I just hope when we find her, she’ll listen to what I have to say.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Shira

After I buy a train ticket, I park myself at the beach on the edge of Fort Lauderdale. Just me, a suitcase, Lilac II, and an uncertain future. It’s funny how far I thought I came in the past six years—and yet I’m somehow right back to where I was.

I should probably leave—it’s three hours to the train station up by Orlando—but it’s not even nine a.m. and I have until mid-afternoon. I get a coffee and a breakfast pastry filled with guava paste, and sit and eat and watch the push of the ocean against the shore. My phone buzzes in my purse. I silence it without reading my messages. Whoever’s texting me won’t change my mind.

After I’m done eating, I take a walk on the sand, checking for any potential twinge in my ankle. Nothing. When I get back to Boston, I’ll find a club. That’s an audition I probably won’t fail, even if I botched the one for major-league girlfriend.

I didn’t want Blake’s money—but I foolishly let myself dream about what life might have been like together. Another thing I haven’t learned not to do in the past six years.

Still…I walk down to the edge of the water, on the glossy sand revealed by each retreating wave. There aren’t any sticks around, so I squat down and use my finger to write the first word that comes to mind.

Sorry. What I’ve already said. The ocean takes that.

I love you. Something I only got a few hours of practice saying. But before the ocean can claim that, I add another word.

Both.

A truth written on the edge of the water. What Blake accused me and Felix of—pretending we weren’t in love with each other. Well, I’m done pretending. I’m also done pretending that I’m only in love with one of them, even if it’s too late to do anything about it.

By now, the sun has risen high enough that I should probably get going. Goodbye, Florida. It took too long to get here and I already have to leave.

I’m about to head back toward where Lilac II is parked when I hear someone bellow, “Shira!” followed by an immediate, “Blake, I found her.”

When I look up the beach, Felix is lumbering toward me with Blake not far behind. It only takes them a minute or so to get to me, but in those sixty seconds, time moves slow. They’re both barefoot—Blake in long shorts like you might wear to go golfing, Felix, improbably, in jeans rolled up at the ankle that are crusted with sand at the cuffs as if they’ve been looking for me for a while.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” Felix asks, when he gets to me. He sounds more breathless than accusatory.

“I didn’t think either of you wanted to talk to me.”

“We thought you’d already driven up to the train.” He turns to Blake, who jogs up to us, cheeks flushed from salt water and running. “Blake was ready to buy Amtrak if that stopped you from leaving.”

“Like a ticket?”

Felix shakes his head. “Like the entire train.”

“It’s true.” Blake grins at me.

For a second, I grin right back. Did you come all this way to get pissed at me again? It seems unlikely—and unlikelier that he would have brought Felix along for it. Still… “How’d you find me, anyway?”

“We checked the house,” Blake says. “That note didn’t give us much to go from. I wasn’t sure what to do until I realized that Lilac II has one of those share my location functions. We didn’t want you to leave without at least letting you know about that feature in case you want to turn it off.”

So they’re offering me a way out. This morning, everything was clear—leaving felt so straightforward. Maybe this relationship burned its natural course…or maybe it hasn’t, not if we’re standing here, together.

Something in the sand draws Blake’s smile. “What’s that?” He points to my note, a faint outline that the ocean has taken most of—but not all of. I love you both. Something faded but undeniably there. Seeing that makes the next part easier.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I should’ve told you everything much earlier. You were right—I am in love with Felix.”

A disappointed flicker passes over Blake’s expression.

“But,” I continue, “I’m not only in love with Felix.”

“Hey”—Blake turns to Felix—“if anyone asks, this was us working on infield coordination.” Before I can ask what he’s talking about, he scoops me right up, kisses me, once, deep, like he doesn’t care if the whole world is watching.

Then he passes me over to Felix, who pretends to sag with my weight. Who stands ankle deep in the frothing ocean and kisses me like he’s been dreaming about it.

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