Page 111 of The Shake Off

“Are you telling me you’re the reason he’s pitching so well? Are you the reason we’ve gone up the standing so quickly?”

“I think you’re putting too much faith in me!” I snapped.

“And what do you get out of this? He’d better not be paying you.” He regretted the words as soon as they fell from his lips, and it had nothing to do with the murderous rage I was firing his way. “I’m sorry, Payton, I take that back.”

I didn’t respond, because it was clear Penn wasn’t done. He stood there, staring at me. His lips pursed as he sucked in his cheek. I could almost see the cogs whirring, and a sudden feeling of dread almost knocked the air from my lungs.

“Payton, why does Ace think you’re the solution to how badly he pitched at Opening Day?”

If I was honest, I was amazed it had taken Penn this long to figure it out. For a genius, he wasn’t so smart sometimes.

I wish he wouldn’t stare quite so hard at me though.

“Payton, why does Ace think you’re the fix?”

I shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Except I think you do.” He turned to look out of the window, almost muttering to himself. “The only reason you would need to fix it is if you were the cause of it in the first place. Am I right? Did you fuck up his game? Did you get in his head, somehow?”

“No, I didn’t, and I object to the insinuation.”

But Penn was on roll, and when he spun back around, I had the good sense to stay silent.

“Are you the reason half my starting nine is reading Cosmo?”

“No!” I yelled back.

Because I wasn’t,technically.I didn’t tell them to do it, except that’s clearly not what my expression said.

“Oh, Jesus. What the fuck, Payton? We’re not halfway through the season and you’ve got into Ace’s head that you’re his lucky charm!” He raked his hands through his hair and pulled hard. I’d never seen Penn get so worked up before. “We’ve shot up the standings because of Ace, and now we’re going to plummet back to the bottom. FUCK!”

“What? Why? Why is that going to happen?”

“Because of you! You don’t stick with one person for longer than a few weeks. We all know you have commitment issues. You’ll get scared right before anything happens, just like you usually do and run away. Only this time, it’s going to fuck with my team.”

He may as well have stabbed an icicle through my heart for the effect his words had. I couldn’t be sure he was right about the plummet in the standings, but he wasn’t wrong about running away. And for the first time this morning, I couldn’t argue with him.

Ace and I had already passed by the event in our agreement.

There was no reason for us to keep seeing each other. Anything beyond this date could be considered dating… Except it would be more than dating, and Penn was right. I would run.

I sighed deeply; deep enough I could feel it in my marrow, and the ball of tears inching up my throat. I wasn’t ready to let Ace go.

Penn’s face softened, and he took a step closer. I thought he was about to apologize for his savage, selfish outburst. At the very least, I thought he might apologize for bringing me to the point where my tears spilled and rolled down my cheeks.

But no.

“Payton, I’m begging you, break it off now and I can fix this before it’s too late.”

I snatched away another tear before it fell, but couldn’t stop the snarl curving my lip. “Are you kidding? You’re kidding me, right?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t Ace get a say in this?”

“I can fix this, Payton. I can keep us winning if you let him go now. Don’t hurt Ace and hurt his game by dragging out the inevitability of you calling it quits.”

I squeezed the heel of my palms against my temples, trying to rid myself of the disbelief at this conversation. But when I opened my eyes, Penn was still standing there with the same hard expression on his face.

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