Page 1 of The Future Play

PROLOGUE

Amanda

“Why isn’t he answering?!”I am the perfectly broken picture of an ugly-crying train wreck as I throw my phone across the room. I swore I’d never be this girl. This pathetic mess of heartbreak. I’d never do it again. Then Jamie Henderson walked into my life, melted my walls, and made me believe I was worth something. Worth everything.

Mackenzie sweeps some hair from my face. “Maybe he had something with the team.”

“No,” I rasp. “The game was over hours ago. And even if he went out with the team, that’s no excuse for him not answering.”

I look around the room at my best friends. The women who chose me when I felt like I wasn’t worth choosing. Mackenzie, Hyla, Rae, Sarah, and Chelsea. All five of them stopped what they were doing and surrounded me with love the second I needed them. Of course they’re here. Ride or die. We always show up for each other.

But as much as I love them, they aren’t the ones I need right now.

Everything is spiraling out of control, and it’s supposed to be Jamie who’s walking through this with me.

This can’t be happening.

Not now. Not like this.

More tears stain my cheeks as my best friends move in closer, forming a circle of love around me.

“He promised he’d always show up when I needed him,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around myself.

But that was before.

Before he achieved his dream. Before he was a major league baseball player.

He convinced me I was his dream too.

And maybe I was until he got what he really wanted.

Maybe I was an idiot to believe there was room for me and baseball in his life.

Maybe I was a desperate, pathetic girl for believing I meantmorethan the game he built his life around.

I know I’m desperate now because all I want to do is call him again. I want to believe I’m not in this alone.

“Oh, shit,” Hyla mutters, blinking at her phone.

“What?” I ask, my chest tightening. Panic overtakes me. What if he was in a car accident? What if he’s dead?

Oh God.

“Is he okay?” I cry.

“He’s… okay.”

Hyla glances at Chelsea, who looks at the screen and bites her lip.

“Just tell me!” I yell.

Slowly, Hyla crawls over to me, taking my hand as she flips her phone screen toward me.

My blood runs cold, and I’m hit with a new level of agony as my world crashes around me.

1

HOT MESS EXPRESS

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