Page 92 of Houston, We Have a Problem
Houston doesn’t release my hand when I walk away. Instead, he tugs me back to his side and gives me a slow and gentle kiss. “I can’t pitch anymore,” he says against my lips, like a whispered secret he’s afraid to share. “I’ve torn a tendon—a few places, probably—and it’ll take surgery to repair the damage. I’ll be out most of the season, and by that point…”
I squeeze his hand, my heart aching for him. “At that point you really will be too old to play,” I finish for him. I hate that players—especially pitchers—rarely make it to thirty in the major leagues, but I hate more that Houston has been sitting on this for so long. “What are you going to do?”
“That’s the question everyone wants an answer to,” he says on a sigh.
“Do the Red-tails even have a backup pitcher to take your spot?” I only pay attention to the players who actually take the field, and for the last several years, Houston has been the bestRed-tails pitcher on the mound. The other starting pitchers are fine, but I know the team counts on their small rotation so Houston can play (and therefore win) more games.
“We do,” Houston says, “but he’s notorious for pitching home runs.”
“So, not great.”
“None of the relief pitchers have what it takes to do what I do. There’s a reason I’ve been playing whole games, and it’s not because I’m awesome.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Notentirelybecause I’m awesome.” The smile that stretches across his mouth is so tempting that I can’t help but swoop in and claim it for myself. He doesn’t stop smiling, even while I kiss him, which makes the whole thing exceptionally difficult. Difficult, but no less enjoyable.
Eventually, Houston pulls me to the couch and lays down, pulling me down with him until we’re stretched out together with me held securely in his arms. He lets out a heavy sigh, his whole body relaxing behind me.
“Thank you,” he says softly. “For listening. For being someone I can trust with this.”
“You must be exhausted from keeping it to yourself.”
“You have no idea.” He sounds like he’s falling asleep.
I snuggle in closer. “And you really didn’t sleep last night?”
He buries his nose into my neck. “I was too busy thinking about you,” he murmurs, his voice soft and velvety.
“Me too.”
“You were thinking about you?”
I snort a laugh, but when he doesn’t say anything else, I realize he’s already fallen asleep, his breaths coming in a slow, steady rhythm. He must have been completely exhausted! It makes sense, after how late we were up on Thursday, and if hedidn’t sleep at all last night, he should probably spend all of this Sunday off sleeping.
Which means I’m stuck here. Not a bad place to be, but now that I know how bad his shoulder really is, my brain is running at full speed. If I had my phone with me, I could start planning out how I’m going to spin this, though I’ll need Houston’s input at some point.
“Jesse!” I whisper-call. When Jesse doesn’t answer and Houston doesn’t stir, I call a little louder.
After the third call, Jesse appears on the stairs with obvious reluctance, but he relaxes as soon as he sees Houston sound asleep.Good news?his eyes seem to say.
I grin. “I need my phone. I finally found out what the story is, and I’m…” I look at Houston’s large arms that have me trapped. “Can you get it for me? The sooner I get this planned out, the sooner you can go home.”
He turns, preferably on his way to grab my phone, but then he pauses and looks back at me. “You,” he says, and it takes me a second to figure out what he means. I said the sooneryoucan go home. Notwe.
“I don’t know if I’m going home yet,” I say, and I mean that. I’m not sure I can abandon my job, but IknowI can’t abandon Houston. I’ll need Jesse one more time for when I report the story, but hopefully I won’t need Tamlin after that. Hopefully I can just be me.
Chapter Thirty-One
Houston
November 4
I don’t think I’ve everhad to do anything worse than walking into the clubhouse on Monday morning. Okay, so maybe attending my mother’s funeral was worse, but I barely remember that day because I was only seven. After spending all of Sunday with Darcy—if we weren’t sleeping on the couch we were either making out or talking like we did on Halloween—going back to the real world feels like stepping into a dream.
It’s like none of this is my life anymore, and I’m just going through the motions and comprehending none of it. When Darcy dropped me off (her idea to spend as much time with me as possible), I almost couldn’t leave her because she feels so much more important than anything.
Everything in my life has changed.
