Page 31 of Down to One

"The first one of the day. First inning," he said.

Katie’s face wrinkled in confusion. "You bat third in the lineup and Hanks is pitching. Hernandez will strike out first time up and Johnson never gets to the bag on his first go anymore, so really you’re scoring me what? One run in the first inning? Grand slam in the eighth and we can talk."

"That’s my girl. See you later, bab-" She raised her hand like she was going to throw the ball at him and he cowered. "Katie, Katie, I meant, Katie, geez."

His playful grin was so contagious that Katie did a really poor job of hiding her own until after he’d ducked into the hallway.

chapter 14

The Mavericks beat the Angels, ten to eight, thanks to a three-run homer Landon hit in the seventh. Close enough to his promise to make Katie’s heart soar, although she had to pretend she didn’t see the eyebrow waggle he threw her on his way back to the dugout. She replayed the moment over and over in her head though as she caught up on work at her desk after the game. That moment and every other smile, and joke, and kiss...

Just like the phone sex, sleeping with him hadn’t helped. It hadn’t gotten him out of her system one bit. If anything, she craved him more now that she knew how good it could actually be. Even as she drove home, her fingers tapped against her lips, remembering last night. The way he tasted. The way he tasted her, suckling on her tongue, her neck, her nipples. The things he’d said. "You’ve been driving me crazy in these skirts for months." "I bet you taste as good as you look."

She missed the turnoff for the post office and had to backtrack three blocks to check her PO box, the one errand she particularlyhated because she only seemed to find the time to do it well after the post office’s regular hours.

The sun set late in Idaho during the summer, but even now, with dusk just settling in, the building felt eerily cold and empty, the rows and rows of metal boxes reminiscent of a mausoleum. A yellow light buzzed above her as she unstuffed her box, but it didn’t drown out the tiniest of squeaks from one row over. Another mailbox with an un-oiled hinge perhaps? Maybe a sneaker on the polished government tile?

Katie didn’t find out. She booked it for her car, screeched out of the parking lot, and took two detours home despite never seeing the same headlights behind her twice. The prickles in her fingers didn’t start dissipating until she pulled into her apartment complex, at which point her pulse picked up for an entirely different reason.

To be there or not to be there, that was the question. Did she want Landon's truck to be there, still parked in her spot waiting for its owner to return? Or was it just plain easier if he'd already come to claim it? The latter, definitely the latter, she decided firmly, but she still held her breath as she made the final turn.

Not to be there.

With a heavier sigh than she anticipated, Katie grabbed the mail and the box of work still in the trunk from the night before and hauled it all upstairs.Coat stand, bathroom, bed, loveseat, closet. She dropped the file box next to the door and headed for the shower where she spent a good long time under the warm hug of the spray.

She came out in her towel—coat stand, bathroom, bed, loveseat, closet—changed into pajamas, flipped on the MLB Network, and sat cross-legged on the bed to go through her mail.

Right away a pink envelope slipped out from all the ads and bank statements, the handwriting familiar like a bed smell. Her fingers trembled, but they managed to slide beneath the flap and pull out the card. It had a pink bunny on the front with a ribbon around its neck and a basket of flowers in its paws. Inside, the card read:

You’re Some-Bunny Special

Barf.The words Kyle had written himself were more sickening. Nothing hateful, just him professing how sorry he was and promising he wouldn’t give up on winning her back. She checked the envelope. No return address, but the post mark came from Georgia. A small comfort, but Katie still threatened to spiral.

"Breathe, think, breathe…breathe, just breathe."

She said the words out loud right away this time, instead of just thinking them. Croaked them out at first, but the calm did come easier, her pulse fading from a pound to a flutter.

"It doesn’t matter. A card doesn’t matter. He can’t hurt me. He can’t hurt me."

She rolled her head around, stretching her neck, easing the tension pent up in her shoulders. She wouldn’t let him affect her this way. She couldn’t. She couldn’t let Kyle have that power over her.

"Breathe, breathe. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m okay."

Thud, thud, thud.

Terror gripped at Katie's heart and slid all the way down to her toes.No, no, no.She stared at the door, just feet away with only two flimsy locks keeping it closed, hoping—praying—whoever was on the other side had made a drunken mistake and would just stumble on down to the apartment at the other end of the floor occupied by two college boys.

Thud, thud, thud.

Her heart pounded so hard in her ears she could barely differentiate it from the knocking. Would Kyle really have come all the way to Idaho? Would he really just show up like that? Why send the card then? Flimsy logic, but it couldn’t be Kyle. It just couldn’t. Right?

Thud, thud, thud.

What could she do? Let him stand out there and wake up all her neighbors? What if it wasn’t Kyle? What if it was an emergency? What if someone needed help? Surely it couldn’t be Kyle. Kyle was two thousand miles away.

She inched her way over to the table near the door where she kept her purse and keys, the bunny card still clutched in her left hand. Her right felt like it belonged to someone else as she slipped open the drawer and pulled out a black handgun.

She’d purchased it a few days after moving to Idaho. Did it the right way, went to a shop and had the employees show her how to use it on their range. She’d memorized how the safety worked and revisited the range to shoot it on her own, just to be sure she could.

---