Page 58 of Moonshot

It was four in the morning. Too early in the morning to make a life-changing decision. But too late in the game to lie anymore. I could see myself becoming a different woman, the kind who snuck around, who lied, who cheated. Too easily could I fall into that role. The truth of the matter was, for Chase, I think I was born for that role. I had been his since the moment we met. Everything else, everything with Tobey, had been a lie. A lie I’d told myself since my pregnancy, but started believing in recent years.

The car rolled over bumpy New York streets, and I glanced at the time again, hesitating. Then I reached for my phone, and unlocked it, my dial of digits slow.

It rang only twice, and then he answered.

At the sound of his voice, I started crying.

87

Dad let me cry, not saying anything, his silence comforting across six thousand miles of space. When I finally stopped—hiccupping once, then twice—my final sniffles long and wet, he spoke.

“Tell me what happened, Ty.”

“I messed up.” I pulled into a closed gas station, putting the Range Rover in park and digging into my center console, finding an abandoned napkin and blowing my nose into it. “And I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Is it Chase?”

I stopped, surprised by the question. I shouldn’t have been. The man knew me better than anyone. “Yeah.”

“You slept with him?”

“Yeah.”

“Was he Logan’s daddy?”

Fresh tears leaked. “No,” I whispered. “That was my first … Tobey was my first. That was the truth.”

He let out a hard breath. “I’m sorry, Ty. I wish—” He sighed. “I wish I could have done a better job of protecting you.”

I looked out the window, the sky already lighter, my clock ticking. “It wasn’t you. I was stupid.”

“All teenage girls are stupid, Ty. I shouldn’t have let you marry Tobey. Even if it was the decent thing to do.”

I said nothing, staring at the skyline, a narrow glimpse of it between two buildings. There was a long stretch of silence before I spoke. “What do I do, Dad?”

“You know what to do, Ty.”

“Spikes first?” I guessed, my voice cracking.

“Spikes first.”

“You haven’t even asked if I love him.”

“Oh Ty.” He chuckled. “Why do you think I tried so hard to keep you from him? You’ve been in love with that boy since the moment he set foot in our stadium.”

I wiped under my eyes with the napkin, then balled it in my fist. “World Series is in a month.”

“I know.”

“This will be the fifth year, Dad. The fifth girl.”

“You can’t think like that, Ty. Whatever psychopath is out there, you can’t change fate to please him. And we don’t even know, for sure, what he wants. If a World Series ring would even stop this at all.”

“I know.” I heard the words, but could only think of Tiffany Wharton’s face. So pretty. So young—younger than me.

“Dad?” I said, in the moment before he hung up.

“Yeah?”