Page 65 of Off the Trail

“Yeah. I mean, I like it here. And I can afford to stay at Sanctuary Lake indefinitely, if Marika’s got the space.”

I don’t think about how he’s casually able to spend thousands of dollars a week while working construction because, oh yeah, he was a highly paid professional athlete. I think about the fact that he wants to stay. And if he stays, that means we can be together.

My stomach bubbles as if the stew inside me is still boiling. “You’d want that?”

“I think so,” he says, scraping the bottom of his bowl. “I mean, what do I have to go back for?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t talked a lot about what your life is like back home.” As much as I want him to stay, I don’t want to be the default prize.

He looks at me earnestly. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about crashing the Lamborghini again.” Ever since the night I watched the video, I haven’t known how to put my feelings about it into words. Now he’s offering me—us—a future, of sorts, and I need to know more.

He sits back, eyebrows raised. “The car accident? What about it?”

“What happened?”

“I told you; I lost control. It was stupid. I was lucky it wasn’t worse.”

I shake my head. “But why did you lose control?”

He looks at me for a moment, then touches the inside of his right arm. It’s covered by his long-sleeved shirt, but I know that’s where his scar is. “I had Tommy John surgery.”

I’m not sure where he’s going with this, but I play along. We haven’t talked about this either. “Isn’t that usually for pitchers?” I ask.

“Usually. I got injured; the doctors said I needed it. They did a good job—I healed up. But my throwing arm never came fully back. At the same time, there was a big reshuffle in the Laurels’ management. New guys came in who didn’t think I was worth my spot on the team. Didn’t even send me back to the minors—just cut me. With a single snip.” He rubs his inner elbow over the scar. I’m not sure he realizes he’s doing it. “You know what happened. Everything I had—everything I was—gone. My entire life evaporated, and it left me with nothing. Left me feeling like nothing.”

I’m about to remind him of our conversation on the mountaintop in the dark, but he keeps talking.

“I was in denial for a while, kept thinking they’d hire me back. The night I crashed, I met with my therapist, and he said I needed to accept that I’d never play professional baseball again.”

I didn’t know Shawn had a therapist. There are so many things I don’t know about him.

“He was right—but I wasn’t ready to deal with that reality, I guess. I went for a drive, and I wasn’t trying to crash, I swear.” He gets off the couch, shuffles forward on his knees, and puts his hands on my thighs, looking up at me earnestly.

“But when I hit the gas coming off a red light a little too hard, it was like I didn’t want to ease off. I wanted something bad to happen, maybe? To feel something other than the worthlessness I’d been feeling ever since being cut. I don’t even know. It happened fast. And when I woke up in the hospital, I immediately knew I’d fucked up.”

“Holy shit.” This is a lot to process. I don’t regret asking him to share, but I don’t know which part to respond to first. I go with, “I’m glad you’re okay.” What if he’d died in that crash and I never had the chance to know him? I swallow against irrational fear. “And you did fuck up. You could have hurt someone else, not just yourself.”

His eyes are wide and beseeching. “I know. Like I said, I’m so lucky it wasn’t worse. But I’m glad it happened, in a selfish way, because Callie sent me here and you helped me see I had a chance to build a new life.”

“And you want to build that life here?”

“I am doing it here,” he says firmly. “I have a purpose again; I have something to work toward. I have you.” His cheeks look a little red. Maybe it’s the heat coming off the fireplace. He looks at me steadily. “I’m happy here.”

Shawn’s changed since he got to the lake. He arrived tentative and sad, polite on the outside, hurting on the inside. He’s embraced his self-improvement project with open arms, and I’m glad he’s found something to give his life meaning again.

But isn’t this a bit too easy? It seems too much to hope for that I could be a long-term part of his life. It is too much to hope for.

But damned if I don’t hope, anyway.

“I’m happy, too.” It must be the right answer, because he launches himself at me, wrapping me in a hug. He laughs, a little giddy, like he just found out he made the All-Star team. He’s big and warm, and he nuzzles the side of my neck like a puppy. I feel like I could live in this moment forever, but the caretaker in me asks, “You want more to eat?”

He nips my earlobe, then licks the sting away. My entire body shivers.

“What I really want to do is go back to bed. With you.” His voice is a growl.

Looks like the clean sheets won’t go to waste after all.