The Game Changer: A Novel (32 page)

Gran swatted at Gramps twice, presumably for each time he cursed, but missed. “It’s true,” she said. “The older you get, the more you realize that it isn’t about the material things, or pride or ego. It’s about our hearts and who they beat for. I know your heart beats for Jack in the same way that his heart beats for you. I don’t think one can survive without the other. Do you?”

I wiped at the tears rolling down my cheeks, their words striking a chord inside my soul. How could I ever think I’d be OK without Jack in my life? I might be able to distract myself for a little while, but eventually I would realize that my heart lay vacant and cold. “No. I’d be miserable without him.”

“Then you have to figure out a way to let all the other stuff go. You have to let Jack carry some of the load for you. If you keep things from him, he can’t help.”

Gramps raised his hand before quickly adding, “I know you ladies like to think that we can read your minds, but we can’t. We don’t know anything that’s going on in those heads of yours unless you tell us.”

I nodded. “I know you’re right. It’s just easier said than done right now.”

Gran didn’t miss a beat. “If you quit on Jack, you’re giving everyone what they want. Chrystle wins. And I would hate to see her win at anything.” Her eyes narrowed. “But you and Jack would be the real losers because you’d lose each other. People spend their whole lives searching for the kind of love that the two of you share. That’s what life is all about.”

Gramps chimed in, “Love is life. If you miss out on love, you miss out on life.”

Melissa and Dean shuffled into the kitchen, goofy smiles on both their faces. “Gran, Gramps, this is Cassie’s best friend, Melissa.” Dean beamed with pride as he introduced her to his family.

Gramps grinned. “Hi, Melissa. You’re just as pretty as the kitten,” he said with a wink, and Melissa couldn’t help but smile even wider.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Gran extended her hand before glancing in my direction and whispering, “This one’s going to need a little work on the Dean front, isn’t she?” I nodded, wondering how the hell Gran seemed to instinctively know everything.

After a couple hours of polite conversation and Gran force-feeding us sandwiches, Melissa and I said good-bye. Dean stood on the porch with a pout on his face as he watched us leave. She begged him for some time alone with me, but he claimed he wanted to spend time with me too. They compromised on girl time tonight and Dean time tomorrow. I laughed at their conversation.

“You like them, don’t you?” I asked Melissa as she lowered the car radio.

“They are pretty great. How was your alone time with them? Dean insisted we let you guys talk by yourselves.” She sounded slightly annoyed by Dean’s suggestion.

“I appreciated it,” I admitted, hoping to relieve her irritation. “They’re so awesome. They always seem to know just what to say and how to say it.”

“What did they say this time?” she asked, her eyes focused directly in front of her.

“They talked about the importance of love. And how in the end, it’s all that really matters, and it’s all you have left when everything else is gone.”

“They sound almost as smart as I am,” she said, and I smacked her shoulder with the back of my hand. “Hey!”

I watched as we passed the restaurant where Jack and I had our first date, the quick jolts of pain to my heart reminding me how much I missed him.

“So, did they fix you?”

“I still need to figure out how to find some balance, but all of you are right. Breaking up with Jack won’t solve anything in the long run. I’d regret it eventually, and I’d probably never get over it.”

“You know, Cass, Jack isn’t the only one who changed. I mean, you changed him. But he changed you too. Whether you realize it or not, it’s the truth.”

Hearing Melissa say those words solidified what I’d known for some time. She’d told me the same thing back in college, but it seemed to carry more weight now. I felt like I’d grown up twenty years in the span of the last two.

“You’re right. I honestly can’t imagine my life without him. And I don’t want to.”

“Then you need to stop running away from him when things get rough. You do that a lot, and eventually he’s going to get pissed.”

“I don’t run away,” I sniped defensively.

“Really? You left the state! You’re either running away or shutting him out completely. And both of those things suck.”

I watched the palm trees blur into green streaks across the sky blue backdrop. Melissa was right. “I’ll work on it.” I’d bottled so many of my emotions inside because I didn’t want to burden Jack with them. And I needed to learn how to clear my head with Jack in the picture instead of pushing him out of it.

Melissa’s phone started to ring. “Can you see who it is?”

I grabbed for the phone and noticed Jack’s name flashing across the screen. “It’s Jack.”

“Speak of the devil. Answer it.”

My stomach dropped to the floor. “Hi,” I answered nervously.

“Where’s your phone?” Jack’s voice was tight and agitated.

“I left it in the apartment. Why? What’s wrong?”

“Check it as soon as you get back and then you fucking tell me,” he said tersely.

“Jack? Hello?” I pulled the phone from my ear to look at the screen. “Holy shit, he hung up on me.”

“What’s going on?” Melissa sounded worried.

“I have no idea. He told me to check my phone.” My head started to spin as I wondered what the hell could have happened.

Jack

M
y cell phone beeped, signaling I had a new text message. Instead of a return phone number, the sender was an anonymous e-mail. I considered not opening the message, knowing that nothing good could come from an anonymous source. After a short battle with myself, I clicked the message and a picture popped up.

What the fuck?

Matteo kissing Cassie displayed on my screen and violent urges instantly ripped through my guts. My temper flared as a fire blazed through my every pore. I wanted to tear Matteo’s fucking head off. How dare he put his lips on my girl? How dare he fucking even think about touching her?

But she let him. She wasn’t pushing him away in the picture, she was kissing him back. Fuck, even her goddamn eyes were closed!

I dialed Cassie’s number, but it went straight to voice mail. Again. Where the hell was she? I forwarded the picture message to her cell.

She’d bailed on me in the middle of all the Chrystle drama and now this. How would she explain this? I looked at it, clear as day with my own two eyes. Matteo’s filthy fucking lips stuck to my beautiful Kitten’s. Have I been fooled this whole time?

I walked into our bedroom and pulled out the velvet ring box I’d buried in my sock drawer. It creaked as I opened it to peer at the shiny diamond inside. How could she do this to me? To us? Shaking my head, I squeezed my eyes closed before opening them again. The image of Matteo kissing Cassie plagued my every thought.

I snapped the box shut and pitched it forcefully through the opened closet door. It crashed against something with a loud thud, and I walked out of our room not caring what happened to the contents.

Maybe it was all an elaborate ploy, her inability to handle the press? How long had she and Matteo been sneaking around behind my back? Had I forced them together by asking him to keep her safe during my games? Was this all my fault? I wondered how long I had until the media got ahold of that picture. With my luck, it was already posted everywhere.

I dialed Melissa’s cell phone, determined to reach Cassie. I listened as it rang three times. Cassie answered, and she sounded nervous when she said hi. I asked where her phone was, unable to hide my anger. Her voice rose, and she actually sounded confused and worried when she told me she left it at Melissa’s apartment and asked what was wrong.

“Check it as soon as you get back and then you fucking tell me,” I said and ended the call. I didn’t want to hear another word out of her mouth until she looked at the same picture I had. I waited. And grew more agitated with each passing minute. The press was already having a field day with all of Chrystle’s accusations, now they’d have even more to talk shit about.

On top of it all, now I needed to find a new driver. Matteo’s work here was finished. No matter what the story, I didn’t want to see his face anywhere near mine again.

I paced our apartment, my anger growing as my patience wore thin. Half tempted to call Melissa again, my phone suddenly rang. I answered the call, but said nothing.

“Jack? Are you there? It’s not what it looks like, I swear.” She pleaded through the phone, and I found myself surprised at my lack of sympathy.

“So, he didn’t kiss you? ’Cause it looks like he’s kissing you.”

She hesitated. “Yes, he kissed me, but…”

I cut her off. “How long?”

“How long, what?” she asked, her breathing shaky.

“How long has this been going on?”

She inhaled sharply. “What? Nothing is going on, Jack, I swear. There’s nothing between me and Matteo. He kissed me, and I pushed him away.”

“It doesn’t look like you’re pushing him away in this picture. Did you like it? His lips on yours. Looks like you might like it.”

“I pushed him off of me, Jack! I told him no! I told him I loved you.” She started to cry.

It tugged at my chest, the sound of her crying, but I pretended not to care. “Why didn’t you tell me about the kiss?”

“Because we haven’t even talked. Because it meant nothing. He apologized. He was scared to death of losing his job with us.”

“He should be. ’Cause I’m either going to fire him or fucking kill him.”
Or both.
“You know what, Cass, I don’t blame another guy for falling for you. I don’t. But you… I never expected this from you, of all people. I feel like I don’t even know you.”

“Don’t say that, Jack. Of course you know me. I love you. I’ll come home tomorrow. We’ll fix this. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Don’t.” I stopped her rant.

“Don’t what? Don’t come home?” She sounded like she couldn’t believe what I said.

“I don’t want to see you,” I admitted, my guts feeling like they had just been shredded.

“What? Don’t do this. Jack, please,” she begged.

I leaned against the granite countertop, thoughts racing, emotions clashing. I was pissed off. I’d worked so hard to break down this girl’s walls, but no matter what I did, it was never good enough. She always ended up blocking me out, and I didn’t deserve it.

“This is bullshit, Cassie! I haven’t done anything since I came back into your life except try to be a better man for you. I try every single day to do right by you. It’s all I want, to be good enough. To make up for the mistake I made. I’d do anything for you.”

My frustrations mounted as I vented. “But you walk around here constantly keeping shit from me. And when things finally get to be too much for you, what do you do? You run away. I know you’re used to being let down and disappointed, but we’re supposed to be a team. We hold each other up when the other one’s about to fall. We don’t run away and leave our other half to fend for him or herself.”

She stayed quiet, clearly having no defense for her actions, so I continued. “You left me here to deal with Chrystle and her shit all alone. I know you’re hurt and angry, but I am too. Did you even once stop to think about how I felt? How her article affected me and made me look? No. Because you left me here and took off.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said with a sob.

“Yeah? For which part?” I asked, and could hear her sobbing in the background.

“I’m sorry for all of it, Jack. You’re right. I don’t deal with things well and I promise I’ll work on it.”

I exhaled through my nose as I stared out the balcony window. “It’s more than that. You keep things inside and…”

“Because I don’t want to bother you with stuff I think is stupid. I don’t want you to worry about things when you’re on the field. You have enough to worry about.”

“You don’t get to decide what’s stupid and what isn’t. If it’s bothering you, then you need to tell me. You need to communicate with me. I fucking tell you everything. I share everything with you because I don’t ever want there to be another secret between us again. I don’t like keeping things from you, and I don’t appreciate you keeping things from me.”

“I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry. I know I’m not good at being an open book, but I’ll try to be better.”

“And I know I let you down before and you don’t trust me completely. But this goes beyond that, and I think we both know it.” She sniffed, and her breath hitched repeatedly as I continued. “After tonight’s game, we’ll be on the road for few days. I think we should take this time to figure out what we both want.”

“I know what I want,” she insisted.

“I don’t,” I lied. Of course I wanted Cassie, but I was hurt. I lost her trust in one terrible decision-making moment, but she lost pieces of mine every time she shut me out, kept me at distance, or didn’t care enough about our relationship to stay put and fight. I wanted to know we were solid, but her actions only confused me.

“OK,” she said with hurt in her voice. “I’ll do anything to fix this, Jack. Tell me what you need me to do.”

I took a long, deep breath. It was finally my turn.

“Prove it,” I said before ending the call. Now she would know how it felt to be on the other end of that fucking request.

I immediately dialed the car service where Matteo worked and asked for the owner. “Hi, Mr. Lombardi, Jack Carter here. I need to cancel all services with Matteo and request a new driver starting today.”

“Of course, Mr. Carter. Did Matteo do something wrong?”

The media would inform him soon enough, if he didn’t know already. “I just want a new driver. Do not send Matteo here today or I’ll lose my shit. Do you understand?”

He cleared his throat. “I, uh… understand.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you still require the driver to stay for the duration of the games?”

“No, I do not.”

I pressed End on my cell and typed out a text message to Matteo for good measure.

You’re fired. Don’t show your face here again and stay the fuck away from Cassie.