2. Two

Two

Whit was not hungover.

He'd been in a foul mood when he left the bar, the kind of foul that had him stalking out into the night heedless of the rain, his teeth gritted and his hands clenched, a sour taste in his mouth. He'd had to bite back a sharp retort when his Uber driver made a snide comment about a bad start last season and then promptly asked for an autograph. Old Whit might have signed with a false name or a quickly scrawled fuck off— but he was New Whit, and New Whit didn't let anything rattle him. Not reporters, not hecklers, not self-appointed sports analysts who couldn't tell a slider from a four-seam—and not Nell Forrester.

At least, not until she'd gone to her knees before him and flung all his sins in his face.

He'd fallen asleep with her voice ringing in his ears and woken with her taunts still echoing. He was a cheater. Unworthy. An impostor. A fraud. He deserved everything he got.

And the worst part of it was, she wasn't even wrong.

At this point, a hangover would've been a hell of a lot more enjoyable. He was seriously considering having beer for breakfast.

Whit rolled over in bed and stared up at the ceiling. He had about fifty things to get done before he had to hit the road, not to mention a three-hour drive north into the great Minnesota backwoods followed by a slew of awkward reunions he was already dreading, but all he could think was— Nell Forrester.

He should've known Paige was crazy enough to actually send her.

Well—scratch that, he had known. He just hadn't thought Nell would ever agree to it. Whit had figured she'd rather douse herself in gasoline than offer up an apology to him. She'd never been shy about her disdain for him, so when Whit had jokingly told Paige his condition for going along with her deranged plan, he'd assumed Nell would laugh Paige right out the door.

But then, this wouldn't be the first time he'd underestimated Nell's devotion to her sister.

Nell fucking Forrester.

His entire body had gone into deep-freeze the moment he'd recognized her, like he'd stepped barefoot into a polar vortex. Instant frostbite, brutal and numbing. As a result, he'd gone on the offensive when he should've just walked away. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd seen her in person, but the video of her revealing to the world that he'd taken PEDs was a permanent fixture in his mind. Those big innocent eyes and cutesy girl-next-door looks of hers might fool some people, but not Whit. Not anymore.

The ironic thing was, he used to like her. A lot more than he should have, all things considered. Sure, she was prickly, but she'd been entertaining as hell, even if he couldn't quite figure out what it was he'd done to offend her. She'd been sharing an apartment with her sister back when he'd been dating Paige, and right from the start, she'd made it clear she disapproved of him.

The smart move would have been to ignore her, but Whit was a born competitor; he hadn't been able to resist provoking her, especially once he'd discovered just how easy it was to get under her skin—and how quickly her temper flared once he did. Her eyes turned stormy when she was angry, he still remembered that. And when she wasn't, she had a warm, frothy laugh. Maybe he'd gone out of his way to argue with her, but none of the teasing had been malicious, not on his end. He'd enjoyed their sparring matches and assumed she had also. His mistake .

Why she'd been so protective of her sister was still a mystery to him. It wasn't as though he'd shared some deep emotional connection with Paige. They'd only dated for what, two months? Three? That was just shy of his usual relationship cut-off point. Whit had strict rules about relationships to avoid exactly these sorts of messy complications. He preferred to date high-profile women who preferred to date high-profile men, women who already had their eye out for an upgrade by the time they were done with him. Paige had fit the bill perfectly, even though there had never been much chemistry between them. Their relationship probably would've fizzled out on its own, if not for his injury.

And everything that followed after.

It had been a dark time for him, made darker by his own poor decisions and a narrative that had swiftly spun out of control.

He'd been on a high that whole season, coming off a Cy Young win the year before and cruising toward a second, until the wear on his arm had caught up to him. Officially, it had been a forearm strain. But everyone knew what that meant: he was going to need Tommy John surgery—also known as ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, a procedure to replace a tendon in his arm. That would require a year of recovery, followed by several more months ramping back up. After that, it was a roll of the dice if he'd ever be as good as he had been. Whit had already undergone the surgery once, his first year of college, and had battled his way back to dominance through sheer stubbornness and force of will. The prospect of another surgery… that had felt less like a dice roll and more like a death sentence.

Whit hadn't been willing to leave it up to the fates a second time. Instead, he'd listened to a trainer who had advised him on a way to speed up his recovery that was safe, effective—and against the rules of Major League Baseball. It was meant to be secret, a one-time transgression that would afterward go unspoken, and if the guilt gnawed at him, that was something he would deal with in private. He would never have told Paige if she hadn't overheard him discussing it with his trainer. And while it hadn't surprised him that she'd blabbed to her sister, seeing his shame broadcast on national television was something no amount of media training could have prepared him for.

Maybe if he'd shown even a hint of remorse, things would have gone differently—the disaster might have been averted, or at least quickly forgotten. But instead of owning up to his mistakes, Whit had self-destructed. Over the next few months, he'd done everything in his power to prove his critics right. He'd punched a reporter, gotten into brawls both on the field and off, had a messy and highly publicized affair with a reality TV star, and wrecked a motorcycle going twenty miles over the speed limit.

The crash had been his wake-up call. It had been pure luck that he'd survived at all, let alone that he'd escaped from it virtually unscathed—a fact that still woke him in a cold sweat some nights. Since then, he'd kept his image squeaky clean. He'd submitted to intrusive, humiliating interviews that dissected every part of his life, and filled his calendar with charity events and photo ops. The Whit O'Rourke Apology Tour had spanned both coasts and most of the Midwest. But in the end, none of it had helped. The damage had already been done. Almost overnight, he'd gone from rising star to the Bad Boy of Baseball. From generational talent to just another PEDs user. With no one to blame but himself.

But after four years—after suspension, after surgery, after a prolonged recovery built entirely on his own hard work and refusal to quit, he'd once again fought his way back to the top. General managers didn't care about his past. They cared that his fastball still hit ninety-nine and he had a career ERA under 3.00. When he'd reached free agency a year ago, he'd been courted by most of the competitive clubs before deciding to go home and play for the Blizz. He'd dealt with the shame and moved on.

Dealing with Nell Forrester was another matter. Even before she'd started talking, he'd seen the accusation in her huge brown eyes. You haven't changed, those eyes had said. You're the same selfish prick you've always been. And once again, he'd been hell-bent on proving her right.

Determined to put her out of his thoughts, Whit rolled himself out of bed, tugged on a pair of jeans and an old Blizzards warm-up T-shirt, and trotted down the stairs toward the kitchen.

The woman snoring on the couch in his living room made him stop in his tracks.

For one horrified second, he wondered if he'd been more drunk than he remembered. He'd been alone when he'd walked into his house last night. Hadn't he? Whit furrowed his brow, the specter of his first few months in the majors hanging over him, when he'd downed enough alcohol to fuel a semi and woken up with a different woman every morning—sometimes more than one.

Then the woman rolled over, and he saw the faint blue streak in her long, butter-blonde hair.

Right. Allie. He'd been so focused on Nell, he'd forgotten he'd told his sister she could have the couch for the night after her flight to Minneapolis had been delayed. She must have let herself in sometime after midnight and decided not to wake him.

He made his way to the sofa and nudged her lightly. "You're not dead, are you?"

She probably wouldn't have rolled over if she were dead. But still, he figured he might as well check.

His sister grabbed her pillow and used it to cover her face. "Go away."

"I said you could crash here. I didn't say you could drool all over my couch."

She lifted her head to blink blearily up at him. "I'm not drooling."

"Yeah, and before you start, up and at ‘em." He snatched the pillow out of her hands before she could protest. "We need to be out of here by nine if we want to hit Fallen Oaks by lunch."

"What kind of monster wakes up before eight?"

"The kind of monster that's on a schedule."

"Well, I don't plan on being there by lunch."

"Then I hope you've found yourself another ride," Whit tossed over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen .

With a grumble, Allie hauled herself off the couch and padded after him. "As a matter of fact, I do have another ride. Freddie's picking me up."

"Say what?" Whit swung toward the counter to start his pot of coffee. "You wanna run that one by me again?"

"Sure thing," Allie replied. "Freddie. Is. Picking. Me. Up."

"You're bringing Freddie? Freaky Freddie?"

Her first year of college, Allie had chosen to diverge from her sports-obsessed family by dating the geekiest, least athletic guy she could find. That had been Frederick Arroyo, a skinny Puerto Rican engineering student with a passion for science fiction and tabletop gaming, who had disappointed her severely by proving to be an avid fan of both sports in general and baseball in particular. On the other hand, he'd also annoyed the shit out of their father thanks to his relentlessly upbeat attitude and encyclopedic knowledge of obscure baseball trivia, so Allie had stayed with him until she'd transferred to an out of state school her sophomore year.

Freddie hadn't taken their break up well. He'd gotten drunk and peed on one of the statues of the school's founders, earning him the nickname Freaky Freddie from Whit's other sister, Rory.

Personally, Whit had always liked Freddie. He'd even given him a signed bat at a Blizzards game last season. But as far as he'd known, Allie hadn't been in contact with the guy for the past couple of years.

Allie stuck her hands on her hips. "First, you had better not call him that. And second… yes. Yes, I am." She turned away—but not quite fast enough to hide the slow, sneaky smile that curved across her face.

A little light bulb went off in Whit's head. "This is about that stupid contest you're having with Rory."

She lifted a shoulder. "I confirm nothing."

Whit sighed. His younger sisters had already tried—and failed—to rope him into their Piss Off Dad Contest. Besides being the height of immaturity, their timing could not have been worse. If they managed to screw up the groundbreaking ceremony, they'd be lucky not to find themselves cut off. "And Freddie is your brilliant plan? Dad is gonna toss you out on your ass the second he spots him. "

"Really? Do you think he'll be mad?"

"Think Pompeii."

"Then I am definitely walking away with the trophy."

Whit's brow wrinkled. "Hold up. You guys can't use the trophy for your idiotic contest."

The O'Rourke Family Trophy had sat in their father's office for the better part of twenty years. An old, bent chunk of metal that had served as the reward for some local Little League tournament back in the fifties, the trophy was the pinnacle achievement of the O'Rourke household. Every year, Whit and his sisters had competed for the glory of winning it all: temporary custody of the trophy itself, a small raise in their allowance (permanent), no chores for three blissful weeks, and—of course—gloating rights.

Whit had been the final winner of the trophy, claiming victory over his sisters when he'd been accepted into Vanderbilt his senior year of high school, and he'd been lording it over them for more than a decade. As far as Whit was concerned, that trophy was his.

Allie apparently didn't agree. "Sure we can. We just have to steal it from Dad's office."

Not if Whit had anything to say about it. He didn't particularly want to get embroiled in his sisters' childish schemes, but there were some lines you just didn't cross.

"Don't you think it's time the two of you considered something really outrageous?" he asked. "Like, say, pretending to be adults?" He expected this sort of behavior from Allie, who was the baby of the family and somehow still clinging to teenage rebellion at the advanced age of twenty-four, but Rory going along with the scheme had surprised him.

Allie made a pffft noise. "You're not going to win the Piss Off Dad Contest with an attitude like that."

"Good thing I'm not participating."

"Of course you're participating. Dad is pissed off at you by default. That's like starting the game three runs ahead. "

Whit leaned back against the kitchen counter. "You didn't have to drag Freddie into it, you know. If you really want to annoy Dad, you could just ask what he sent Mom for a wedding present."

"Mom is off-limits," Allie said, in a tone that told him the off-limits rule would be starting immediately. She flopped into one of the kitchen chairs and busied herself on her phone.

Which he supposed was her way of signaling that any discussion of the Piss Off Dad Contest was at an end. But that didn't mean Whit wasn't going to do his best to spike his sisters' wheels. His father wasn't the only one who wanted—hell, needed — this week to go smoothly. Whit's reputation was finally on the mend, but it was a slow process , and displaying a united front with his father, who would never have let any such scandal taint his legacy, would go a long way toward repairing it.

The problem was, Allie was right. Even before Whit had proved himself the family disappointment, he and his father had never had the easiest relationship. Strained was one way of putting it. Combative was another. Whit preferred to think of it more as a balancing act. In the center of a teeter-totter. Over a volcano.

His whole life, he'd been one misstep from plunging into an inferno.

That misstep had come when the PEDs scandal broke. Publicly, his father had stood by him—said all the right words, released the right statements, the benevolent, supportive father ready to guide his errant son back onto the path of righteousness. Privately, whatever tenuous peace Whit and his father had forged in the years since his parents' divorce had been exploded. Their single phone call on the subject had quickly devolved into a shouting match. Since then it had been a lot of terse conversations and petty arguments. He doubted his father would even have invited him this week, except that he wanted the entire family present for the groundbreaking ceremony.

The Fallen Oaks Fishers being named the Double-A affiliate of the Blizzards and having their own minor league stadium constructed in the center of town was an achievement Whit's father had been working toward for the better part of a decade, long before Whit's own fall from grace had tarnished the O'Rourke name. For the city, it meant commerce: media attention, an influx of tourism, the creation of new jobs—not to mention, the entire week leading up to the groundbreaking was filled with O'Rourke Family Foundation charity events. For Whit's father, it meant cementing himself in the annals of baseball history, proving he could still be a part of the game fourteen years after he'd stopped playing.

For Whit, it was a chance to show he was no longer the Bad Boy of Baseball the media had painted him as. His dad had convinced the legendary sportswriter Jerry Garwood to come out of retirement to cover the groundbreaking, and there was no way Whit was going to pass up that particular stroke of luck. Garwood was respected around the league, and not just by journalists. His in-depth profiles of players had won him a devoted audience; he was smart, he was fair, and though he'd retired before Whit's scandal had broken, he'd always gotten along well with the O'Rourke family. Even without a one-on-one interview, Whit could rely on his coverage to be positive.

"Um. Hey. Whit?" Allie asked, interrupting his thoughts. "What did you do last night?"

Whit grimaced, Nell's face hovering before him. He didn't think acted like a raging dickwad and then had my character eviscerated was the sort of answer Allie was looking for, so he just asked, "Why?"

Allie's grimace matched his own. "Because—and we can file this under things I never thought I would say to my brother —Meltdown has a picture of you getting a blowjob from a groupie."

Whit snorted. Meltdown was an internet tabloid, a knockoff TMZ with few scruples and less legitimacy that had surged into prominence over the past decade. Whit had been featured on it more than once during the height of his scandal, but since most of what they published was pure bullshit, he'd done his best to ignore it. Which was exactly what he planned to do now. "That definitely didn't happen."

Allie shoved her phone at him.

"Holy shit." Whit gaped at the screen. That was his face, all right. That was the Clash T-shirt he'd been wearing yesterday. The giant bass mounted on the wall to his right and the backdrop of beer signs clearly marked the location as Gills. The bar was dimly lit, the rest of the decor fading into anonymity in the darkness of the hall behind him—though, of course, the problem wasn't what was behind him. It was what was in front of him. Or rather, who was in front of him.

Nell Forrester, on her knees, the back of her head lit like a halo by the glare of the neon sign above her.

The photographer had taken the shot at the perfect angle. Whit knew that Nell hadn't actually been all that close to him. And that his jeans had absolutely not been unzipped. But the image staring back at him from his sister's phone made it seem as though, well…

"Don't you think I'd be looking a little happier?" he asked, unable to tear his eyes away from the innocent-but-incriminating image before him.

" That's gonna be your defense?"

"No, my defense is that it's bullshit. It's one blurry picture from a bad angle."

"Actually, it's three. And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go bleach my eyeballs."

He snorted again. "There was nothing sexual going on, believe me."

"And she was what, just down there looking for her keys?"

"If this were legit, there would be video. And if there were video, you'd be able to hear that the only thing she was doing with her mouth was insulting me."

"You sure about that?" Allie snatched her phone back out of his hands. She hesitated a moment, shuddered, and then turned the screen toward him. "I am going to need so much therapy after this."

A second later, Nell's voice floated toward him. " Should I keep going?"

"Holy shit!"

Obviously, the video had been edited. Nell's tone had been slowed and softened so that she sounded almost crooning, and the rest of her sentence had been cut off. The only other noise was the low din of chatter in the background and the faint hum of machinery. Someone had very carefully spliced the audio to create the most damning soundbite they could .

"Look," Whit gritted out, his fingers tightening. "What's happening in that video is not a blowjob. It's a hit job."

His blood went icy, cold fury washing over him.

Nell had set him up.

He didn't know how. He didn't know why.

But he did know she wasn't going to get away with it.

"Didn't your publicist call you yet?" Allie asked. "Or your agent? Or, I don't know, anyone ?"

"I've had my phone turned off." He saw the look of genuine concern on Allie's face and forced himself to stop glowering. "Relax, Allie. No one is going to believe this shit."

As soon as he said it, he knew he was wrong.

Of course they would.

The world was ready to think the worst of him. They wanted to think the worst of him. They were just waiting for him to falter again before they pounced.

"On the bright side," Allie said, "I'm pretty sure you just won the Piss Off Dad Contest."

Whit felt his jaw clench. If the circumstances had been different, he might have just shrugged it off. Hell, a few years ago, he might even have laughed. He wouldn't be the first professional athlete to be caught with his pants down—never mind that his actually hadn't been. Most either ignored it or released an embarrassed mea culpa proclaiming how sorry they were for the pain they had caused their wife or girlfriend or family or whoever. The story died down. A fresh scandal broke. The transgression was forgotten. And the world moved on.

This time it wasn't going to be so simple.

Like it or not, he was going to have to deal with the situation. That meant calling Rebecca, his publicist—who probably wouldn't believe him, either. Thankfully, her job wasn't to believe him; it was damage control. He'd connected with her during the fallout of his PEDs scandal, and after his downward spiral had finally reached rock bottom, she'd taken the tattered shreds of his reputation and begun the painstaking process of stitching them back together. She was the best in the business, clever, careful, and absolutely unflappable. If she could turn an All-Pro quarterback's two month rehab stint into a secret charity function, she could make a fabricated story and a three-second video disappear.

As for Nell—

He'd deal with Nell himself.

She was damn well going to regret screwing with him.

The sound of an engine sputtering outside caught his attention. Whit turned to peer out the blinds, then flicked a glance at Allie. "Looks like your knight is here on his shining steed."

She blinked at him. "What?"

"Sir Frederick, outside, on a motorcycle."

"Please tell me you're joking."

Whit shrugged. "You can still come with me," he tossed behind him as he exited the kitchen and made his way to the front door.

Outside, Freddie stood grinning on the doorstep, clad in torn jeans and an old leather riding jacket, a helmet tucked under one arm. He'd exchanged his glasses for contacts, Whit noted, but aside from that—and a rather sorry attempt at a goatee—he looked as though he hadn't changed much from his college days: a little short, a lot scrawny, and entirely too eager.

"Hey, Freddie," said Whit. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "If you want to use the bathroom before you guys head out, it's down the hall."

"Oh, come on—s till ?" said Freddie. He chuckled good-naturedly. "One incident of public urination and you're branded for life."

"You should ask Whit what he's been doing in public lately," Allie said. She'd wrapped herself in her coat, moving toward the door and peeking out from behind Whit to gaze at Freddie in dismay. "Freddie, I said I wanted to leave at noon."

Freddie tilted his head slightly, squinting toward her. "You said eight."

"I was drunk. Or delusional. I meant noon. And what on earth is that thing? Are you having a mid-life crisis?"

"I'm younger than you are. "

"Then you have no excuse. Do you even know how to ride that?"

"I rode it here, didn't I? What are you doing?"

"I'm hiding. I am filthy and unshowered. Please go away and come back at noon, in an actual vehicle."

"Aw, babe, you always look gorgeous."

"I don't know, she does kind of smell," said Whit.

His sister smacked him on the shoulder.

Whit sidestepped her, then moved back and nudged her forward, through the door, toward Freddie. "You kids have fun."

"How am I supposed to bring my luggage on that?"

"I'll throw your bags in my car," said Whit. "No worries. See you at Dad's!"

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. While you can ," Allie muttered darkly. She turned and followed Freddie to his motorcycle—but not before sticking her middle finger up at Whit. A minute later, they were on the road.

Leaving Whit alone to manage his latest disaster.