“I’ll be right back.” I took his phone up to my bedroom and plugged it in.

  When I came back down and sat next to him, he was picking at his food, almost like he was trying to find things that would be mushy enough to eat without causing him pain.

  He took a few more bites of his mashed potatoes before reaching for the bowl of applesauce. “This is really good,” he said after taking a giant spoonful.

  “It’s homemade.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit,” I repeated, wanting to touch the swelling on his cheek with my fingers but not wanting to hurt him.

  Without warning, Mac launched into what had happened at his house this morning. I sat there, listening, trying to keep my emotions in check and biting my tongue the whole time as he told me every pain-filled detail. But I was horrified. And shocked. I had no idea what to say or how to help. I’d never been in this kind of a situation before.

  “Is your mom okay?” was all I asked once I thought he was finished talking.

  “I don’t know, but I’m worried sick,” he said.

  “I’ll go get your phone.” I ran back upstairs to grab it, knowing that it wouldn’t even remotely be fully charged yet, but it would be enough to send a text or call.

  “Here.” I handed it to him, and I’d noticed there were over thirty text messages waiting to be read. I knew that half of those were from me. “I might have gone a little crazy earlier when I couldn’t get ahold of you,” I admitted, feeling like a possessive girlfriend, but I’d been worried.

  “It’s okay. I like your crazy.” He patted my hand before clicking on the Messages app and pulling them up. His body instantly released some of its tension. “She left the house before he got back,” he said, his eyes instantly watering, and I watched as he tried to wipe the unshed tears away, not wanting to cry in front of me.

  “So, she’s somewhere safe then?”

  “I’m going to call her real quick,” he said, his fingers frantically scrolling and then pressing buttons before he held the phone to his ear.

  “Mom. Yeah, I’m okay. I’m at Sunny’s.”

  Pause.

  His eyes found mine, and he stared right at me while he listened. He sucked in a breath. “I know. He reported the car stolen. The cops were cool. Are you okay? You did? Let me know if you need me to come get you or anything. I know. Mom, I know. Yeah. I love you too. Don’t tell anyone where you are. Call me anytime. Bye.”

  I only heard his side of things, but it filled in a lot of the blanks and questions I’d had since he arrived.

  He ended the call and held his phone tight in his hand, like he couldn’t bear the thought of letting it go.

  “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah. She’s at a hotel under a fake name while she figures out what to do next.”

  “What do you think she’ll do?”

  He looked down at his food and slowly shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.”

  We spent the rest of the evening on the couch, watching old Christmas movies with my parents and the dogs. At one point, Mac was on the ground with them, his arm wrapped around a giant Lab while a rottweiler sat in his lap.

  “I always wanted a dog,” he said, and my mom proceeded to try to talk him into taking one ... or three. “Thank you, Mrs. Jamison, but I don’t have the time. Baseball starts in a week,” he added, and my heart started racing.

  This was what we’d been waiting for.

  All of Mac’s hopes and dreams were riding on this upcoming season. And we wouldn’t even know if his hard work had paid off until the end of it. If anyone deserved a chance at happiness, it was Mac Davies. But if I’d learned anything at all this year, it was that people didn’t always get what they deserved. And that sometimes, life threw you a shit sandwich and expected you to be grateful for the meal.

  Gifts & Goodies

  Sunny

  My parents were ridiculously cool and calm when it came to our sleeping arrangements. They had no issues with Mac sleeping in my room and in my bed, even though my dad did say, “No funny business under my roof.”

  Mac was respectful, shook his hand, and reassured him that he would never do that. My mom winked at me, and I huffed out an annoyed breath.

  “Take her away, please,” I said to my dad as I gave my mom a slight shove.

  Once we were in my room, Mac looked around, taking in all the boy band posters that still lined my walls and pictures of me with friends. Why was it that our childhood rooms stayed the exact way in which we’d left them?

  “Your room is so you,” he said as he leaned down to look at some old pictures of me from high school.

  “I’m taking that as a compliment.” I moved to my bed and fluffed the pillows up against the wall, so I could lean up against them.

  Mac reached into one of his duffel bags and struggled to pull something out.

  “Is that my present?” I asked, noticing the familiar wrapping paper still firmly in place.

  Mac and I had exchanged presents before he left for Arizona, and we weren’t allowed to open them until Christmas Day. No exceptions.

  “You said we were going to open our presents together. Did you already open yours?”

  I softly shook my head. We had promised to do it over video chat.

  “It’s up there.” I pointed toward my dresser, where the small box waited, still tempting me. “I had to hide it.”

  He smirked. “Why?”

  “ ’Cause I wanted to open it so bad! I made my sister keep it until this morning. It’s been torture,” I admitted because the present was the size of a jewelry box, and I was coming out of my skin, waiting to see what was in it.

  “Open it.” He gave a slight head nod toward the gift, and I jumped off the bed and grabbed it.

  Carefully peeling open the wrapping paper, I sighed when I saw the familiar Tiffany blue box underneath. I’d never gotten anything from Tiffany’s before, but I still knew exactly what it was, based on the familiar teal-blue color alone.

  My jaw dropped as I looked at Mac, who sat there, watching me with all of his attention. I tore through the main box, and there was another smaller one inside. Taking it out, I opened it to see a gorgeous necklace with a massive yellow stone and a tiny silver bee sitting on the edge of it. It was stunning.

  “Mac,” I said because this had to be expensive, and neither one of us had a job.

  “Do you like it?” he asked, clearly wanting my approval.

  “It’s gorgeous, but it’s too much,” I said.

  He shook his head. “It’s not enough.” He took the box from my hand, and I turned to face the mirror on my wall. Undoing the clasp, he wrapped the necklace around my neck and fastened it before stepping to the side.

  My hand instinctively went to the gemstone, touching it as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. It was beautiful, and it did look really nice on me. “What is the stone? Do you know?”

  “Yellow quartz. It’s from their Love Bugs collection. They had other colors, but I wanted to get you the yellow one. I know it’s obvious since your name is Sunny and all, but it suited you the most and it’s your favorite color,” he explained.

  I loved hearing all the thought he’d put into buying me this gift. He hadn’t just walked into the store and picked out the first thing he’d seen.

  “When did you get it?”

  “When we were in New York.”

  My jaw dropped open again. “What? When?”

  We had been together almost every waking moment, so how had he found time to go to Tiffany’s without me noticing? And how did he go there without me?

  “I told you Chance and I were working out. We went to Tiffany’s instead. Apparently, that’s where his dad bought his mom’s engagement ring,” he added with a smile before wincing again. “I just wanted to look around. I wasn’t sure I’d even like anything there, but then I saw that collection and couldn’t walk away.”

  I swallowed hard as he kept talking, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He’d noticed.

  “It had to be expensive. Your dad—” I started to explain when he cut me off.

  “I bought it with my own money. I have a savings account,” he said.

  I hadn’t known that. I’d thought that all of his money came from his father, and I’d hated thinking that his dad had “technically” bought me this.

  His response visibly relieved me, making me more willing to accept the gift even though it was still way too much. But he’d bought me jewelry!

  “Thank you. I love it. It’s so beautiful.” I kissed him softly, almost forgetting about his jaw, but he pushed me away.

  “I can’t. It hurts. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. Do you think you should go to the doctor?” I asked, suddenly more worried than I was a second ago.

  “No. I don’t think anything’s broken. Just sore. It will heal on its own.”

  “Okay. But if it gets worse, we’ll go, right?”

  “Yeah, babe. We’ll go if it gets worse,” he said, purely to placate me, but I allowed it.

  “Now, open yours. It’s not expensive or anything.” I started to feel a little stupid because my gift couldn’t compare to his. It had barely cost me a thing.

  He tore through the wrapping paper, leaving bits and pieces of Santa all over the floor of my room in a messy pile. When he noticed that it was a book, he looked at me with a confused expression before he opened it. Each page was filled with baseball articles featuring Mac Davies, going back as early as I could find them online. The first one was when he was ten years old and had made the local all-stars team.

  I had at least one article that mentioned his name every year since. I’d searched for weeks, printing out every single thing I’d found on him and basically putting together a glorified scrapbook, like most parents would have done for their kids but I knew that his hadn’t.

  He flipped through the pages, his fingers running across each column and picture that showed his name and face. “This is all about me?” He sounded like he’d never even known the articles existed in the first place.

  “Yeah. From ten years old until this past summer. I’ll add this season’s, too, once it starts,” I explained, and he still looked bewildered.

  “You did this for me?”

  “Yes. Do you hate it? Do you think it’s stupid?” I asked because maybe he thought it was dumb. Maybe the last thing he wanted was a book filled with all of his accomplishments for him to look back on. I wasn’t sure.

  “I think it’s amazing. I’ve never even seen these before,” he said as he continued turning each page carefully. “This must have taken you days.”

  “Weeks,” I teased even though it was true.

  He’d played on so many different teams throughout the years that finding them all had been a pain in the ass but totally worth it.

  “No one has ever done anything like this for me before, Sunny. Thank you.” He looked up, his eyes glassy as he pulled me into his arms.

  “You really like it?”

  “I love it.” He gave me a kiss on the cheek, his lips barely able to form a pucker.

  When he started to yawn but flinched from the pain, I held him.

  “Let’s get ready for bed,” I suggested, and he nodded.

  We both walked into the guest bathroom, and I brushed my teeth while he basically attempted to eat toothpaste. Brushing hurt, moving his mouth hurt, opening his jaw hurt, and swishing any kind of liquid was out of the question.

  Once we changed into appropriate sleepwear with parents in the house, I turned off my light, and we crawled into bed. Mac had to lie on his back since being on his side caused him more pain.

  If I wasn’t so desperate to make him comfortable, I’d be more focused on plotting his dad’s murder. But Mac feeling better was at the forefront of my mind. I just wanted my boyfriend to be okay.

  “Want to tell me what happened to your car?” I asked as we lay in the dark, suddenly remembering the one-sided conversation with his mom from earlier.

  “I was driving here. I got pulled over. Car had been reported stolen,” he explained like he was giving me the CliffsNotes version, but I wanted more information.

  “Why’d you get pulled over?”

  “I was speeding.”

  “How fast were you going?” I asked, wondering if he had been driving as desperately as I knew he’d felt.

  The mattress shifted as he moved his pillow around. “Eighty. It was too fast. I knew better. My car’s a cop magnet.”

  “So, what happened then?”

  He inhaled quickly before blowing out a long breath. “The cop asked if I knew why he pulled me over. I said yes. He asked for my license and registration. When he came back, he asked me to step out of the car.”

  “Were you scared?” I imagined how terrified I’d be if a cop asked me to get out of my car.

  “No,” he said matter-of-factly. “He told me that the car had been reported stolen by a Richard Davies, and then he asked me if I knew him.” Mac let out a sick-sounding laugh. “I told him that was my dad and that we had an argument and I took off.”

  “I can’t believe he reported your car stolen,” I said, still surprised by each new piece of information I’d learned.

  “I can. Anyway, the cop actually asked me if he did this to my face.”

  “Oh, wow. What’d you say?”

  “I said no.”

  “Do you think he believed you?”

  “I’m not sure. But he told me that he couldn’t let me go with the car because whenever he stopped someone, he called it in, and now, it was on record in the system and blah, blah, blah.” He stopped clarifying, but I knew what he was saying. The cop would have gotten into trouble if he’d let Mac leave with a stolen car. “He said that if this were any other situation, I’d be arrested and charged with vehicle theft. But he had some discretion in the matter, and technically, he was only required to bring in the car. Not me.”

  “So, he let you go.” I reached out and searched for his hand before finally finding it. It was at an awkward angle, but I took it in mine anyway and held on tight.

  “Yeah. We actually moved off of the freeway and into a restaurant parking lot. He let me get all of my things out of the car before he called a tow truck. And then he made sure I got a ride to your house before he took off.”

  His thumb started drawing lazy circles on top of my hand. I loved whenever he did that.

  “Where was this? How far away were you?”

  “About an hour out. The ride-share guy wasn’t too happy, but I gave him a big cash tip.”

  “Where’s your car now?”

  “Some impound lot. I don’t know. I don’t care.”

  “And you’re just going to leave it there?”

  “It’s not mine anyway. And I don’t want it. I don’t want anything from him anymore.”

  We stayed quiet after that, listening to nothing but the sound of our breathing.

  “I’m sorry all this happened,” I said, not knowing what else to say, but wanting to say something. I felt so out of my element when it came to this kind of parental drama and horror. I couldn’t relate on any level.

  He reached out for me and pulled me onto his chest, his fingers running through my hair. “Thank you for being here. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  I felt the tears rush to my eyes with his words. Mac hadn’t had to come here, to my parents’ house. He could have gone to the baseball house, to Coach Carter’s, or to one of his teammate’s instead. But he’d chosen me. I knew how big of a deal that was for him ... for us.

  When his world had started crashing around him, he had driven straight to my arms. Literally. As that realization and the weight of the day finally hit me, I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. I’d been holding it all in, and now, in the dark, I didn’t have to anymore.

  “I love you, Mac.”

  The arm that held me gripped me tighter in response. “I love you too, babe. Never leave me.”

  “Never,” I said in my most confident tone, making a promise I had every intention of keeping.

  I should have known that, eventually, Mac wouldn’t feel the same.

  New Year, New Me

  Mac

  I’d spent the last few days holed up in Sunny’s house with her parents. They made it ridiculously easy to feel like I belonged there even if all their attention was a little uncomfortable. I wasn’t used to being taken care of. The way they fawned all over me, fed me nonstop, and made sure my face healed properly with constant ice and Advil. Plus, I got to play and walk the dogs whenever I wanted, which made me insanely happy. I couldn’t believe I’d never had a dog before, and now, all I wanted was one. Or five.

  Nah, just one.

  Sunny made a good point one afternoon while we were walking two of the dogs. Dayton was already at the baseball house, a good week before we had to report in for baseball, and I was considering going back too. But Sunny suggested that I stay away from Fullton until at least the bruises faded. They were almost gone, but a nice purple hue still shaded part of my jaw toward my mouth.

  When she offered to cover it up with makeup, I told her, “Thank you, but no chance in hell.”

  She said that people would buy the car accident and air bag story, but that it would lead to a lot of questions and unwanted attention, especially as long as I couldn’t eat solid foods, which I was still struggling with. My jaw fucking ached, and the force of my dad’s blows had caused some of my teeth to loosen. They were tightening back up on their own though—something I’d had no idea that teeth had the ability to do, but I was grateful for it. I couldn’t imagine if my teeth had fallen out.

  When Sunny also added that my coaches would freak out when they heard about the accident and demand to see me, interrogate me, and possibly sit me out if they thought it was in my best interest, I realized that staying out of sight until I had to report back for practice was a necessity. The last thing I needed was my coaches worrying about my family situation and my state of mind regarding it. Especially now that I’d handled it. I’d left. There was nothing to work out, analyze, or discuss.