“It’s not—” Cassandra started to speak, but Emmy shot her a look that dared her to continue the sentence. Cassandra didn’t rise to the challenge and fell silent.
“You think that’s what this is?” Simon asked.
“Look at it from my perspective and tell me what else I’m supposed to think. I go see you in Chicago, and she’s on her way over. Fine, I believed you then. But I’m supposed to think this is all sweetness and innocence when you have another woman in your hotel room this late at night? I’m not an idiot, Simon.”
“Neither am I, Emmy,” he shot back.
Emmy sputtered, her cheeks hot and most likely very red. “What does that mean?”
“Guys, I’m going to go…” Cassandra tried to edge around Emmy, but Simon stopped her.
“No, you stay for a second,” Simon said.
A pit of fear settled in Emmy’s belly. Guilt swirled uncomfortably in her gut.
Simon continued, “You’ve been avoiding me. You barely replied to my text messages today. You refused to meet me for dinner after the game. How do you think that looks from my end?”
She hadn’t realized her avoidance was so apparent. As it turned out, she was as bad at passively avoiding conflict as she was at facing it head-on.
“I’m sorry.”
“When you didn’t come over after the game like you said you were going to, I called the only friend I had in the city. And yes, believe it or not, that’s all this is. Friendship. Cassandra and I have been working on a book together about legacy sports franchises in Chicago.”
“Oh.” Emmy hadn’t the faintest clue he’d been working on a book. “I didn’t know.”
“No, because you don’t ask. You never ask. We don’t talk anymore.”
“I know.”
“And when we do talk, all I hear is baseball. Baseball, baseball and more fucking baseball. I love sports too, Em, but there’s more to life than the Felons and Tucker Lloyd.”
Her heart skipped a beat at the mention of Tucker’s name, and she was reminded of her reason for coming to see Simon in the first place. Now that she was able to process it, she became aware he was berating her in the middle of a hotel corridor for being a bad girlfriend.
She had the obvious solution for both their problems.
“I think we should break up,” she said, her tone flat.
Simon, it seemed, had been building up to say more, but his words sputtered and came to a full stop. “What?”
“I think we should break up,” she repeated.
“Because I said there was more to life than baseball?”
The timing of her words could have been better, evidently, but it didn’t matter. Now that she’d said them, there was no turning back.
“No. Because we don’t love each other anymore.”
Poor Cassandra, still standing in the door between them, was looking at the ceiling trying her darnedest not to draw attention to herself, but Emmy could tell from the flushed color of Cassandra’s neck and the sweat on her brow she was uncomfortable as hell. Who could blame her?
“Em…”
“Don’t try to disagree now. Not after your whole speech. You know it’s true, and it’s time we admitted it. My life isn’t in Chicago anymore, it’s here. And it isn’t fair for either of us to pretend that isn’t true. Maybe there is more to life than baseball, but right now my life is the Felons…and Tucker Lloyd… That’s my world.”
“After four years, that’s it? You’re picking a losing franchise over me?”
She pursed her lips, fixing him with a cool glare. “That’s not fair.”
“I feel like this is a conversation you guys should have had before Emmy moved,” Cassandra pointed out.
Maybe every breakup needed an awkward third-party mediator. It wasn’t like the situation was fun to begin with, so why not make it even more absurd?
“It’s over,” Emmy said. “And Cassandra’s right. I think we knew it was over when I left.”
Simon’s shoulders slumped. He was a competitive guy by nature, and Emmy suspected he would view the end of their relationship as a challenge he’d lost. “Are you sure?”
Emmy had to laugh. Both Simon and Cassandra were visibly startled by her outburst, taking a step backwards each.
“Considering your little rant not two minutes ago, I would have figured you’d be relieved.”
“Are you?”
She toyed with the strap on her purse, avoiding his gaze for as long as she could without being cruel. “A little bit.”
Simon braced his arm on the wall inside the doorway and looked from Emmy to Cassandra and back again. “This might be the strangest breakup I’ve ever been through.”