He Got Engaged During My Labor, So I Chose His Rival novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Season Ends

Zach's POV

My owner in Tulsa read the morals clause out loud, and then he read it a second time, slower.

"Franklin McClintock called me at home on Sunday," he said. "He plays golf with my brother-in-law."

"I know."

"The clause says conduct unbecoming. A married woman, a rival's wife, a baby on every screen in the country."

"She's divorcing him," I said. "I have a son."

He took off his glasses and looked at me for a while.

"I'm not going to cut you," he said. "I like you. But we're out of the playoffs, so I need a gesture. Sit the last two games, with pay, and the clause goes away."

"With pay?"

"With pay, and with a press release that says personal reasons."

I thought about the last two games.

I thought about a small woman in a blue dress holding up a card, in front of fifty thousand people who had stood.

"Okay," I said. "Put it on paper."

"Do you want to argue?"

"Janie says if it isn't on paper you don't owe it," I said. "I'll take the paper."

I drove to Gretna that same afternoon, five hours, with the radio off.

The truck was loaded to the roof with everything I owned in Tulsa.

There was a lease termination letter on the dash with my signature at the bottom, still wet when I folded it.

I hadn't told anyone.

It was not a term.

It was just the next thing.

Lyle was washing his Corolla in the driveway, and he pointed at the garage with the sponge and said nothing at all.

Janie was in the apartment with a cardboard box open on the bed.

Gus was asleep in his drawer.

She was folding a gray sweatshirt on top of a stack of my things.

It was the sweatshirt from the bar.

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