older man who was gawking at him.
“A World Series champ right here at my bar.” He smiled at Rosalie. “What can I get for you, beautiful young lady?”
“I’ll take the snowflake martini, please.”
“Nice, the house specialty for the season.” He slipped another napkin in front of Nic and handed him a pen. “Would you mind? My grandson is a huge baseball fan.”
“Of course not.” Nic took the pen. “What’s his name?”
“Joey, after me,” he replied. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll take a Stella.” He sprawled his name across the small napkin. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.” The man looked down at the signature before tucking it neatly into his pocket. “You’re a class act. I’ll be right back with the drinks.”
“I can’t believe you’re a celebrity.” When she smiled, she looked just like her sister. “How cool is that?”
“It has its perks.” It had taken him some time to get used to people asking for his autograph, but now things like that came naturally, especially since his team had won the series. “So, does she know I’m coming?” He saw no reason to stall. Rosalie helped him put this plan in motion.
“She should be here in about five minutes.” She smiled at the bartender as he placed their drinks in front of them. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Joe said, before walking to the other side of the huge rectangular shaped bar to take another order.
“That’s a fru-fru drink,” Nic teased her. “When Sage was around your age, she was throwing beer back from a bottle. Not some dainty martini with flavored vodka.”
“Yeah, well, she was dating a rough baseball player back then.” She sipped her drink. “She would have done anything he asked her to do. Gone anywhere he said to follow.”
He chugged his beer, letting the bitterness of the ale slide down his throat as Rosalie’s words sunk in.
“But the past is in the past,” she said. “You need to focus on today.”
“Did you tell her I was going to be here?” he asked again.
“We wanted her to come, didn’t we?”
“Is she still that mad at me?” Sage was a stubborn girl, but could she still hold that much of a grudge? “I tried to reach out to her in the beginning, but she wanted no part of it. You were a kid, so you probably don’t remember.”
“I remember it all, Nicky.” She swirled her finger around the sugared rim of her glass. “It took her years to recover from your break up. She became cold and distant. She buried herself in her education, and then, when she graduated, she became so determined to succeed in the sports industry that she gave up almost all of her twenties trying to get where she is today. She’s never forgotten you.”
“Or forgiven me.” He finished his beer, signaling for another. “That’s a hard pill to swallow.”
“I know why you did it.”
“I’m not even sure why I did it, anymore.” He gave Joe a thumbs-up when he replaced his empty beer bottle with a new one. “I was young and stupid, I guess.”
“You listened to my father.” She stared and him, waiting for his reaction, but he played it cool.
He wrapped his hand around his bottle, still not confirming her suspicions. He couldn’t blame Dr. Millan for the choices he had made before heading to Rhode Island. They were all his to own.
He thought about that day. He and Sage had flown to Boston. He wanted to tell his parents in person that he’d been drafted to the minors. Sage went home to tell her parents they were relocating to Rhode Island so he could pursue his career. Nic wanted to ask her father for his permission to marry his daughter. She was giving up so much to follow him on the road. He wanted her to know how serious he took her dedication by asking her to marry him. He wanted her to know she was his one and only. Her father put a stop to his aspirations.
“I was in the hallway when you went into his study that day. You wanted to marry her.”
“You