Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
JAYDEN
Present day
“Again.”
Colby presses the remote button for the pitching machine, and I swing at the inside curveball it delivers, engaging my tired core muscles one more time. It’s a shit swing, and we both know it.
“Again.”
I sigh, but I don’t dare look my coach in the eyes.
I know she will simply glare at me and tell me to dig deeper.
If you want it in this game, you have to earn it.
Names and legacies only get you so far. I mean, hell, look at Jake.
His dad’s a legend, and he can’t get a start in Sweetwater.
What’s nuts is he puts in the work too. The grind is fucking brutal. It wears a man down.
“Close it up,” Colby orders, and I adjust my front foot before she sends the next pitch my way. I hit this one solid. At least, solid enough for her to grant me a break.
“Clean up,” she says, pulling her phone from her back pocket and sifting through emails or texts or some shit. I’m not even certain what she’s looking at is real. I just know she makes herself busy any time the two of us have a chance to talk.
I’ve always been a bit in awe of Colby and her drive. But damn, the way she flipped that switch two days ago and put the wall up again the second she told me Coach was looking to send me to Texas soon . . . I wish my switch was as certain as hers, is all.
Sure, I sat back and really listened. My chest swelled with anticipation, with a taste of the dream. Colby’s right—I want this. But I also want her. And damn if I didn’t go right back to dreaming of her with my eyes open.
The way I’ve replayed our kiss from years ago every few minutes since my tongue tasted her neck is insane.
It’s on this constant loop, and I can’t fucking let go of the thought that she wanted me to kiss her.
She moved into me, her head tilling slightly when my lips grazed her neck. Her breath stopped.
I gather my hit balls into a bucket and then into the machine. I’m relieved when the whir of the motor shuts off.
“Oh, thank God!” I say as I meander toward Colby. I undo the Velcro on my gloves and yank them from my sweaty palms, turning them inside out while I’m at it. I toss them on my gear bag then grab my Gatorade, guzzling down the remaining twenty ounces of orange liquid. I want more.
“You did good work. I told Coach you’re ready, not that my word carries all the weight.
” Her eyes are still on her phone screen, so I strain my neck in an attempt to peek at it.
I see a text string with Coach, and I’m not sure whether I’m glad to see she’s truly talking with him, or disappointed that she isn’t faking as an excuse to avoid me.
The sun went down an hour ago. I put in the extra work for this.
I spent most of the day reviewing pitching film and stats on the guys I’ll face in Little Rock, then working through pitching sequences for my at-bats out here with Colby.
My hands are raw, the leather of my batting gloves wearing thin from all the reps I’ve taken.
I’ll grab a new pair from our equipment manager before we take off tomorrow.
“You should try to get some good sleep tonight. If memory serves me correctly, you don’t sleep well on road trips,” Colby says, a faint smirk playing at her lips. She still won’t look at me directly.
“You would know. I think we shared a back seat for every game until you ditched me for softball,” I say with a sneer.
“Hey, don’t diss my sport,” she says, glancing in my direction for a beat.
I manage to catch her gaze, and while brief, our connection levels me enough that I can’t help but open my fucking big mouth.
“What are we doing?”
Her attention drops to the ground, but I see enough of her face to notice the furrow in her brow.
“I don’t know what you mean. We’re packing up for the night, Jayden. I’m going home. Then we’re heading to Arkansas on a bus in the morning.” She flashes me a forced smile that I don’t buy for a second.
“Stop it.” I lean my weight against the hitting tunnel gate, essentially blocking her way out.
Her eyes dim. “Tell me to move, and I’ll move.
Or . . . stay here and talk to me. Not about baseball, but about us.
” My pulse speeds up as her eyes flit around the tight space we’re in, our quiet surroundings, the lack of any other player or coach on the field or in the tunnels.
I think I saw Coach Shuster pack up and leave an hour ago.
“Fine. Move.”
I do as she asks because I would never actually hold her hostage. That’s the kind of shit my brother pulls with people. It’s the stuff my dad did when he was drunk and cornered my brother in the kitchen after a bad at-bat during Little League.
Colby jerks the gate open the second I step out of the way, so I drop my head and shuffle back a few steps to collect my gear bag. I’m bent with it halfway zipped when the gate flings open again and Colby’s feet are in my periphery.
“What happened back then? When we were eighteen. When you kissed me. What did my dad say to you? Why did you leave me, like, completely?” Her voice breaks, and it stabs at my heart to hear how hurt she was. How hurt she still is.
“Colby, I was young. We were both leaving for college. It was a stupid time to start something, and—”
“Stop lying!” Her hands ball into fists at her sides. My gaze drops to her hips, my attention caught by her sway as she rocks side to side, her body working off the angry buzz brewing in her belly.
I lick my lips and take a deep breath before lifting my gaze back to hers. My head tilts, and her mouth quivers into a frown.
“Colby, please don’t . . .”
She laughs, but not in a joyful way. It’s the sort of laugh that seeps out through heartbreak. She shakes her head.
“I have held this in for too long, Jayden. Too long. And I just can’t anymore. I . . . can’t.” She flattens a palm on her chest.
I drop my bag and rush to her, steadying her shaking body with my hands on her biceps as she struggles to breathe.
“Did he tell you to stay away?” She peers up at me, her sad eyes heavy with everything she already knows. I can’t lie to her. Even if I can’t bring myself to say yes, she sees it on my face.
“Why?” She clutches at the center of her polo shirt, her eyes welling with more tears.
“Because he loves you, and he was still hurting,” I say, pulling her into my arms. She balls my shirt in her fists as she flattens her cheek against my collarbone.
“I waited for you. I sat in that stupid parking lot, at stupid Pete’s Fish and Chips, getting refill after refill while people we knew came and went. I said I was waiting for you, waiting to celebrate with my friend.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. They’re the words I should have said then but didn’t. The words I decided weren’t good enough. Because I wasn’t good enough.
“You shouldn’t have listened to him, Jayden. Why did you listen to him?” Her voice is faint, and I think it’s because she knows why.
As much as he was her father, he was also mine. And he asked out of love. Because he loves her more than anything in the world. And because she was all he had left.
“I’m here now, though. We’re both here now.” I pull back, leaving enough room for her chin to lift and her gaze to reach mine.
She quickly deflates, but she stays in my embrace.
“We can’t, Jayden. I’ll lose my job.”
I shake my head.
“I don’t think you will. Couples work together in lots of places, and it’s not like you have any power to—”
“Tell Coach you’re ready for Texas? To sign off on you being fit to swing? To influence your spot in the lineup.”
Fuck. She’s right.
“So we’ll be careful.” I move my hand to her face, and the way she leans into my palm fills me with promise.
“No,” she says, but her tone sounds less certain.
“Not everyone here believes in me, Jayden. You don’t understand what it’s like. You couldn’t. There are people looking for me to fuck up, who are waiting to call me out and embarrass me. I have to be perfect.” Her eyelashes flit until her gaze rests back on mine.
“Nobody will ever have to know. And then one day, when we’re with different teams—”
She breathes out a sharp laugh.
“What?” I ask.
She steps away from my touch, and the sudden emptiness feels so wrong I almost rush to grab hold of her again.
“Think about that for a second. We can be together . . . when we’re apart? That’s ridiculous, Jay. That’s not a healthy way to start anything.”
“Okay, but it’s better than not knowing,” I plead.
She chews at the inside of her cheek as her eyes dim and her hands wring with nerves.
“Than not knowing?” she asks.
“How you feel.”
Her breath hitches as her eyes widen, her gaze locked on mine as the teeming energy that was vibrating her body suddenly halts.
“Colby, I don’t think I can handle going one more day . . . without knowing how you feel,” I say, taking slow steps back to her.
Her throat moves with a hard swallow and my eyes dart to her neck, to the spot where my lips were a day before.
“I need to know what your lips feel like on mine,” I say, looping a finger in the collar of her shirt and tugging, coaxing her toward me.
She shuffles forward, and my palm glides along her jaw, moving her hair away from the nape of her neck so my thumb can tease her soft skin until she breaks out into goose bumps.
“I need to know they’re how I remember them . . . your lips,” I say, lowering my mouth to her neck and kissing her softly.
Her head tilts to the side, opening to me.
“And I want to know how your skin feels against mine.” My hand glides down her arm as I suckle at her neck, my fingertips flirting with her waist, slowly pulling her tucked shirt free from the band on her black joggers.
A tiny gasp breaks through her lips when my fingers graze against her bare skin, sliding around her oblique to the curve of her lower back.
“Like satin,” I whisper against her ear.
“Jayden,” she hums my name.
“Hmm,” I say, nipping at her ear, praying she turns into me rather than offers a renewed campaign for all the reasons we shouldn’t do this. Any of this.
“Is this real?” Her voice is hoarse, and her eyes search mine before closing, her face inching forward until our noses touch.
“It’s always been real, Colby. You and me? We’ve been real my entire life. It’s always been you.”
My fingertips move to her chin, and I guide her mouth to mine until our lips touch. Everything slows. My breathing. Our pulses. Time.
I make it so. Nothing about this can be rushed. Every move of my lips is intentional. I suck on her upper lip and tease it with my tongue, letting my hold on her break only when a moan emanates from her and I’m forced to smile.
“Nobody can know,” she says, finally on board with my plan, however crazy it might be. It’s the only option I have left. I can’t be around her like this, working so closely and not thinking about all the things we were and should have been.
I have to know.
“Nobody will know,” I affirm before deepening our kiss.
Her hands glide up my neck, sinking into my hair and tossing my hat to the ground.
I lift her, and her legs automatically wrap around me, our bodies knowing exactly what to do.
I spin until her back is against the metal fencing that separates this tunnel from the next one, and press my swollen cock against her center to ease the growing ache.
When her hands drop to my hips and pull me into her even harder, I groan against her lips, dropping my mouth to her neck so I can catch my breath and will myself not to fucking come in my goddamn baseball pants.
“Take me home. With you. I want to know. I need to know,” she says.
I leave one hand under her thighs, holding her between me and the fence while my other hand smooths away the hair that’s fallen over her face.
I look her in her eyes to be sure, because as much as this is the kind of thing that needs consent, for us, this decision carries more risk.
And sadly, she will bear the brunt. I can’t be the one to fuck things up for her, but if she asks me to be with her, I also can’t say no.
I won’t. I will never say no to being with her again.
“I need to know how you feel,” she says, sliding out of my grip and gliding her palm down my chest, my stomach, to my hard cock.
“How this feels. How all of you feels. How we feel.”
I lick my lips and hold her stare for a beat, my cock flexing against the warmth of her palm.
If she told me to, I’d rip her clothes off and fuck her right now, in the middle of the Mavericks hitting tunnels.
But she seems willing to take her time. To take our time.
And she’s right. We both deserve to know.
And I intend to show her.