11. ~ Char ~
CHAPTER 11
~ Char ~
H alf an hour later, James and I were in front of my place, the setting sun bouncing off the windshield of his Range Rover, baseball gloves in hand.
“Got somewhere we can play?” he asked. He was wearing a soft grey, loose sweatshirt and black track pants. Instead of looking like he was giving up on life, he looked buff and athletic.
And so very handsome. Maybe part of it was the new haircut. His sandy hair was tousled and yummy, and he was grinning, a bounce in his step. He seemed so genuinely happy to see me. Was I more in need of a friendly face than I’d realized? Or was my crush worsening?
Maybe I was just blue. That point in my cycle where everything felt hopeless, coupled with the reality that it all truly was—from my finances to my dating life.
“By the time we get to the river park, it’ll be dark.” It was a couple of kilometres from my place—2.5km to be exact—and with no nearby parking. There was nothing close, and nothing in Everstone.
Again, we needed a park.
I sighed and James said cheerily, “The street it is.”
I eyed James’s Range Rover and Randy’s candy-red sports car. “We should go further down.”
We walked until there were fewer parked cars, stopping near the trashy empty lot and its surrounding brick buildings. It was flanked by a small, no longer functioning bread factory and a small insurance agency with grubby windows. But my eyes were drawn to the gaping section of chain-link fence from where the paramedics had cut their way into the lot last night. The landowner really needed to get down here and clean things up ASAP. But maybe they no longer wanted the land, and I could buy it and make it into a park. Or at the very least, slip in and take the sharp-edged piece of metal siding and hide it somewhere so the kids would stop using it as a slide.
James and I rolled our shoulders and stretched, then started a gentle game of catch. While we moved, I practiced saying Estelle’s mantra, hoping that helping out James would grant me at least a few bucks against what I owed.
“Do you have a catcher’s mask?” James asked as we finished our warmup.
I shook my head. “Just don’t throw it at my face.” I squatted into a catcher’s pose and slapped my mitt. “Come on, lay it on me. I have good reflexes.”
He threw a few easy tosses as though playing with a child. Realizing I could truly catch, he started adding more heat and speed to each successive one that I caught. A few of them stung the palm, even though I was wearing a mitt.
“How fast do you pitch?” I asked, leaning to the side to catch one that was outside the strike zone.
He shrugged. “Fast enough. You’re good.”
“Thanks.”
The zip of the ball relaxed me, and I found myself smiling, having fun. I likely wasn’t putting good out into the world, just my own heart, but it felt nice and I realized there was nowhere else I’d rather be.
“You should join the team,” he said. “It’s co-ed.”
“The team?” I shook my head, thinking of the sixteen-hundred or so good deeds a day I needed to accomplish. “I don’t have the time.”
“We only practice once a week, and have a game every other weekend in June and July.”
“Short season.”
“Leisure league.” He smiled.
“I’ll think about it.”
“I’ll send you the sign-up form.”
Unable to hide my pleasure, I smiled back, warmth flowing through my veins. “Yeah? You think you’ve convinced me to join?”
“The team usually grabs drinks and nachos after practices and games. I’ll buy you a drink after every single practice if you join us.”
“Sounds fun.” And expensive—drinks, nachos, baseball fees. Right now I needed to watch my pennies—even though Canada didn’t have them in circulation any longer. I wasn’t eager to spend any time in a weird magical court this August, and then possibly get eaten by a dragon or monster that everyone had previously, and falsely, believed was fictional.
Because, yeah, I’d overheard Estelle mutter something under her breath about Igor from accounting eating people and fairies when they misbehaved. Plus, there was already the story about a dragon eating Paxi.
I was somewhat confident I wouldn’t get eaten by anything magical. But then again, there were a number of unsolved missing persons cases out there….
I wasn’t very confident about discounting anything about Estelle’s world at this point.
We tossed the ball back and forth, my mind half present—the other half studiously building arguments for why ogres wouldn’t eat humans. Surely there was some sort of treaty in place that protected us?
James began mixing up the angles, speed and spin. He was good. He’d told me he’d played in high school, and it looked like he hadn’t lost his touch. “I’ll share my nachos with you, if you join.”
I laughed, tickled that while I’d been fearing ogres, James had been thinking about ways to spend more time with me. “I said I’ll think about it.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up Thursdays at seven.”
“Oo. Sorry. That’s too close to my bedtime.”
“Liar.”
“I don’t have cleats anymore.”
“Don’t need ‘em. Leisure league.”
“Fine. Maybe.”
“I accept.”
I shook my head, flattered but also feeling shy by his attention. “You just need a girl on your team, don’t you? I know how these co-ed teams work.”
“Maybe I’m the token guy on the team. Ever thought of that?”
“Ha.” That idea made me grumpy. A team of women all fawning over James. Because that would happen. Definitely. I much preferred the idea of being the only woman on the team—mostly ignored and working hard to prove I belonged and wasn’t holding us back from a win. “Then I’d better join in order to keep you in line.”
His grin was wide, his shoulder rotating as he released the ball.
The light was waning, and both of us were tiring. My legs weren’t used to being in the squat position for this long anymore, and I knew I was going to be sore tomorrow. But watching him wind up and let it fly, the happiness in his expression while playing my favourite sport was worth it.
He threw another fast one, and I deflected it from hitting me, my attention flickering away to his quads at the wrong moment in order to make the catch. The ball arced high, veering off to my right. It was followed by the sound of glass cracking.
I popped upright. Oh crap.
James was already at the brick building’s window, gaping at the spiderweb of fractured glass.
A window slid open above the empty store.
“What’s going on down there?”
“Um, we broke your…” I said, gesturing feebly to the front of the store below him. “Sorry.”
The window slammed shut, and a few seconds later, a large man filled the doorway that led onto the street. He turned to look at the crack, then whirled on us, face red.
“Sorry,” I said, creeping backward.
“It was an accident,” James said firmly, “and we’ll?—”
“You’d better.”
“Do you happen to have insurance?” I asked. This was not going to be cheap. It was a big picture window.
“Excuse me? You want me to increase my premiums and pay a deductible because of your carelessness?” The man stepped closer, and James immediately slid into the space between me and the man. I clutched the fabric of James’s sweatshirt where it was loose around his waist. I always forgot how tall he was, how built. He made me feel dainty. And that was one adjective nobody had ever used to describe me.
The man glowered, flames practically shooting from his nostrils. I had a passing thought that if there were fairy godmothers, maybe there were also demons.
“It wasn’t her fault, and you need to back off,” James said, his voice even, a hint of threat in his growly tone. His shoulders, I swear, had gotten huger. As much as I hated the situation, it had been so long since someone got bent out of shape on my behalf. It felt nice. Which was kind of sad, the more I thought about it.
Still. I got tingles at his protectiveness.
“You want me to back off?” The man reached out to push James, but he swiftly blocked the man’s hands, sending him tumbling against James’s chest instead. He took the force like a solid oak.
“It was an accident,” James said, righting the man. “And we said we’d fix it.”
The man backed off, one eye on James, complaining about how the neighbourhood was becoming even worse.
“It just needs spiffying up. A bit of pride, maybe?” I said, squeaking when his dark, unimpressed gaze hit mine. I shut up and stepped back behind James.
I mean, Everstone, while shabby, wasn’t violent or beyond hope. Our neighbourhood was rarely on the news. Which was a perk, considering Tamara’s mother called and fretted over us whenever it was.
Once James and the man had everything sorted, we walked toward my apartment, passing the empty lot. “That wouldn’t have happened if that mess was a park.” I shook my head. “Anyway. I’m sorry. I’ll cover half.”
“No chance,” he said.
“Of it becoming a park?” I pretty much had to go big if I planned to pay off my debt. Especially seeing as anything I’d just earned with James had been eaten up by the broken window and subsequent fight with the guy. Cause and effect. That was what Josie had told me. We’d made space for good and then filled it with bad. We’d ruined that guy’s day for sure. That was not the positive energy I was hoping to snowball. That meant I really needed to do something big and wonderful.
“No chance of me letting you chip in for the window,” James explained.
“What? Why? I wasn’t paying attention to the ball. It was my fault.”
“You’re trying to go to Greece with your dad.”
I stopped. Greece. I’d forgotten all about my dream trip. Was that ever going to happen now that I was in major fairy godmother debt?
“Anyway, I threw the ball too hard.”
Squaring off, eyes narrowed, my tone was light but filled with challenge. “You saying I can’t handle your catches because I’m a girl?”
James faced me, so close his chest brushed mine. He was still throwing off alpha boss vibes, still a bit puffed up, but honestly, I was swooning.
The skin around his eyes softened, and his body stilled. His blue eyes danced over my face and I knew mine were doing the same thing, like a butterfly seeking sweetness.
“I can handle your pitches,” I said, my voice not sounding nearly as confident as I’d like it to. Sure, my palm was still stinging, but I’d never admit it.
“You’re a good player.”
“I know.”
“Sometimes…” His words trailed off, his eyes locked on my lips. I moistened them with my tongue. His chest expanded with a slow inhale.
“Sometimes what?” I said, placing a palm against his pecs, chin tipped upward.
“Sometimes women say things.”
“Like?” I wanted to roll up onto my tiptoes, make it easy for him to kiss me.
“Like they’d love to play catch with me, but don’t actually know how and then want to go home.”
“I’ll always tell you the truth. No flirty lies to win you over.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll be honest about what I want. Even if it’s different from what you want.”
His focus was still on my lips, but instead of kissing me, he suddenly blinked his way out of his little spell and turned to continue walking me home.
Unkissed.