Cleanup Batter (All Aces #5)

Chapter 1 Olivia

ONE

olivia

“Coop! Come on! We’re going to be late.”

“I can’t find my glove!” My ten-year-old son yelled back to me from upstairs. I slapped the glove against my hand in frustration and eyed the baseball cleats still caked in dried mud lying at the front door. Nope, he hadn’t realized he didn’t have those yet.

“I have it. And your cleats.” Thank God I had washed and set out his uniform last night. Otherwise, we’d never leave.

Being a mom is the most rewarding thing I have ever done.

I repeated the mantra I developed for whenever Cooper tried my patience and reminded myself that I wouldn’t trade being his mom for anything. What I would trade was not having the sole responsibility for everything on my shoulders.

I waited at the bottom of the stairs with a granola bar and a bottle of Gatorade in hand, passing them off to him as he rushed to the door. When he flung it open, we were met with a wall of men. Two very large men.

My brother Austin stood there sheepishly with another man—was he even a man? He couldn’t be more than 18, if he was even out of high school. God, such a baby face. But built like a—sigh—a man.

“Um, hello?” It was then that I noticed the suitcases and boxes with clothing and other belongings spilling out of them. “What’s going on?”

“We left Ashley.” The kid spoke.

“We?” Austin smacked him on the back of the head.

“Whoa! Are you Nate Reaves?” Cooper’s obsession with all things Minutemen led him to identify the stranger before my brother thought to introduce him.

“Yeah. What’s your name?” The guy didn’t miss a beat.

Coop turned shy. “Cooper. Austin is my uncle.”

I checked my watch. We were pressed for time, and had to get moving, or I would be late—again. “Hey, as much as I want to make small talk, we’re going to be late for Cooper’s game. What’s going on?”

Austin cleared his throat and signaled to Cooper. “It’s a long story. But I left Ashley, and we need a place to stay until the dust settles.”

“We?” I asked, unironically using the same one-word as my brother. And there was honestly a part of me that was silently doing the happy dance. Ashley was—ugh.

Nate jumped in to explain. “The team set Austin up as my babysitter. We’re kind of a package deal.”

I looked him up and down. Nate was the rookie on the Minutemen, just signed this year. He was older than 18—a legal adult—but just barely. I briefly remembered Austin saying that he and Ashley had been put in charge of helping him settle.

Austin rolled his eyes. A brief flash of pain and annoyance mixed in a flurry of emotion.

What the hell had happened between him and Ashley?

Personally, there was no love lost between the two of us.

I had never trusted her and always thought my twin brother could do better.

Austin had been distracted by her long legs, fake tits, and even faker smile.

“Well, this is your house.” Austin had bought this house for Cooper and me the minute his baseball contract allowed.

At the time, I had been living in a one-bedroom apartment in Lawrence with a landlord who liked to ignore calls and didn’t believe in pest control.

When that same landlord romanticized cockroaches by labeling them Palmetto Bugs, Austin moved mountains to get me out of there.

I tried to tell him that 5000 square feet in Lexington was overkill, but he guaranteed me that the investment was worth it.

“It’s your home, Liv. I swear I won’t stay longer than necessary.” Austin could tell me this a million more times, and it still wouldn’t feel like I deserved it. As a real estate agent, I knew how much this house was worth.

“And you won’t even know I’m here.” Nate flashed me a smile, and I caught him looking at me longer than necessary. Oh, fine, maybe I was staring too. Noone with working ovaries could resist this man. And the fuck I wouldn’t know he was there.

I stepped aside, mentally warning those ovaries that the man was off-limits. Too young. Too connected to my brother. Too needy?

“Coop, get in the car.” My tone was strained even to my own ears. I hated being late. The other moms would always highlight every single mistake I made.

Whatever, Brittany, Maddy, and Helena. I don’t need your fake friendship.

Coop looked to Austin, naive to the turmoil my brother was facing, and asked the only important question a Little Leaguer could ask. “Uncle Austin, can you come to my game?”

“I’ll come.” Nate piped in.

Austin and I snapped our heads in his direction. Why the hell would he want to spend the afternoon at my kid’s Little League game? I loved my son; I loved that he was passionate about baseball, but sometimes watching these games was painful.

“Don’t you need to get settled?” I asked, my gaze dropping to the box with clothing bursting from the seams, shoes balanced precariously on top of the pile.

“Nah. I’ve been living out of suitcases all year. This is nothing.”

Great, did this mean he was used to living like a slob? Or was he merely used to chaos?

I sighed. “Fine, roll your stuff in, and you’ve got three minutes to get into the car.” Three minutes was generous; with traffic, we’d likely be late for the second time this week.

Austin reluctantly joined us. He always made as many of Cooper’s games as possible but realized that when he showed up on the field, he brought a spectacle.

The fathers on the team crowded around, trying for autographs, and today, my brother looked defeated, desperately in need of some time alone to decompress.

“You good?” I asked, earning a wince. This man had been my rock through everything and seeing him like this—it killed me. Especially since I knew how much he’d worshipped his wife.

“I have to be. You haven’t been on any social media, have you?”

I shook my head. “I avoid it whenever possible.” This didn’t seem to be the right time to talk about the baseball mom drama and how it had taken over the Facebook group. But I hadn’t checked my socials since it broke out. I hated gossip, even when—for once, I wasn’t the main subject.

“Okay. I’ll drive, so you can spend some time snooping on the internet. It’s not something I care to discuss in front of Coop.”

Austin drove my Tahoe, ahem, his Tahoe—another item he’d purchased for me as an “investment” while I thumbed through the media stories.

The big takeaway—Ashley had slept with one of his teammates.

While I was certain this wasn’t the first time she had strayed, this seemed to be the first time my brother was aware of her indiscretions.

Nate and Cooper chatted in the back seat, and I noticed he seemed genuinely interested in what my son was saying. Probably because he was only a few years out of Little League himself.