Chapter 2
Renleigh Blackwood
A symphony of garlic and peppers assaults my nose the moment I crack open the front door.
I love it when my sister, Lindsey, stops in for dinner.
She doesn’t only visit me and Dad on these occasions; she cooks.
That Dad and I have mastered two-and-a-half recipes between us has made for a fairly repetitive menu over the last year.
“Please say that’s stuffed bell peppers!” I shout my wish from the foyer just before my sister’s twin boys wrap themselves around my legs.
“Mine!”
“No, she’s mine!”
I drop my keys and phone on the nearby entry table before bending down and scooping up my three-year-old nephews. Riggs and Deacon are a handful, but they’re a lot of fun in doses. Being the cool aunt is a gig I relish.
“I found the meatballs. Is the pot ready?” I sway my hips, a toddler balanced on each, as I make my way into the kitchen.
“I think those two are over-seasoned. They might need a bath before we eat them,” Lindsey says over her shoulder.
“You can’t eat us!” Deacon giggles against my right hip.
“I can’t, can I? I don’t know about that. Maybe we should ask Pap.”
I lean to the side, putting Deacon’s head within reach of my father as he sits in his wheelchair by the dining counter, a knife in one hand and a fork in the other like a wild zombie ready to feast. It’s nice that despite his stroke and subsequent uphill battle with rehab, my father has maintained one hell of a sense of humor.
He growls at the boys playfully, licking his lips as if he’s about to take a bite, and their legs kick wildly against my thighs until I let them go. They scurry down the hallway and up the stairs to my washroom. I cup my mouth as I prepare to shout.
“You best not be using my expensive soap!” I wink at my sister as the boys giggle from the bathroom upstairs. I don’t have expensive anything, but we’ve discovered when I refer to the soft hand soap as expensive or fancy, the toddlers are more apt to wash their hands for real.
“How long do you think we can run with that trick?” my sister asks.
“Bah, still works on . . . you . . . two.” My father’s words come out between breaths. He’s come a long way with his speech therapy, but every sentence is still an challenge to get out of his mouth.
“I wash my hands just fine, thank you very much.” I bend down and kiss my dad’s cheek before adding a humph.
“Sure, but if something is . . . expensive, you two . . . sure need to have it!” He coughs out his laugh as my sister purses her lips in response.
“Not gonna lie. You’re right, Dad,” I admit. My father lets out a quiet but satisfied grunt.
I pull the wad of cash from my day out of my pocket and flatten the bills on the counter. Lindsey spots the crisp hundred the moment she turns around.
“Damn, who gave you that tip?” She swipes it and holds it up to the light. I think she’s inspecting if it’s real. I sure as shit hope it is.
“I won a bet. Well, more like I got a commission for helping someone win a bet.” I shrug as I slide onto the stool next to my father.
“Okay, how does that work? Are you a bookie now?” My sister slaps the hundred-dollar bill back down in front of me and arches a brow before turning her attention back to the stove pot. I can see the cheese-encrusted edges of the peppers in the oven, and my stomach growls.
“No, Lindsey, I’m not a bookie. Just the usual antics from the latest crop of ballplayers at Earl’s. You know how they like to haze the rookies. I felt bad for this one, I guess.”
I can sense my sister itching for more details.
She puts out a vibe, like shockwaves, when she’s about to get nosy.
Thankfully, she pulls the peppers from the oven to fill them with meat sauce before grilling me with more questions.
My rambunctious nephews buy me more time, fighting over who gets to sit next to me until I solve everything by giving up my seat and standing between them as Lindsey dishes out our portions.
My knife is halfway through its first cut into the stuffed pepper when the interrogation resumes.
“Felt bad for him, huh? What was this bet? Did they make him embarrass himself in front of you? Was there a strip tease involved?” She smirks after chewing through her words, and I’d kind of like to flick her stuffed cheek with my finger.
“No, they didn’t make him strip for me.” I flit my gaze to either side to remind her that her impressionable toddlers are right here.
“I’ll strip tease for you!” Deacon announces. I glare at my sister, expecting her to drop her face in her palm in shame, but she continues staring at me with her smug grin, unfazed.
“He doesn’t even know what that means. It’s fine. So, spill it. What made this one different?” She takes another massive bite of her dinner, something I have yet to do.
“I don’t know. He was sweet, I guess. I mean, cocky like the rest of the players, but he was also nervous. The guys prodded him to try to take me home, and I wanted him to save face, so I walked out with him and let them think whatever they want. I kept the money, though.”
I shove a massive bite into my mouth before another question comes, and the euphoria from eating cancels out the stress of enduring my sister’s enquiry.
Lindsey quakes with a silent laugh, then glances at my dad.
“Don’t look at . . . me. She’s your . . . sister.”
My sister rolls her eyes at our dad but quickly turns her attention back to me.
“That’s a lot of money he let you walk away with. Those boys don’t make a lot playing for the Mavericks, so you must have made an impression on him.”
There is so much insinuation to her tone, I don’t have to look at her expression to know it’s tongue-in-cheek.
“Or . . . he’s already loaded from a signing bonus, so a couple hundred bucks walking away isn’t something he’ll miss.” I shrug and quickly dive back into my meal. I make it through two bites this time before Lindsey hits me with a follow-up.
“What kind of signing bonus?”
I bother to look her in the eyes this time, and the arched brow I expected to see greets me.
“I don’t know, a big one?” I mumble, no longer caring that I’m talking with food in my mouth. Lindsey’s lucky this pepper is the best thing I’ve ever eaten because I’m willing to overlook her meddling just to get to eat it.
“Did you hear that, Daddy? A big one. So, this guy—he must be a pitcher!” My sister’s guess isn’t as impressive as she makes it sound.
Nearly half the players in Sweetwater right now are pitchers.
Every season starts this way, and having grown up here, she and I both know the ebb and flow of rosters.
Several of the rookies will get sent to other affiliates in the next few weeks, as the coaching staff evaluates them.
“And she said he’s loaded from a signing bonus, so that leaves us with . . .”
Shit. I sometimes forget how well-studied my sister is in baseball.
“Brooks Callahan isn’t a pitcher, and Proctor McQuistion was a rookie last year, plus he’s still rehabbing from surgery. That leaves . . .”
Fucking hell.
I lift my gaze, mouth full and stomach heavy, and my sister slaps her hand over her mouth as soon as our eyes meet.
“Hunter Reddick tried to sleep with you!”
When my sister’s kids are called into the principal’s office in a few years, I’m going to be sure I bring up this moment.
“It was a bet. It wasn’t like he actually wanted to . . . ya know.” I waggle my head, feeling the heat of being between my nephews and in the same room with our dad.
“Oh, Renleigh. Don’t play dumb with me. Of course that man wanted to—”
“Could I get some water?” my dad pipes in, saving both of us from hearing my sister get explicit about my potential sex life.
“You sure can, Dad.” I jet up from my seat and head into the kitchen to fill a glass for my father.
I pinch my sister’s earlobe as I pass her on my way back to my seat, and she swats at my hand. My father takes the heavy glass in both hands, still needing assistance from his left hand to steady anything he grasps with his right.
“This discussion is to be continued,” Lindsey says, dotting each word in the air with her index finger.
“We’ll see,” I mutter, devouring the rest of my stuffed pepper, then promptly copping myself seconds.
Lindsey manages to hold off her pressure campaign long enough for her kids to fall asleep on the couch and our father to become engrossed in his nightly routine of watching SportsCenter.
Of course my sister and dad would know who Hunter Reddick is.
Our dad spent thirty years coaching baseball at Sweetwater High.
You don’t grow up in our house and not follow baseball news, at least the major headlines.
And Hunter? He’s a pretty damn big headline.
I played aloof with him, but I recognized his tall frame and blue eyes the moment he slid up to the bar.
And yeah, I’m sure if I let things play out the way Hunter planned, we would have been in his apartment within minutes, and I would have been hemming and hawing my way through stripping my clothes off or marching out the door in protest. But I know better than to get mixed up with the summer boys.
And Hunter Reddick is going to be out of Sweetwater and on to the next mound in weeks, months at the most.
I pop the final dish into the washer and nudge the door shut with my hip before pressing the start button.
My sister hands me a glass of wine, and I follow her to the front porch where the two of us fold up our legs as we sit in the pair of rickety lawn chairs parked on the wood planks.
This place needs some love. My dad talked about painting the exterior of the house two summers ago.
That was before his second stroke wiped out the use of most of his right side.
He’s getting stronger, but I’m not sure he’ll ever have full function in the way things like hammers and nails require.
“He should sell this place,” I sigh out, patting the chair cushion by my hip so it emanates a poof of dust.
“He’ll never sell it. Besides, what will you and I fight over when he’s gone?” She winks at me and I chuckle before sipping some wine.
One of our dad’s go-to jokes is talking about the fortune he’ll leave me and my sister.
The man has existed on a teacher’s salary his entire life, and the district pension barely covers his bills.
Honestly, if it weren’t for his disability assistance, I’m not sure where my father would be able to live.
Certainly not his house. Paid off or not, the taxes for this place are too much for his dismal savings alone to cover.
“Brandon coming to pick up you and the boys?” I nod to my sister’s full glass of wine.
“Yeah,” she sighs before taking a long sip.
It’s her second glass, and she’s a lightweight.
My sister and her husband live about twenty-five miles away, closer to the city.
Brandon works at the university’s downtown campus, but occasionally, he has workshops or lectures at the main campus here in Sweetwater.
My sister always tags along so she can visit Dad and me.
“He’s cute, you know,” Lindsey says.
“Who?”
I know who.
“I’m just saying, if I were twenty-four and single, I’d let myself enjoy a little fling from time to time with a nice set of abs and some gray sweatpants magic.”
“Lindsey!” I tease, stretching my leg toward her chair and poking her knee with the toe of my sneaker.
“What? Girl, I’m turning thirty, and my boobs were milk trucks for piranhas for two whole years. I’m simply saying you’re young and hot, and he’s young and hot, so why not be young and . . . hot . . . together?”
My sister’s brow waggles as she says, “hot.” I snort out a laugh.
“I don’t know, Linds. You know how those guys are.”
Unserious. Uncommitted. Selfish.
A lot like our mom.
“I’m not saying you have to marry him, for Pete’s sake.
I’m just asking you to be open-minded about seeing him naked.
And then telling me all the details.” A devilish smirk pulls up both sides of her mouth, and I shake my head at her.
The wine is hitting her hard, and I have no doubt she’ll be projecting these thoughts onto Brandon when they get home. He’s getting lucky for sure.
“He is fine,” I finally relent.
My sister sits up tall and leans toward me, slapping the tips of her fingers against my knee. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
We both laugh and act like giddy schoolgirls for the next thirty minutes, gossiping about cute boys we went to school with and espousing the perks of baseball pants. But after my sister’s husband shows up to sweep my sibling and their kids off to her fairytale life, the reality of mine sets in.
I clean up the clutter of toys left in Riggs’s and Deacon’s wake, then help my dad maneuver his wheelchair so it lines up with the adjustable hospital bed we set up in the space that was once his home office and our mother’s library.
Mom’s books are long gone—one of the few things she took with her when she packed up and moved to Houston.
My dad’s coaching books and trophies remain clustered on the few shelves she set aside for him. Everything else in here is medical.
“Ready?” I hunch down so my dad can swing his right arm around my shoulders and use me for leverage.
“One, two, three!” We grunt the final number as my dad uses every muscle he’s retrained, and I lock my legs and core in place until he’s able to transfer himself to his bed.
The nurse comes in the morning to help with his bath, and then we’re back at it with his physical therapist. He’s so close to walking without having two people at his sides to brace him.
His doctor thinks he could very well regain full walking ability within the year—two and a half years after he lost the ability to do everything.
Two years after I left college—a semester away from finishing my degree—and moved back home to help him after my mother decided that while she loved the man, she didn’t love him quite that much.
So, while my sister means well, the state of Hunter Reddick’s abs will remain a mystery to both of us.
I barely have time to sleep, let alone hook up with this season’s hottest prospect.