Chapter 8
OWEN
We make it back with just enough time to change and meet up with everyone.
Thea was quieter than usual on the drive back.
I got nothing more than a small chuckle when I pointed out the Textbooks and Mystical Crystals storefront.
I wanted to ask if something was wrong but worried about doing it in front of Harrison and Addy.
I jog up to the ballroom where the event planning offices are to snag the key to the bus. My aunt put a giant yellow key chain on them years ago to keep us from losing them, and I swing them around my finger as I head to bring the bus around front.
It’s an Ellis family tradition to have at least one sporting event when we’re all together.
Everyone’s so competitive—probably unhealthily so—and it’s nice to be our most obnoxious selves for an afternoon, knowing that our competitors will trash-talk us all day but still love us that night.
When we’re together for a special occasion, the family member of honor gets to pick the event.
For Camila’s wedding, she set up a massive croquet tournament on the events lawn. Thea took one look at it and said, “What sort of fancy-ass Bridgerton hell is this?”
Her eyes had gone so wide I could see the whites around her irises, but the whole family was with her. We’d all been giving Camila—the least athletic cousin—crap about her choice for weeks, and a dozen cousins sought me out during the game to comment on how perfect Thea was for our family.
When it became abundantly clear that neither Thea nor I were going to win, I asked if she’d be open to some light sabotage.
Thea took to it beautifully, strategizing on the best ways to screw over my more successful cousins.
At one point, she sent Camila’s ball flying so far that it went off the lawn and all the way down the sloped path to the inn.
She’d been two swings away from winning, and she’d dropped to her knees, screaming to the sky, while I scooped Thea up in my arms, swinging her around as we cheered like we’d won the World Series.
There’ll be no need for sabotage this time. Harrison picked baseball, and I’ve never loved him more. It’s been years since I swung a bat, but some things your body doesn’t forget.
Most of my family is waiting when I pull the bus to the front of the inn. I hop off as they start loading up, lugging coolers of beer I’m sure they’ll pop open as soon as they sit. Let them drink. The drunker they get, the worse they’ll play. Then again, I should keep my team sober.
Thea’s in the middle of the pack and stops next to where I’m leaning against the side.
Her gaze slides up my joggers and T-shirt, pausing for a moment on the baseball cap I tugged on as I ran out the door.
I wish I could see myself through her eyes, to know for sure if that’s heat flaring in them or just my hopeful thinking.
“So this is the famed family bus,” she says.
“The very one.” I pat the side. “She gets us where we need to go safely, and we reward her by only vomiting in her once every fifth trip.”
Thea’s head tilts back as she laughs, and it’s like I’ve been filled with helium and am at risk of floating away.
When her laughter cuts off abruptly, I follow her gaze over my shoulder and spot Addy watching us.
Thea pastes on a fake smile, and it feels like I’ve been poked with a needle, that buoyant feeling seeping out of my body.
She mounts the stairs without another word, and I’m left staring after her, wondering what just happened.
Harrison pops up next to me before I can bring myself to look away. “You ready for this?”
“Depends. Did you stack the teams in your favor?”
“Like I need to cheat to take you down.”
I smack the back of his head and he laughs, jumping a couple of feet away from me.
His cocky smile slips and he shuffles his feet in an uncharacteristic show of nervousness. “Hey, when you have a minute, I was hoping we could talk. About the business.”
I’ve heard this speech before, and I know where it leads.
He’s gotten what he needs from the estimating department—just like accounts payable and operations before this—and he thinks he should move.
Which means I’ll need to find a new estimator and figure out where I can fit Harrison without upending everyone’s work.
The added responsibility lands like an anvil on my shoulders, and I worry my knees will buckle under the pressure.
“I mean,” Harrison continues, “right now isn’t the best time, but I just thought, you know, we’re both here and we might as well talk. Not, like, right now, just in general.”
I force a smile. “Yeah, we can talk about it.”
A breath whooshes out of him, and he smiles that brilliant Harrison smile that’s charmed every person he’s ever met. “Awesome. Great. Thanks, Owen. Now let’s get on the bus so I can hand you your old ass.”
He bounds up the steps, and I call after him, “Have you seen Mom?”
There are only a few stragglers loading up, and I haven’t spotted her yet.
“No, I haven’t seen her since last night,” Harrison says.
My stomach drops. I’ve been so caught up I didn’t think to check on her. This wouldn’t be the first time she said she was fine, then disappeared for a couple of days. I pull out my phone and dial her.
She answers on the first ring. “I know, I know. I’m late. I’m on my way, but if it’s too much of an inconvenience, you can leave me.”
I hold in my sigh of relief. “Not an inconvenience. Just making sure you’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” she says, hanging up as she walks through the front door, “I’m here with my family. My youngest son is getting married, and my older son has another shot at love.”
She skips up the stairs of the bus, patting me on the cheek as she passes, and all my excitement for the day curdles into anxiety.
I stare Harrison down from the pitcher’s mound, clocking his cocky smile and the way he casually swings the bat to warm up. He points it at Addy in the dugout, blowing her a kiss as he steps up to the plate.
“Better get your head in the game, baby brother,” I call out.
His grin grows at my goading. “Doesn’t take much concentration to hit one of your pitches.”
I toss the ball up and down a few times. “Don’t forget who taught you how to swing that bat.”
“Yeah, then you quit, while I just got better.”
You quit.
He thinks I got tired of the game, too young to realize my practices were replaced with caring for him.
While my old teammates were fielding ground balls, I was sitting in the pick-up line at the elementary school.
Then I was in college and working, and the closest I got to a baseball diamond was sitting in the stands at Harrison’s games.
Regardless of what Harrison thinks, I haven’t lost my love of the game. Or my skill, which I prove with a fastball that flies right past Harrison’s bat, sinking into my cousin Johnny’s glove with a satisfying thud.
“Strike one,” Johnny bellows, even though it’s not his job.
This is why I wanted Johnny as catcher. He can catch my pitches, but more important, he’s the best at screwing with the rest of our cousins, muttering trash talk I can’t hear but can see the impact of as each batter glares at him.
I lift my hand to my ear with a smug grin. “What was that about my pitches?”
“I wasn’t ready,” Harrison says, knocking his bat on the plate in frustration. “Won’t happen again.”
Johnny tosses me the ball. “Ready now? Just want to make sure.”
Harrison glowers, and I let the ball fly again, savoring the shifting of my muscles, the way the ball rolls from my fingers. This time, the bat connects. The line drive threads between second and third base, and Harrison easily makes it onto first before my team snatches it up.
I’m scowling when I turn back to home plate and find Thea waiting. She looks adorable with her blond curls flaring out from beneath the helmet. Thea lifts the bat, positioning it awkwardly in her hands. Her body’s hugging the plate, and she’s taken such an open stance that she’s nearly facing me.
“Over a year with this girl, and you never taught her how to hold a bat?” Johnny calls out.
Thea narrows her eyes. “Owen never complained about how I held a bat before.”
Johnny howls, throwing his mitt on the ground so he can clap. I laugh, too, rubbing my hand over my eyes. This woman just can’t help herself.
I should throw the ball, let her learn the hard way. She’s not on my team, and it’s every man for himself in the Ellises—even between couples—but I want her to have fun more than I want to win.
As I jog over from the mound, Gabriel calls out from his spot as shortstop, “You can’t help her! She’s the enemy. Where’s the loyalty to your team?”
I don’t look away from Thea as I call out, “How would that be an earned victory? It’s like playing a baby.”
“I can think of a few other ways to use this bat,” Thea grumbles, twisting it in her hands. There’s a fire behind her dark smile that tells me she’s thinking about going full enforcer and using the bat on me instead.
“You want to beat me with that bat, or do you want to learn how to use it so you have a chance of actually beating me?” I ask, and she mumbles a reluctant “fine.”
I come to stand behind her, grabbing her by the waist and shifting her farther from the plate, helping her line her feet up a bit more than shoulder-width apart.
Thea lifts the bat, and I place my left hand over hers, using my right to adjust her grip until her hands are stacked.
My arms encircle her, and I can’t resist breathing in her spicy scent.
“When you swing,” I whisper, and a shiver goes through Thea’s body, “make sure to follow through. Then run like hell to the base.”
“Assuming I hit the ball,” Thea says, twisting her body to look at me. I shift back to keep her from brushing against me.
“Have a little faith in yourself, Thea,” I say, and run back to the mound.
“Can we play baseball now?” Gabriel whines.