Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hayes
We step out of the courtroom, and the door swings shut behind us. My adrenaline is racing as though there are two outs in the bottom of the ninth with a runner on third, and I need to make damn sure a ball doesn’t get passed me.
It felt right in the moment, but now that we’re alone, I’m terrified of how Leighton will react after the high of winning temporary custody dissipates.
She slides her hand out of mine. “You want to walk around the courtyard?”
Okay, she’s calm. That’s a good sign, right?
I’ll let her take the lead here. “Yeah, sure.”
“You have time?” Again, wanting to talk about it rationally. We’re still in the green.
“Yeah. I’m off for the rest of the afternoon.”
We wander toward a few concrete benches—public limbo for people waiting to learn their fate in the courtrooms. She hugs her arms around herself against the cool breeze. I shove my hands into my jacket pockets, so I don’t reach for her again.
Once we’re away from any prying eyes, she whirls around. Shit, this is a blaring red light.
“God, Hayes, why did you do that?”
My back goes up, and automatically, I’m stumbling for words. “I just… I couldn’t sit there and listen to them act like you’re unfit because you’re not married. You don’t need anyone. You don’t need me. You’re doing an excellent job with those kids, and it pissed me off.”
She throws her hands in the air. “It pissed you off? It pissed me off. They were saying those things about me and my life.”
“It was completely unfair. Total bullshit.”
We’re on the same page. I’m not sure why she’s mad at me then. It was a desperate times, desperate measures kind of thing.
“Why are you helping me so much? I don’t understand why, and I just…” Her eyes lock with mine, and I don’t shift my gaze away. In a lot of ways, it feels as if this standoff is way overdue.
My confession is on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t think that pouring out my feelings to her right now is ideal. Today has been a lot for her. Instead, I change tactics.
“Why are you so resistant to letting anyone help you?”
She throws up her hands and walks away. “We’re not doing this. Your sister psychoanalyzes me enough. What is it, a Carlisle family trait?”
“We’re on your side. You’re going through a really shitty time, but we can help ease the load if you’d let us, you’re just so fucking stubborn.”
She whips around, her strawberry-blonde hair flying in a wave, before I see her seething face. “It’s not stubbornness keeping me from wanting your help, Hayes.”
“Then what is it? Me? You don’t want to be near me?” I step forward, our faces inches from one another.
Her anger dissolves for the briefest moment, and I take that as a good sign, but it sparks right back to life. “You don’t wanna know. Just go back to The Barn or whatever they call it, pick up a diamond girl, and leave me the hell alone.”
She whirls around to walk away, but I grab her wrist, tugging her into a nearby alley and pressing her back to the wall.
“Diamond girl? So, you think of me just like the rest of them? That all I want is fun and parties and take nothing in my life seriously, most of all my fucking career?” Now I’m the one seething, my jaw so tight my teeth hurt.
Our mingled breaths are heavy, and our eyes have matching fire in them. Neither of us turns away, as if we’re in a stupid stare-off and the first to blink has to lay all their vulnerabilities out for the other to judge.
Her shoulders fall and the fire in her eyes diminishes into a flickering flame. “I don’t think of you that way. I understand why you were that way last year, it’s just…”
“Why won’t you let me help you?” I’m desperate to hear why she fights me at every turn.
Leighton turns her face to look at the sidewalk, but I bring my forefinger up and force her to look at me. Again, our gazes hold, and for a minute, I have to use every ounce of willpower I have not to lean in and kiss her.
“It’s inevitable.” Her voice is soft, broken.
I search her face. “What is?”
Her chest rises and falls, but she doesn’t look away from me.
“You leaving.” She slides out around me, walking deeper into the alley.
“My entire life, people have disappointed me. Shit, Hayes, you saw my parents in there. All I am to them is a prize. Did they ever think about what that does to me? No. Did my dad think about me having to go to school and have people whispering behind my back—or worse, when they’d say it to my face? It’s just easier this way.
So, I made a list…”
“What kind of a list?”
She turns away, and mumbles something under her breath.
“What?” I inch forward.
“It’s stupid, but it’s a reminder for me.”
“I’m lost, Leighton.”
She pulls out her phone, opens her Notes app, and hands it over to me.
“Safe Guy Shortlist?” I glance up at her. “Texts back promptly… treats service workers well… not a risktaker… ready for a family?”
She takes her phone out of my hands and closes the screen, shoving it back in her purse.
“Do not tell me that’s what you’re using to find a man?” I can’t hide the judgment or annoyance in my tone.
“This way, there are no expectations, and I don’t have to feel like anyone disappointed me. Because… I wrote the list.” She turns around as the sun peeks out from behind a cloud, warming her face in a soft glow.
“So, they have to check every box?” I need specifics if I’m going to squash this.
“The majority… yes.”
“Done.”
She frowns. “What?”
“I can be that man.”
“I hate to break it to you, but you’re far from that guy.” Hurt stabs at my heart, but I splash on a cocky grin to mask it.
“Why do you say that? You looking for an accountant or some office guy who works Monday through Friday, nine to five?”
“Listen, Hayes, you’re great and yes, you check off a lot of those boxes, but I don’t want to put you in that position.”
“What position?”
She shakes her head. “A position where I’ll hate you.”
I’m still so confused. “Help me understand this.”
She walks back toward me, looking resigned.
“Fine, you want to know everything? Here it is—I always had a crush on you, but you were Callie’s brother, and we both know how she felt about her friends crushing on you.
” She raises her hand above her head. “Right now, you’re here, Hayes.
And if I let you keep being my savior, inevitably you’re going to be here.
” She brings her hand all the way down to her knees.
I’m still processing the first part. She liked me? “You had or have a crush on me?” I break the distance.
“That’s what you got from that?”
“The rest is bullshit, and nothing I can’t prove wrong.”
She snakes along the wall, trying to escape me, but I step in front of her. Her back presses against the brick just like before.
“That’s why you ran when I kissed you. You were worried about me hurting you.”
Finally, some clarity after years of thinking I was a shitty kisser, and she didn’t want me. But I was wrong. She was just as into that kiss as I was. That’s why it was so damn good.
“You’re not understanding me.” Her hands splay along the brick at her sides.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I prom—”
She puts her hand over my mouth. “Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.”
I take her wrist and lower it from my mouth, ready to tell her I mean it.
“You’re in no position right now, Hayes. You’re in the fight of your life to renew your contract at the end of the season. You can’t do both. You can’t have both.”
When Callie first called me six weeks ago, I came to comfort Leighton, to make her life more manageable, but now I find myself wanting to see her, to give her a reason to smile.
I want to spend time with her and be in her orbit.
The kids are a bonus for sure, but it’s her that I want.
But she’s so adamant that I can’t do both that I worry it’s just a pipe dream that I can be one of those players who has a family and a career, both going full steam without any conflicts.
I’d do just about anything to cage her in and kiss her right now, but her mind is made up, so I step back. I swear there’s a flicker of disappointment in her eyes, but we can both ignore this pull between us if that’s what she wants.
“Then I’m not doing this to help you. You’re going to help me.”
She frowns. “What?”
“We’re going to date, and that will help my image with the fans, the team, and the front office.
If I show I’m in a committed relationship with a woman who is a guardian to three kids, it helps to put my behavior from last year behind me.
” It’s all bullshit. Sure, it will help me, but I would never ask Leighton to do this if she weren’t so hell-bent on me not helping her.
“So, the fake dating benefits both of us?” Her eyes light up.
Ah, she likes the idea. Now we’re getting somewhere.
I nod. “I get something out of this too, but you’ll have to be seen in public with me.”
“I’m in public now.”
“My agent says I need to look settled down,” I tell her. “You’ll come to a few games. We’ll take pictures. Make it seem like you’re my girlfriend.”
Fear, uncertainty, maybe curiosity are all doing a tug-of-war behind her wide eyes. She’s not really a public kind of person.
I stick out my hand. “What do you say? Deal?”
She stares at my hand, and I can see all the arguments warring in her head.
“You’re going to so much trouble for me, it’s the least I can do.” Her soft hand falls into mine, and we shake.
“No takebacks.”
She laughs and I tug her away from the wall, wrapping an arm around her waist—partly for show, partly because I want to know what it feels like to hold her without an audience.
“What are you doing?” she asks, though she doesn’t pull away.
“Playing the part.”
She arches a brow. She has no idea what that look does to me.
Because the part I’m playing has a little too much truth in it.