Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Decker
Leighton and Hayes’s backyard on a Sunday after a home game win is the best place to spend the evening.
The grill is going, someone’s connected the speaker to their phone, and the result is a playlist that swings between country and nineties hip-hop with no apparent logic.
My bet is on Easton. Lincoln is teaching Hazel some kind of card game on the back steps while Monroe narrates her entire afternoon to anyone willing to listen.
Currently it’s Foster, but he keeps glancing at Callie with an expression that says, step in.
She just smiles and shrugs. I think they get off on antagonizing each other sometimes.
We’re all here except one person. I clocked it the minute I walked onto the patio, but I’m not going to ask.
We’re off tomorrow, so I have a beer in hand and am leaning back in the chair, listening to Easton and Hayes argue about a play in the fifth.
Hayes argues that it was the right call, and Easton thinks we should’ve gone for third instead of first. I don’t really care because I had a good game for the first time in weeks.
No mistakes. Still, I feel Harkins breathing down my neck, waiting for me to mess up.
Hayes finishes on the grill and announces that the food is ready, so everyone scrambles inside to fix a plate.
I’m about to follow when Hayes pats me on the back. “She’s not coming until later.”
I look at him, trying to keep my expression neutral.
“Penelope,” he says, as if I needed the clarification. “She had a thing.”
My gaze moves through the glass French doors to Foster fixing Callie a plate while she holds Ellis.
I take a sip of beer, pretending to be indifferent. “Okay.”
“Don’t you want to know where she is?”
Hell yes, but what’s the use in handing my teammate a window into the most complicated corner of my life and asking him to help me make sense of it? Hayes wouldn’t feel right keeping any of it from Foster, nor would I expect him to.
“No.”
“Oh.” He pulls back in surprise. “So, you’re telling me it doesn’t matter that she’s out on a date?”
“With the doctor?”
His grin says he really wants to make fun of me. But Hayes doesn’t kick people when they’re down. “Thought you didn’t care?” He pats me on the back and goes inside.
I take another sip of beer and stare at the grill, thinking about the river cleanup two days ago. The overhang. Her hair wet against her perfect face. The half inch of space between us. How I was less than a second away from kissing her.
If I had kissed her, I would’ve broken Rule Number Two—don’t make promises you can’t keep. Because kissing Penelope wouldn’t be casual. She knows that. I know that. A kiss would’ve been a promise, and I’m not in a position to give it or to keep it.
I think about what she said before the rain started—how she wants more kids, that she’s tired of doing it alone, that there’s no DoorDash for husbands.
She said it as though she was confessing something to me specifically, like maybe I was supposed to say something back.
I didn’t though. I just stood there in the rain like the man I’ve trained myself to be.
She’s building a life. She’s been building it this whole time, and I’ve been standing on the edge of building my own, hiding behind my rules.
And quickly, I’m brought back to when I made that rule.
Junior year of college.
The bar was named Sullivan’s, and it felt right when I returned to Kingsley to give a commencement speech five years ago and found it closed down. Some things should stay in the past. Sullivan’s had the sense to know it. I just wish I did.
It was one of those nights that starts as three people getting food and turns into twelve people at a bar.
Aurora was there, which meant I was divided the way I always was when she was sharing space with my friends.
She preferred for us to be alone and had a hard time adjusting when we hung out with others.
“A prince? Decker?” Foster and a few of his teammates met us at Sullivan’s, which was becoming a common occurrence. “Okkkaaay.” Foster gave me a look over the rim of his beer glass before returning his attention to Aurora.
“My mom says I’m destined to have a fairy tale, and Decker’s the guy. I mean, how lucky am I to land a guy who will most likely get drafted?”
Foster wasn’t impressed and had told me so many times that these were not the days to waste on a long-term relationship.
But we were different people. I liked sharing my life with Aurora.
The problem was the longer we dated, the clingier she became.
She wasn’t a bad person. She was twenty-one and in love with a guy who was in love with someone else and couldn’t admit it.
I’ve had years to feel guilty about that.
“Let me clarify this for you, Princess Aurora.” Foster squeezed my neck. “The Davises aren’t from a kingdom. There’s no happily-ever-after fairy tale in our past.”
Aurora smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I don’t care about that.”
“Good, because our childhood messed us both up.” He patted me on the chest. “I’m going for another drink. You want one?” He tipped his glass to me, then to Aurora. We both declined, and he left.
“You guys are so opposite of each other. Are you sure one of you wasn’t switched at birth?”
Her comment irritated me. Sure, we were opposite in looks and personality, but he was my brother.
“We’re fraternal, remember? Siblings who shared a womb, not an identical replica of the other.”
“I know, Decker, you don’t have to treat me like I’m stupid.” She got up from the table, and I watched until she disappeared behind the bathroom door.
A few seconds later, Foster slid into the spot at the pub-height table next to me. “I’m not sure about her, Deck. I don’t think she’s the one.”
“You don’t think anyone is the one.” I finished the rest of my beer.
“Because we’re twenty-one and about to enter the draft at the end of the season. This is our time.” He gripped my shoulder and shook me. “Imagine what it’ll be like when we get into the league.”
“Do you think of anything else?”
“Sure. My baseball career. Which you should be thinking about too.” He nods toward the bathroom. “She’s a distraction. Always getting upset about something—or nothing, more like it. You don’t need the stress.”
He wasn’t wrong, but I’d spent a large part of my time in college with Aurora, and she was different when it was just the two of us.
“It’s like I’m talking to myself. It’s fine, man. I’m not saying you won’t find someone someday.” He took a pull from his beer.
“True. Maybe someone will even come along and knock Foster Davis on his ass someday too.”
We laughed, and I looked up toward the door. Penelope was walking in with a few of her friends. I’m guessing my eyes stayed on her a beat too long because Foster followed my line of vision.
“Is that the coach’s daughter?” Foster asked.
I wasn’t surprised he knew who she was since Mark was coaching him, but I was surprised he didn’t know her name.
“Haven’t you met her?” I asked.
“A few times at team things, but I never caught her name.”
“Penelope.”
Aurora came out of the bathroom and slid onto the stool next to me. “What are we looking at? Oh.” She clearly spotted Penelope showing her ID to the bouncer. “Isn’t she, like, eighteen?”
“She’s twenty.” The words slipped from my mouth probably a little too fast.
“Oh yeah, I forgot you guys are, like, best friends.” Aurora said it with an edge, and I blew out a breath, knowing this was going to be the rest of my night.
A few of the Hartwell guys who’d come with Foster pulled Penelope and her friends into the group, razzing her that they were going to tell her dad, joking around. She laughed along with them until she stopped at our table.
“Decker,” she said, sounding surprised, which was funny since she was in my part of town. “Hey.”
Penelope hugged me, and I held on a second longer than I should have, aware of Aurora on the barstool behind me, but somehow even more aware that Penelope smelled like the same shampoo she’d used since she was fifteen.
This was the one problem that hung between Aurora and me. I wasn’t completely over Penelope, and I didn’t know how to process that. Especially since she’d never actually been mine.
“You look good,” I said, because it was the truth.
Aurora slid off the barstool and put her hand on my arm in the specific way she did in public, a display of possession rather than affection. “Hey, Penny.”
“Penelope,” she clarified, the way she always did on the rare occasion they were in the same room.
Foster gave me a nod to introduce him. He had surely seen her before, but it would be like Foster not to have paid much attention, especially if it was during a game or practice.
“Penelope, this is my brother, Foster. As you know, he plays for Hartwell.”
Penelope put out her hand. “Hi again.”
“Again?” Foster asked.
Penelope laughed. “Yes. I’ve met you, like, five times. Usually I’m with my dad though, and you’re distracted.”
Foster stepped closer. “I’m not distracted tonight.” He held out his hand. “Let me buy you a drink.”
Penelope laughed but took his hand, accepting the invitation.
“We’ll be back,” Foster said over his shoulder, and I watched them all the way to the bar.
The night wore on, and I stopped drinking at some point while Aurora continued. An hour after I was ready to call it a night, I couldn’t find it in myself to leave while Penelope and Foster were in the corner together, seemingly in their own little world.
Aurora was talking to someone. Foster was talking to Penelope. I was standing close enough to hear their conversation while pretending I wasn’t eavesdropping.
He was good that night. Funny, attentive, asking her questions about school with the kind of interest that seemed genuine because it mostly was. When Foster decided to be charming, he was difficult to pull your attention from. I knew that better than anyone.
At some point, the bar got louder and the group shifted, and I lost them for twenty minutes.
When I found them again, they were near the back, still talking. Penelope was laughing with her whole face at something he’d said, the way she did when something actually got her.
I felt the shift. The specific feeling of watching something happen that you set in motion, and no matter how hard you try to hit the brakes, there’s too much momentum to make it stop.
Aurora appeared at my elbow. “Your brother seems smitten.”
“He’s never smitten.”
Throughout our college years, Foster hadn’t dated anyone seriously. Hookups here and there. A friends-with-benefits situation for a month or two once. That was the extent of it. Foster didn’t like strings, and any girl who tried to tie him up was shown the exit.
“I’m glad I have the hotter twin.” She kissed my cheek, and I let her because it was easier than examining the thing happening in my chest while I watched Foster lean against the wall beside Penelope and say something low enough that only she could hear it.
The bar was emptying out by the time Foster and Penelope came back to our table. Aurora was almost asleep on her stool, and I was being a terrible boyfriend.
“Deck, I’m surprised you’re still here,” my brother said. “We’re heading out.”
“Oh. Together?”
Foster laughed and put his arm around Penelope. My heart pounded as if it wanted to jump out and rip his hand off of her. “Yeah, Trent is our DD, and he’s going to give her a ride.”
“Good, can we go?” Aurora perked up. “Goldilocks has a ride.”
“What about your friends?” I asked Penelope, ignoring Aurora.
“What are you, her father? Relax. I’ve got her.” Foster patted my chest and turned them toward the door.
Foster misread my question as concern when really it was jealousy. I didn’t want the two of them to walk out that door because whatever happened next was going to change everything. I just knew it, though I don’t know how.
“I’ll see you.” Penelope smiled at Aurora and me.
“Yeah, see you.” Panic welled up in my chest.
I can’t do this. I can’t let this happen. Can’t let them leave together.
I stepped forward, my hand reaching for Penelope’s arm, but at the same moment, Aurora groaned, turned in my direction, and threw up all over my shoes.
I watched my brother walk out the door with the woman I’d been secretly in love with for most of my life.
Foster said something, and she laughed, and the door closed behind them. I stood there with Aurora’s mess on my shoes and watched fate turn the tides against me.
Pulling myself from the memory, I step inside to grab a plate of food.
The early evening stretches into nighttime.
The music switches to something slower, and Monroe and Hazel show us all a square dance they learned in school.
Hayes films it on his phone, and I sit on the back steps, watching my close group of friends.
Sure, I have my mom, but this is the closest I’ve come to feeling like I have a real family.
I get up to use the bathroom, and on my way through the house, the doorbell rings. Everyone is outside, so I walk over and open it without thinking about who it might be.
Penelope’s still in what she wore to dinner. Her hair is curled the way she does it when she takes her time. “Oh… hey.”
I step out of the doorframe and take in her dress and heels, her makeup, and the fact that she dressed up for the doctor. She put in her best effort, and I want to ask her how it went as a way to punish myself for sticking to my rules.
“There you are.” Leighton comes inside carrying some dishes. “Just in time for s’mores.”
Penelope gives me a small smile and moves past me into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the doorway.
As she should.