24. Briggs
brIGGS
Nursing a beer, it’s the only nice thing I can do right now when I’m sitting at a table with a man who wanted nothing to do with me growing up and a boy who’s trying to kiss my ass so I’ll let him fuck my sister.
Adeline and Everly steer the conversation easily, but they keep stealing not-so-subtle glances at me to see if I’ll chime in.
I’m not.
My sisters begged me to be nice, and this is me being nice.
Quiet.
If I’m quiet, I can’t say anything. And, if I can’t say anything, then it won’t stress out the only two people that I give a shit about.
So, I remain neutral.
However, it’s grating because sitting across the head of the table from my father was not on my shit to do when I came back to Magnolia Ridge.
Far from it.
I didn’t plan on visiting or shooting the shit about the latest and greatest in my life. There’s zero need or willpower to fill him in on anything in my life.
I’m immune to him, and I’m glad I don’t wear a watch because I think that would make it more painful.
“Briggs,” Everly suddenly says, looking in my direction from my right. “Caleb used to play baseball, too. He played catcher.”
I flick an unimpressed glance at the little shit nestled up at the table next to my sister. He wears a slightly nervous grin and bobs his head in confirmation.
“Important position,” my father chimes in when no one asked for his opinion. “How long did you play?”
“Eight years, sir,” Caleb returns. “I tore my rotator cuff my freshman year of college, and I was never able to regain the power in my arm again.”
“That’s awful,” Adeline sympathizes. “Was that something you were trying to go professional with?”
“Not really. It’s a lot of moving around, I would imagine.” He looks at me for confirmation but, I mean, that’s common fucking sense, isn’t it? “Besides, I wouldn’t be what you’d call big league material.”
I don’t doubt it, quitter.
“You don’t know that,” Evely croons, touching his arm gently on the table. “You could’ve been amazing and played with my brother.”
Doubt it.
He’s a quitter.
“No need to have two huge egos in the room,” Adeline teases over her glass of lemonade, and the joke falls on Everly and Caleb but not me and our father.
No, we’ve been silently at war from across the table while Adeline promised dinner would be ready ten minutes ago, but it feels like it was yesterday that she said that.
As if reading my mind, she slowly gets up and stands while running her palms down her green dress. “I’m going to go check on dinner.”
For the love of God, let it be done.
“Briggs,” Everly beams, her smile genuine and happy, and I’m happy for her. However, not with the little quitter at her side. “Do you think if the Tornadoes make the playoffs this year, we can come?”
“That’s a given,” I deadpan.
“You’re up eight games,” Caleb calls out like a kiss-ass. “This has to be an exciting year.”
You can say that.
But you wouldn’t know, would you, quitter?
Taking another long sip of my beer, I do that instead of answering when Dad clears his throat.
“So, civil engineerin’,” he says. “What kind of jobs can you get with that?”
“Plenty. The options are endless, really.”
“So you…fix things?”
“Better them really.”
I quirk a brow because the little shit is evading. “And you’d be doing what here, exactly? Because we have people who fix things.”
Caleb startles a little at the sound of my voice because he hasn’t heard it much. And the little fuck better have an answer if he wants to keep dating my sister, or I’m going to take him out back.
“Water,” he croaks out. “Um, drainage, stormwater management, environmental things.”
“So, you’re a nature boy?”
He reaches for his water and suddenly appears a little paler. “Kinda.”
“Well, you’re not scared of bugs or anything, right?” Caleb takes a sip of his water but bobs his head in response. “And you moved into the Scotchton house?”
He swallows. “Yes.”
“From Maryland.”
“Yep.”
“And my sister says your brother lives here?”
“That’s right.”
“And who’s your brother?”
“Briggs…” my sister warns under her breath, and I shrug because I was just over here trying to be nice.
“No, it’s okay,” Caleb reassures her, suddenly manning up to my questions. “He can ask me anything he wants.”
“Fresh out,” I deadpan, and Everly’s body slumps because I’m making this dinner suck for her, while shattering her excitement for wanting to introduce me to her boyfriend.
“Except your favorite baseball team, Caleb. My father is an Atlanta Braves fan, but he’ll be loyal to them until the day he dies.
If you tell me the same answer, I might off myself at this table. ”
The kid smirks for a second and lowers his head. “Boston. Red Sox.”
“Boston,” I repeat, and I could give him shit, I’d love to actually, but big brother shit and all that when I want Everly not to be stressing the whole time about it. “Well, as long as you didn’t say the Yankees.”
“No, sir.”
I point across the table at my father, but I don’t bother looking at him. “That’s for him. You can call me Briggs.”
“Appreciate it,” he replies. “I haven’t been to a game, though, this year. I was hopin’ to take Everly up there to meet my parents and—”
“Stop while you’re ahead,” I drone. “You take my sister to a Boston game and try to convert her, I’ll kill you.”
Everly and he both chuckle like I’m kidding.
I’m not.
Meanwhile, my father shifts his weight because he doesn’t need to be in a conversation. No one needs him here.
“You should go see my son play,” he finally speaks up, sighing, then looking over at Caleb. “He’s phenomenal.”
Everly doesn’t stop smiling. “He watches him every night he plays.”
I can feel my pulse slow because, number one, I did not know that.
Number two, why would he bother?
And, most importantly, number three, it’s a little too late to be supporting me when he never did before. He never went to my high school games; he wasn’t involved in my grades or what I had going on outside of home, which was anything under the sun to stay away from him.
So, at this age, I’m a grown-ass man who doesn’t need his father to suddenly come in and be supportive. The ship has sailed on that one, and it gnaws at me.
It straight up annoys the shit out of me.
“Dinner’s ready,” Adeline announces from the kitchen, carrying a large white serving pan of roast and potatoes between her oven mitts to the table.
“And I brought dessert,” another female voice articulates in this sweet, dick-hardening voice that I have no problem recognizing from memory, but I still command a view to confirm my girl is in the room.
And my girl is definitely in the fucking room.
She’s carrying a pie—don’t care what kind or any details behind it—but that white spaghetti-strapped dress she has on, paired with brown boots and a matching cowboy hat, has my cock twitching desperately in my jeans to dive underneath all of it.
Her hazel eyes give me a once-over as if checking on my well-being before she places her dessert in the middle of the table, while Everly takes the opportunity to jump her with introductions.
“Layla Jean, this is my boyfriend, Caleb.” Said kid reaches over the table to shake my girl’s hand. “I’m so happy you came.”
Me too.
Except, I can now add another thing to my list of things I didn’t want to do while coming to this formal dinner to meet my sister’s boyfriend.
I didn’t want to eat with a hard cock while my girl sits at the same table as me, and I can’t do anything about it.
Layla is her mannerly and charming self when she says hello to my father, who doesn’t deserve it. She asks Adeline if there is anything else she can help her grab from the kitchen, but my sister shoos her off and says there isn’t.
Then she takes the seat next to me.
Kitty-corner and not close enough when she plucks her cowboy hat off the top of her head and places it onto mine.
“Hey, trouble,” she mutters with a teasing gleam in her eye as she adjusts it so she can still see my face underneath. “You actin’ like the Southern gentleman I know you can be?”
“I dunno. Never met him.”
“Me either.”
She openly takes my beer from my grasp and gives it two nice little chugs while she tips her head just so, exposing the soft trail of her neck and my soon-to-be new residence.
Then, just to top it all off and send the last bit of my sanity out the window, she licks at her bottom lip, and I shove my chair back to get the fuck out of Dodge.
Or at least temporarily.
“I’ll get you something to drink,” I offer, praying to God there is not a dick print visible in my jeans right now. “What do you want, Short Stop?”
“Beer’s fine.”
“Be right back.”
She makes sure to brush the side of my knee while I trail to the kitchen with a new mission.
The only mission.
Because I can’t do the MA-rated ones. And my sister would murder me if I fucked up her perfectly made and planned dinner.
I can skip dessert.
Because I’m going to have Layla Jean.