by Alexis Anne
“Yep,” Chris grinned. “She was nice enough to hang out with a little kid like me.”
“Mom’s always nice. Except when I pee on the toilet seat. Then she shrieks a lot and yells.” He shrugged his little shoulders like whatcha gonna do?
And Chris shrugged right back, shaking his head. “I have two brothers. My mom stayed far, far away from our bathroom.”
His comment made me a little sad. I’d always wanted at least two children and there were many days when it preoccupied my thoughts. Mostly I enjoyed it being just Linc and me. We were a little team and we were happy. But I couldn’t help wondering what he’d be like as a big brother, how his life might have been different with siblings.
“Can I fish before bed?” Linc asked, waving his hands in front of my face. Apparently he’d asked several times while I was stuck in my head with my thoughts.
“Um, yeah sure. Better hurry though, it’s just about dark.” My favorite part of the long summer days was that night seemed to be as reluctant to appear as I was to see it.
Linc scurried out the back door leaving me alone with Chris. Suddenly I didn’t know what to do with my hands, where to look, how to make conversation.
He cleared his throat first. “Is this your father’s house?”
“It was, yes. He gave it to me when he decided to move to Miami.” It was the only way I could afford to live on the island. Okay, technically Beau offered to buy it but my dad refused. And when we decided to divorce, Beau wanted nothing to do with it. He insisted it was my house and he would be happier knowing Linc and I lived someplace we both loved.
Honestly our entire divorce was that easy. We weren’t mad at each other or even hurt all that much. We were both sad because we wanted it to work but it was more a grieving process than anything else. Outside of that it was all about Linc and what was best for him. Beau wanted to see as much of his son as possible in the off-season and I never made him feel guilty for being stressed and busy during the season. My job wasn’t a huge moneymaker but it paid the bills. Beau took care of Linc’s college fund and had trust funds set up in his name. I knew if we ever needed anything, all I had to do was ask—I tried not to need help but it wasn’t as if it was a bad thing to ask. Beau was Linc’s father and, again, all we wanted was to give him the best life we could.
Chris’s eyes raked over me. “I remember driving by here on the way out to the resort but it didn’t click until today.”
“Yeah well, it didn’t occur to me the rich guy who bought the fancy house next door might be the kid I knew a million years ago.”
His lips twitched. “I’m still settling in. I haven’t made the rounds yet.”
“You’re a little busy.”
“Just a little.”
Awareness of his attention washed over me and made my skin tingle. It was both uncomfortable and amazing. “Your drink.” I finally handed him the glass. “I know they say beer shouldn’t technically be drunk from a cold glass but I don’t know who ‘they’ are and I know for a fact they must not live in Florida.” It was so hot and humid beer needed to be served freezing cold. It was how we survived the heat of the day.
“I’ll agree with you on that,” he said, accepting the glass and taking a sip.
It was very hard—and I mean very hard—to ignore how incredibly male Chris felt in my little kitchen. He was a little over six feet, broad, muscular, tan…he smelled like a man, as opposed to the apple juice, bananas, and bubble gum my son usually smelled like.
“Why did you move back?” I suddenly blurted out.
He paused, stared at his glass, seemed to study the condensation. “This was the only place that ever felt like home.” Then his eyes snapped up and met mine. Held.
I forgot how to stand.
“We should go outside and watch Linc fish. He’s good but sometimes he doesn’t know what to do.” I said that much louder than I meant to, so I also blushed on top of shouting.
Then I left the room before I could do anything else embarrassing.
Chris followed me silently.
I wandered closer to the dock than the porch. The backyard sloped down to the water where we had a little beach area. The dock shot straight out into the water and had a covered area at the end with a fish cleaning station. The mosquitos were out and no-see-ums were biting so I set about lighting the torches—anything to keep from staring at the world-class pitcher watching me.
“I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable, Liv.”
I closed my eyes and sighed, even more embarrassed that he could tell I was uncomfortable. Talk about humiliating.
“What makes you think I’m uncomfortable?” I still didn’t turn around or look at him.
“I invited myself over,” he sighed. “I get it. You’re not available and here I am in your home. I apologize if this puts you in a spot.”
“Wait . . . what?” I spun to look at him. The last streaks of pink still painted the sky so his skin glowed, but his eyes danced sadly in the light of the torches. His hands were shoved in his jeans pockets, bunching his shoulders up around his ears.
“I shouldn’t be here—”
“I got one!” Linc shouted.
I jumped.
“Help!” Linc yelled, whooping. He wasn’t in trouble, just excited.
Chris sprang right into action, running down and standing behind Linc as he reeled in his fish.
Since Chris seemed to have things under control and I needed a moment to sort my thoughts, I took my time walking down. I heard Chris give Linc quiet directions. Slow down, don’t tug, wait . . . now!
And then Chris was holding the line up with a very large redfish flapping at the end.
Linc jumped up and down with the pole still in his hands. “Look Mom, look! I get to keep him, right?”
“He’s big enough to keep, bud,” Chris assured him.
Both of them looked to me with big eyes, like I was about to tell them they couldn’t keep a puppy.
“Of course you can keep him. We’ll have him for dinner tomorrow night.”
“Yeah!” Linc cheered.
“Good job.” Chris winked. Then he looked to me. “Can I help Linc take care of things?”
“Cleaning station’s right there.” I waved to the wood table where we cleaned our fish. “Hose is underneath.”
And then I watched as Chris and Linc worked together in the final light of the day, as if they’d been best friends all their lives and fishing was the greatest thing either of them could think of doing each day. Chris told more fishing stories and Linc started babbling about his week with his dad.
I brought Chris’s beer over, then wandered down the dock where I could still hear, but not feel so overwhelmed by all the things I was feeling. I didn’t understand any of them. Why was I reacting to this stranger? Was Chris a stranger? I didn’t know him, not really. Spending a year with him when he was a kid and watching him pitch on television didn’t mean I knew him.
And yet it felt like I did. I felt like our conversation this afternoon and this evening had given me a snapshot of who he was as a person. Sometimes grumpy, highly successful, kind to kids, and neighborly.
My ears perked up when Chris’s voice rose an octave. “What?”
“My dad doesn’t live here. He lives in Tampa. He has this cool house on the water and a pool with a slide. I was just there.”
“Why doesn’t your dad live here?” Chris asked.
I turned to stop the conversation. I didn’t know why.
Linc shrugged. “Why would he? This is where mom and I live.”
It dawned on me at about the same time as Chris. When I said I wasn’t single earlier today on the boat, I’d meant Linc was my world. I didn’t date because I wasn’t ready to introduce any new men into our lives.
But Chris had taken it to mean I was married, or at the very least in a committed relationship with Linc’s father.
His brows rose, his lips twitched, his eyes found mine. His expression was all excited an
d hopeful. He tilted his head toward Linc. “You’re single, aren’t you?”
I got the very distinct impression that if I said yes I was opening myself up to something. What exactly that something was I didn’t know. But it scared me.
“Gosh, I wish Mom would go on a date already!” Linc exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.
It sent a shower of fish scales toward Chris, who naturally stepped back. Except he was already on the edge of the dock. His arms went out and waved, his heels teetered on the edge of the boards, his eyes bulged.
And for the second time today...he went tumbling into the water.
“Oh no!” Linc yelled, running over. “Man overboard!”
Chris splashed and yelled, finally righting himself and standing up. “Damn it! Second time today!”
And that was kind of funny. Except that it also wasn’t. I was the reason for both his falls. “Are you okay?” I came to an awkward stop beside Linc, just barely keeping myself from going in next.
Chris looked up at me. The smile was back. The glorious, hopeful, dazzling one that made me feel weak in the knees. “Oh, I’m just fine.”
“I’ll get you a towel.”
“Nope,” he said sharply, drawing me up short. “You stay right there. Look me in the eye, Liv.”
I found that his commands were impossible to say no to. I froze and my gaze locked with his, all without me consciously deciding to do so.
His smile softened. “Thanks for the drink. I’ll be home in a week. I’ll stop by.”
“Yeah!” Linc yelled. “Wait, where are you going?”
Chris answered without looking away from me. “I’ve got games to play little man. But don’t you worry. When I get back, you and I are going to catch another fish and make your momma a nice dinner. Sound good?”
I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. Every word out of Chris Kaine’s mouth seemed to remove more of my feeling or ability to form coherent thoughts.
“It’s a date, Chris,” Linc said, leaning over the dock, “I always wanted to make dinner for Mom but I don’t know how to make anything but peanut butter and jelly.”
“I’ll teach you,” Chris said, starting to step backwards. “Next week.”
“Where are you going?” I asked. He kept moving further away and it was almost impossible to see him in the dark.
But I saw one last twinkle in his eyes before he chuckled, “I figure I’m already wet, might as well swim home.”
4
Speaking of love…
Chris
The game was not going well so I was warming up in the St. Pete Mantas bullpen. Normally we wouldn’t get too worked up over a loss like this but things had gotten serious fast. Losing this game would mean no longer having the playoff position we had in our hands a week ago.
So here we were, headed into the seventh inning with our third pitcher of the game and it wasn’t looking good.
I threw a fastball that went straight down the middle, and glanced at Rex Little. “How fast?”
“Ninety five.”
Right where I wanted to be if they called me into the game. When they called me up. One look at the scoreboard told me Yates was getting yanked if he walked this batter.
“We’ll get ‘em,” Ruiz said from behind the fence. “We’re only down by two. Andres can get on base and Seth will crank a homer. As long as you can hold them at five we’ll tie them up.”
I wanted to laugh. Of course I could hold them. This was what I did better than anyone else on my team—hell better than anyone else in the league—I was cool as ice. Focus was my super power. I didn’t hear the jeers from the stands or the jabs from the guys on base. I didn’t see the scoreboard after I stepped foot on that field. It was just me and the batter. Every pitch was about outsmarting the man staring me down. Sometimes it was about speed, most of the time it was about being focused.
Unless it was a long legged, dark haired siren that went by the name Olivia Saldana. Apparently all my focus went out the window. No, that was wrong. I had plenty of focus when it came to her; the problem was that she took all of it. After I swam home from her dock I took a nice long cold shower. She wasn’t a dream after all. Everything I thought happened on my boat really did happen—from the embarrassing to the incredibly intense way she made me feel.
“What the hell are you thinking about?” Ruiz barked.
He even threw a balled up piece of paper at me.
“Nothing.”
“Not nothing. You just went a million miles away. You’re about to pitch, moron.”
“I’m fine.”
“Is it a girl?” my practice catcher, John Arroyo, asked. He popped his mask up and put his knees down on the ground. “It’s a girl, isn’t it?”
“What the hell is up with you two? I’m fine. I was just thinking about whether I was getting out there before or after Hians bats.”
“Right,” Arroyo said really slowly like he didn’t believe me.
“Is she pretty?” Ruiz asked.
“There’s no girl!” I yelled. “You ready to catch?” There was no girl. There was a woman. A five-foot-seven-inch woman who was single but not.
I really liked Linc. The kid was fun and blunt and honest. Plus he was a tiny version of Olivia. Did he like baseball? He sure liked fishing. The kid was pretty awesome in my book.
I didn’t have another second to think about him though because I was called up to pitch a minute later. The moment I stepped onto the grass of the outfield I went into what my mom used to call “Robot Mode.” By the time I met the coach on the mound nothing else existed but the ball in my hand and Wes Allen’s catcher’s mitt behind home plate. The batter was my enemy and my job was to be smarter than he was for the next inning and a half.
I was on fire. I hadn’t been this hot in weeks, maybe all season. I ended the game with no hits. Not one. They didn’t even bother to call in our closer. And everyone else did their jobs, too. We won six to five and held our superior place in the run up to the playoffs.
“Your brother is waiting outside,” Erik, our second baseman said, hitting me in the arm as he walked by.
“Ben or Scott?” I wasn’t expecting either of them.
“Scott.”
“Really?” It was a stupid thing to say. Obviously Scott was outside if Erik said he was outside. What I didn’t understand was why.
So I yanked on my pants and went to get him. Sure enough, leaning against the cinderblock wall beside the locker room door was Scott. I hadn’t seen him in three months—not since his last movie started shooting in Vancouver. He didn’t even call me like Ben did.
“Hey.” He smiled and stood up when I opened the door. All three of us looked a lot alike. Scott had the darkest hair. It was always perfectly cut and styled—had been since he discovered style around the age of nine. This also explained why he was in a suit. In Florida. At night. At least he’d taken off the tie and opened up the collar.
“Why didn’t you call?” I pulled him into a hug. We were almost exactly the same height. I was the shortest by three-quarters of an inch.
And no, I would never, ever just round it up and call it an inch. Not gonna happen.
“I did but you never check your damn phone on game days.” He pushed me back and ruffled my hair the way he had since I could remember.
“Okay, let me rephrase, why didn’t you call before today to let me know you’d be here? Did you watch the game?” I waited to invite him in until I knew whether his surprise visit was a good thing or a bad thing.
“It was last minute. My flight to New York got canceled and I decided to hop a plane to Tampa instead.” He shifted on his feet but otherwise my brother didn’t look like he was suffering.
“Aw shucks, you came to see me?”
He shook his head. “It’s been a while. I thought I might go see Grandma Kaine too.”
I opened the locker room door and ushered him into our domain of maleness. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the playoffs does it
? Because you know I’ll get you tickets. You didn’t have to come grease the wheels ahead of time.”
He smacked me up the backside of my head. “You better get me tickets. You think after all these years of baseball practices and tournaments and camps I’m going to miss out on the party of your career? Hell no.”
“Scott!” Wes yelled from the other side of the locker room. The whole team knew my movie star brother. Wes, being our loud-mouthed catcher and resident movie aficionado liked to think of Scott as his friend, even though they barely knew each other.
“Wes!” He yelled back, chuckling.
“You don’t have to encourage his bad behavior.”
Scott shrugged. “Of course I do. When you guys win the championship I’m going to milk all your fame. I need signatures and photo ops. Especially Mr. Instagram.”
It was true Wes was Instagram famous. And I didn’t doubt Scott would use that to his advantage, however I also had a feeling there was more lurking beneath his sudden and unplanned visit.
Scott worked the room while I finished dressing. Ruiz and Arroyo both cornered me before I could escape.
“Great game. Sorry we gave you a hard time.” Ruiz said.
But Arroyo grinned. “Is she pretty? Just tell us if she’s pretty.”
“I have no idea what you knuckleheads are talking about.”
“She must be gorgeous,” Ruiz nodded.
“No way our cool cucumber pitcher could be this flustered if she were ugly.”
I saw red for a moment, which was, of course, exactly what they wanted. My expression must have been somewhere between murderous and jealous because they both busted out laughing. “He has it so bad!” Arroyo laughed and laughed and laughed.
“Who has it bad?” Seth Butler asked, joining them.
The exact last person I needed to know anything about my personal life was our gossipy left fielder. “Nothing. Ruiz and Arroyo are just being assholes.” They were. There was nothing false in my statement.
“So what’s new?” Seth shrugged. “They don’t know how to be anything different.”