by Tara Sivec
Palmer just continues to shake his head at Bodhi as he turns back in the booth to face me.
“Please take my advice and never, ever take his,” Palmer says, pointing his thumb at Bodhi.
We both watch him using the screen of his phone and a ray of sun coming through the diner window to shine a blinding light in another patron’s eye, giggling the entire time until Palmer reaches over and snatches the phone out of his hand with an annoyed growl.
Right, so Bodhi is probably not the voice of reason. Got it.
Now that the table has been cleared except for our coffee cups that were just refilled and a new plastic cup with chocolate milk has been dropped off for Bodhi, I lean forward and rest my arms on the table, clasping my hands together.
“Okay, then I need advice on Kevin.”
As soon as I say his name, I instantly see a change in their moods and demeanors. Both of their shoulders get tense, their eyes narrow, Bodhi cracks his knuckles, and Palmer growls a little. It raises the hackles on the back of my neck. I’ve never seen either one of these men in anything other than a good mood, even when they’re annoyed. If just the sound of this asshole’s name gets them this worked up, I can only imagine what kind of bullshit he’s done to Wren all these years. She hasn’t elaborated, and I don’t want to push it. Seeing the look on her face during the little bit she did tell me about the guy made me realize I don’t want to put her through that again. I don’t want to make her relive anything that has to do with him again, and I will do everything in my power to make sure she never feels weak.
“Tell me,” I demand in a low voice, squeezing my clasped hands together tighter so I’m not tempted to grab something breakable and throw it across the room.
Palmer lets out a deep sigh, mirroring me to rest his arms on the table and fold his hands together, while Bodhi pulls something up on his phone and then turns the screen around so I can see.
“Meet Kevin Stratford. Handsome little fuck, ain’t he?” Bodhi snorts as I get my first good look at the man I’ve hated since before I knew anything about him.
I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath until it comes out of me in a shaky rasp while I study his face, seeing absolutely no sign of Owen except for the dark-brown hair. I don’t know why that bothered me so much, wondering if that sweet, amazing young man would look anything like his piece-of-shit father. Maybe because I know how much that would suck for Wren, having to look at a small replica of the man who has made her feel less than what she is for so many years, on the body of the person she loves more than anyone or anything else in the world. It eases a little of my anxiety, knowing my initial assessment was right, and Owen is a perfect mini-me of Wren.
Kevin Stratford is a handsome little fuck; I’ll give Bodhi that. He’s good-looking in a clean-cut, douchebag, frat boy way, wearing his light-pink chinos with a white button-down and a pale-blue linen jacket, standing on the deck of a mega-yacht in the middle of the ocean, holding a designer pair of sunglasses up to his mouth so he can douchebagily hold one of the earpieces in his teeth.
What a dumb fuck.
“He’s loaded, but not really,” Palmer starts. “It’s all Daddy’s money. And before you lose your shit that he’s never given Wren anything, that’s because she wouldn’t let him, even if he offered, which he never has anyway. His parents have never met Owen, but they mail him $200 every year in March for his birthday, so at least Wren has never had to pay for a pair of his cleats.”
“Except Owen’s birthday is in October.” Bodhi snorts humorlessly.
“He’s a hedge fund manager at his dad’s company in North Carolina,” Palmer goes on, while I continue staring at this asshole, already calculating how much money his plastic surgeon will make fixing Kevin’s pretty face when I’m done with him. “Which is just a fancy title for ‘I don’t do jack shit to earn a paycheck, and my daddy bails me out of every problem I have.’ I actually met him the same night Wren did. I’ll be honest with you; he was a charming motherfucker. Said all the right things, only had eyes for Wren all night long. Shit, I almost wanted to sleep with him by the end of the night. And then the stick turned pink and he showed his true colors. I only saw him one other time right after Owen was born and I was home for a visit. That was more than enough. He’s a condescending prick.”
“I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard plenty from Tess, and we’ve both seen all the screenshots of the texts he’s sent and listened to the raging voicemails he’s left over the years,” Bodhi adds, finally pulling the phone away. “Last time he was here, the first thing he said to her was ‘You’re looking a little fat. Maybe lay off the ice cream.’”
A vision of Kevin’s pristine, pale-blue linen jacket covered in blood suddenly forms in my head as they continue, putting me through a special kind of hell that I know pales in comparison to Wren actually having to go through it.
“Always tells her she’s a shitty mother because she works too much,” Palmer says, my arms starting to shake with how hard I’m squeezing my hands together on top of the table, while also trying not to vomit the stacks and stacks of pumpkin pancakes I inhaled, as I sit here listening to what Wren had to endure all this time.
“Remember the text he sent on Christmas Day that one year, telling her it must suck to spend another holiday alone because no one wants her?”
“Don’t forget the five-minute voicemail where he called her a C-U-Next-Tuesday, because she wouldn’t let Owen fly to Vegas alone for Kevin’s fourth wedding.”
“He always blames her for why he never sees Owen. He literally just called her a bitch yesterday, because she wouldn’t give him the ferry schedule.”
“He tells her she’s dumb and stupid all the time.”
“Always saying things to her like, ‘If you really loved our son, you wouldn’t…’ dot-dot-dot, fill in the blank. Every decision she makes is always the wrong one, according to Kevin.”
“I can’t even say the last thing…”
“You have to. He needs to hear it all.”
“He makes fun of her constantly for being the… worst lay he’s ever had, and he goes into a seriously disgusting amount of detail about her being cold and dead and… fuck, I wanna puke just repeating that, because this is my future sister-in-law, but there you go. Kevin Stratford in a nutshell. How do we want to kill him when he gets here?”
“I vote for fire!” Bodhi announces, raising his hand high in the air. “Tess just bought marshmallows.”
It takes me at least five minutes of deep, heavy breathing with my eyes closed while Palmer and Bodhi discuss the easiest way to kill a man before I finally feel like I don’t want to flip the table, break every single plate and glass in here into a shattered pile on the floor, and then drop to my knees and scream at the top of my lungs until my voice is hoarse.
When I feel calm enough, I unclasp my hands, lean to the side, pull my wallet out of the back pocket of my jeans, and throw down enough money to cover all our breakfasts along with a very generous tip for the server who had to listen to all this insanity the last hour and a half while she waited on us. I cut off Palmer’s protests about picking up the tab by telling him he can get the next one. Even though I’m probably going to regret all the advice I was bombarded with this morning, it feels good to have friends here and to be able to make future plans with them. It just feels so settled and so homey, even while thoughts of murder are running rampant through my head.
“Why is he so calm?” Palmer asks Bodhi as I slide out of the booth, both of them joining me before Palmer looks at me when we all get out into the aisle. “Why are you so calm?”
“I’m anything but calm right now. I’m trying to rise above and handle this the mature way,” I tell them as we make our way toward the front door, waving and saying hello to a few people we know as we go. “Plus, I just got Wren and Owen. I don’t really want to screw that up by going to prison. Have you seen the type of craft rooms they have there? Appalling.”
“See?” Bodhi smacks
Palmer on the arm as we get out onto the sidewalk and into the bright late-morning sunshine. “I told you he was Dorothy. Grounded and sarcastic. We’re gonna be such good friends forever!”
The three of us laugh, Bodhi and Palmer promising to have my back when Kevin gets here if I need anything, and then we go our separate ways. Palmer heads off to join Birdie at SIG, since he picked up a few golf lessons to teach this week, and Bodhi walks off toward the beach to probably fall asleep in the shade of a tree somewhere.
I drive back to my cottage to get packed up and changed for the game later, since I need to head up to the school, review some film from our last game, figure out the batting lineup, make sure the field is in tip-top shape, and keep as busy as possible so I don’t look up Kevin Stratford’s address and go pay him a visit that ends in me needing bail money and a good lawyer.
My cell phone dings in my hand with an incoming text as I’m loading up my golf cart in my driveway before heading up to school. Pulling it out of a side pocket of my backpack, I smile when I see the message.
Wren: Hi! Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I forgot my phone at home and left work to get it really quick and just saw your message—as well as all the flowers filling all my tables and counters that weren’t here when I left for work before dawn. I don’t even want to know how you got into my cottage when I wasn’t home, and I don’t care. It smells like heaven in here, and it’s SO FREAKING PRETTY!!!!! Thank you for not bringing *all* of them though. I probably would have been trapped in here LOL! See you at the game tonight.
Okay, so at least it’s good to know I didn’t overwhelm her with the flowers or send her screaming in the other direction. Now I just need to figure out a way to slow things down and give her the respect she deserves after everything Kevin has put her through, without trying to rip her clothes off of her every time she’s standing anywhere near me.
This should be fun.
CHAPTER 13
Shepherd
“You caught my heart.”
“Hey, blue! If you’re just gonna watch the game, buy a ticket! That was a strike!”
Even though I’m supposed to be paying attention to the game in front of me, just like every time I’ve heard that beautiful, sassy voice shouting from the bleachers, I look back over my shoulder, finding Wren in the middle of the stands surrounded by other parents, completely forgetting I’m supposed to be coaching a high school baseball game.
The stands are crowded with island residents to cheer on their Summersweet Wildcats who are currently undefeated, but no matter how loud everyone has gotten during the game, I can always pick out Wren’s voice. It’s like my ears are specifically honed to her, pulling my focus away from the game and putting it only on her. On how goddamn beautiful she always looks whether she’s standing on the beach under the moonlight in a sexy as hell romper or sitting in the stands under the lights in a hoodie and jean shorts straight from work. On how passionate she is about the game of baseball, not only yelling at the umps all night when they make a stupid call but throwing out shouts of instruction and encouragement to the players, each baseball term effortlessly flying out of her mouth, making my dick jump to life in my shorts at a fucking high school baseball game. Just like it did that day I came up on her coaching practice, except that day I had to actually put my hands over my crotch I was so hard watching her masterfully lead practice.
I always laughed whenever Wren would mess up baseball terminology in our messages and thought it was kind of adorable. There is definitely no laughing involved when I hear beautiful, sweet, sometimes sassy Wren Bennett shout things like…
“Choke up on it!”
“Hit it harder!”
“Way to pull it out at the end!”
“That one’s going long and deep!”
And, “Can you grab me some nachos?”
Yeah, so, I’m in hell. Everything she says turns me on now, and it feels like I jinxed myself by saying I needed to slow things down and stop picturing her naked all the time. Now, I’m picturing myself eating nachos off her bare tits, and a man can only take so much, dammit!
When Wren’s eyes meet mine from the stands and she gives me a small smile and a little wave with her fingers, it takes a hell of a lot of strength to look away from her and back to the game. I know it’s not me out there playing on that field, but looking up into the stands from where I’m sitting at the end of the bench in the dugout, in the same spot I used to sit in high school and look up into the stands, wishing Wren was there cheering me on, I almost feel like a teenager again and my girl finally came out to watch me play. And the fact that my girl is the one I’ve been dreaming about since I was that teenager sitting on this bench and glancing up into the stands through the fence just makes it sweeter. And harder to keep a tight leash on my need for her. Being here in this place with the same old smells and sights and sounds, it’s hard to stop remembering all those fantasies I used to have about Wren back in the day, where she’d come to one of my games in high school and we’d celebrate the win by her riding my cock in the dugout after everyone went home.
All of the shit Palmer and Bodhi told me about Kevin suddenly flashes through my head, pouring a cold bucket of water on my fantasies. I need to be concentrating on erasing every bad thing that asshole has ever done and said to her with nothing but good, instead of all the cock riding fantasies, for fuck’s sake. Nothing but reminders that she is strong, and beautiful, and amazing, and perfect exactly the way she is, and not just someone I want to bend over a chest freezer and fuck into oblivion.
A bunch of boos and shouting from the stands when the ump calls the last pitch a ball reminds me I should probably concentrate on this game first before I do anything else.
Pushing myself up from the bench, I stand in front of the chain-link fence surrounding the dugout, reaching up to rest a couple of my fingers in each hand through the fence holes to hang on while I focus my attention on our pitcher, Carter. He started tiring out halfway through this final inning, and after two walks in a row before this current batter, I called a timeout for a chat with him and our catcher on the mound.
I could see the fear in Carter’s eyes as I walked across the infield toward him with a calming smile on my face, knowing exactly how a situation like this would have played out with their old coach. A lot of screaming, yelling, blaming, and humiliating as the man pulled him from the game to replace him with someone else who could finish strong. With the Devils only trailing us by one run, bases loaded, and two outs, it’s a stressful situation not only for me as a coach, but for the pitcher as well. When I saw the determination on Carter’s face as soon as I met him on the mound, and he was adamant that he could strike this guy out and finish the game, I nodded, handed him a ball, patted him on the shoulder, and told him to kick some ass.
I can’t expect my players to trust me if I don’t trust them. Carter is well on his way to a full ride in college for baseball, and he’s smart enough to know when his arm has had enough. If he says he’s still got some heat left, I’m going to believe him. Now it’s a full count with three balls and two strikes, and my heart is pounding in my chest, and my fingers almost slip from their grip on the fence they’re so sweaty.
“Take your time, kid,” I mutter, watching Carter take a deep breath on the mound while the other team starts heckling him.
He shakes his head when the catcher gives him a sign he doesn’t like, nods when he gets a good one, and then his eyes flicker over to mine. As I keep a positive smile on my face, Carter’s eyes go back to the plate, he winds up, and he executes a perfect changeup that confuses the hitter. The kid swings too early, and the loud bark of the ump shouting, “Strike!” sends a roar through the stands behind me. Carter ends the game just like he said he would, and I’m throwing my fists in the air, screaming right along with the fans.
The rest of the Wildcats abandon their positions on the field to race to Carter on the mound, joined by the handful of players sitting in here on the bench wit
h me. We spend the next fifteen minutes celebrating and then shaking hands with the opposing team and coaches before the kids are all packing up their shit strewn around the dugout and heading out with their parents or friends to continue the celebration with pizza at Island Slice, like usual.
I stay where I am right by home plate as a bunch of parents on the team file through to make sure their kids picked up all their stuff and to shake my hand and thank me for coaching another great game. Everyone seems to have gotten used to me being here now, and the awkwardness and constant staring has died down.
It’s not until I’m finally alone in the dirt and the stands have almost cleared out that the only person I’ve wanted to talk to the entire night finally pushes open the gate in the fence and makes her way over to me. Sliding my hands out of my pockets, I’m unable to keep the huge grin off my face watching Wren walk toward me, knowing she’s mine, and she’s walking to me, and in just seconds, one of my favorite PG fantasies is about to come true when she’ll walk right up to me and into my arms to kiss me on home plate. I didn’t just win the championship game with a grand slam that will take us to state like the hundreds of times I’ve played this fantasy out in my head since I was a teenager, but it’s still just as exciting knowing it’s happening right after I coached my team to a win.
Wren stops a few feet away from me, and when she’s close enough that I notice she isn’t returning my smile, I give her a quizzical look, wondering why she stopped all the way over there and she isn’t in my arms right now. Especially after everything Palmer and Bodhi told me today, I want nothing more than to hold her and cherish her and erase every bad thing Kevin has ever done and said to her with nothing but good.