by Lauren Layne
This time, he wanted to celebrate, and he had no use for Vegas, champagne, or a fancy new car.
He didn’t want anything money could buy.
This time, the reward was the woman.
Carter didn’t even bother going to the rental house. He saw Olive’s car in her driveway and pulled Jody in right behind hers, bounding up the stairs before realizing he’d forgotten the beer, deciding, Screw the beer, and barging through her front door. He was thoroughly unsurprised to find it unlocked.
“Olive. You left your front door unlocked, again!” he called.
Her voice came from upstairs. “And yet strangely, I lived here for years without men barging in uninvited. Or coming by at all, really.”
“Their loss,” he said, about to go up the stairs toward her, but she was already coming down.
He couldn’t hide his grin, and she matched it when she saw his left arm, launching herself at him much the way she had that day at the softball game.
This time, he caught her with both arms.
This time, he had no intention of letting her go.
“The cast is off,” she said, leaning back just enough to clasp his face and sprinkle happy kisses all over him. “Feel good?” she asked.
“You have no idea,” he said, still grinning at her, because damn—nobody ever made him smile as much as this woman. “I thought it would be bittersweet, knowing that it’s only one part of the healing process, that the shoulder’s still a mess, but I feel one step closer to whole. More like myself.”
“Good,” she said matter-of-factly, giving him one more kiss before squirming to be let go.
He held fast.
“Put me down. I want to show you something.”
Reluctantly, he let her slide to the ground, and the second her feet hit the floor, she grabbed his hand and hauled him after her into the kitchen.
She gestured to the arrangement on her kitchen counter. “I didn’t know if you were going to be in a champagne mood, a beer mood, a whisky mood, an iced-tea mood—”
“No on that last one.”
“So I got them all,” she said. “Because we have two things to celebrate: the liberation of your left arm, and”—she reached for something on the counter and turned around—“ta-da!”
He let out a laughing groan. “Are you trying to ruin my day?”
She smoothed a hand over the cover and gave it a fond pat. “I’m thinking of framing it.”
“You will do no such thing.”
“Why not? The rest of the town is.”
Carter stared at her, horrified. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
Olive shook her head. “Not even a little bit. Your brilliant mother even anticipated it, and gave Gail over at Prints & More a heads-up to stock a bunch of 8.5 x 11 frames by today. I called to reserve one, but she’s already out of stock.”
“Oh God. Why? So they can preserve the memory and torture me later?”
Olive set the magazine aside and stepped closer, cupping his face. “Hardly. Haven is proud of you, Carter. They’re proud of what you’ve accomplished. You might be Citizen’s man this year, but you’ve always been Haven’s guy and always will be. I know you think the magazine didn’t shed any light on who you are off the field, but we in Haven don’t care. We don’t even notice. Because we already know who you are off the field.”
Carter took a deep breath, letting himself absorb everything she was saying, letting it ease some of the uncertainty and emptiness that he’d been carrying around for weeks. Months. Maybe years.
An emptiness that filled a little more with every day he was back in Haven, with every minute he was with her.
Olive kissed him softly. “I like that the magazine only shows the Baseball Carter. It means that the private side of you, the non-baseball Carter, is reserved for us lucky ones who know you personally. And we like getting a side of you that nobody else knows. A side that I happen to like very much.”
He rested his forehead on hers. “God, I wish I’d found you in high school.”
“Nah,” she said, giving his chest a little pat. “We weren’t ready for each other yet. Teenage Olive and Carter were pretty great, but Adult Olive and Carter are really great.”
“Really great together,” Carter corrected, pulling her closer.
She smiled. “It has been one hell of a summer fling.”
Something in his chest tightened at her words, but Carter wasn’t in the mood right now for regrets or might-have-beens.
He was in the mood for Olive.
His head lowered slowly, his lips capturing hers in a slow, breath-stealing kiss. Her response was immediate and eager, and when their lips finally pulled apart, both short for air, she reached down, linked their fingers, and wordlessly led him upstairs.
Since their first time together, he and Olive had slept together at least once a night, sometimes during the day, always when they were sure nobody would know.
Today was different. He made sure of it. Made sure that when he removed her shirt and bra, he showed her with lips and hands that her breasts were the most perfect he’d ever seen. When he tugged off her jeans, he let her know her toned legs were the sexiest, strongest he’d ever had the pleasure of touching. When he added her underwear to the ever-growing pile of clothes on the floor and parted her thighs and tasted her, he told her with his mouth that he was hers, as long as she’d have him.
And when Carter plunged inside her and felt he’d die from the pleasure, he told her and himself that she was his—only his—until it was time to go.
“Well,” Olive said, long moments later, still panting as she rolled toward him and propped her elbows on his chest, her chin on her hands, looking up at him. “That was . . . epic.”
He grinned up at the ceiling, wrapping his arm around her and idly playing with her hair. “I’ll take epic. And if I may say so, I’ve had some pretty extravagant celebrations of good news in my day, but nothing has come close to what we just did.”
Carter was joking as he said it, but the moment the words were out, he felt the truth of them and realized that the intimacy he and Olive had just experienced hadn’t just been about communicating something to her—he’d been discovering something about himself: these past few weeks with this woman had brought out the very best in him. They were the best of him.
“Okay, for real,” she said, rubbing her palm over his chest hair, watching the motion instead of looking at him. “What happens next for you?”
“After the surgery, you mean?” He exhaled. “Rest. Recovery. A whole lot of PT. Worst case, I’ll start throwing baseballs backwards through kitchen windows, like a certain woman I once knew, and my career’s officially over.”
She pinched his side. “What’s best case?”
“Best case, they’ll have to replace my Man of the Year title with Miracle Man, and I’ll be back in the majors as good as ever, with a World Series ring to prove it.”
“Miracle Man,” she mused. “For the record, I will not be calling you that.”
“No?” He shifted so that he could roll on his side, facing her. “What will you call me after I’m gone?”
“Baseball,” she said definitively, referring to her initial nickname for him.
“And after I no longer play baseball?” he said, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger there.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that.” She stacked her hands beneath her cheek. “I know I said you were more than baseball, and you are. So much more. But I also think it’s a part of you that won’t ever go away.”
“I see. You picture me rounding the bases in a wheelchair in my eighties?”
“No.” She smiled. “I think that when your playing days are over, whether it’s at the end of this contract, or if you play another twenty years, the league will refuse to let you go. You’ll be a coach, or a manager. And when you’re too old for that, maybe you could be a cute old man on TV or radio barking about what happens.”
“Yes!” she said, sounding pleased with her scenario.
Too pleased for his liking, considering the closest she’d be to that would be on the watching or listening side right here in Haven with her husband with the hairpiece.
“Will you watch?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“Watch what?”
“My games. The ones that I play, when I’m back. The ones that I coach. The ones I announce.”
“Mmm.” She pressed her lips together and avoided his gaze as she thought it over. “Not at first. I think it might be a little raw.”
“Yeah?” He slid his palm against hers, their hands clasped in the space between them. He was both pleased to know she wouldn’t be unscathed when he left and bothered by the thought of her hurting.
“Yeah. Turns out I like you a little bit,” she said softly, with a faint smile. “But,” she said, recovering her assertive Olive tone immediately, “I’ll snap back so quickly they’ll start calling me the Miracle Woman.”
“Except they won’t. Because nobody knows we’ve seen each other naked and have pillow talk at two p.m. on a weekday.”
“Oh right. That reminds me, do you have one of your baseball outfits? Or can you get one by the reunion on Saturday?”
“My outfits?”
“Costume?” she said sweetly.
His eyes narrowed. “You’re messing with me.”
“Very good.” She patted his cheek. “For the reunion, everyone’s supposed to dress up as what they’d be if they were famous. For you, there’s no if. Ergo—suit up, Man of the Year.”
“Fine. What will you be going as? What are you famous for, in this high school reunion fantasy land?”
She smiled and leaned in for a kiss. “Guess you’ll just have to show up on Saturday to find out.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Saturday, September 5
Because Carter knew way more about the nuances of high school reunions after these past few weeks than he’d ever thought he would, he knew that the average Haven High reunion attendance was about 30 percent.
But when Olive Dunn was behind it? A whopping 81 percent of their graduating class RSVPed yes.
And from the near-roar of the packed gymnasium, it seemed just about every last one of the yeses had shown up.
Everyone except Felicity, who’d slipped out of town as quietly as she’d come in, which confirmed the town’s suspicions that she’d come back solely with hopes of winning the heart of her former prom king, only to ditch out when she realized he was taken.
And he was very much taken.
Speaking of which, where was Olive?
Had her mysterious costume disguised her so thoroughly, he was failing to find her among the sea of classmates and their plus-ones?
No. That wasn’t it. Carter was certain he could pick Olive Dunn out of any crowd. Now. Forever.
Except they didn’t have forever. They had even less time than they’d thought, which was why he really needed her here—so he could tell her.
“So, small bone to pick with you,” Adam Santiago said, clinking his beer to Carter’s, and jolting Carter back to the conversation at hand. “I’m out fifty bucks, and it’s your fault.”
“How’s that?” Carter asked amicably, figuring Adam had bet on some baseball game and lost.
“There was a pool going on whether or not you’d be here with Felicity George tonight. I thought for sure you were going to hit that, man.”
“Dude.” One of Adam’s more sober friends elbowed him hard. “Shut up.”
Carter looked at the less drunk of the two, pinning him with a gaze. “Explain.”
Elliott gave a nervous shrug. “Just some stupid wager that started a few weeks back. There was a rumor going around that you were in town to get back together with her. Everyone knows you were a hot item back . . . before.”
“Yeah, before Olive,” said Britney Cors teasingly, a girl he’d had a thirty-second relationship with their freshman year, who was now happily married with four kids.
“Wait, what?” Adam asked, clearly tipsy and slow to keep up with the conversation. “Olive Dunn?”
“How many Olives are there?” Britney said in exasperation.
“Damn. How’d I miss that?”
“Because you’re an idiot,” Britney’s husband muttered under his breath.
Carter nearly spoke up to say that he and Olive were just friends. It was what she wanted—not to be known as the woman he left behind—but the words wouldn’t come. He didn’t want a single person here to think he was ashamed of being romantically entangled with Olive.
“Well, that’s cool,” an oblivious Adam said. “Olive’s the best.”
Carter narrowed his eyes on the shorter man, looking for any sign of sarcasm, because though he thoroughly agreed with the assessment, he also remembered high school. People hadn’t been cruel to Olive, but they hadn’t been particularly kind, either.
Brian Nickles, the first basemen to Carter’s shortstop back in high school, smiled and nodded in agreement with Adam. “Olive’s baller. She reminds me of a Valkyrie.”
“She’s a gosh-darn doll,” said Brian’s wife in a slight southern twang. Carter’d forgotten her name, but remembered she was from Alabama.
Again, Carter looked for sarcasm, ready to fight for Olive’s honor, and again he saw only honest nods.
“Everyone likes Olive,” Alabama continued. “If there were a homecoming queen for grown-ups, she’d be it.” She looked around at the group. “Was she homecoming queen in high school?”
“Nah,” Joe Bianchi said. “We were too dumb and stupid to see the good ones back then,” he added, echoing thoughts very similar to ones Carter himself had been having in recent weeks.
“Hey!” his pregnant wife said, poking her finger into his stomach.
“Whoops. Forgot I married my high school sweetheart,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek.
“He’s right, though,” Courtney said to no one in particular. “I admit I wasn’t all that nice to Olive in high school. She was smart, and smart wasn’t cool, and well . . . that’s kind of embarrassing to admit now, isn’t it?”
“What’s embarrassing?”
Carter’s blood immediately seemed to run warmer as the group turned slightly to welcome the newcomer.
Olive . . . covered in green glitter.
“Oh my God,” Courtney said, laughing so hard that she had to adjust her Wonder Woman tiara—her ideal version of famous, apparently. “What are you, the Jolly Green Giant?”
“No, she’s Gumby!” someone else guessed. “Jesus, Olive, you’re way too hot for your famous alter ego to be a creepy clay children’s toy.”
“Um, duh,” Elliott said. “Which is why she’s obviously Gamora. The hot chick from Guardians of the Galaxy.”
Noting the other man’s admiring tone, Carter gave Elliott a sharp look. Elliott was divorced, and not unattractive. He was also dressed up as Chris Pratt’s character from Guardians of the Galaxy, giving him and Olive a decidedly couple-y vibe.
For that matter, Marvel and DC Comics apparently played an important role in most of Haven High School’s graduates’ version of famous. That or, more likely, they’d all used the night as a chance to dress up as whatever they had been at Halloween.
“Wrong, wrong, and wrong,” Olive said playfully, pointing at each of the incorrect guesses. She looked every bit the queen holding court, and had still not once looked Carter’s way.
Nobody was looking Carter’s way.
So much for Man of the Year being the draw tonight. These people had shown up because Olive had asked them to.
Carter smiled at the realization. It was exactly as it should be.
“Okay, so who are you, for real?” someone asked.
“I,” Olive said, dramatically, as she put her hand to her chest, “am a high school biology teacher, who in the process of trying to make posters for her high school reunion, manage
d to cover herself in green glitter.”
This earned her a few quizzical smiles. But Carter understood.
“You’re yourself,” Carter said to her, speaking for the first time.
Olive’s blue eyes cut to his, and she smiled at him, friendly and guileless. “I’m me. And me is better than famous.”
“If you don’t put that quote on Pinterest, I will,” said a woman dressed in an astronaut costume.
“Go for it,” Olive said. “Pinterest and all its lofty ideals is what got me into this glitter mess in the first place.”
“Ohmigod,” another of their classmates said, all but bouncing as the DJ started playing a slow song. “I love this song. You guys remember it? It was the last slow dance they played at prom.”
Olive gave an indifferent shrug. “I didn’t go to prom.”
Carter looked at her in dismayed surprise. Well. That was some bullshit.
Screw her secrecy plan. Carter knew what he had to do. What he wanted to do. Especially since their time was more limited than she realized. He wasn’t waiting another moment.
He set his drink on a table and stepped forward, hand extended to the most dazzling woman he’d ever known, with or without glitter. “Dance with me, Dunn.”
She took his hand and smiled back, and Carter felt his heart crack a little knowing what he needed to tell her tonight.
That tonight was their last night.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Saturday, September 5
“Well. This isn’t going to help quell the rumors that we’re hooking up,” Olive said, even as she rested her head on his shoulder, feeling as much at home as she ever had.
“I hardly think that’s our biggest problem,” Carter said against her hair, his cheek resting on the top of her head.
“What’s worse in your mind? That my costume is better than your costume?” she asked.
“How about the fact that your costume is getting green glitter all over my uniform? Can’t wait to explain that when I hand it over to be dry-cleaned.”