by E. M. Moore
I swallow hard. My mind goes there, and I’m not going to sit here and say that I don’t think that’s hot. It is.
Hayes pulls me up until I’m looking into his face again. He’s staring at Sloan though, his eyes ice hard. “Tessa and I don’t need an audience.”
I’m glad no one’s looking directly at me right now because I’m bright red. I shift uncomfortably on Hayes’s lap until his fingers tighten their hold on me. From the way I’m responding to Sloan’s words, I’m pretty sure I’m into having an audience. Sometime. Maybe not now. Or anytime soon. Probably not with Hayes.
Or maybe so.
Sloan moves closer until I’m sandwiched between them. His hands come to my shoulders as he kneads my muscles there. My legs around Hayes’s waist tighten. This movement gathers his attention. He looks down, our gazes colliding. His face flushes when he sees me. If my face is anything like what I’m feeling on the inside, I probably look completely unabashed and ready.
Something has to give soon because I can’t keep walking around like this.
Hayes moves forward and presses a chaste kiss to my lips.
He moves to stand and Sloan steps back to give me space so Hayes can set me on my feet. My knees feel like Jell-O, but Sloan has a hold of my waist now. I take a few deep breaths until I feel like I’m returning to normal. Hayes cups my face and smiles.
“You’re evil,” I tell him.
He arches a brow as he readjusts himself in his shorts. “I could say the same for you, but I’ll blame it on Ivy. He’s evil because he interrupted us.”
“I wasn’t going to interrupt. I was going to join.”
I chuckle nervously. Now that I’m not wrapped up in Hayes, I realize there’s no way we should’ve been doing that when my mom could walk right in. I don’t want to add embarrassment to my list of things to worry about right now. I clear my throat, needing to change the subject. “Where’s Ryan? I thought he was meeting us here.”
Sloan leans over and kisses my ear. When he pulls away, I turn to face him. He’s staring at my lips when he says, “He wants us to stop by and get him on our way to the game.”
I reach my hand up to rub at my face. Ryan is only a few doors down now. Along with everything else that’s going on with me, my dad hired movers to move all of Ryan’s and his mother’s shit into their new home. I’ve been inside the foyer once, not attempting to go any further. I know I need to try, but as much as he and Leslie are telling me to act like their home is mine, too, it’s just so hard.
“I think he’s avoiding coming over here,” Sloan says finally.
My eyes roam toward the archway. I know what he must feel, especially after my mother came to camp to kiss my dad. He’s probably expecting her to be even more mad at the situation, but I think it’s the opposite. She’s not happy, but she’s resigned now. My dad’s moving in with his girlfriend after all. There’s no turning back.
“I guess we better get him then,” I say, eager to see Alec play baseball. With my appointments and x-rays, I haven’t been able to watch very many of his games yet.
“We could’ve left a while ago if you two weren’t messing around,” Sloan teases.
I smile up at him. “Like you should talk. You were sucking up to my mother.”
He runs his hand up my back as we move toward the front of the house. His hands tease at the nape of my neck. “Don’t worry, Daddy’s Girl. You’re the only Dale I want.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I tell him, but an even wider smile pulls my lips apart.
My mother was right. I really do only smile when they’re around. Currently, they’re the only steady thing in my life, and I need that now more than ever.
2
I get pulled into entering my dad’s new house. It seems rude to wait in the car when my dad owns the place, and I can clearly see his SUV in the driveway, so I know he’s there.
Hayes helps me by holding my hand as I step out of the Jeep and then all the way up the walk toward the foyer. The door is wide open, an arctic blast wafting out from the air conditioning, but movers are going in and out, so it’s a bit chaotic inside. Half opened boxes are stacked in the entryway, and I look at them like they’re foreign objects, wondering if any of this stuff is my dad’s.
“Ryan?” Sloan calls out as we walk inside. I know he already texted him on the way here, which was literally two minutes ago. Yep. That’s how far apart we live now. I can walk to his house. Hell, I could crawl, hobble, and jump rope here, too. It’s just so freaking close.
Hayes and I wait inside the foyer, dodging guys in matching red shirts. Ryan comes around the corner, his shorts low on his hips, his broad, well-muscled chest bare in front of us. He’s in the process of pulling a shirt on over his head, but it’s enough time for me to drink him in. My heart thumps solidly in my chest like it’s its own entity. Ryan fucking Linc, living in my dad’s house. This is seriously happening.
He gives a quick check behind him and calls out that he’ll be back later. He seems to be moving with super speed through the house, especially when he sees me standing there.
“Wait!” Leslie calls out.
Ryan stops in his tracks, his gaze moving to mine. There’s an apology there I don’t understand yet.
“Is Tessa here?”
I swallow, and Hayes squeezes my hand once before letting it go.
“Yes,” Ryan says, his voice filled with aggravation. At the same time, my voice cracks on a “Yeah.” It seemed stupid to let him answer for me when I’m right there, but I really hate my reaction right now. Why is this so hard for me?
Footsteps echo through a room I can’t see, and then Leslie moves into view. It might just be my imagination, but she’s already looking the part of living up in the hills. She’s wearing a halter top that’s quite flattering on her paired with a pair of white shorts. She’s shoeless, and her feet say she must’ve had a pedicure done recently. “There you are,” she says. She looks from me to Ryan, still smiling. “You know Tim wanted to show Tessa her room.”
Oh fuck. Panic sweeps through me. I lift my gaze to Ryan’s. He’s still sporting an unsaid apology, and I understand it now. He knew they were going to ambush me with this.
“We really have to go, Mom,” Ryan says, trying to usher us out once more. “Tessa can see it some other time. I don’t want to be late for Alec’s game.”
It’s working until another voice sounds from deep within the house. “Do I hear my Pumpkin?” Seconds later, my dad walks right up next to Leslie and stares at us all. Hayes and Sloan shift uncomfortably. “There you are.” He smiles. “I want to show you something.”
I’m fucked now. There’s no way I can say no. It’s just a harmless room. Seeing it doesn’t mean I even have to spend time in it. Looking at it doesn’t make it mine. It doesn’t mean I ever have to sleep within its walls or hell, even think about it again. It’s just a thing. Right?
I saw my father not two hours ago at my x-ray appointment, but he’s dressed down now and sweating like he’s been putting a lot of work into making this house a home for them. A pang of guilt hits me for hating all of this. He’s happy, so I should at least be happy for him. “Yeah, okay,” I say.
He reaches out for me, and I step ahead, walking right to him. He puts his arm around my shoulders and moves me forward. When we exit the foyer, there’s a staircase to our right. The house is different than ours. It’s more open, and the staircase is curved, displayed proudly like it’s the centerpiece of the house. We walk up, and I can’t help but admire how pretty the house is on the inside. There are boxes stacked here and there, but as soon as those are removed, this house will be good for them. Dad squeezes my shoulder as we round the top of the stairs. “The master suite is on the main floor. You and Ryan, as well as the guest rooms, are up here.”
I swallow. You and Ryan… Words I never thought I’d hear in the same sentence pertaining to what he’s saying right now.
I look behind me and see that everyone has followed us up the stairs. Ryan’s
glaring at the floor, but Sloan and Hayes have their eyes locked on me. It gives me courage to keep taking the next steps without faltering. It’s just a house. It’s just a room. I don’t have to move in with them.
“Here’s Ryan’s,” my dad says, pointing to a room on the right with the door open. He pauses there briefly. I sneak a peek inside. Despite the generous square footage, it looks a lot like his old bedroom. It’s decorated the same, missing the giant Lakers poster on the door though. “And…here’s yours.” I’m ushered down the hall a little further. Then, he spins me to our left, and I’m face-to-face with a room that clearly screams me. “I hope you don’t mind, I picked everything out.” My dad’s beaming. I can feel the weight of his smile that’s telling me I need to respond in kind, but the weird thing is, I don’t have to make myself smile back. It comes to my lips naturally. I actually really like the room. Still not staying in it, but I can admit that he did a good job in captivating me with the furniture and the sheets. “You can change everything if you want to,” Dad says. “I just wanted a place for my Pumpkin in my home.”
I move further in, taking in the detail he used. My favorite color, purple, is everywhere. Pictures of he, my mom, and I are on the dresser, and an even bigger picture is displayed on the wall from my one and only start in a Rockport High jersey. I haven’t seen the picture before today, and I’m immediately drawn to it. “Dad,” I say, my throat swelling with emotion. “It’s really nice. Thank you.” I trace my fingers over the glass holding back the poster of my ascent into the air, the basketball barely away from my fingers as I jump for a layup. You can just barely see the top of the nine on my jersey.
“Someone sent that to me,” my dad says, his voice close now. “I had it enhanced and framed. I thought you could use it for motivation to get you back to playing.”
My throat threatens to close on me. I swallow through it and turn toward him, giving him a hug. He swallows me in his long arms. In moments like this, I miss my dad who was always around. I know things will get better from here, but I’ll always miss him living in the same house. It’ll feel so different now. When we separate and I look up, Ryan’s mom is in the doorway, and I immediately clam up. This isn’t my room. No matter how nice he tries to make it for me—and it is nice—it still doesn’t feel right. I love that he’s trying though.
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, feeling the awkwardness crawl over me again. Behind his mom, I hear Ryan and the guys talking. How freaking weird would it be to be here and just have the guys stop by any time because they’re Ryan’s friends? What if I had grown up like that? What if that happens now?
My dad squeezes my shoulder. “Glad you like it, Pumpkin. I got to get back to the movers.” He leans down and kisses the top of my head. “Have fun at the game.”
I’ve seen Dad more in the past two weeks than I’ve seen him since he left my mom. He said one of the reasons why he wanted this house was to be close to me, and he wasn’t lying about that. He’s gone to my appointments with me, we’ve taken walks together. Soon, he wants to go for a run like old times, but we just haven’t ventured that far because we don’t want me to trip and re-break my wrist. He’s come over to use the gym in our house. We made it a leg day, and he did everything for me as far as moving weights around when I needed. I know he’ll put a gym into his own house, too, but so far, it’s actually been nice. I just don’t know if I’ll be able to ever treat this room, this house, like it’s mine though.
He turns around suddenly. “Oh hey, before I forget.” He looks back over his shoulder and nods at Leslie. Leslie smiles at him and then shuts the two of us into the room alone. Jitters skitter through me as I look up at him. “So, how would you feel if I bought Ryan a car?”
My brows pull together. “You want to buy Ryan a car?”
“He’s going to need to get to school somehow. I originally thought he could ride with you, but since you shouldn’t be driving right now, I thought he could drive you. Leslie doesn’t want me to get him anything extravagant, but I’d like to do this for him. He’s a good kid.”
My heart melts, but I have to wonder if it’s only because he’s talking about Ryan and I happen to like Ryan. I’d love for Ryan to have a car. He does deserve it. But a little piece of me isn’t so sure I’d be this happy if dad was dating someone else and we weren’t talking about Ryan right now. “I think it’s your money, Dad,” I say, intentionally staying vague. “You can do what you want with it.”
“I know that,” he says. “I just don’t want to make any more decisions that will upset you. You have enough to worry about. And, I also don’t want you to think that I’m replacing you with Ryan. Yes, I want to help him out, but you’re my daughter, Pumpkin. No one else.”
I take a deep breath. The emotions are hitting me hard today, but the fact is, Dad is talking about Ryan. I bite the inside of my cheek when I think about what this will mean to him. When I look back up at Dad again, there’s no doubt in my mind what he should do. “I appreciate you bringing it up with me first instead of blindsiding me. And, I happen to agree with you, Dad. I think Ryan deserves a car.”
Dad smiles. Clearly, he can’t wait to do this for him. My dad loves being generous. “I knew you’d warm up to him.”
If he only fucking knew. Scratch that. If he knew, he might not be so willing to buy him that car.
“Keep it under your hat, okay? Leslie and I want to surprise him.”
I make a show of zipping my lips together. My skin pricks thinking about how happy Ryan’s going to be though. I freaked out when Dad bought me mine.
Dad walks toward the door and opens it. He files out of the room, saying goodbye to me one last time. I stand in the doorway, looking out at Ryan, Sloan, and Hayes who are just now emerging from Ryan’s room.
Ryan levels a stare at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I tell him.
The longer I’m in that room without my father, though, the antsier I get. When he’s not next to me, this place feels too foreign. The Ballers right next to me aren’t even helping because it only solidifies the fact that this is something out of the ordinary. I don’t feel as if I belong here.
“Should we head out? We don’t want to disappoint Alec.”
Ryan turns wordlessly toward the stairs. I leave the door to “my” room open. There’s nothing I’m hiding in there. None of that stuff within those walls is actually mine, so I couldn’t care less if someone else goes inside.
I follow them down the stairs and back into the foyer before Leslie peeks her head out again. “Tessa, there’s a set of keys to the house hanging just inside the door for you.”
“Oh,” I say, my stomach bottoming out again. “Okay.”
“Bye, Mom,” Ryan says loudly. He motions with his head toward the door, and I follow him, grateful for the excuse to just leave and not get stuck in an awkward conversation about having my own keys to this place.
I walk out without grabbing them. I don’t foresee myself needing keys to this house. I have my own house with my own mother and my own things.
When we get outside, Sloan asks, “That wasn’t too bad, was it?”
I shrug. Ryan is watching me, his gaze slicing through the layers of my skin. I feel as if he knows everything I’m thinking whether I’m saying it out loud or whether it’s just written on my face. He gets it.
We walk out to Sloan’s Jeep, and now that I’m free from the house, there’s just one more thing I need to worry over today: Will Lake O’fucking Brien be at Alec’s baseball game? He might as well be. That would just top this day off, wouldn’t it?
3
The guys haven’t said much in front of me about what they think regarding Alec wanting to play baseball over basketball. The topic hasn’t even come up lately because of my damn wrist. I admit, I’ve been a little preoccupied, but I’m sure they’ve all discussed it. In some ways, I’m closer to my Ballers now more than ever. In others, I feel like we’ve barely even scraped the surface. I think the fact th
at they’re still here, supporting him, speaks volumes though.
Squished between Hayes and Sloan, I wonder if Alec will even play basketball this year. Personally, I wouldn’t risk it, but he’s risked it all those other years. Sentimentally and selfishly, I want him to play. I want to play right next to him, just like I envisioned. I understand the possible consequences though. Anything could happen. Just look at my damn wrist.
My heart thudded all the way here, hoping Lake wouldn’t show himself. The guys weren’t as tense as me. I should’ve realized it was because they knew he wasn’t going to be here. I don’t know how, maybe they told him not to come. Maybe they knew he wouldn’t have the balls to show up. As far as I know, they haven’t spoken to him since he broke my wrist, but I wouldn’t swear by it either. For all I know, he could’ve walked off the steep end of a cliff and died…but I can’t be that lucky, can I?
Ryan is sitting in front of me, his shoulders tense. He keeps watching the crowd, his gaze flitting between the entrance and the game being played down on the field. I hate to see his bunched muscles, knowing I’m at least half the reason. He went against his friendship with Lake for me. Someone he’s known all his life. I lift my good hand and place it on the back of his neck. He stills for a moment, but then I lazily draw my fingers over the peek of skin there, working them up into the fine hair at the base of his neck and then down into the collar of his shirt. He doesn’t acknowledge that I’m touching him, but he doesn’t push me away either.
Alec runs in from third base when his team gets the last out of the inning. He looks up, and when he sees us there, he raises his hand in a salute. We all wave at him in return. He has his game face on, so it’s hard to tell right now, but I know he’s worried about me. They all are. He texted me this morning on the way to his game and told me that Roberta was making me a get-well card. I think that girl took my getting hurt worse than I did.
I peruse the stands and don’t notice his family sitting anywhere. It’s in the middle of a workweek in the middle of the day, so I guess it doesn’t surprise me that his parents aren’t here. Most people have jobs they go to. They can’t just beg off work because their son has a baseball game. It isn’t until school starts when these special season games move to the weekend. Dawn would be here, too, but she got a job at the small ice cream shop to pay for her school clothes this year. I’ve already told the guys I want to stop there after the game to get some ice cream and visit with her since she’s another person I haven’t seen much since I got back.