Friend Zone Series Box Set

by Nicole Blanchard

  “I spoke to my mother the day she left. And she came back a few weeks ago and took the girls without warning. They were found abandoned at the mall the next day. The police took a report.”

  Ms. Shultz took down the information and promised to get a copy of the police report. She explained that in order to receive custody, we’d have to prove both parents were unfit for custody in some way or have them waive their rights. It wouldn’t be hard to convince my father. He didn’t give a shit either way. It was my mother I was worried about. She was spiteful and vindictive and would fight ‘till the end simply because she could. The thought made my stomach ache.

  After the visit to the lawyer, Tripp drove to pick up the girls, and we went home and watched cartoons until they passed out. The next morning was Tripp’s last game of the season—the one that would determine if they went to the championships or not.

  He left before we woke up to head over to the field for warmups. I’d planned on getting the girls awake and dressed so we could go cheer him on, but all that changed in an instant.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Tripp

  Sweat dripped down my brow, and I wiped it away with the back of my wrist. This was the last game of my senior year. My last chance to impress—shit, I didn’t even know who anymore. My last chance to wipe away the memory of my injury. We were playing a killer game and were in the lead 10-0, but I knew better than anyone that it could change in an instant. So I played hard, like my heart and life were on the line.

  And maybe they were.

  “Good fucking game, man,” Alex said, clapping me on the back as we entered the dugout.

  “It’s not over yet.” I squirted water from my bottle over my head, but it didn’t do much to cool me down. The Florida heat was relentless. I could already feel a sunburn turning the skin at my neck tight and splotchy.

  “The hell it isn’t. You haven’t given them a break all day. Your arm is on fire. I’ve never seen you pitch better.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you give so many compliments in a row.”

  “Call me sentimental,” he answered, his eyes on our shortstop, who was at bat. “It’s our last game together. When I get signed next year, we could be playing on opposite sides of the country. We could even be playing against each other.”

  “Scared? It’s okay. I’ll make sure I kick your ass quickly so it doesn’t sting so much to lose.”

  He punched me in the arm, tossed his dark hair back, and slid his baseball cap over it. It always made the chicks who came to the games go crazy. “You wish. Don’t think I’ll take it easy on you if that day ever comes.”

  “It will. Believe it. You’re almost as good as I am.”

  “Asshole,” he said without heat. “Where’s your girl? I thought she was coming?”

  Thinking the same thing, I scanned the crowd again for her face in the family seats. She and the girls weren’t in their normal spot next to my parents, and neither were Liam and Dash. I figured something must have come up with the girls, but a niggle of doubt and worry wormed itself into my stomach.

  “I’m not sure. She was supposed to be here, but she may have had to take care of her sisters or something.”

  We cheered as our shortstop hit a double, batting in the player on third and scoring us another point. “What’s going on with that?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “It’s complicated.”

  “You sound like a chick.”

  “At least I’m getting laid,” I said, making him scowl.

  “Douchebag.”

  One of the assistant coaches came out of the hallway that led to the locker rooms. He made a beeline for Coach Taylor, who listened with an impassive expression as he observed the next player up at bat. His body went still as the assistant coach kept talking, gesturing wildly. Then Taylor’s gaze moved to me, and I stiffened.

  Coach Taylor murmured to the assistant, his eyes still on me. The assistant coach nodded, and Coach Taylor started to cross the dugout to me. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. Coach Taylor was always focused on the game. Especially a game as important as the one that would lead us to the championships in Omaha.

  “Wilder. A word?” I nodded and followed him to the hallway where the assistant had come from. “Listen, I’ll get straight to the point. Are you involved with a young woman named Ember Stevens?”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, fighting to keep my voice steady. Coach Taylor wouldn’t interrupt a game for any reason other than an emergency.

  “There’s a Miss Charlie St. James here who says you need to go with her immediately. Ms. Stevens is in the hospital.”

  My heart dropped to my feet along with my stomach. “The hospital,” I repeated faintly. The baby. Fuck. Something was wrong with the baby. I had to get to her. “I have to go to her. She’s pregnant,” I said without thinking.

  Coach Taylor’s expression didn’t change, but the words that came out of his mouth were the last ones I expected. “Of course you do. Miss St. James is waiting at the ticket gate to take you to the hospital.”

  “I’ll make sure he gets there,” Alex said. I hadn’t even realized he’d come with me.

  “What about the game?” I asked, more out of habit than anything. I didn’t really give a fuck about the game.

  “Go be with your girlfriend.” I didn’t correct him. “You’re young, but you’ll realize there’s more to life than baseball.” I never thought I’d hear him say those words. “Get going. You need to be with her.”

  When I didn’t move, Alex took me by the arm and hauled me through the locker rooms and up the stairs to the main level of the complex where the concession stands, and ticket booths were located. It wasn’t as packed as it usually was before a game, but there were still people milling around getting refills on their sodas and popcorn who stopped and pointed at us as Alex propelled me toward the ticket booth. Charlie was there, pacing back and forth, still in her pale blue scrubs.

  She turned toward us when she looked up, and I noticed, almost emotionlessly, that her face was bleached of color. She rushed forward. “I’m sorry for interrupting your game, but she’s asking for you, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “It’s alright.” To Alex, I said, “Thanks, man. You should get back.”

  He started backing away, and his normal easy-going expression was grave. “Call me. Whatever time. I’ll be there.”

  “I know. Go win for us.”

  “You got it.”

  Somehow, he must have grabbed my bag with my change of clothes from my locker when we went through the locker room because I found myself hauling it out of the complex to Charlie’s car. As I tossed it in the back seat, I managed to spit out the words I didn’t want to voice aloud for fear that it would make my worries an actuality. “What happened?”

  The keys in Charlie’s hand rattled as she put them in the ignition. “The doctors think she’s having a miscarriage.”

  “Is she alone?” I asked.

  “Layla was with her. I volunteered to come get you.”

  “How was she?”

  Charlie swallowed hard. “She was in pain. They gave her some medication to help the pain and help her rest. They want to keep her overnight for observation. I got here as quick as I could.”

  “Thank you.”

  I was quiet for the rest of the drive to the hospital. The baby had only been alive for a few short weeks. I hadn’t even had time to properly wrap my thoughts around their existence. It didn’t seem fair for their life to end so suddenly. It hadn’t been planned, but they had been wanted, and they were already loved.

  Charlie drove into the emergency room parking lot at the hospital and stopped under the awning for me to get out of the car while she parked. I signed in at the front desk and followed one of the nurses back into the maternity ward on autopilot. When they stopped at her room, it took me a minute to work up the nerve to open the door, afraid of what I’d find on the other side.

  Layla looked up from wh
ere she was sitting beside the hospital bed. Both of her hands were wrapped around one of Ember’s. The other was hooked up to a bunch of wires and tubes. She looked incredibly small in the large bed. Her eyes were closed, and her chest rose rhythmically in sleep.

  I crossed to the bed, my eyes on her face, afraid I’d see her slip away right in front of me. “How is she?” I asked Layla. I studied the dark smudges under her eyes and the hollows in her cheeks I hadn’t noticed before.

  “Hey, Tripp. She’s okay now that she’s resting. The doctor says she can go home tomorrow if there are no complications.”

  I swallowed hard. “Thanks for being here for her.”

  Layla got up and pushed her hair away from her face. Her eyes were red. She must have been crying. “Of course. She’ll be glad to see you’re here when she wakes up. I’ll give you two some time. Please call Charlie or me if there’s anything you need.”

  “I will. Thanks again.”

  Layla paused after putting her purse over her shoulder. Then she moved forward and wrapped me in a hug. “I’m so sorry, Tripp.”

  A tide of sorrow welled up inside me. “Me, too,” I said.

  There was nothing else to add, so Layla left. I dumped my duffle on the small couch in the room, then took Layla’s place in the chair by the hospital bed. Ember’s hand looked so limp and pale when I took it into my own. She was the strongest woman I knew, but in the bed, hooked up to a half-dozen machines, she seemed fragile. The fear that I could have lost her at any moment, too, was overpowering.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ember

  “Are you sure you don’t mind having a girl’s night while we pack up? I hope I’m not killing your fun.”

  Charlie lifted a beer. “You provided sustenance. It doesn’t matter where we’re at, as long as we’re together.”

  “Don’t make me cry,” Layla said, then hefted the box she was carrying onto a stack of them at the front door. “I can’t believe we’re all leaving this place. It won’t be the same.”

  Charlie nodded. “It was fun while it lasted.”

  It was, I thought, as I looked around the apartment, which was in various stages of disarray. I’d had a lot of hard times here, but there were a lot of good times, too. The girls had lived here their whole lives. They’d said their first words and taken their first steps here. It was bittersweet, but time for a change.

  In the weeks since my stay at the hospital, I’d recovered. It hadn’t been easy, but Layla and Charlie had helped. Charlie had taken time off work to be my own personal nurse for a few days. Layla had stopped by after school to take care of the girls when Tripp’s parents weren’t watching them. School and my own work had been understanding. Within two weeks, I had been back in the swing of things. It was almost like it had never happened.

  Except it had, and I was forever changed.

  “End of an era,” Layla agreed. “How is the new place? Do the girls like it?”

  Since I was finishing the program at school and was going to be making more money, I thought it was time we left the apartment for something with a little more room to grow. The girls needed something closer to school, and they needed their own rooms. While I had been taking it easy on bed rest, I had scanned the classifieds and found a nice, albeit older, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home with a bit of land and a fenced-in backyard. It was on the girls’ school route, so they could get on the bus right in front of the house. What they loved most of all was that they got their own space. Of course, more often than not, I found them curled up asleep together, but they were happy, and that was all that mattered.

  “They love it. They’re trying to convince me to get a puppy now that we have a backyard.”

  “A puppy!” Layla squealed. “I want a puppy.”

  “Don’t gang up with them. It’s already hard enough to resist their charms. They’ve been doing all sorts of extra chores all week trying to get in my good graces.”

  “It’s working, isn’t it?” Charlie asked with a big grin. She shoved back the dirty blonde hair that was falling out of her long braid.

  I groaned and grabbed my own beer. I’d provided a couple of six-packs and snacks in exchange for their help. “Yes. They’ve even made their own chore chart of how they’d divvy up the extra chores for a puppy. Down to who will walk it on which day and whose room it gets to sleep in. That one caused a bit of an argument.”

  Layla munched on a handful of chips and salsa before asking, “Have you heard from Tripp at all?”

  The smile fell from my face. I sucked down half of my beer before I answered. “He texts every now and then when he can. He’s been practicing nonstop and traveling to games. The hope is he can still participate in this year’s draft, but we won’t know until August for sure.”

  To think of Tripp not playing ball...the thought simply didn’t compute. He was meant to play. I couldn’t picture him doing anything else. God knows, he must be feeling horrible. I couldn’t even imagine. Having him show up at the hospital during the most important game of his life to be with me was exactly what I was afraid he’d do. Give up his dreams for me. I wouldn’t allow him to make the same mistake twice.

  Charlie grunted, her eyes on the dishes she was packing into a box. “I’m just saying, if he was willing to leave that game to be with you, girl, he’s a keeper.”

  “Let’s not talk about it for a while. Thinking about it too much makes my heart hurt.”

  Which was exactly my problem. This whole arrangement was supposed to be so that feelings didn’t get involved. We were supposed to come out on the other side unscathed, without any strings. Somehow everything had gotten so tangled that we were both at risk for getting hurt.

  They were both annoyed with me but acquiesced to my request. For the next few hours, we finished boxing up the rest of the kitchen and moved to the bedrooms. By the time the moon was high in the sky, we were all a little dusty, drunk, and exhausted, but the apartment was finally all in boxes. There were surprisingly few of them, considering the four years I’d lived there.

  Charlie and Layla tried to convince me to let them stay, but I shooed them away. The weeks after the miscarriage had been hard, and I found that I often needed space to deal with my feelings. Tripp had stayed with me in the hospital until I was released forty-eight hours later. To be honest, I wouldn’t have made it without him. He hadn’t pushed, hadn’t demanded. He had simply been there to help. When I had learned that he’d left the game for me, I’d been furious, but he’d stubbornly insisted I was more important.

  I hadn’t known whether to be flattered or supremely pissed off. Anger was easier, so I had gone with that. While I had healed, he had given me space to work through my feelings. Which had only pissed me off more. I hated that he knew what I wanted without me even having to request it. Who was he to think he knew what I needed?

  That’s why, when he knocked on my door after the girls left, I was fuming. If it weren’t for the glass of wine I’d been refilling after we ran out of beer, I’d have answered the door with shouts. Instead, I opened it and lifted a brow.

  He looked good. Too good. He must have flown in straight after the championship game on a red-eye instead of staying with the team. I’d already heard from various sources on social media that they’d won.

  “Hey, Ember,” he said and shifted from foot to foot. He was still carrying his backpack and luggage, so he hadn’t even gone back to his own apartment yet. I refused to let that soften me toward him.

  I took a long swallow of wine for courage. It hurt so good to see him. If he’d wanted to prove how much I needed him in my life, he’d done a damn good job of it. That didn’t mean I had to be happy about any of it.

  “Glad to see you made it back,” I said.

  He nodded. His expression was so downtrodden it made me want to take him into my arms. “I wanted to come see you.”

  “Now you’ve seen me,” I said.

  “Can I come in?”

  If I were a stronger person,
I would have said no. But I missed him, so I moved back so he could come inside. “I was just about to go to bed,” I said.

  “I understand. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Make sure you’re okay.”

  Dammit.

  Why did he have to be so nice? “I’m fine.”

  He sat on the couch next to me, but he could have been back in Omaha for how uncomfortable it felt. Why was this so weird and awkward? Could we get back to the place we were in before we lost the baby? Did he want to? I didn’t know.

  But I wasn’t going to be a coward about it anymore. If I’d learned anything through this experience, it was that life was short, and it was important to nurture the good things while you had them because they could be taken from you at any moment. Before Tripp, I’d resisted enjoying those things simply because they could leave. But now, I knew it was better to fall and fall hard because that’s what made life worth living.

  I choked back my stubborn defenses and let go of my anger. “Tripp, I’ve spent this time apart thinking about all the things you ever said to me. While you were gone, I got to experience what life was like without you, and I didn’t like it. You make me happy, even when you’re pissing me off. You’re my best friend, and I don’t want to be apart anymore.”

  He pulled me into his arms. “It was killing me not having you there. We won, and I didn’t even care. All I could think about was getting back to you.”

  I punched him in the stomach. “Next time, don’t make me stay away.”

  “You won’t get a chance. You’re obligated to go to all of my games for the rest of your life.”

  “Does that mean we’re done with this whole space thing? ‘Cause, honestly, it sucked. I’m not a fan.”

  “Totally done. I was a shit for thinking I knew what was best for you.”

  “You’re forgiven as long as it never happens again.” I let myself relax and enjoy the feel of him around me again. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to cry.