My eyes open, and I see that she’s looking at me now, having stopped what she was doing. “Some of the things you say break my heart.”
“It’s okay.” I run my hand through my hair. “We’ve got time to fix it up.”
There’s a quietness in the room as we both process what we’ve just let slip. This is one of those moments that makes or breaks situations, and I don’t want to make light of it. If there’s ever a time for us to be honest with each other, it’s now, considering the fact we weren’t honest before.
“Do we really?”
“We do,” I assure her. “Because I still have a voicemail on my phone that you left me ten years ago.”
The chopping she’s doing ceases, and her eyes meet mine over the distance between us. “Which one?” Her voice is soft, full of emotion.
“The one where you told me you made a mistake, and then told me never to contact you again before you hung up.”
“I left that two weeks after we left each other. I was missing you in the worst way. I knew nobody at school and I just wanted your arms wrapped around me. Trust me, I know how selfish that is. Especially when I’m the one who asked for it. That night, though, I missed you so much, I was willing to give it all back, to forget about everything I’d said, and do whatever you wanted.”
“I knew you were willing to do that.” I sit up, taking the cool wrap off my knee, stretching it out. “I could have enticed you to come back, I could have tricked you into it, but I knew you were weak that night. And I also knew that if I got you back just because you were weak, it wouldn’t last. So I pretended like I either never got the voicemail, or I just ignored it. It killed me,” I face her. “Because I’ve always been a fixer for you. I’ve always been the person who made sure you were good. From the minute you said you’d be my girlfriend. If anybody fucked with you, they answered to me. I took that responsibility, and that night, I gave the responsibility back. I wasn’t willing to be the fixer I’ve always been. It just didn’t feel right. At the same time, I also knew I’d officially lost you. That was an olive branch you extended, and I purposely turned it down.”
I walk over to the table and have a seat across from her. Folding my hands in front of me, I take all of the walls down. “I’m not saying that was the best thing for me to do, I’m not saying it was right, but it’s what I did at the time. It set us on this course, Mal, and I have to say I’ve had a good life. With you in it, would it have been great? I don’t know, because you may have hated me. You may have grown to resent me more and maybe we would have had two kids, the white picket fence, and you would have divorced me.” I shrug at a loss for words.
She reaches over, grabbing my hand in hers. “I’m glad you were the strong one, because you’re right. We both needed to do some growing, and now I think we need to do some moving on.”
“You mean that? Like we can put all this other shit behind us?”
She nods. “I think we’ve talked about what happened enough, we’ve cleared the air, and now it’s time to make some new memories.”
“Making new memories sounds amazing to me.”
Malone
A weight has been lifted off my shoulders, one I didn’t know was still there, at his words. Guilt has plagued me for years, because of how I handled our break up. I knew, without a doubt, that the reason we didn’t work out was because of me. Every time I’d see a happy couple or a young family walk by, especially in the beginning, I would think about what might have been. I would spend days in a dark world where I berated myself for being so damn stupid and selfish. Eventually, I realized that things happen for a reason, and regardless of when, we would have broken up sooner or later, because we’d never allowed ourselves to grow without one another. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I learned it, and now I appreciate sitting here across from him more than I ever would have before.
“You know, this is one of the things I was always looking forward to doing for you,” I tell him as I season the chicken and the potatoes I’m going to roast before throwing a bag of broccoli in there too.
“What’s that?” He purses his lips as he looks at what I’m doing, his confusion is written plain as day across his face.
“Cooking for you. I always wanted to take care of you, the way you took care of me, but ya know a couple high schoolers who didn’t have their own living space? I could never cook you dinner, wash your clothes, or any of that stuff. It might make me sound like a housewife from the fifties, but those were some of the things I dreamed about doing for you. But in the end, I also wanted something for me.” I laugh as I realize how weird it sounds.
Slater switches seats so that we’re sitting next to each other, he turns me so that I’m sitting in between his spread legs, then leans in. “Hey, any time you wanna take care of me, you can do that. I have laundry for days, and I never eat homemade food. I have a delivery service, and at best, I put it in the microwave.”
The grin on his face warms my heart as I laugh, and surprisingly the laugh turns into a sob. A full body shaking sob that I can no more push back in than I can fully let out. I cave in on myself as I try to hold it back.
“Mal, wait, wait, what’s wrong?” He tilts my chin to him as I try to hide my reaction. Right now I can’t stand for him to look at me, so I bury myself into his body.
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. But I do know, I’m crying for everything that could have been between us. The time we possibly wasted and the memories we’ll never get back. But I just told him I want to make new memories, and I can’t put us back there again, so instead, I sob. Forever it feels like, I sob as he holds me. When I finally feel as if I’m cleansed, the tears stop, the shaking stops, and I pull back, rubbing my eyes. “Sorry.” I exhale deeply.
When I look at him, his eyes are red too, there are tracks down his face, and he offers me the same exhale. “Don’t be sorry, I know what happened there, and I feel the same way you do, but we’re not gonna talk about it.”
“No, we aren’t.” I force myself to get up from my seat and walk the two trays over to the oven I’ve had pre-heating. “What we’re going to do is eat this nutritious dinner, and then gorge on the brownies I brought from the bakery.”
He moans loudly as he rubs his stomach. “You brought the brownies?”
“I did.” I laugh at how excited he looks. “I remembered you saying they were good.”
“They were more than good. They were like orgasmic good.” He leans back in his chair, closing his eyes.
I’m hit with a vivid memory of the first time I gave him a blow job, when I glanced up as he moaned and spilled across my tongue. He’d looked exactly like he does right now, and inexplicably, I want to be the person to make him moan like that, want to the be one who makes him throw his head back.
“You okay?”
Shaking my head to clear it, I answer. “Perfect.”
Because now, I know I have a new mission in life.
Eighteen
Malone
“Damn girl, where did you learn how to cook?” Slater asks as he swallows what looks to be about half his plate in one bite.
It gives me a thrill to know he enjoys what I’ve made for him. I’d always wanted to take care of him before, always wanted to be the person he came to when he needed anything. One of my biggest dreams had been to be his partner in life – until it had scared me. Regret hits me hard, but I know I have to push through it. If we have any kind of a chance, I’ve gotta let it go. Instead of dwelling, I answer his question.
“When you’re in a new town, with not a lot of money, you figure it out pretty quick.” I think back to my early days in Los Angeles. “Especially a town as expensive as LA.”
“I can’t imagine you living there.” He takes a drink of his water. “We go there for games, and there’s some things I have to do there for sponsors. I love it for a day or so, but then it gets to be too much for me. The hustle and bustle is distracting.”
Over the past several weeks I’ve co
me to certain realizations about my life, and this is one of them. “I thought I loved it.” I take a bite off my own plate. “The being able to get food at any hour, the fact that there was always something to do, no matter what the time. If anyone asked me I would have told them I loved living there, but now that I’ve been back in Willow’s Gap, I’m starting to remember what I loved about living here too. The slower pace, the people who’ve known me my whole life, having an actual schedule. It’s not as suffocating as it once was.”
“Birmingham is kinda the best of both worlds.” He gets a look of affection on his face. “There are places you can go at all hours of the night, but then you can still get the kinda vibe you get here.”
“You love it there?”
“I do,” he answers immediately. “I miss it, but I knew if I wanted to fully rehab I had to come back here to do it. The city loves its team, as they should, but they’re also totally up in our business there. If I had stayed, they’d be reporting on it every day.” He pulls his full bottom lip in between his teeth. “And I just couldn’t handle it. What if I don’t recover fully? What if it takes me longer to come back? I couldn’t face the scrutiny.”
“That’s understandable.” For the first time I’m seeing the kind of pressure he’s under. He’s letting me into the world of Savage. Letting me see that he’s not always confident and there are things he deals with that I’ve never even thought about. “Do you feel that pressure?”
He pushes his plate back as he finishes his food. “Immensely. I’m a franchise player, Mal. I’ve got a twenty-million-dollar contract with options. You don’t take that shit lightly, and neither does the team. They can trade me, they can option to put me into free agency, and then I can go to the highest bidder. For some that wouldn’t be a bad thing, but I’ve played my entire career in Birmingham. I’ve built something there; we went to the World Series last year and fucking lost. I have unfinished business, and my biggest fear is that this fuckin’ knee won’t let me finish it.”
“I have faith in you,” I say the words before I even realize what it is I’m saying.
“You always have.”
“No, that’s not entirely true. There have been times when I should have but didn’t. This time, this time I do have faith in you. I’ve seen what you’re doing, can hear the tone of your voice, and can almost feel the frustration you have at leaving something undone. This means a lot to you.”
“It’s everything to me,” he answers softly. “It’s what I’ve trained for, what I’ve sacrificed for. I’ve given my blood, sweat, and tears on that field. And if I can’t accomplish what I’ve set out to do…” he stops for a moment. “I don’t know how I feel about it, how I’ll react to it.”
“It’s okay to feel whatever you do, nobody knows how much you’ve dedicated your life to this more than you do.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to promise I’ll be beside him no matter what, but I don’t want to make promises I’m not sure I can keep. So I don’t promise him, but I do promise myself.
He leans back in his chair, pushing away his plate and patting his stomach. “As good as that was, is it time for brownies yet?”
Giggling, I get up and bring the box over to the table. “Since you finished your vegetables, you may now have dessert.”
His eyes meet mine across the distance, and there’s a laziness in his gaze. “This ain’t my dessert. This is just a sweet treat. You, sweetness. You’re my dessert.”
Dead. I am officially dead.
Savage
“Why didn’t he swing at that?” Malone asks as we lay on the couch, watching the Bandits play. It’s still weird for me not to be out there with them, but holding her in my arms with her head on my chest is something I’ve wanted for years, so I let the melancholy I typically feel when watching the games go.
“JD is a patient hitter,” I talk about our shortstop, who’s one of the best overall players around. “Actually he’s patient at everything. I once watched him wait to get back at a prank someone pulled on him a year before.”
“What?” she laughs.
“Yeah, someone pranked him, and then he set in motion a series of events to get them back that literally took a year to pay off. He stuck with it though, and it paid off for him in a big way.” I shake my head thinking about what that payoff must have felt like though.
“Do I even want ask what this prank was?”
“No,” I laugh, remembering it. “It involved Bengay and a jock strap. You definitely do not want the gory details.”
“Ouch.” She squirms just as JD sends one over the right-field wall. “They seem to be doing well,” she offers as she situates herself more fully against me.
“They have a two-game winning streak right now, but before that they had a five-game losing streak, and they’re ten games out of the playoffs. I’m worried they won’t make it and kinda worried they will at the same time.”
“I get that,” she says as she plays with my hair. It’s grown a little long on top, and I close my eyes, enjoying the feel of her fingers. “You want them to do well, but you also don’t want them to show you or anyone else they don’t need you. It’s a slippery slope.”
I swallow lazily. “That it is, but if you keep doing that, it’s going to take my mind completely off it, and I won’t give a shit anymore.”
“Oh yeah?” She curls in tighter next to me.
“Yeah,” I sigh, enjoying the feeling. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a woman in my life, even longer since I’ve allowed one to see me with all my guards down. She gets it though, she gets me at my weakest. My hand is resting on her hip, and I’m stroking the skin that’s been exposed when I feel it. Her tongue sliding against the skin of my neck.
“Mal?”
“Shhhhh,” she whispers into my ear. “Let me take care of you. I’ve been thinking about this since I got here tonight.”
Who am I to stop her? Settling in deeper, I close my eyes and let her play. Her fingers push up against the shirt covering my torso, when it gets close enough for me to grasp, I pull it over my head, just wanting it off my body. Those green eyes of hers glance up at me under impossibly long lashes that are dark enough to give her an air of mystery.
“What are you gonna do, sweetness?”
She levers up to where her lips are even with my pectoral muscle. My gaze is intensely focused on her as her tongue sweeps out, lashing against my skin, circling around my nipple. My fingers clench in her hair, holding her to me. When she pulls back, she catches the tip with her teeth. I throw my head back, thrusting toward her.
“You always did have a really sensitive chest, Slade,” she whispers as she moves her attention to the opposite one.
“Yeah,” I agree as I tilt my head back against the arm of the couch, my dick straining against my shorts as she continues to work against my chest.
“Remember that one time in the back of my mom’s car?” Her hand sneaks between us, fisting my cock through my shorts, working the length up and down as she nips and licks.
“So fuckin’ embarrassing.” I fist her hair tighter in one hand, use my other to worry the nipple she’s not attending to. “I came in my pants with you doing this to me.”
Malone
The giggle I answer him with is deep and throaty. We’d been doing this in the backseat of my mom’s car while she’d been inside a restaurant getting us dinner our junior year of high school. He’d come right as she exited the restaurant and made her way to the car. His breathing hadn’t evened out when she got inside. He hadn’t even been able to scream for fear someone would hear us.
“Tonight though, Slade-” my words are muffled as I continue my work on him. “-you can make as much noise as you want, make as big of a mess as you need.”
He groans, his teeth clenching, as he thrusts into my palm. I love how thick he is, how he fills my hand. I’ve never been with anyone who turns me on as much as he does by just being himself. Letting go for a brief second, I push his shorts down around his h
ips. The moan he releases when his cock gets caught on his boxer briefs sends chills down my arms and causes me to tighten my thighs.
“Put your hand back on me.” His tone is pleading. “And fuckin’ don’t stop.”
His accent is as thick as fresh honey, his body strung tight as a bow, and his chest heaving like he’s run a mile in under five minutes. Using my thumb, I rub the tip, feeling him coat my skin with moisture. “You’re so hot like this,” I tell him as I let my gaze wash over him. His eyes are hooded, his abs clenched tight, his hand still in my hair. The other hand has moved though, and I’m not sure where it’s going, but when it slips past the waistband of the shorts I wear and his finger sneaks into the side of my panties, I let out a groan of my own.
“So damn wet, Malone. Fuck, nobody else has ever gotten this wet for me.”
While that may seem like the wrong thing to say, it’s not. I’m glad to know I give him something that no one else has, that I have something for him that’s mine. He slowly fingers my clit causing me to grind against him and resituate myself. Abandoning his chest, I go to work on his neck, before he turns, giving me his lips. We kiss sloppily, noisily, and without finesse as both our hands work to get each other off. Mine beats a steady rhythm while I can hear him slide into my body.
“Grip me tight, Mal. Your pussy and your hand. C’mon baby, make me and yourself feel good.”
His breath is warm against my lips and as I strain against him and he strains against me as we come. In a loud, messy crash of two people who haven’t gotten each other off in ten years.
And as we lay there together in the aftermath, I breathe easier, because nothing has ever felt so good.
Nineteen
Malone
July
Over the next few weeks, Slade and I establish a routine together. During the day, I work at the bakery, early afternoon I work for Slade’s non-profit, and then in the evening we spend time together.
On the DL (The MVP Duet Book 1) Page 10