Back in the Game

by Lori Wilde

  She accepted one, nibbled on it, bits of flaky crust falling to crumbs on the table. She tried not to fidget, but it was impossible while he was looking at her with that unruffled, carefree gaze.

  “Mmm.” She couldn’t taste a thing, not while he was watching her like she was a canary, and he was a hungry tomcat.

  Nolan Ryan looked baleful.

  “Not good for you.” Rowdy shook his head.

  Nolan Ryan trained his woe-is-me-eyes on Breeanne.

  “Don’t go begging to her. She’s not falling for it either, buddy.”

  Nolan Ryan turned his head back to Rowdy, stared at him without blinking.

  “Okay, but just half of one.” He broke one of the cheese quiches into two pieces and slipped it to the bloodhound.

  He leaned back in the chair, letting his arms dangle, and studied her for a long moment. Unable to hold his gaze, she reached for a strawberry, but that made her remember the chocolate-covered strawberries, and she left it on her plate uneaten.

  Finally, he said, “Give me your phone.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I’m going to program my phone number into it.”

  “I’ve already got it programmed in,” she said.

  “No, you have the number of my public phone.”

  “You have more than one phone?”

  “Yes. Only a few people have access to my private phone.” He nodded at the cell on the table between them. “My mom, my sisters, Zach, Warwick, Price . . . and now you.”

  Her heart fluttered erratically. “Are you sure? It sounds like your special number is reserved for special people?”

  He lowered his eyelids, and his voice, but kept his gaze trained on her. “I thought we’d already determined you’re pretty special to me, Breezy. Do you want my private number?”

  Omigosh. What did this mean? Hoping he didn’t see that her hand was trembling, she pulled her cell phone from her purse and passed it to him, watched while his shaggy dark head of hair bent to program his number into her phone. This was one time when special felt good.

  He handed her the phone, smiled.

  “How many women besides family members have you given this number to over the years?” she asked.

  “What don’t you get about being special, Breezy? You’re the only one.”

  “I promise not to use this unless I absolutely have to.” She clutched her cell phone, still warm from his hand, to her chest.

  “Use it anytime you want,” he invited.

  Wow. This was really happening. She had access to Rowdy Blanton’s private phone number. That twelve-year-old kid he’d come to visit in the hospital would have been pinching herself black and blue. Oh, who was she kidding? It was all she could do not to pinch herself right now.

  “I’ve been thinking about Saturday night,” he said, casually tossing the topic on the table like it was perfectly normal breakfast conversation.

  If he was going to be straightforward and broach the subject boldly, there was no point playing coy. What she wanted to say was I have no memory of Saturday night. “So have I.”

  At the same time he said, “If you want to do this, I’m game,” she said, “Let’s pretend it did not happen.”

  They both said, “What?”

  “You’re in?” she asked.

  “You’re out?” he said.

  Their eyes met, they laughed at the same time. Her laughter was jittery, his easy.

  Breeanne pressed her knees together, tucked her feet underneath her chair away from him. “Why did you change your mind?”

  “I got to thinking,” he said. “You’ve been so long without one of life’s finest pleasures, who am I to deny you?”

  “Well, thank you so much, Mr. Ego. But don’t feel obligated to do me any favors.” She started to get up, but she wasn’t mad. If he was doing this to ease her embarrassment over Saturday night, it was working.

  He reached out and touched the hand she’d placed on the table. “That sounded douchy. I didn’t mean that way.”

  She stared at his hand, his touch was already melting her like the chocolate she kept dropping on herself. But she was already a goner. Had been since Saturday night. “How did you mean it?”

  He pushed back the chair, went down on his knees in front of her, held her hand as if he were about to propose.

  What was he doing? A flutter of something scary yet wondrous flapped its wings inside her chest.

  “Breeanne Carlyle, will you do me the honor of allowing me to be your humble coach in the ways of lovemaking?” It was so like him to make a joke of it.

  Before she could stop it, the thing in her chest pushed a giggle out of her. Oh great, now she sounded fourteen. She opened her mouth to reply, but he held up a quelling palm.

  “But wait,” he said, in the comically dramatic tone of an infomercial huckster. “Before you give me an answer, there are ground rules.”

  Curious, she leaned forward. He still had hold of her hand, and the look on his face was surprisingly earnest for the silly conversation. “Sell it, Casanova.”

  “I am the coach, and you are the rookie. You don’t start pitching your first night in the bigs.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Rookie Rules for Great Sex. We do this my way, the slow way. No bedroom ambushes. I’m in charge.”

  “Do I get to voice an opinion?”

  “You can voice it, but I have final veto.”

  “That gives you all the power.”

  “No it doesn’t. You can always walk away. No harm, no foul. Now that you understand the terms of the agreement, you may give me your answer.”

  “Seriously, do women usually fall for this shtick?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “You’re the first one I’ve tried it on. Is it working?”

  “I have to admit it’s a generous offer, but . . .” she said coolly as if her inner Snoopy wasn’t gleefully dancing. She was going to have sex with Rowdy Blanton. Woo-hoo. But it wouldn’t hurt him to sweat over her answer.

  He cocked his head, closed one eye, as if it would blunt the sting of her rejection.

  “Well?”

  She said nothing for a long moment, letting him fret.

  He got antsy. Shifted his weight back and forth, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  Once Breeanne accepted that she was heading for heartbreak no matter what she did, heading down the risky path was easier. She wanted this. The adventure of a lifetime.

  Smiling, she let him off the hook. “Did you really have any doubts?”

  CHAPTER 21

  Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion,

  a screwball can be a pitch or a person,

  stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire’s eye or on the ball.

  —JIM MURRAY

  According to Coach Blanton, the Rookie Rules for Great Sex were deceptively simple. Do nothing for three weeks but kiss. Hands below the shoulders were considered fouls, and resulted in an immediate time-out.

  Breeanne protested. It was impossible to keep such rules.

  “Think of it this way, sweetheart.” Rowdy kissed her forehead. “You’ve missed out on a lot of kissing.”

  “What comes after three weeks?” she asked eagerly. “After all the kissing?”

  “Two weeks of second base.”

  “What exactly is second base?”

  “Wait and see.”

  “And after that?”

  “A week of third base.”

  “Didn’t we get to third base the other night?”

  “We got tagged out and had to start over. Besides, I got to third base, you didn’t, and this is all about you. You’re the rookie.”

  “Yes, Coach,” she said, and snuggled against him, heating over the memory of their night together. Damn, would she ever stop blushing over sexy thoughts?

  “Now is your time to play catch-up for lost time.”

  The man could kiss! She quickly discovered there was a who
le world of kisses, and they wasted no time mapping the territory.

  Instead of a means to an end, kissing became a destination unto itself.

  They kissed while they were working, pausing between sentences and paragraphs to smooch. She’d read what she wrote out loud and he would clarify or suggest changes. They’d celebrate another page written with more kisses.

  They kissed until their lips chapped. Sharing one breath, drinking from the cool pool of each other. They kissed copiously, ravenous. They kissed rollickingly playful. They kissed flagrantly bold.

  They kissed as if they’d invented it—in the kitchen, in the living room, on his desk, in the gym, at the lake on blankets in the sun. They kissed furtively, sneaking quick sips when they were in town. Ducking behind the canned goods aisle at the HEB, in the Escalade while in the Dairy Queen drive-through lane, in the back row of the picture show where they went to see an action-adventure flick they couldn’t remember the name of afterward.

  Each kiss was different. Adding layer upon layer to the foundation of that first kiss, that first day when he kissed her in front of those other women and claimed she was his girlfriend.

  Was she his girlfriend now for real? It was a question she was afraid to ask. A boat she hated to rock in case the answer was no. She didn’t know what this was, but she was determined to enjoy every second of it.

  By the end of June, she’d finished writing and editing the outline and first chapter of Rowdy’s autobiography and sent it off to the editor at Jackdaw Press. Rowdy’s kisses had worked them both up into a fevered pitch and they eagerly proceeded to second base.

  Which she discovered, in addition to the kissing, extended to anything above the hipbone, and that included bare skin. She couldn’t get enough of touching his muscled chest and abdomen.

  Touching him led her outside herself, and when they explored each other’s scars, tracking tongues and fingertips over ridges, puckers, and flattened spots of healed cuts, she felt connected to him in a way she’d not felt with another human being. They rejoiced in the feel of each other. Touching his bare skin gave her a different grasp on life, a new perspective. He made the world more tantalizing, richer than it had ever been before. Until she touched him, it was as if she’d lived in a sensory desert, and had now stepped into a lush forest full of exotic surprises.

  Rowdy started giving her thoughtful little gifts—a cheetah-print book light, a coupon for a free dipped cone, a box of her favorite herbal tea, a small soap figurine of a bunny eating a peanut.

  “Where on earth did you find this?” She laughed.

  “I carved it,” he confessed.

  “Seriously? Where did you learn how to do that?”

  “In rehab. My physical therapist had me start whittling soap to help me regain fine motor skills.” He wriggled the fingers of his left hand like he was going to tickle her.

  She giggled and stepped out of reach.

  Life was romantic and sweet and fun. Being with him was the easiest thing in the world and she tried hard not to think about the future. Right now was future enough.

  He taught her how to make spaghetti carbonara, putting her at the stove in front of him, encircling her waist with his hands while he whispered instructions into her ear. He’d just taken her hand and was helping her stir the onions as they caramelized when his private cell phone, which was sitting on the bar, dinged that he’d gotten a text.

  “Do you need to check that?”

  “Concentrate,” he said. “We need more butter.”

  She sliced another chunk of butter from the stick beside the stove and dropped it into the skillet with the onions.

  His phone dinged again.

  “Don’t you want to get that? It’s got to be family or your best friends.”

  “Keep stirring. I have an app that will read it to me.” He buried his nose in her hair, kissed the nape of her neck. She wriggled gleefully.

  At that moment, a robotic female voice started reading the message. “Bro, they’re starting me on the Fourth of July against San Diego. You’re the only one who understands what this means. I hope you’ll come. Got two tickets waiting for you and a guest at will-call.”

  “Looks like Zach is finally ready to make up,” she said. “Why don’t you call him back?”

  “After cooking lessons.”

  “This will wait. Zach is more important. Call him.”

  Rowdy moved away, going for the phone. The space behind her was now empty, leaving her feeling lonely. The man had such presence. He’d ruined her for anyone else. Was she addicted to him? Oh gosh, she had it bad.

  He picked up the phone, but didn’t dial. “Breeanne.”

  She raised her head to see him standing in the sunlight cutting through the window, his gorgeous dark hair curling in all directions like crazed ocean waves. “Yes?”

  “Do you want to come with me?”

  Yes! She’d never been to a professional baseball game. “I was so scared you weren’t going to ask.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, and it was only then that it fully sank in that Zach was pitching on the Fourth of July.

  That afternoon when she left Rowdy’s place, Breeanne stopped by Timeless Treasures to let her family know she wasn’t going to be the family’s big annual Fourth of July blowout.

  The Fourth of July was her family’s favorite holidays, bigger even than Christmas, because it was the date they’d flown to Korea to bring Suki home. Their friends and neighbors had taken up a collection so she, Jodi, and Kasha could go as well, although Breeanne had only been three at the time and didn’t remember going.

  Mom was behind the counter, checking out the last customer of the day. Dad was carrying a Tiffany lamp out to the car for an elderly lady. Suki spotted her from the balcony, and came running downstairs to greet her.

  “You’ve gained weight,” Suki said as she hugged her. “Looking good. Rowdy agrees with you.”

  “Thanks.” She’d told Suki about the seduction that went awry, but she hadn’t told her about their Rookie Rules arrangement.

  Suki hugged her again. “I have so missed you. When are you coming back? It’s so boring up there. People keep asking me stuff like ‘What was John Irving’s first book?’ I mean who knows—

  “Setting Free the Bears.”

  Suki rolled her eyes. “Who cares?”

  “Book lovers. You are running a bookstore. That’s your customer base.”

  “See there? That’s the problem. I’m not a book lover. I mean they’re okay, but I don’t have a passion for them. Now if we were talking jewelry or clothes . . .” Suki turned to their mother. “Mom, can we turn the bookstore into a boutique?”

  “No,” their mother said without looking up. “Breeanne will be back when she finishes writing her book. Suck it up, Suki.”

  The customer laughed. “I love the way you and your children interact, Maggie. It’s one of the things that keep me coming in. How is the book coming, Breeanne?”

  “Great. Busy, busy, busy.”

  “That’s right, we hardly see her anymore.” Mom shot Breeanne a chiding look that said, You’ve been neglecting your family, young lady.

  Her chest tightened. She glanced away, curled her fingers into her palms. Breaking the news that she was not going to be at their Fourth of July celebration wasn’t going to be easy.

  “Honey,” Mom said after the customer left the store. “Could you fix your delicious seven-layer dip for Saturday? Brent Taylor is on leave from the army and he’s coming to the party. He specifically asked about you, and your dip.”

  “Mom’s playing matchmaker,” Suki whispered to her behind her palm, as if Breeanne couldn’t figure that out, as if Mom couldn’t hear her. “She’s worried Rowdy is having a negative influence.”

  “Beverly Crownover saw you two at the picture show,” her mother said. “She said you were kissing in the back row.”

  “Good going!” Suki grinned.

  “You
and Rowdy what?” Dad asked, coming up behind them.

  Oh no. Telling Mom was one thing, Dad was another solar system altogether.

  “I want all the dets later,” Suki whispered in her ear. “You just made minding the bookstore worth it.”

  “Breeanne?” Her father came around to join their mother at the counter and add his disapproving look. “What’s going on?”

  Backing down would be so easy. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Because her life had been filled with so much struggle and pain, she had learned to take the easy way out when it was an option. She couldn’t avoid surgeries and hospital stays, but she could avoid disturbing her parents. Taking the quiet road, the soft road, the easy road had kept her stagnant. If she ever hoped to flower and grow, she had to make noise, drive over a few of life’s potholes, make mistakes.

  Loving Rowdy might turn out be the dumbest thing she’d ever done, but she would learn from it. She would change. And once the pain of losing him had passed—because she would eventually lose him, of that she had little doubt—she would flourish in her newfound sexuality.

  No pain, no gain. If she hadn’t endured that pain of surgery, her heart would not have survived. But because she’d gone through it, she was healed.

  “Breeanne,” Mom said. “Is there something you need to tell us?”

  Looking into her parents’ troubled faces stirred up guilt—guilt that she’d moved out, guilt that she’d abandoned the bookstore, guilt that she felt so trapped by the love of the family that had sacrificed so much for her.

  A family she had not been born into, but rather a family that had chosen her and loved her unconditionally when her birth mother had abandoned her, a family that had stuck by her through health crisis after health crisis that drained their money, time, and energy.

  And now that she was healed, she was walking away from them. What an ungrateful child. They had never said such a thing to her. They didn’t have to. Her conscience shouldered all the blame.

  Shame overcame her. As a child she’d loved fairy tales, and her favorite was Sleeping Beauty. Waiting for the kiss of a handsome prince to bring her to life. What the fairy tale had not addressed was what happened to Sleeping Beauty after her awakening? Happily-ever-after might work in fairy tales, but in reality waking up from a sleepwalking life caused upheaval.