“I had a chance to meet with him yesterday during practice. He looked good,” Sterling offered.
I grinned. “Spying on the competition?”
Sterling grinned. “We practice after them. Their coach was still on the field going over a few things with him when I happened to head out.”
I nodded, then took the last turn that led to the ball field.
“Parker?”
I glanced at Sterling. “Yeah?”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been better.”
And that was the goddamn truth. But that better had been when I was a kid. Before I’d done the unthinkable and been forced into a life I’d never wanted to live.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I sighed.
They pulled to a stop at the visiting team’s entrance. “You don’t have the time to hear what’s wrong. Maybe over a couple of beers, we can discuss it. But right now…it ain’t gonna happen.”
Sterling rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
Then he punched me hard in the shoulder and bailed.
I watched his back—out of habit—until the door shut behind him. Then I accelerated out of the parking lot and ran a few errands. When I came back for the actual game and sat down next to Rafe, I took one look at the girl three seats down from my own and felt my heart skip a beat.
***
Kayla
I could still feel my heart pounding from the nightmares I’d had during my nap. I could practically taste my terror on my tongue.
“Come on, it’ll be fun.”
I rolled my eyes at my friend’s words. Janie had said those exact same words to me time and time again. And time and time again, I always got in trouble after hearing them.
The first time had been because Janie wanted to see how far we could walk without our legs giving out. That had ended up being five very long miles away from our house—and we’d gotten lost.
Six hours later, James and Sam had found us.
After hugging us both tight, we’d been grounded for life. Although that life sentence only ended up being about three days in total. But we weren’t allowed out of an adult’s sight for quite some time after that.
“I’m already going,” I sighed. “Loki asked me if I was going. And since I know he thinks I’m not handling it well, I decided to show him differently.”
It would be a lie, of course, but I could put on a mask like the rest of them. I wasn’t going to let on that I was freaking the fuck out. I now woke up at night with cold sweats wracking my body, and the taste of vomit on my tongue.
“But you aren’t handling it well,” she countered. “You’re not sleeping.”
I shrugged. “I’ll get over it. Don’t worry.”
Janie looked at me skeptically but ultimately dropped the subject. Thank God.
It was the last thing I wanted to talk about right then. Especially after the night we’d shared.
“Are you ever going to let me hold her?” I asked, looking at Janie.
Rafe, her husband, snorted. “Good luck. I’m the baby’s father and even I don’t get to hold her all that much. Between Janie and James, I feel like my own kid doesn’t even like me half the time because she’s not used to me.”
***
Two hours later
My eyes scanned the crowd as I thought about how many killers could possibly be surrounding me right this very moment, and I’d never know. I mean, I could be taken right the fuck out now, and brought somewhere and tortured and then cut up with a band saw. He could look like that man over there, or the old grandpa holding his grandson who was dressed exactly like him.
Or it could be that man right there in his tight t-shirt and skinny jeans.
Or…
The moment I saw him my heart skipped a beat.
Now he…he could be something.
He was tall, broad-shouldered and looked like he ate little girls like me for breakfast.
He had on jeans, a semi-loose t-shirt that was tight on the chest, loose on the waist, and reallllly tight on the arms. The Lumberjack logo that spread across his chest was stretched, partially distorting the mini lumberjack.
Then there was the ball cap covering what appeared to be dark brown hair with reddish highlights and a sprinkling of grays. His eyes were concealed by the ball cap, but his strong jaw, covered in that godforsaken beard—oh my God. It was divine.
I’ve always had a thing for beards. This man’s beard wasn’t big. It wasn’t bushy or long. It was well maintained and very short…but it was beautiful. It was as if he’d run a brush through his beard with a touch of white paint on a few bristles. The white wasn’t plentiful, but there was enough for me to see it running through his brown beard.
And I freakin’ liked it. A lot.
My eyes traveled down his strong arms, taking in every single tattoo, mole, freckle and scar. He had a lot of them. Scars and tattoos more than freckles or moles.
He had a sleeve, and it was a completely random array of tattoos. There was a turtle and a hummingbird. Then there was a mermaid skeleton looking chick, followed by a cherry blossom that weaved in between the tattoos and filling in the holes that the other tattoos left open.
He even had a tattoo of a clock on his hand, and the hands of the clock were centered on his middle finger. Fingers in which were curled around a beer, which he brought up to his lip moments later and sipped from.
I swallowed and watched his throat muscles work.
Oh, holy fuck.
Then he turned, feeling my gaze on him, and locked eyes with me.
I swallowed and immediately looked away, my eyes wide and surprised.
“What’s that look for?” Janie asked, juggling her infant baby in one arm, and trying to hold her boob with the other while also not flashing the world her nipple. It’d be just her luck to get on the Jumbotron the same instant she flashed her tit. “Am I showing my boob to everyone?”
I shook my head and lifted the blanket I was holding up even higher. “No. I just thought I saw someone I knew.”
Well, I didn’t really lie. I did know him. Sort of. Knew of him was really the better term.
“I swear I hate breastfeeding so much. It sucks,” she said.
“Then don’t do it anymore,” I shot back. “Nobody will condemn you for not doing it.”
She sighed and sat back when she finally got the beast latched on.
“I would if my family wasn’t so pro-breastfeeding. Seriously, all my aunts did it. Shiloh did it with my sister. It’s like I have to. They’re all so excited that I am. It’s like this secret boob cult that I’ve been indoctrinated into. I feel like they’re going to start making me do stuff that I don’t want to do. Like feed her on national television without a cover. Once I do whatever public boob flashing breastfeeding activity that they have planned, I won’t be surprised if I have to get a boob tattoo with teardrops of milk for each kid I’ve breastfed.”
I blinked.
“You’re fucking nuts,” I informed her.
Janie sighed.
“If you want to formula feed, do it. Nobody is going to bitch about it. And if they do, I’ll fuck them up,” I told her.
Janie looked at me and burst out laughing.
I shrugged.
Ok, so I was on the small side, but I was pretty freakin’ scrappy when I needed to be.
Like a raccoon. Or one of those little organ monkeys.
Or maybe like a skunk.
Nobody went near a skunk. Nobody.
“I will,” I told her, my arms starting to shake. “Can I put this down yet?”
She purses her lips, then nodded.
I sighed as I dropped the blanket over her and the baby, who immediately took offense to being covered up and wrenched her head to the side.
Janie grimaced. “Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why don’t you get yo
ur husband to hold it up for you?” I asked as I picked the blanket back up, then sent a glare in Rafe’s direction, who was busy talking to the man that I was trying really hard not to stare at. Rafe turned his head and answered my question, despite his being in the midst of a full-blown conversation with the other man. Parker.
His name made me shiver.
“Because my wife doesn’t like the way I do it. Apparently, I do it differently than you do, and she likes the way you hold the blanket better,” he answered with a roll of his eyes. “Like I would want my woman’s boob exposed to the entire fucking world. But whatever.”
I bit my lip to keep the laughter at bay. “There was this one time when we were seniors in high school…”
“Kayla, shut the fuck up,” Janie ordered, her eyes narrowing.
I pinched my lips closed as laughter twinkled in my eyes. She narrowed hers even more on me.
“I will fuck you up,” she promised.
I looked away, even though Rafe’s eyes were curious and hopeful that I’d continue.
“Come on,” Rafe begged. “I really want to know.”
“Rafael Luis, if you value your life at all, you’ll drop it,” Janie snarled.
I bit my lip and returned my eyes to the game when Sterling, the man that most of us were here to see, was announced as ‘on deck.’
“That Furious George is huge,” Janie said as she fidgeted to find a better position.
I agreed. He was huge.
And actually, kind of nice. I wasn’t sure why he was called Furious George at all.
I’d even seen him give his bat to a little boy a few nights ago when I was watching the game at Loki’s house.
My two weeks with Loki as an apprentice were up, and I would not be returning.
Though it had been enlightening, I would not be able to hack being a police officer.
And it wasn’t just the detective work that I didn’t like. It was the way that police officers were treated. How they always felt the need to look over their shoulders, and the shit they had to deal with on a daily basis.
Loki had written a ticket two days ago to a woman who was clearly going way too fast—in a school zone—while talking on her phone. And she had the audacity to say that Loki was in the wrong.
Honestly, I just didn’t have the temperament to put up with other peoples’ bullshit.
I was a straight up kind of person. If I thought you were in the wrong, I would tell you how it was.
It didn’t matter if I was going to get my ass kicked, I’d say it, and I’d keep on saying it while that person pounded me into a pulp.
Janie always said that I was going to get her killed one day because of my mouth.
And, apparently, I was never going to get control of it. Because here I was, a grown ass adult, and I still wasn’t able to control it any more than I had at sixteen.
“What is your obsession with big men?” she asked. “You’re always leaning toward the ones that are about a foot and a half taller than you and have thighs as thick as your waist. Can’t you find a man that is more proportional to you?”
“Not sure why she should have to do a thing like that,” a deep, masculine voice said from our side. “What’s wrong with big men?”
I swallowed my tongue and completely missed the big man hit a pop fly to left field and get the third out of the inning.
Or would have had I not poked it out and licked my lips at the first hint of his husky, smoky voice.
His eyes followed the move, and he started to smile.
A smile that died on his face when he saw whomever it was behind me.
“Yo, you want a drink, KK?” Loki asked as he stopped beside my chair.
I shook my head at him. “No, thank you. I appreciate you asking, though.”
“No problem,” Loki muttered, then started up the aisle that separated our row of seats from his row.
When I turned back around, it was to find Parker no longer looking at me, and Janie looking at both of us in confusion. Her head was moving back and forth as she tried to get a clear picture of what had just happened.
I thought, at first, that he was flirting. But normally when guys start flirting, they continue to flirt. They don’t go completely silent and not say another word.
But then I remembered that he’d always been like that, and I shrugged it off.
Whatever.
“My arm is literally about to fall off,” I said to her. “I think I’m going to die.”
She snorted and reached out her hand to hold it up herself. Moments later, she laid the blanket down over her now sleeping infant’s head.
“One of these days, this is going to be super easy for me. Then I’ll be able to function like a normal adult,” Janie muttered.
I turned my eyes back toward the game and smiled when I saw Sterling get up to bat.
“I bet he hits it over the fence,” I said to no one in particular.
“He’s gonna bunt.”
That same sexy voice had me looking over again.
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Because he just made a sign that he used to make at us when we played while we were deployed. We’d play a couple of pick-up games every now and again, and when we would, Sterling always had a tell. It’s the tap twice against the leg, touch the end of the bat once, then touch his forehead,” Parker explained.
My brows rose in surprise, and I turned my head back toward the game and watched the next pitch.
Low and behold, Sterling bunted.
He made it to first base when the catcher rolled his ankle and came up cursing but also missing the easy out.
“Fuckin A,” Parker muttered.
My brows rose.
“You’re supposed to be cheering for Sterling’s team,” I said to him.
Parker’s eyebrows went up as he looked at me. “I don’t have to if I don’t want to.”
“You’re in his team’s section. If you wanted to be with the Lumberjacks, you had to sit in the home side.” I pointed across the field at the home field dugout.
Parker didn’t follow my finger. “I spent three and a half years watching Sterling’s back. But I spent fifteen raising that boy over there whenever I was home.” He pointed to the kid that was at first base. “My loyalties are divided.”
My mouth opened, and then closed. “Gunner Lewiston?”
“Yep,” I confirmed. “My sister’s son. My nephew.”
I blinked. “He’s the most adorable thing in the world.”
And he was. He was so shiny and new, but he had this brooding bad boy look about him that was attracting not just my eye, but a lot of feminine eyes. And they weren’t all young like me. There were also a lot of older women in the audience today who were checking him out just as much as I was.
He was adorable and hot.
He also looked very similar to Parker, only a slightly less rough version of him.
But both of them had this certain something about them. An unapproachable air that would make me hesitate to approach either one of them.
Even with my badass self dialed up to ten.
Parker grunted at me calling his nephew ‘adorable.’
Janie flat out laughed. “Only you would call a man who looks like he could eat people for breakfast adorable. Next, you’re going to say that you find Parker to be like a teddy bear.”
I looked over at Parker, who did, indeed, remind me of a bear.
But not a teddy bear. A grizzly, maybe.
Or maybe a black bear since he didn’t have a hump on his back like a grizzly. He was powerful, thick with muscle and deadly looking.
Honestly, I would not fuck with him.
If he pissed me off in some way, I’d never say a word to him. It was that common sense that sometimes surfaced in dangerous situations. And without a doubt, with zero uncertainty, this man was not a person that you fucked with.
I don’t know if
it was something in his eyes or the way he held himself, but I seriously would learn to hold my tongue around him.
“I’m sure he gives good hugs,” I finally managed.
Parker turned to survey me.
His eyes scrutinizing my every feature.
I felt stripped naked under his steady gaze.
Then a ball was hit so loud that my head snapped around only to turn it back the other way just as fast when that ball headed straight for the bear-man on my right.
The sound of that ball hitting flesh as Parker caught it had my mouth falling open in astonishment.
He’d caught it in his bare hand, inches from hitting his face.
Holy shit.
Then, without a care in the world, he handed it to the little boy in front of him who appeared to be at his first Lumberjacks game.
The moment the ball was in his tiny little clutches, he started to dance in his seat.
“Thanks, man,” the father said. “He loves baseball. You probably just made his whole week.”
Something sad crossed over his face for a few seconds. “What’s his name?”
“Jett.”
And that was when I saw Parker’s entire face close down.
“You’re welcome.”
Then he sat back in his seat and didn’t say another word for four more innings.
Around the seventh inning stretch, Parker waited for God Bless America to stop playing before he got up and headed for the aisle.
To do so, he had to pass me.
Which meant his ass was in my face as he did.
I had to hold onto the seat to keep myself from lifting my hands and touching his ass.
He was wearing tight, worn out blue jeans. A white t-shirt with the Lumberjack symbol on it, and a black ball cap with a white Under Armour logo embroidered on the front.
The t-shirt stretched beautifully over the muscles of his back, and I could faintly make out the dark ink of a tattoo underneath the tee.
His shirt had ridden up over his belt, and I could see the gray waistband of his Fruit of the Loom boxer briefs.
I licked my lips and ordered myself to calm down. It wouldn’t be a good idea to poke the bear.
Really, it wouldn’t.
But he had this hole in his jeans directly over his right ass cheek.
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