“Oh, I can’t believe that. A good-looking guy like you?”
“Good looking, huh?”
“Well, you kind of set me up for that one, didn’t you?” I laugh, noticing how close he’s gotten. “My nights and weekends are pretty thin on excitement, too.”
“I noticed that. Cait seems to think it’s my fault you wouldn’t go out last night.” A half-smile appears on his lips. “I honestly hope that’s not the case. I know I can come on strong, but I can dial it back if it really bothers you.”
I let out a big sigh. “No, it’s okay. It’s not you, it’s me,” I told him, echoing the oldest breakup line in history.
He barks out a laugh. “Wow. Whipping out clichés so soon?”
“Hey, that line is a classic,” I heartily defend. “And it just happens to be true.”
“Did we just break up?” he teases. “I feel like we should start negotiating who gets to keep the friends.”
“Not necessary. I get Brie, you can have Cait. Full disclosure – I’m going to kill her first, so don’t get too attached.” I pick up my glass and finish the martini, draining the glass of every single delightful drop.
“So I’m not the reason you wouldn’t go out with us last night?” he asks.
“Not in the slightest.”
He takes a few more sips, composing his thoughts. “Good. I’d feel terrible if it turned out that I was keeping you from spending time with your friends. So if it’s not me, then what’s keeping you from going out?”
“It’s a part of my sad story,” I tell him with no further explanation.
“I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.”
“You think I’m just going to whip out my sad tale to see if it’s as big as yours?” I tease.
“Yes, that’s the general idea.” His eyes twinkle down at me, an easy smile on his lips.
I’m not quite ready to share just yet. “Maybe one or two more of these would help.” I push my empty glass in his direction. Having only three ingredients, it doesn’t take him long to make me a fresh martini. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I am pleased that he doesn’t push the issue.
“So what’s upstairs?” I ask, my eyes instinctively flashing over to the stairs. I’m doing my very best not to look directly into his eyes.
“The second floor is the real living space. You know – kitchen, living room, guest bathroom. The third floor has two bedrooms, an office, and more bathrooms. I converted the office into a workout room. Nothing fancy, just the basics. But it has a great sound system. Would you like a tour?”
“Yes, please. If you don’t mind.”
He comes around and offers his hand to help me off the barstool. The gesture flusters me. I nervously reach for his hand and in doing so, topple my martini glass to the ground. It lands on the carpet without breaking, but orange-red liquid is spilled all over his carpet.
“Oh, my God! I’m so sorry. I’m such a klutz.” I fumble to pick up the glass and find enough napkins to soak up the mess.
Cole runs behind the bar, grabs a towel and soaks it with Club Soda. He returns to the carpet and together, we mop up the spill.
“Here, let me get it. This happens all the time.” He gently blots away at the carpet. “There’s another rag back there. Why don’t you grab it?”
I hurry to grab another towel, douse it with more club soda, and kneel down on the carpet beside him. I can feel him watching me, even though I refuse to look up and confirm it. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn this dress today. Can he see down the front when I bend over? I try to inconspicuously see if I’m showing too much cleavage.
We’re almost done cleaning up when I notice that he seems to be sniffing me; he even leans in to get a better whiff. “Is that you that smells like . . . vanilla?”
I look at him out of the corner of my eye as I reflexively lean away. I smell my dress to get a better understanding of what he’s referring to. “I guess so,” I answer.
Cole leans over closer and smells me again.
I lean farther away, almost tipping off-balance. I feel flush— like my heart skipped a beat.
A slight grin appears on his lips. “Vanilla-scented perfume?” he asks.
“No. Just soap and body lotion.”
Why is he sniffing me?
“Do I smell bad?”
“No. Quite the opposite.” He grins and inhales deeply through his nose, like he is sensing the most pleasing of all scents. He mutters something about it under his breath that I don’t understand.
Luckily, the stain nearly all comes out. “You really are Houdini. You made that stain disappear,” he chuckles.
Cole stands and offers to help me get up. I reach for his hand, and this time I’m ready for the electrical zing that seems to be present whenever we touch. He must have noticed it, too. He releases my hand and walks straight to the stairs, waiting for me to join him.
I follow him up the stairs and find myself standing in the middle of his living room. The best thing I can say about this room is its view of the Atlantic Ocean. Another set of sliding glass doors leads to a second story terrace with a few rather well worn loungers and a small table with chairs.
The living room furniture is from a time long gone. None of it is new and hardly any of it matches, not even the table lamps. He notices me gawking and makes a sweeping gesture across it all. “I decorated it all myself,” he proudly announces.
“That’s good. I’d hate to think you paid someone to do this.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I regret saying them. What the hell is wrong with me?
Luckily, Cole laughs at my poor manners. “I’ll have you know that the couch you’re looking at is the very one that I grew up with in my parent’s house. And those lamps? They came from my Aunt Erin.”
“I didn’t mean anything. Honestly, I didn’t. It just surprised me, that’s all. You have this amazing townhouse right on the boardwalk – and I just happen to know how much property around here costs. Plus, you’re a professional baseball player making a good salary. I just expected something . . . different, I guess.”
“Oh, I don’t own this townhouse,” he quickly corrects me. “Evan and Juliette bought it as an investment. I’m just staying here. As far as my salary goes, I haven’t really touched it except for living expenses, of course.”
Everything I’m seeing screams temporary. Nothing here is truly his, except maybe for the bar downstairs.
He walks into the kitchen and turns over the steak he’s marinating. “What do you think of the kitchen? Pretty nice, isn’t it?”
I may not be very comfortable in a kitchen, but I know nice things when I see it. Natural stone countertops. Custom cabinets. Stainless steel appliances. It looks a lot like my mother’s kitchen. She never settles for anything but the best. Quality before quantity, she would always tell me. It’s better to have an empty house with a few nice things than a house filled with crap. That’s what she would say if she were here.
I join him in the kitchen. “It’s beautiful. No wonder you like to cook in here. I might even be willing to give it a try. If you’re making a salad, maybe I could help.”
Cole looks at me with a twinkle in his eye. “You’ve got yourself a deal. I hope you like steak. It looks like you don’t eat very much. You’re not some kind of a vegetarian or vegan are you?”
“No way! I love to eat, I just don’t seem to have the time to actually cook for myself much these days. I’m lucky if I grab a meal or two at the coffee shop a day. I keep myself going on mostly caffeine and granola.”
He smiles. “And the occasional blueberry muffin.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s good to know. But it’s a little early for dinner.” He checks his watch. “I’d like to marinate the steak for another hour or so. What would you like to do while we wait?”
I look around and the first thing that catches my eye is the ocean waves crashing along the beach. “It’s such a beautiful day out. It seems like such
a waste not to enjoy it. Why don’t we sit outside?”
“I could grab a couple of beach chairs and we can go stick our toes in the water. What do you think?”
Walking down to the beach is not what I had in mind. I thought we could just go sit outside on his balcony or downstairs on the patio. I peer out the window and scan the few faces for anything or anyone that looks out of place. “Okay,” I mumble.
Cole examines me for a moment, tilting his head to the side, trying to understand my halted reply. “Not a fan of the ocean, I take it?”
Reflexively, I reach up and begin to twirl my hair around my finger. “No,” I correct him. “I love the ocean. It’s people that make me uneasy.”
“Why? What happened to you?” he asks with a look of concern.
This is the big moment of truth. Do I tell him? I weigh the pros and cons of making a full confession versus keeping things private. I take a deep breath and blurt out, “I have a restraining order out against someone and when I’m in crowds, I get a little anxious, that’s all.”
“You have absolutely nothing to worry about tonight. Nobody would dare try to pull anything with me around. Come on, let’s go get some fresh air and if you’re ready, you can tell me about it.” I take one look at him and I believe him one hundred percent.
Cole takes me by the hand, grabs his keys off the counter, and escorts me down the stairs. He opens a door that leads to his garage where he grabs a couple of beach chairs. And before I know it, I’m taking off my shoes and making the short walk in the sand right down to the water.
It’s dusk and the sky is darkening all around us. The boardwalk lights have just flickered on and in the distance, I can see the amusement rides light up and sparkle, casting the entire pavilion in heavy shadows and twinkling lights.
Our chairs are carefully arranged so that the incoming tide, all foamy and sandy, occasionally sweeps across our toes. It feels delightfully cold.
“I plied you with alcohol and brought you all the way down here,” he says, “are you ready to share your story?”
“You want to hear mine?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He grins.
I feel my heart pitter-patter. And also an icy stab— should I tell him my story? I shrug. “You first. Tell me your sad story, then I’ll tell you mine.”
He nods. “My sad story is pretty run of the mill. I never had the police involved in any of my past relationships.” He pauses to think and shakes his head, “Nope, not even once.”
“What you have to realize is that being the girlfriend of a baseball player is a very lonely existence. In the minors, we’d be on the road for pretty long stretches of time. And it’s hard to make long term plans when the possibility of getting traded always looms.”
“Did you get traded much?”
“Three times. Four if you count getting moved up to the Red Hawks. My last trade was from Toledo, Ohio to Charlotte, North Carolina. Maybe it’s easier to tolerate the ups and downs when you start making bank, but in the minors, we basically get paid minimum wage.”
I feel terrible for him. “I’m guessing not many of your girlfriends stuck around for very long.”
He shakes his head. “Lauren broke up with me while I was on the road with the team. We were eight days into a twelve-day road trip. I had only been home for six days in the last month. The team was on its way to a game and I was in a bus full of ball players when she called. I knew something was wrong. She was crying – sobbing actually – and I could hardly understand what she was saying. It’s not like I could wait until I got back to my hotel room to call her, either. We share rooms on the road. So I just let her say what she needed to say and we hung up. I came home and found a box filled with my things waiting for me on my doorstep.” He pauses and leans back, looking up into the darkening sky.
“Jenny broke up with me because she thought I was hooking up with random women on the road. Some of the guys do that – go out to the clubs at night trolling, but that was never my scene.”
“And then there was Jamie. She was a stage five clinger. She would text me, tag me in her Facebook posts and Tweets, and call me ten times a day. When she started taking five-hour road trips to follow me to my games, I had to break up with her.”
“So after Jamie, I swore no more girlfriends during baseball season. It’s better for me that way. It’s not fair for me to expect someone to put their life on hold while I run around chasing my dream.”
I try to imagine what it must have been like for those girls. It’s so easy for Cole to get under your skin, as I very well know. It must have been torture to watch him come and go like that, constantly worrying about what he’s doing while he’s away.
“Everyone thinks it’s glamorous being in professional sports. Maybe it is at the highest level, but in order to get there, you have to make a lot of sacrifices and having a normal relationship just wasn’t possible for me.”
“Do you see yourself staying here long?” I wonder aloud.
He doesn’t answer right away. “Wow – that’s a really complicated question. Long-term plans have always been impossible for me. I’d like to think that I could set down roots here, but that’s out of my control. In the end, the decision isn’t mine to make. I just have to be willing to go with the flow. But the truth is, with each year that passes, it gets harder and harder.”
We sit in silence for a while. Not the awkward kind where neither person knows what to say or how to say it. This is different. It’s a comfortable silence and it gives me a chance to think about his words.
He really seems to be a good guy. But one with commitment issues.
One thing becomes abundantly clear – I’d like to spend more time getting to know Cole McGuire. Which means that I have to begin to trust him. For me, trust is not easily achieved. That’s why my circle of friends remains small. Inviting anyone into my circle of trust is a gamble. I know that there can only be two possible results: a friend for life or a lesson in life. I’m hoping for the former.
I can picture times moving forward where I might enjoy having the support and protection of Cole, so I need to bite the bullet and break through the wall that I have put up just to keep him out.
I take a deep breath and blurt out, “I’m not who you think I am.”
“Really? Then who am I talking to right now?” he asks, his blue eyes teasing.
“Let me show you. Do you have your phone with you?” I ask.
He checks his pocket, reaches in, and produces his phone. “Yeah, sure. Why?”
“You’ll see.” I take his phone from him and search the Internet for copies of my books – or rather, Kensington Layne’s books. Images of the book covers show up, along with pictures of me signing books at bookstores and conventions.
I hand him the phone and watch as he looks through the images, mystified. Until the moment that he connects that dots and pieces together the connection. “Those are your books?” he puzzles.
“They are.”
“But that’s not your name,” he points out. You wrote using a pen name?”
“I did. Kensington Layne was my nom de plum. My pseudonym,” I explain.
“That must be why I couldn’t find any books for sale written by Kensington Harper,” he adds.
“You Googled me?” I ask. “Why?”
“Well, when Brie told me you were an author, I was intrigued. I find that the more I get to know you, the more I want to find out. You’re a little bit of a riddle to me.” I must have a look of shock on my face, because he immediately turns it around onto me. “What? Are you seriously going to tell me that since you found out who I am, you never once Googled me?”
I shrug. He’s got me on that one. Of course I did. “Maybe once,” I reluctantly admit.
He tells me, “I’m very glad to hear that,” his voice deep and meaningful.
If he knew how often his face and his body visited my daydreams as well as night dreams, I’d die a thousand deaths.
“But just
so we’re clear, I’m not supposed to tell anyone that you’re Kensington Layne. Right?”
“Not a soul,” I tell him. “Not your cousin, his wife, or anyone else you’re close to. Promise?”
He crosses his heart and holds up three fingers like a Boy Scout. “You have my word. But I have to ask you why. What happened? Those books are famous. What made you give up and walk away?”
I really don’t want to talk about it, but this wonderfully sweet and ridiculously handsome guy is looking at me with those piercing eyes and that sexy half grin, and dammit, I want to keep those eyes and that grin on me a little bit longer. So . . . “Well, it’s complicated. Do you remember that night we first met in Hawaii?”
He nods. “How could I forget?”
I roll my eyes. “Well, let’s just say that things would be very different right now if I stayed in that hotel room with you all day instead of sneaking off.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know,” he mumbles.
“Well, what you don’t know is later that day, I was attacked twice by a fan who had been harassing me through the mail for over a year.”
I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. There’s something strangely cathartic about telling your sad story. I haven’t told the story in a long time. Brie always tells me I should talk more about it, and I’m starting to think she may have been right.
“Holy shit,” Cole is shocked. I can see his expression turn from shock to anger. “How bad did he hurt you?” he asks through gritted teeth.
“I got banged up pretty good. Twelve stitches in the back of my head.” Instinctively, I pull my fingers through my hair, feeling for the exact spot. I can still feel the raised skin from the scar.
Cole reaches out and touches my head, weaving his fingers through my hair looking for the same evidence. His fingers stop when they make contact with my scar. He lightly brushes back and forth over the spot. I close my eyes as his fingertips explore. I can’t help but lean into his touch, yearning for more.
When I open my eyes again, Cole is keenly watching the way I respond to him. Slowly, he untangles his hand from my hair and gently rubs my back. “Where is this motherfucker right now?” he asks, not even attempting to hide his contempt and concern.
Another Chance at Love (Another Series Book 1) Page 10