“Scoot up and try again.”
I moved the netting thing up, then tossed another ball—this one with some heat on it.
He didn’t swing at it.
“That was perfect!” I cried.
He grunted. “One more.”
I threw the next pitch, and he swung, easily hitting the ball so hard and fast that it was out of the field moments later.
“I think you got lucky,” I teased.
He rolled his eyes. “I think you need to practice tossing some more balls,” he countered.
I found myself grinning despite not really wanting to throw him balls.
He’d been partially released by Bradley only that morning, and that was only to begin with a light amount of exercise. I wasn’t sure that hitting baseballs was included in that, but I had a feeling that we wouldn’t be changing Rhys’ mind any time soon.
“One more,” he ordered.
I threw him another one and barely got behind the screen in time to avoid taking a ball to the face.
“Holy shit!” I cried out, my hand going to my heart. “You almost took my face off with that one.”
“We need to get you a glove. That one would’ve been an out,” he teased.
I didn’t see how. That one had come past me so fast that I hadn’t even seen it coming.
Literally, the first thing I would’ve known after waking up from passing out was that my face was gone.
“I’m not sure I’d do well with a glove.” I paused. “Is there a trick to it?”
He shrugged. “I guess not. You just gotta practice, really.”
I highly doubted that I ‘just had to practice.’ Most likely, you did have to have some sort of skill, otherwise it wouldn’t be as hard as it was.
I mean, every single ball I threw at Rhys was nowhere near where he was, yet he’d hit every single one.
There was a possibility that I wasn’t even a challenge to him at all. Unless you counted the fact that he had to chase each pitch, and never knew which direction it was going to go…
Finally, after fifty throws, we ran out of balls.
Then he started in search of them.
One by one, he moved to the balls in the field. How he was finding them in the tall grass was beyond me, but it seemed like he’d mentally calculated where each one had landed and had found all but three—the three that he’d hit out of the park and had rolled down the street to the highway just down the road.
I started to pick up the balls he’d tossed at me once he’d found them, and overlooked at least five of them in my quest to return them to the bucket.
“Do you want to hit?”
I blinked up at the crazy man standing beside me.
He was looking down at me with an odd light in his eyes, and it was making me feel rather uncomfortable.
Not because I didn’t like the way he was staring at me, but because I liked it too much.
“Hit what?” I paused. “You can’t have liquor.”
He blinked. “I meant the ball…not a liquor store.”
I flushed. “Oh.”
He grinned. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
He touched my forehead with his index finger. “Do you want to try to hit the ball?”
I looked over at where he was standing moments earlier, then shrugged.
How hard could it be?
Apparently, it could be very hard.
I hit one out of seventeen balls thrown at me before I decided that hitting baseballs wasn’t for me.
“I honestly thought you were kidding,” he said once I missed the final ball I was willing to have him pitch to me.
“Nope.” I said, handing him the bat.
He took it and lifted it so it rested against his shoulder.
He had a fine sheen of sweat running down the left side of his face disappearing into his beard, and it took everything I had not to walk up to him and wipe it off.
God, he was super sexy.
Chapter 13
Whatever sprinkles your donut.
-T-shirt
Rhys
My phone rang, and the moment I saw who it was, I audibly groaned.
The caller ID said no specific name, just ‘UNKNOWN.’
But I knew who it was. I also knew what they wanted.
I’d been dodging them for thirteen years now, ever since I’d left Chicago and my life behind.
The only reason I wasn’t dead yet—or worse, a made man—was because of my notoriety.
I was a professional baseball player. I was the son of a porn star. I was the brother of Renata Camden, who was married to Dewight Camden—a self-made deaf billionaire who had been one of the world’s most eligible bachelors before my sister made him an honest man.
But, despite all of those factors that would’ve definitely shown a red flag had I suddenly come up ‘missing,’ they still continued to try. They still, to this day, wanted me back.
I’d never get completely rid of them.
Gritting my teeth, I answered the phone.
“Hello?”
I said it as calmly as I possibly could, yet it’d still come out sounding rather rough and impatient.
“Rhys, my dear boy,” Uncle Pablo called jovially over the line. “I couldn’t believe my ears when they said that you would live!”
I gritted my teeth.
He was probably pissed off that the situation hadn’t righted itself, and that now they still had a loose end they haven’t had a chance in tying up yet. And yes, I do mean chance. They’d accomplish it one day…they just hadn’t figured out how to do it without having a neon sign pointing directly at them.
“Yep. Whole and hearty once again,” I lied.
I was whole…but far from hearty.
I would be in a few more weeks, but I still felt as weak as a kitten.
“I was so saddened to hear about your motorcycle accident,” Uncle Pablo sighed. “What have I told you about riding that death machine?”
That death machine was mostly the thing that kept me far away from Uncle Pablo and his goons.
All but one time, anyway.
That one time had nearly been the ticket.
Yet, he hadn’t quite accomplished that, now had he? He couldn’t try that particular tactic again.
He’d have to keep thinking.
This would be his thirteenth attempt at taking my life, and I was damn thankful that he hadn’t accomplished his goal.
“I spoke with Renata while you were on your death bed. She was really concerned that you weren’t going to make it,” Uncle Pablo continued.
I gritted my teeth so hard that they would’ve cracked had I not stopped when I had.
“Uncle Pablo,” I said through clenched teeth, then reached over for my recording device that I always kept handy at times like these. “I need you to listen to me. I do not, under any circumstances, want you talking to Renata. You stay away from her.”
“I was just worried for her…”
I pressed record on my device, and then put my phone onto speaker. “Listen to me. Do not speak to her.”
“I can, and will, speak to her if I feel the need, young Rhys. You remember that.” He snarled now.
Uncle Pablo was no longer nice Uncle Pablo. He was mobster Pablo, the mob boss.
“No, you won’t,” I disagreed. “And don’t think I didn’t notice your goon in that goddamn van that hit me.”
“You didn’t notice one of my guys,” he countered.
It was almost as if he knew that it wasn’t one of his guys…not that he hadn’t called the hit. Fucker.
“I have a bodyguard now…did you know that?”
I could almost hear his motor turning.
“How did that bodyguard do for you when you got in that accident, Rhys?”
Asshole.
“You know exactly how he did,” I told him. “He did, however, see the whole thing. He rend
ered first aid and rode with me to the hospital. Did you know that?”
My bodyguard wasn’t all bad. He was annoying, huge, and a brute. But he also only had my best interest at heart.
“You have one of two things that you can do,” I told him. “You can either stop calling me and let me live my life, or you can continue to call me…and one of these days you’ll slip up.”
And he would.
It was only a matter of time.
He liked to call me once every couple of months, just to remind me that he wasn’t gone.
He was always ‘watching me.’ Though, he always considered it as ‘watching over me.’
“You say this every time, too.” Uncle Pablo laughed. “And one of these days, you’re going to answer, and have an answer for me.”
“The answer is no, and always will be no.” I paused. “And I’m not marrying anyone, either. Make sure you remember that.”
That had been one of Uncle Pablo’s solutions. I could marry his daughter—Uncle Pablo wasn’t actually my uncle, he had been just a really close friend of my father’s—so he could keep tabs on me and know that I wasn’t leaking information to the wrong people. The other solution had been simple—die.
I hadn’t wanted to do either solution and had walked away into the sunset.
Only, it hadn’t been an easy walk.
I was still struggling, too.
“Goodbye, Rhys. I hope to see you back on the field again soon.”
And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t talking about the ball field.
He was talking about the playing field—the one where we were both adversaries, and he tried to kill me—again.
I hung up without comment, then immediately reared back my arm to throw my phone at the wall.
But then it rang in my hand, and this time it was actually a number I wouldn’t mind talking to.
At the same time, there was a knock at my door.
I honestly had no clue how I’d managed to hold them off as long as I had, but the moment they heard about me playing ball at the field—thanks to my ‘fiancée,’ I could no longer hold them back.
“Yo…” I heard Hancock mutter into the phone upon my answering.
I opened up the door to who I thought was Hancock, but turned out to be my entire team.
Everyone blinked. Me included.
“Hey, Rhys, have you seen my pants…”
I looked behind me to see her look up at me at the same time, and the moment she did, her mouth fell open in the cutest little O I’d ever seen.
“Uhhhh,” she murmured, then turned on her heel and ran in the opposite direction.
I was unsure why she had no pants on, but seeing her cute little tushy running away in white cotton panties was enough to hold my attention for a full twenty seconds while I watched her go.
But I gave up trying to figure that woman out.
She was friendly…my feelings were anything but friendly.
They were leaning more toward rabid dog and the moment that I let my control snap, which one day it would, this cat and mouse game we were playing would be over.
I’d have her, I’d take her roughly, and then she’d hate me.
They always hated me.
Nobody understood my absolute need for control. Nobody.
“We’re outside,” I heard Hancock say from both directly in front of me and through the phone that was still pressed to my ear.
“You’re not alone,” I said, taking them all in.
I sighed and hung up, knowing that I wasn’t going to get out of this one.
It wasn’t just two or three of my teammates.
It was nearly all of them.
The only one I noticed missing was Gentry.
“I didn’t even know that she was real.”
I turned to find Manny standing there, staring at me in awe.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought when you said that you’d met someone, that you were kidding because you didn’t want to be set up with Melanie. I had no idea that you actually had a girl. Then your accident happened, and nobody would ever let us come see you. They said that your girl was in there with you, though, so we were all feeling better. But we were still stunned that you had a ‘girl’ in the first place. Especially since we’d never seen her at any of the games.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
I had made the girl up because I didn’t want to go out with Melanie. Melanie was sweet, but she was also too sweet. She knew exactly who I was, and I didn’t want that anywhere near me.
Having a porn star as a mother, and a famous mob boss father, really only allowed you so much anonymity. Then I’d gone and gotten myself a career that had put me even more in the spotlight.
So yeah, I didn’t want to date anyone I knew.
Which had prompted the made-up girl.
The made-up girl that was now a real girl and was becoming incredibly convenient to have around.
Then a thought occurred to me.
One that, if I went with it, might change everything.
I thought back to Henley’s ass, and the way it looked in those white cotton panties. Then I wondered whether I could stare at that same ass for the next fifty years I was alive—hopefully—and decided that I definitely could.
***
Hours later, my phone rang again.
I sighed and walked to it, picking it up once I’d taken a glance at the screen.
“Yo?”
There was a slight pause on the other end of the line, then a grunted laugh.
“I didn’t know what to expect.”
I rolled my eyes at my friend, Sterling. We’d met a few years back when he’d first entered the league.
He hadn’t been a snot-nosed kid like most of the little leaguers, aka rookies, were. No, he was fucking smart, and I liked him on sight. Even when he tagged me out three times at first base the first time we played together.
“You thought I’d sound like a woman?” I joked.
I knew what he was saying, but I was fucking tired of talking about how everyone thought I was dead. I wasn’t dead. Far from it. At least for now.
“No.” He paused. “I was actually expecting a bunch of grunting like zombies do.”
I sighed. “Fuck you.”
He chuckled at my familiar, hate-filled words. “So, I hear you have a woman.”
I stared at said ‘woman’ who was currently sleeping on my couch.
The boys had just left, and they’d kept Henley thoroughly entertained with stories of me.
My ‘notorious’ bad boy image, and how she would have to clean me up if she ever wanted to make an honest man out of me.
Henley had played the part well, and the more that the idea in my head took root, the better it was starting to sound.
The only problem with the arrangement—at least on my end—was that she wouldn’t ever be able to marry someone else that she actually loved.
Sure, there was lust on both of our parts, but that would never turn into love.
At least not for me.
Love didn’t work in my world, and I had first-hand knowledge of why that was. My mother and father were the not-so-shining examples of how fucked up the life could be.
My mom had hated living in the world my father had made for her. And, knowing that he would have to either do something about her newly-acquired skills—i.e., being a goddamn porn star—or look like a fool, he chose the one option that he could live with. Looking the fool.
And the mob sure didn’t like the fact that a man in the position that my father was in caused him to be blinded by love for my mother, instead of taking her in hand.
From that day forward, my father suffered.
He suffered at the hands of my uncle Pablo. He suffered at the hands of my mother. And he suffered at the hands of cancer.
All of those things, he felt, were his burdens to b
ear.
And, in doing so, I’d seen what love could do to a man.
But that wasn’t my only example.
My aunt Lillian, my uncle Pablo’s wife, had also suffered.
She loved my uncle Pablo more than life itself. More than she loved her kids. More than she loved anything in this world.
And she died, so blinded by the love she had for him, that she didn’t see the world for what it truly was.
Even on my aunt’s deathbed, she was loyal to Pablo. Pablo was her light. Her darkness. Her everything.
When she was taking her last breath, my uncle was fucking another woman in the bathroom—my aunt’s hospice nurse.
He hadn’t cared one single bit when the alarms started shrieking, signaling the end of her life.
That’d also been the day that I saw the light inside my father die.
Uncle Pablo doing that had broken him, and he’d never been the same.
“Earth to Rhys!”
I blinked, going back to my phone call.
“Sorry.” I paused. “Hang on for a minute and let me get into another room so I don’t wake Henley.”
“Henley?” Sterling said. “Is that her?”
I didn’t answer him until I reached the kitchen.
The moment the swinging door was closed between the living room and the kitchen, I answered him. “Yes, that’s her.”
“You never told me about her,” he accused. “I feel shafted.”
I snorted. Sterling wouldn’t give one single shit that I’d neglected to tell him a thing.
“You’re not bothered in the least,” I countered. “How’s your face feel? I saw you take a fastball to the cheek last week. They replayed it about fifteen times on the game recap.”
I’d finally started watching baseball again—just not my team. I couldn’t quite take that step yet. It fucking hurt to watch them play without me alongside them in the game.
I stuck to the other teams and studied the players while I did. Something that I used to do in passing now became almost a daily occurrence for me since I had nothing else to do.
I’d be back on that baseball field in a few weeks, and I would have my starting position back.
Though, after what I heard today from the boys, I’d have to be taking it back.
The new kid that’d come up from the minor leagues, Gunner, had been impressing the coach with his skills. He’d covered for Manny when Manny had gone down with a pulled hamstring for five weeks and was now covering for me.
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