Chapter 1 Dom

Chapter 1

Dom

As the oldest child, a professional athlete, and all around pretty awesome guy, I’m not surprised to find my mom looking at me like the sun shines out of my ass. The Bandits just lost to the New York Metros in extra innings, but you would never know it by the way her eyes well with emotion as she looks up at me.

“No matter how many times I watch you play under the lights, it’s still surreal,” she gushes.

“For crying out loud, Kelly, he doesn’t need you to pump him up. His ego is already the size of Texas.” My dad’s laughter booms through the concrete corridor outside the locker room as he approaches with my younger sisters. Even when he’s teasing her, you can tell she’s the love of his life. He stops behind her, wraps his arms around her waist, kisses her neck, pulling a pleased sigh from my mom as she relaxes back into his embrace.

“Can you not?” My youngest sister, Dottie, groans when he kisses her neck.

It’s always been like this—the two of them being handsy and loving on each other. My childhood friends always questioned how I dealt with it, and teased me endlessly; especially when my mom showed up at my high school ready to pop with Dottie.

Trauma from that period of my life runs deep. I’m still haunted by the memory of one of my teammates walking up to my dad after a game and giving him a high five for giving her the “good baby gravy.”

“Dottie, girl, my advice to you is to get used to this, and be thankful. You’re here because they are gross,” Daelyn says.

“Just think, I’ve been dealing with it for twenty-seven years. That’s eight years longer than you.” I level my middle sister with a look and then turn to Dottie. “And eighteen longer than you.”

“Ew, you’re so old.”

“Daelyn,” Mom scolds. “If he’s old, what does that make me?”

“Oh, Mom.” I cringe at the same time Daelyn laughs darkly.

“Ancient, Mom. That makes you ancient,” my middle sister says with zero remorse.

“Don’t talk to your mom like that. She’s the most stunning mummy on the planet. Look at her all wrapped up.” He wiggles the arms that are still around her to emphasize his terrible dad joke.

Beside me, Dottie just hangs her head, not impressed by our old man at all.

“Please get me out of here, before that new rookie comes out. I’ll die of embarrassment, Dom.” Daelyn tugs on my arm, leading me away from the locker room and towards the parking lot. I wasn’t in a hurry, but fuck if we are staying here where she’ll run into my teammates. She’s only nineteen, way too fucking young for any of them.

Especially Braxton Hayes. His brother may have had a great reputation while he was here, but Braxton is the league’s bad boy; just traded from Minnesota for his off-the-field shenanigans. And that means something coming from me.

That’s not the kind of trouble she needs in her life.

“Yeah, let’s go back to the house and we can order some pizza.”

“You’re not going out?” my dad asks, sounding way too eager to be rid of me .

“No, why would I go out when you guys are here?”

Daelyn’s foot stomps next to me. “I was hoping you’d take me to Draft with you.”

“You’re not twenty-one yet, Dae.” If she were a cartoon, there would be steam coming out of her ears. “We are all going back to the house, or stopping to grab pizza together. No one is going to Draft, and I’m certainly not going alone.”

“That’s settled then; pizza and back to the house to get this one to bed,” my dad says, patting Dottie’s head.

Her mouth opens in a wide yawn as she protests, “I’m almost ten. I can stay up now.”

“Sure you can, sweetie,” Mom assures her, wrapping her arm around my sister’s shoulder. In front of her, Dae trudges through the parking lot towards my truck like a night in with her family is a death sentence.

“You know, you don’t have to change your routine just because we’re in town. If you want to go out with the guys, we can take the girls back.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me for a reason?” I bite back, feeling a little hurt over his insistence.

“Not at all, I’m happy to spend time with you. And it means the world to your mom and sisters. But we have all day tomorrow too. If you have a date or something—”

Turning to face my dad I unlock the car so the girls can get in. “No date tonight.” I grip the back of my neck. “Actually, I’ve been laying off the . . . um—”

“Dating?” my dad supplies, his eyebrow arching in amusement.

“Actually, I’ve been doing more dating, and less of the other stuff.” My dad just stands there, his lip tipped up in a crooked smile as I fumble my way through this. “I want what you and mom have.”

“And you just realized that you won’t find that by fucking around?”

“Jesus, Dad,” I choke out.

“I’m not stupid, son. I know what you’ve been up to these last few years. Is someone specific making you slow down your whore ways? ”

“Oh my god, you did not just say that. Nowadays, we don’t use that word as a put-down old man.”

“That’s weird. Your mom—”

“Finish that sentence and I swear I will barf all over your shoes. I’m going to have to bleach my fucking ears tonight as it is.”

“So who is she?” my dad asks through laughter as I fight off a shudder.

Untamed curls, paired with dark eyes that seem to see right through me, and a soul she pretends is blacker than the coffee I know she drinks flash through my mind, stealing my attention like she so often does. From the start, I got a thrill out of the way Indie sparred with me, tossing around insults like they were candy at a parade. All our banter was just verbal foreplay leading up to the night that made me want more.

Between fucking and talking that night, we couldn’t have slept more than a few hours. When the sun came up, she made a pot of the strongest, most disgusting coffee—seriously, that shit could have been used to neutralize nuclear warheads—and she drank it without even cringing. Then she disappeared from my house like I was the worst decision she’s ever made, telling me, in no uncertain terms, that it was a one-time thing.

Indie Moreno is a liar. She’s lying to me and she’s lying to herself. What we had was more than just one night of mind-boggling sex. What we had wasn’t just an itch you can scratch and walk away from. It could have been everything , if she would have just let it.

“It doesn’t matter, she’s not interested in me and she lives in Chicago.” I’m temporarily resigned to that answer, unable to do anything. She asked me to let her go and I’m trying.

Since she walked away that morning, the appeal of hooking up has lost its luster, and it’s really fucking annoying because I was good at fun. The best, actually.

Besides keeping things strictly platonic the last year, she lives halfway across the country. Instead of waiting around, I’ve been dipping my toe into dating. So far it’s been underwhelming.

Everyone either wants to date me for clout or there has been no chemistry .

“There is this girl I met volunteering at Sunny Acres and I’m thinking about bringing her to Dean and Mia’s house warming party next week. But I’m just not sure if it will lead to anything.” It won’t, but she’s nice, and her interest in me is genuine, so I owe it to myself to at least try. Right?

“Still hung up on the one that got away? You know, being in a committed relationship isn’t as easy as your mom and I make it look. It takes work.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work.” I’ve done the work once before; it didn’t pay off. And since then I’ve made an effort to focus on baseball. “Have you forgotten what an excellent boyfriend I can be? Just ask Hazel. I was a textbook boyfriend, even from across the country when we were in college.”

“Sure, next time I see her around town, I’ll ask. I’m sure her husband would love that.”

“Fucking Bryce,” I grumble. My high school friend, the same one that congratulated my dad on getting my mom pregnant, married my high school sweetheart. They’re both happy as can be, and in the end it worked out for the best, but fuck if it didn’t sting for a while.

“Fucking Bryce,” my dad agrees. “My point was that if you can’t get this girl out of your head, maybe it’s worth the work.”

“I’ve watched you and Mom work through the hard stuff.” And there’s been struggles. IVF to get pregnant with Dottie. My dad losing his job right after Dae was born. Raising three kids. They always come out on the other end stronger. “I’m not afraid of the effort and commitment. A love like you and Mom have is worth it.”

“Don’t forget that if whoever she is gives you a chance,” my dad says, patting me on the back before he rounds the car to slide into the passenger seat.

Following his lead, I drop my duffle bag in the back and then take my spot in the driver’s seat. When I turn over the ignition, the radio blasts 2 Live Crew at decibels unsafe for anyone’s ears, but especially my sisters’. Grappling for the dial, I crank it all the way down before turning to the back to find three sets of annoyed eyes on me .

“Sorry,” I offer with a shrug, pulling out of the lot and heading towards my favorite pizza place.

DoughThugs and Harmony has the best garbage pizza in Denver, and dueling pianists that specialize in instrumentals of top nineties hits. But today is the thirteenth of the month, which means it’s Swiftie night, and I plan to give Dottie full access to my wallet to request as many songs as her heart desires. Only for her, of course. No one else.

Putting Indie out of my mind, I focus on something I can control: spending time with my family and making my sister smile.