28. Pink

Pink

T oothbrush, phone charger, Blue Beary.

My packing list played over and over, circling my brain like a song stuck on repeat. Even after a few thousand or so away games in my career, I still got anxious about packing. Blame it on the one time my phone had died while driving around rural Ohio. It had taken me hours to find my way back to our hotel.

This time around, though, my nerves had less to do with forgetting my charger and more to do with what the next two days meant for me and my career. There was a finite list of players who had made it to the World Series in their first couple of years in the big leagues. I had come close last season in Baltimore, and now I was hungry for more.

I wanted it all, and I wasn’t the only one.

Soren only had a few years left in him, and after the ups and downs of his career, he deserved a big win. Matty’s place on the team hinged on his performance, plus the team’s overall revenue. More fans, increased sponsorships, broadcast rights, and positive exposure—all those things led to more revenue for the team and thus more cash to spend on players.

And then there was Rose City to consider. A World Series win would do a lot for the town and its residents. Including one fiery-haired sex goddess that had taken up a permanent residence in my heart and home. If I had it my way, she would never leave.

My lips kicked up in a grin, the same way they always did when I thought about Nessa. All these months, I’d known that I would be good for her, but after the last few weeks, there wasn’t a doubt in mind that she was good for me, too. She calmed my nerves while also calling me out on my bullshit, like a good partner should. She soaked up my worries and insecurities, allowing me to do the same for her.

With Nessa, I could sit still.

Not that I didn’t adore spending my nights—and sometimes mornings, too—buried between her thighs, but it was the moments that often followed that meant the most to me. The quiet hum of the heater mingling with our exhales, the scrape of her nails over that spot behind my ear that made my eyes roll back in splendor.

She seamlessly filled in every one of my gaps, and she did so with smiles and sarcasm . . . and maybe a little bit of lube.

I had just finished zipping up my duffel bag when the doorbell rang. Nessa had offered to bring over pastries from Would Smell as Sweet so we could have breakfast together before my flight. Maybe I could convince her to bag up the bagels and let me eat her pussy instead.

I bounded down the stairs, taking them two at a time. I threw the door open and froze. The woman waiting on the other side of the threshold should have been three thousand miles away, safely nestled inside her on-campus apartment. Instead, she was standing on my front porch with a suitcase in either hand.

Bella laughed at my slack-jawed expression. “Aren’t you going to invite me inside, Jare-bear?”

“What are you— How are you—”

“I’m finishing out my semester from home. Your home, actually, assuming you let me stay.” She set her bags down on the porch. “And to answer your second question, three flights, two buses, and one very expensive Uber ride. I charged it to your account, by the way.”

I bit back the urge to say the first thing that came to mind. It had barely been twenty-four hours since the last time I’d made the mistake of scolding a grown ass woman about her life choices. Nessa’s words flashed through my mind.

“You have to let her live her life. On her terms, not yours.”

As hard as it was for me to believe, my little sister wasn’t so little. She had every right to make choices and mistakes like the rest of us.

“I know you’re probably disappointed in me for just leaving school without talking to you about it first, but I needed to get away. I was feeling . . . suffocated there.”

My heart fractured into pieces when a tear rolled down her cheek.

“Aw, Belles. Come here.”

She dove face-first into my arms. I wasn’t used to seeing my baby sister like this. Even when we’d been kids, Bella had always kept her emotions under wraps. Not even Titanic could break her.

“It’s okay.” I dropped a kiss on the side of her head. I hadn’t seen her since before the season had started. Her wavy brown hair damn near reached her waist now. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“You’re not upset?”

“If anything, I’m upset with myself.”

She pulled away and wiped her eyes. “For what?”

“For giving you a reason to doubt me.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “All I ever wanted to do was protect you. You know, set you up with some success and stability because Mom—”

“Didn’t have that,” she finished.

"Yeah."

“Mom also didn’t have a big brother like you.”

Fuck, now I’m going to cry.

This should be a much longer conversation, one that required more than a few minutes on my front porch. Nessa would be here with breakfast any second—

“Am I interrupting something?”

Speak of my angel.

I choked back the tears threatening to escape and turned to find her coming up the drive. She must have parked around the side of the house.

“Hey, angel.”

She looked every bit the part, clad in a long off-white sweater dress and leather knee-high boots. The belt cinched around her middle did incredible things for her apple shape. Maybe if I was a good boy, she’d let me belt her wrists to my headboard when I got back next week.

“Angel?” Bella questioned.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Belles, this is Nessa. My, uh, girlfriend.” It was the first time I had introduced her as such and meant it, even though I had thought of her as mine for months.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Bella pointed between Nessa and me. “The bookstore owner you’ve been pining after all these months?”

Nessa snorted. “You told your sister about me?”

“Well, I—”

“Oh, he’s basically obsessed with you.”

My cheeks warmed. Nessa lifted her brows. “Is that right?”

“In fact, he told me about—”

“Okay!” I said, clapping my hands together. “Who wants breakfast? Let’s see what you got.”

The three of us ate together on the porch. Nessa petted my thigh, keeping me calm while Bella told us all about her plans to take the spring semester off, and I held onto her hand while she doled out book recommendations.

“Jared likes that one, too.”

“Jare-bear, you read romance?”

I buried my face in the crook of Nessa’s shoulder. Just as I’d suspected, these two were going to be the death of me, absolute chaos and destruction.

Later, after I’d packed my bags into the car and given Bella a spare key to come and go as she pleased, I pulled Nessa into my arms. “I feel bad leaving her alone like this,” I told her. “She just got here, but I have to go. I don’t know what else to do.”

“How about I stay here with her?”

“You would do that?”

Her eyes glowed with mischief. “Of course, Jare-bear. ”

“Don’t go there, angel.”

“Or what?”

She squealed when I spanked her ass, then moaned when I rubbed over the same spot with my palm. “There’s an extra key in the kitchen,” I said between kisses. “Second drawer to the right of the fridge.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You gonna keep my bed warm while I’m gone?”

“Uh-huh.”

I smiled against her lips. “You gonna move in with me?”

“Uh—”

She bit her lip. It was worth a shot.

“I’m just kidding.” I tasted her once more, plundering her mouth long and deep enough to tide me over for the next few days. It would never be enough. “For now.”

“Good luck, baseball boy,” she said breathlessly when I piled into my car.

“Don’t forget Blue Beary,” Bella called out from the porch.

They both clapped when I peeled out of the driveway, holding the stuffed blue bear out the window as I went.

We were somewhere over Nebraska when I finally decided to get up and help myself to a slice of humble pie. We still had a few hours of flight time ahead of us, which left me plenty of time to have a couple of uncomfortable conversations. It was either that or yet another episode of Ted Lasso.

I bobbed and weaved through my sleeping teammates’ outstretched legs until I reached the last row on the plane. Dani suffered from terrible motion sickness and as such, she always chose a seat near the restroom.

“Is this seat taken?”

I dropped down into the empty seat beside her before she had a chance to respond. She kept her attention on the front of the plane, probably more focused on keeping her lunch down than anything else.

“Dani—”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“But I’m going to anyway.”

She sighed. “You already apologized.”

She was talking about the lengthy text message I had sent her yesterday afternoon. We had missed each other during morning workouts at the stadium, and I’d already been tucked into bed by the time she’d come home from Dungeons & Dragons, so we hadn’t had a chance to talk in person until now.

“You deserve more than a text, Dani-pants.” I flagged down the flight attendant and ordered us each a ginger ale. “I’m sorry for being an ass. I only said what I said because I care about you. That’s no excuse for raising my voice at you the other night, though. You just took me by surprise.”

“I know.” Her fingers dug into the armrest. “Believe me, that’s not how I wanted you to find out. To be fair, I didn’t plan on you finding out at all.”

“About you and—”

“Yes,” she snapped. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore. I ended things.”

“Because of what happened?”

She shook her head. “That was just the nail in the coffin. I know you probably don’t want to hear the details, but it was just a . . . casual thing between us. It never could have gone anywhere.”

I heard what she was saying loud and clear, but I also heard the hurt behind her words. I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there was more to their fling than she was letting on.

“You know,” I said, lowering my voice. “If you did want it to go somewhere, I would be okay with that.”

She arched a brow. “Really?”

“Well, I would figure out how to be okay with it. For you.”

She nodded and turned back to face the front. “I appreciate that, but it won’t be necessary.”

The flight attendant handed us our drinks. Dani sipped hers slowly before blowing a breath out of her crimson-stained lips. Motion sickness or not, Dani never left the house without a full face of makeup.

“Here,” I said, setting my cup of ginger ale on the tray next to hers. “You need this more than I do.”

“Where are you going?”

“You’re not the only one I owe an apology to.”

Her cheeks paled, but she left it at that.

As I trudged down the aisle toward the front half of the plane, I smoothed a hand down my stomach, trying to quell the unease knotting my insides. Peter Pan would have been safer walking the plank. I felt more like one of his Lost Boys.

Like most of the guys, Coach Ward had chosen an aisle seat, opting for the extra legroom that it offered. The brim of his hat shadowed his eyes, so I cleared my throat to announce my approach.

“Coach.”

“Pink.” He tilted his head back, resting it against the seatback. “Can I help you?”

I gestured to the seat next to him. “Do you mind if I sit?”

“Yes.”

This is going well.

“I wanted to apologize—”

He held his hand up, effectively cutting off the rest of my rehearsed apology. “Save it. Is this going to affect our professional relationship?”

I shook my head. He didn’t need to know that I had spent the last twenty-four hours trying to mentally scrub the image of his naked body from my memory.

“Are you going to hold this over her head?”

He didn’t have to specify who he was talking about.

“No.”

“Then we’re good.” His eyes flicked toward the back of the plane. “Is she okay?”

“Just a little queasy.”

He nodded solemnly. “I’m going to get back to my crossword puzzle now.”

“Okay.” I tucked my hands into my pockets and backed away. “Thanks, coach.”

Perhaps I had misread the situation between him and Dani. She was fairly selective about who she brought home with her, which was why I’d assumed this thing between her and Coach Ward might be more than a hookup, but he didn’t seem too broken up about it. Then again, stoicism was the man’s default setting.

“Oh, and Pink?”

“Coach?”

The cold and calculating look in his eyes stopped me in my tracks. Even more unsettling was the foreboding grin on his face.

“If I ever hear you snap at Dani—or any woman—like that ever again, you and I will be having a very different kind of conversation. One that ends in the emergency room.”