Chapter One

Chapter One

Reagon

“Hold on a minute.” I barely have time to put my faithful, twelve-year-old Honda Accord in park before Jacoby is unfastening his seatbelt and climbing out the back.

“Hurry up, mom. We’re gonna be late,” he shouts, closing the door with one swift move.

I glance at the time on the dash and roll my eyes.

Late?

The game isn’t for another two hours—which would explain the near-empty parking lot—but I didn’t have the heart to tell my son no when he suggested we leave a couple of minutes early. It’s literally all he’s talked about for weeks now.

“This is gonna be so cool.” Jacoby opens my door, grabs hold of my hand, and gives me a gentle tug.

Cool? For the life of me, I can’t think of anything cool about today.

Painful is more like it, considering my ex-husband—Jacoby’s father—is going to be here, alongside his new bride and stepson.

Our marriage had come to a screeching halt the moment I found out Cole was cheating on me. It was one thing to hurt me, but to hurt our son, too. Who does that to a child? Jacoby hadn’t done anything wrong and neither had I, for that matter.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. Turns out, his mistress was none other than Jacoby’s best friend’s mom. Surprise! The two of them had married within hours of our divorce being finalized and that was perfectly fine by me. Goodbye and good riddance—she could keep him!

Initially, the boys had joked about being brothers, but I could see that deep down, Jacoby was struggling. Especially when Winston insisted on talking about all the things Jacoby’s dad was buying him—things that Jacoby had also asked for. The boys were six at the time, and Winston didn’t really know any better.

I nearly came unglued the last day of school when Jacoby handed me an invitation for Winston’s birthday party…at Passion Park where the Carolina Sunrays were playing.

“I can go, can’t I, mom?” Bouncing around excitedly, Jacoby wrapped his arms around my waist and squeezed as hard as he could. This kid loved baseball almost as much as he loved chocolate ice cream.

“Of course you can.” Fighting back tears, I scrubbed my hand through Jacoby’s messy hair.

Cole was such a bastard!

Two months prior, Jacoby had asked for the very same kind of party, where he and several of his closest friends could take a tour of the Sunrays’ clubhouse, have an autograph session with a few of the players before the game, and sit in the outfield with hopes of catching a home run ball. I knew there was no way I could afford to pay for a party of this nature on my own—I was already struggling to make ends meet with my teaching salary and the little bit of child support I received each month—so I swallowed my pride and called Jacoby’s dad to see if he’d like to go in halves.

“Are you nuts?” Cole responded, his voice filled with scorn. “He’s going to be seven, Reagon, not twelve or thirteen. I doubt he’ll even remember it six months from now.”

“What does that have to do with anything? He hasn’t had a real birthday party since he was four,” I pleaded.

“Then you pay for it.” Cole slammed the phone down before I could get in another word.

Ugh, what had I ever seen in Jacoby’s dad in the first place?

The day before I was supposed to pay for the party with my credit card, I hit a pothole, resulting in significant damage to one of the rear tires. I hated having to make this kind of decision—I’d always put my son before anything else—but this time, I didn’t have much choice. The car repairs had to come first. Jacoby shrugged his shoulders when I tried to explain the situation. “It’s okay, mom. You couldn’t help it. Just next time, watch the road better.” This kid of mine…he’s truly something else.

I promised I’d make it up to him, some way, somehow.

I know Jacoby is going to have a great time today, but I can’t help feeling it’s Cole’s way of getting back at me. A personal jab, mind you. Any man who puts his step-children before his own…isn’t much of a father in my book.

“Wait, mom, I forgot my glove.” Jacoby runs back over to the car and pulls his worn leather glove from the back floorboard.

I cringe seeing the raggedy old thing with its dangling leather straps and smeared ink from where he’d tried to write his name on the backside. Jacoby assures me it’s perfect and exactly the way he likes it, but I pray his friends don’t give him a hard time about it. Kids, they can be so cruel these days. Balling his hand into a fist, he punches the inside of the glove several times then looks up at me and smiles.

Maybe it’s not so much the glove’s condition, but that Cole had passed it down to Jacoby, rather than getting him a new one. Please try and understand, I’m not a bitter person and one day I’ll be able to let things go, but why does it seem like Jacoby is always getting the short end of the stick?

I pull the special invitation from my bag and open it up to the QR code printed on the inside that will grant us entrance into the party area. “Come on, slugger. Let’s go have some fun.”

A few of the other boys and their parents are already here and I make a point to speak to everyone. Most know me from teaching at the same school the boys attend, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling awkward, given the situation between me and Jacoby’s dad.

Cole and Janelle finally arrive with Winston and a knot immediately forms in the pit of my stomach, seeing the happy couple walk through the door together like they own the place. The boys swarm Winston, oohing and aahhing at the new Sunrays jersey he’s wearing. I should’ve known.

“Is that a real Dawson McDuffy jersey?” one of the boys asks.

“Dude, you are so lucky,” another one adds.

Winston beams proudly. “My step-dad got it for me. He got me this hat, too.”

They each take turns flipping it over and running their hands over the signature. Jacoby opens his mouth, clearly in awe. My eyes glaze over when I see him look over at his father. Unfortunately, Cole’s too busy flirting with one of the moms to even notice. God, I hate him.

After cake and light snacks, the party coordinator hands out baseballs to each of the boys. “We’re going to head down to the dugout area so we can meet a few of the players. Don’t forget to ask for their autographs, okay?”

Jacoby looks over at me, his eyes as wide as saucers. I wish I’d thought to bring a Sharpie, but surely they keep some in the dugout for special occasions like this.

Half of the team is already on the field, warming up and getting ready for the game while the remaining players are going over some things with the coaching staff in the dugout. The boys line up against the wall and patiently wait.

“There he is,” one of them shouts a few moments later, and I crane my neck to see who they are so excited about.

A slight grin forms on my face, seeing Dawson McDuffy standing only a couple of feet away. Though I’ve never spoken about his handsome features to anyone, I can’t stop staring. Wow! Maybe it’s the way he’s standing, his uniform pants hugging him in all the right places, but when he takes his hat off, brushing his hair away from his face, butterflies quickly invade my stomach. He has to know that women everywhere—myself included—are fantasizing what they’d like to do to him.

Despite his cockiness and hot-headed behavior when he’s in the public eye, he’s one of the Sunrays’ better players. Opposing fans are notorious for booing him when he comes up to bat, but die-hard Sunrays fans know they have a real MVP on their hands. Without him, they wouldn’t be a game away from being in first place in their division.

“Mom, come down here,” Jacoby cries out, motioning for me to come stand beside him. “Mom!”

I can’t believe I let myself get so carried away with Dawson McDuffy and all of his sexiness.