18. Urban

CHAPTER 18

URBAN

O f all the fucking things to find out in the middle of a game. My grandpa had had a stroke. They don't know how bad it was, but we should probably get back to Kalamazoo as soon as we could.

We were told they could pull us, but none of us would leave the game. Leaving something unfinished wasn't how we did things.

So we played. We won. I got a home run and figured that was for Grandpa. He fucking loved this game, and he would've smacked us on the backs of our heads if we'd left in the middle. But he would be proud as hell for us staying.

Once the game was over, Brooks, Silas, and I ran for the clubhouse, showered off as quickly as we could, then grabbed our bags and headed for the car that our coach had told us would be waiting for us.

The first thing I wanted to do was call Everly. The way I was ready to crawl out of my skin made me worried that I'd scare her. Did she even know what had happened?

Maybe it was better to wait until I was actually in Kalamazoo. That way, I could get to her. She didn't know my grandpa, but she knew me, and she'd be able to hear the worry in my voice, which would worry her.

No. I'd wait.

Amity wasn't on this trip, so Silas could meet up with her in Kalamazoo when we got there.

Then my sister sent a text saying there'd be a car at the airport, and that was it. Not who to look for or if she'd rented us something. At least she finally responded that it'd be a car with a driver, and since we were flying into the private hangar, it'd be right there waiting for us. No searching.

One less thing to worry about.

The time on the plane gave me too long to think.

"You know, maybe we've all spent too much time being pissed at Dad," Brooks said. Apparently, I wasn't the only one thinking it.

"He was a fucker when we little," Silas told him, as if we didn't all know that.

"He was," Brooks said. No one could deny that. "But I've always felt that it was because he cared. Not just to be an asshole. More like he had not idea how to feel what he felt."

"I agree." I met Brooks's gaze. "But he was an asshole."

"Yeah."

"I get what you're saying, though," I told him because it was what I'd just been thinking too. "That maybe it's time to get over all that shit."

Silas cocked his head to the side. "Is this because there's another reason you want to stay at the end of summer?"

I shook my head. "I never said I wanted to stay."

"You don't have to," Brooks countered. "We're your brothers. Older, at that, and we've known you every single minute of your life. You don't have to say it."

"But you shouldn't deny it," Silas added. "If you love that girl, there's no reason to. "

"I didn't deny it," I told them. "I actually didn't say fuck all about her."

"So you'd leave?" Brooks asked. "Knowing that she's here?"

"I didn't say that, either. Right now, I'm focused on Grandpa and why the fuck this plane doesn't go faster."

Brooks furrowed his brows. "It's going, like, four hundred miles per hour. That's pretty fast."

Yeah. My knee started to bounce, though I hadn't intended it to. It was just all this energy I had inside of me with no place to go. I'd just played an entire game. It should have been gone, but when something I cared about was in harm's way, it was like I had an endless amount just waiting to be used.

"What made you think about Dad?" Silas asked Brooks as he moved his armrest up and down. Looked like I wasn't the only one with energy to spare.

"I don't know," he said as he sat back. "Thinking about Grandpa… it's not going to be that long before we're in this position with Mom and Dad. Fuck. It could happen any day because bad shit happens. Look at Amity's brother. No one expected that."

A cloud moved over Silas' face at the reminder of something he thought he was responsible for. He hadn't been but that didn't stop the guilt.

"Dad's going to a nursing home," I told them to lighten the mood. "But seriously, my main goal was anywhere but here so I wouldn't have to deal with him. That means I've been gone a lot, and sure, I came back and got to see Grandpa, but it's not like it is with Brooks. Or even you since you've been back a while. I missed a lot of time just because I wanted to avoid the head fucker."

Brooks sighed. "I'll tell you the secret. And I'll tell Cobb since I'm sure he's on the way home right now, too. If you just learn what's worth arguing about with that man and what isn't, life gets easier."

"We've been doing that since we were fifteen."

He shook his head. "No. Not like that. We're grown men. He wants to spew his advice and shit, but he has no control over what we do. He doesn't have a hand in the team, so fuck him."

"Maybe after this, we'll have a sit-down with him and lay all this shit out once and for all," Silas suggested. He grinned widely. "Do you think we could get Cobb to play here then?"

"No," Brooks and I said at the same time, then we chuckled. Poor Cobb was the youngest of the boys. Which meant he'd gotten shit from Dad and shit from us. Ours had been done in the loving, big-brother way, but still. He'd gotten it from both sides. He wasn't coming back here.

Oh, sure, he'd play with all of us, no problem. But I think he liked the freedom he had not being here.

The plane finally landed at the airport, and there was a car that I recognized waiting for us.

Everly was there leaning against her silver Chevy Trax and she was more beautiful than she'd been when I'd left her.

Silas, Brooks, and I each carried our own bags. We had more at the hotel, but the team would make sure that got back to us. And if it didn't, we didn't give a fuck. I walked directly to Everly, dropped my bag, and wrapped my arms around her, leaning some of my weight onto her. Not all of it. That would have been too much.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered low enough that I was probably the only one to hear her.

"Thanks." Then I pulled back and grabbed my bag again. "What are you doing here?" I asked as I led her to the hatch at the back where Silas and Brooks were already loading their bags.

"I talked to Camden. She said she was ordering you a car and… This was something that I could do. I wanted to do something."

I pulled her into me for a one-armed squeeze. "Give me your keys." It wasn't that she couldn't drive. She'd driven us before. Driving to the hospital was something active that I could do. If she fought it, I wouldn't push, but I needed us to get there before something bad happened. Our last update still didn't give us much information.

Thankfully, she handed the keys over to me without an issue.

"I can sit in the back," she said. "You guys are way taller than me."

"We're fine," Brooks said before hopping into the back seat.

I made sure that Everly was in the passenger seat with her arms and legs inside before I shut her door. Silas slid in behind the driver's seat. When I hit the button to put the seat back—my girl was a lot shorter than me—Silas grunted.

"Fuck," he said. "Are you trying to amputate me back here?"

I chuckled. "Sorry. I need the room I need."

"I said I'd sit back there," Everly protested.

I snorted. "You don't need to. "

"Yeah," Silas said through gritted teeth. "I'm dandy back here."

While Silas dealt with whatever was happening to him in the back seat, I got us out of the airport and onto the road.

"Thanks for coming," Brooks said and Silas agreed. "Did Camden tell you anything?"

Everly shook her head. "She said she didn't have much to tell. Oh." She snapped her fingers. "She did say your brother was driving up. They were in Cincinnati, and none of the flights were good enough. According to her, he said that he could get here faster by walking."

I had to laugh along with Silas and Brooks because that sounded just like something Cobb would say. He was such a younger brother.

A short while later, we arrived at the hospital. I'd barely turned her car off when I opened my door to get out. None of us wanted to miss our chance to say goodbye to our grandpa. He'd been the one who would come pick us up to take us for candy even when Dad had said we couldn't have any because it wasn't what ballplayers did. We'd been seven or ten years old at the time.

There were a lot of vacations that Grandpa had gone with us on. Grandma too until she'd died .

This fucking sucked.

As soon as Amity saw us coming down the hallway, she hurried right into Silas's arms. The rest of us kept walking so they'd have a minute alone.

It was nice to have someone to go through this with, even if I wasn't spilling my emotions to her. Her being here was all I needed.

"Hey, boys." Mom hugged each one of us. She looked tired as hell. Normally, Mom was like a four-year-old on a five-hour-energy-drink high. Right now, she was moving slower. She was wearing jeans and T-shirt, which was rare. Normally, she wore business suits. And her hair was pulled back into a very small ponytail at the base of her neck. Mom didn't look old enough to have all of us but right now, the corners of her eyes sagged with exhaustion and the lines in her forehead deepened with concern.

"We don't know much," she said. "He had a stroke, but until he's on the mend, we won't really know how bad it was." She led us to the chairs so we could sit. Given the layout, the choice was to have Everly sit on the other side or on my lap, so I pulled her down there. Mom noticed right away and raised an eyebrow.

That was right. She hadn't met Everly yet. " Mom, Everly. Everly, Mom." And that was all the introduction either of them was getting right now.

"Right. Nice to meet you." Mom wet her lips. "They said he's got some weakness on his left side, but they don't know if that's permanent. They don't know if anything's permanent. But right now, they're concerned about his lungs. They're not good on an average day and he aspirated some vomit not long after the stroke, so they've got him on antibiotics and we have to see how it goes."

As if it were my first time thinking about him, I glanced around to find my dad, yet there was no sign of him.

"Mom," I started. "Where's Dad?"

She took a deep breath and sat up straighter. "He went to get me some food. Says I have to eat, but I'm not hungry."

"You have to eat," Brooks agreed.

That was one thing I had to give my father. He seemed to really love my mom. Or at least he took care of her. I guess one doesn't always mean the other.

Mom offered for all of us to go home, but we weren't going anywhere. This was why we'd come, so this was where we'd stay. We'd lost an hour getting back and as it got later, we sent Amity and Everly to get some sleep.

"You're sure you want me to go?" Everly asked. "I don't mind staying."

"I'm sure. It's just a lot of waiting and at some point, they're going to send us home too."

"You'll call if you need me?" She looked up at me with those big, green eyes full of concern.

"Of course I will. Now go." I gave her ass a quick tap so she'd know I meant it.

Everly smiled, but it was small and tired. I could see she didn't want to leave but was doing what I'd asked her to.

In the end, we only stayed another hour before heading out ourselves. Dad had brought a ton of food and jumped every time he thought Mom needed something. She was going to stay and so was he until she left. But there was nothing more we could do tonight and the hospital said no one would be seeing Grandpa tonight other than Mom, who'd just come out of his room.

He was sleeping, she said, and we should try to get rest, too.

I thought about heading to Everly's, but it was late and she had work in the morning. Though I hoped she'd call in, I probably should've asked her to do it but I'd call her in the morning.

Morning came early and I'd gotten shitty sleep, anyway. The thing that woke me up today was the banging on my front door. After glancing at my phone to make sure I hadn't missed anything, I headed for the door, hoping that Everly had read my mind and taken the day off.

Disappointment ran through me when I swung the door open without checking.

Fuck. Me.

It was Analise, the model I'd been seeing right before I'd left Florida. She had a house down there that she spent a lot of time in. But, I hadn't been with her when I'd gotten traded. We'd been in a very casual thing—as in sometimes had sex—a couple of weeks before. She was tall, not much shorter than me, and her legs went on forever.

Even now, standing in front of my door, she was wearing a pair of shorts that were too short and a T-shirt meant to look like she wasn't trying when I knew damn well she'd probably paid five hundred dollars for the thing. She had her light-blonde hair pulled up into a bun and pushed her too-big sunglasses onto her head when I appeared.

"I heard about your grandpa and came right up." She stepped toward me. "So you have support."

Everyone had heard about Grandpa. Camden had said they'd announced it on TV during the game, so it was no surprise that she'd heard.

"I don't need your support," I told her. "You should leave." We hadn't ever even been together, really. Though she'd been pretty pissed when I'd told her I hadn't wanted to hook up anymore. I probably should've predicted that she'd pop up again one day.

She'd always said we were dating. We weren't. Sometimes we'd been at the same party, we'd fuck, then go our separate ways.

It hadn't been a commitment. Not like I have with Everly and the last thing I wanted was for her to hear about this. I'd tell her before anyone else could.

"Urban…" She dropped her voice. "I know we haven't talked in a couple of weeks so that you could cool down—"

I furrowed my brows in confusion. "Cool down from what? We weren't dating. We didn't break up. We were fucking. Nothing more."

Her head snapped back. "You don't mean that. You're just hurting. "

I shook my head. "I'm not."

Analise gave me that sweet smile she used to get whatever she wanted. As if she needed it. She was a fucking model. People fell all over themselves for her.

"Now, Urban." She reached out and touched my chest. I grabbed her wrist to stop her, but at the same time, I heard someone tsk in the hall.

My gaze swung over in time to see Everly square her shoulders and shake her head. "Fucking predictable." She dropped the drink holder that had two coffees and tossed a bag at me. Then she turned and stopped down the hall.

She'd brought me breakfast.

And found me with the model.

Normally, I'd say a guy's girl should give him a chance to explain instead of assuming and storming off.

But this was Everly we're talking about. She'd once walked in on the man who'd professed his love to her fucking her damn sister.

This wasn't something she could be rational about in the moment.

I wanted to push past Analise and chase Everly, but I was in my boxer briefs and nothing else. Plus, Analise would follow me and the last thing I wanted to do was put the two of them in the same place at the same time.

Analise could be a bitch and I wouldn't put it past her to make Everly think she'd been leaving my apartment after spending the night when she abso-fucking-lutely hadn't been.

"You're going to wait three minutes, and then you're going to leave." I stepped closer to her. "If that woman you just saw is anywhere you are, you aren't going to speak to her. Do you understand?"

"Urban, you're being ridiculous."

But I slammed my door and turned the lock to ensure she wouldn't try to get inside. If she was still there once I had clothes on to go after the woman I loved, I'd call the police.

I didn't care what happened as long as I could get to Everly before she got lost in her own thoughts.