Strike: Bases Series (Book Two)

by Grace, Hazel

  Copyright 2019 © Hazel Grace All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, and real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the Author’s imagination and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organizations or places is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. This book is intended for the reader of this ebook ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the express written permission of the Author. All songs, song titles and lyrics contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.

  Cover design: Black Widow Designs

  Proofreading: Dom’s Proofreading

  **Contains graphic sexual content and harsh language. It is only appropriate for adult readers age 18+

  This book may cause triggers, please read with caution.

  To Sheep, Moo Moo & Bonasha

  Present day

  In order for this to work, I have to pull out all the stops—food. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach; well, the same goes for Sawyer Boyd. She loves every salty snack, greasy burger, and fries known to man.

  And it grates at my fucking nerves that I know that, but I do.

  However, if it brought along all those curves that I’ve been thirsting to dig my fingertips into, I’ll endorse any sort of food type she wants in order to get what I want—to fuck her completely out of my system.

  For good.

  Pulling out the good shit from their bags, which to her is Chinese carryout, I place the containers on the kitchen island, preparing step one: to make it look like I give a shit.

  Sawyer notices the small things, so it should earn me points when she sees I remembered that her favorite dish is almond chicken and that she hates egg rolls. Her favorite soda is orange, and the only vegetable she’ll eat is on a pizza.

  Again, fucking annoying.

  My doorbell rings at seven on the dot, and I glance around the kitchen, noticing that my inner obsession went on autopilot at some point, and I lit a candle like we’re on some sort of bullshit date. Quickly, I blow it out, waving the smoke out of the space as I make my way to the door.

  I’ve been anticipating this bogus meeting with her all day, barely able to concentrate during my board meeting that was an absolute waste of my time. The school is still run by a bunch of cheap fucks and has been since I was a student at Freemont High.

  I think I may have recognized some of them too from saran wrapping their cars one year.

  All I’m trying to do is get this hick town to build another baseball field so we can stop knocking and running into the girls’ softball team. Not to mention what a pain in the ass it is to schedule home games. It’s like pulling teeth with these people. If they end up building a second greenhouse like they were mentioning at the end of the meeting, I’ll burn it down myself.

  However, during my pointless meeting, the sound of me ripping Sawyer’s polka dot tights consumed all my thoughts for the rest of the afternoon. The things I could and would do to that woman, or should I say the bane of my existence, makes me restless.

  But alas, ladies and gentlemen, when I open my front door, I’m instantly irritated. My short love affair with her tights quickly crashes and burns because now, standing on my porch, are black jeans that shape her toned legs and a gray shirt.

  She purposely fucking changed because I asked her not to.

  But to her mild and mediocre attempt, I’ve always loved Sawyer in T-shirts for some reason. So, the joke's on her.

  “Right on time,” I chime, moving away from the doorway so she can walk in.

  She gives me a weak grin and enters, taking in my mother’s lavish furniture that fills the family room that we never spent any family time in, pausing at the large pieces of artwork my mother could never name when asked. Each piece could’ve more than likely paid for at least two years of college for me.

  Now, they were all worthless pieces of junk to me that were going to be donated to Goodwill or target practice for the kids next door. I’m leaning toward the latter because I’d love to know my mother’s lifelong goal of being materialistic is going to good use.

  “It’s more beautiful than the pictures,” Sawyer emits, hugging her leather binder to her chest while letting her gaze continue to drift along the room. I ignore her comment, which was meant as a compliment. This house is nothing but misery and loneliness wrapped in expensive siding and polished hardwood floors.

  I gesture her to the kitchen. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Water, please.” She follows me into the kitchen, where the three bags of Chinese food are on the kitchen island waiting.

  “Hungry?” There’s amusement in her tone, sweet and harmless.

  For over a decade, Bases.

  I meet her eyes from around the fridge door. “Starving.” She blinks, soaking in that one word that means a thousand things. “Plus, since I knew you’d be here, I got your almond chicken with fried rice.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she retorts. She takes a seat on one of the stools at the other side of the kitchen island. Where it’s completely safe. “This shouldn’t take too long.” I contain my smirk.

  She literally has no idea how much I’ve been thinking about this all day.

  “Do the two offers have financing lined up to buy my mom’s house?” I ask her as she unzips her binder and pulls out a few sheets of paper.

  “They do, and a third offer came in this afternoon without a viewing. Their agent hasn’t gotten back to me about their position yet, but it’s also above asking price, so they seem serious.”

  “Guess we’ll see,” I allude, sliding over her water and pulling out the rest of the carryout containers from the bags. “Still don’t like egg rolls?”

  “I’m really not that hungry.”

  I shrug. “Then just take it home, gotta eat later, right?” I sit across from her, and she hands me two of the offers. I pop the cap off my beer as I glance over both, each offering more than my asking price and both from out of town. “Do you know how soon either one of them wants to close?”

  She leans over the countertop, her scent of clean laundry circulating around me. She was never over the top with perfume like she just bathed and soaked in it for twenty-four hours. She was simple, oblivious that just the natural scent of her mixed with her laundry soap made me that much more drawn to her.

  “This one—” she points to the paper in my left hand, “—wants to close by the end of the month. They’re currently in the middle of selling their house and need to be out as soon as possible. The other offer is open for whatever you need.”

  “I want to be done with all of this as soon as possible,” I reply, sipping my beer. “Has my offer been accepted?”

  She nods. “It has, but with one exemption.”

  “What’s that?” I open my container and dig into my Steak Pow. She starts to chuckle, which makes me peer up at her. “What?”

  “The chandelier stays.”

  “Seriously?” I shove my fork full of rice in my mouth. “I don’t want that gaudy ass thing to be the first thing I see when I walk in.”

  “Skylar would love it.” I glance up at her, seeing a slight grin that doesn’t match her eyes.

  There’s a little game Sawyer likes to play when she wants to know things. She’ll try to manipulate the truth out of me while making it look like she doesn’t care or that it doesn’t make any difference in making the world turn.
>
  I slide her container closer to her with a glare. “Eat your food, Bases.”

  “Did you tell her you were buying a house here?” I narrow my brows.

  Is she fucking serious?

  “Not unless you want her to be on an episode of Forensic Files.” I shove another fork full of Steak Pow in my mouth. I’m not going to carry on into a conversation about her stupid sister and the fact that it was a mistake.

  One that I stopped making when I found out Skylar was her sister. The bar ploy was just to piss Sawyer off, and obviously, it worked. We went to Skylar’s place, she got drunk, wanted to fuck, but I conveniently slipped out the back door when she went to grab more wine.

  “She could start looking for paint colors,” Sawyer carries on. “She’d more than likely want to put carpeting over the hardwood floors, and I should mention that her favorite colors are pink and purple.” I pick up one of the egg rolls and toss it at her. She catches it and smiles. “I can just see the look on your face now.”

  I take in her amused look and give her a solemn one of my own. “I didn’t fuck her, Bases.” Her face falls, more than likely shocked and relieved. “But, thanks to you, my phone is back to blowing up with text messages from her.”

  “You did it to yourself. You left the bar with her.”

  “You did it,” I counter, talking with my mouth full. “You invited her. Which is puzzling because we both know it bothers the fuck out of you.”

  She lifts a brow. “Says who?”

  “Me.” She crosses her legs as she tries to maintain a calm facade. It’s cracking. She tugs a piece of hair behind her ear and starts fidgeting with the first thing she can get her hands on, which is the plastic fork in front of her.

  “Why would it bother me?”

  I take another fork full of my rice and shrug.

  “You want to see your sister around my arm, at every game, talking about how good my dick feels inside her?” I fix her with a hard look. “That it’s the best sex she’s ever had in her life?” She scoffs and looks away from me.

  She can fight this; us, what we used to be, the attraction that still lingers between our bodies. But the one annoying truth that is blatantly obvious is that despite hating one another, we are still intensely attracted to each other.

  “You just like when girls talk to you,” she surmises, opening up her carryout box. “It keeps your ego stroked.” I pillar my elbows on the countertop, thankful that this piece of furniture is between us.

  “I prefer it when they're not speaking at all actually,” I retort. “But I did like when you used to encourage me, telling me how good my lips felt against your skin.”

  And how good you fucking tasted.

  “And I remember you moaning my name, Hayes,” she counters between constricted brows again. “With my lips wrapped around your dick, telling me not to stop.”

  Well, damn.

  Apparently, I’m not the only one who remembers every excruciating detail of us together. And she’s painfully right.

  Sawyer is still, to this day, the only woman whose name has come from my lips during anything.

  Sex.

  Blow jobs.

  Hand jobs.

  Anything.

  “Anyone can do that while they’re in the moment,” I consent, taking a generous sip of my Bud Light.

  “Sounds like you’re trying to relive those moments by fucking my sister.” I stop my fork just before it enters my mouth, the hostile tremor in her voice is starting to show how much it bothers her.

  “I just told you that I didn’t fuck her after the bar,” I rebuff. “What more do you want from me?”

  “I want you to tell me that it didn’t mean anything.”

  Nope.

  That’s too much information to be spilling down at her feet. She knows too much about me already. An enemy that has all the intel to destroy me with one nuke bomb.

  “Now, you’re thinking way too highly of yourself,” I counter, death gripping my fork.

  She pulls her phone out with a grin, and I watch her fingers fly over the screen. My immediate thought is she’s texting the doctor or that model look alike, and it fucking abrades my calm composure.

  “Do you want to wait for the third offer to come in?” she asks me.

  I shake my head. “No, take the first one. I want to be done by the end of the month. And I’ll accept the seller’s offer on keeping that damn chandelier. It’ll be the first thing that comes down when I sign those papers.”

  She glances over her phone at me with a blank expression. “So, you’re staying for sure?”

  I can see every wheel in her head shifting and grinding, all coming to a screeching halt at the idea of me staying in Freemont.

  I want to be a distraction.

  “I’m staying.”

  “Okay,” she finally offers. “Sounds good.” She gathers up her things on the countertop and shoves them back into her binder, zipping it up. Pushing back her stool, she closes her styrofoam container. “Thanks for the food. I’ll text you when we have the closing date settled with the buyers. Would you like a morning closing since you have practice after school?”

  I stand, shoving my food aside. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

  She gives me a weak smile. “I can see myself out, have a good night, Colson.”

  I watch her stride through the kitchen, reconsidering my intentions for inviting her here. My weak subconscious comes barreling to the surface, telling me to let her go.

  It’s better this way.

  Because I’ll never be able to get over how she broke my heart, how I spent years despising and wanting her just as miserable as me. It just wasn’t in the cards for us, not anymore. We could eventually learn to move on and live alongside each other in this small town. It was inevitable to run into each other, so why make it harder?

  But why make it easy for her when I’ve spent the last decade begging a coach to play me when I was better than everyone else? When I’ve busted my ass working multiple jobs and trying to make a life for myself all because she didn’t tell me that she didn’t want me. That misery has been eating me alive because not only did she fuck me over once, but she did it again eight years later.

  “Bases.” Her nickname stops her in her tracks just as she’s about to reach the door.

  Be smart, walk outside and ignore me.

  Slowly, she turns around, shifting her weight as she slowly brings her gaze to me.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Do what?” she asks in a soft murmur. Memories of a much younger Sawyer Boyd collide into me.

  She’s more beautiful than she was before, if that is even possible. Her cute freckles that still line the bridge of her nose and sprinkle under her eyes. The way her voice comes off innocent and naturally kind. The only thing that has transformed is her rock-hard defenses toward me and the curves of her body that now make her a woman in every fucking way.

  Every way I would’ve wanted then and now. The power that she still wields over me is insufferable, egging me to forget everything and just start fresh. Maybe I need this reconciliation in order to move on because of that supernatural power she still hovers over my head. I need to destroy it before it gets to me again.

  “Having your sister come to the bar when clearly you didn’t want me to fuck her,” I proceed, stalking toward her. “It’s too close to you, so why would you do it?”

  She gives a half shrug. “Because I was hoping you wouldn’t. For a brief moment, I’d hoped you’d remember us and listen to me for once in your life.”

  I frown. “I used to listen to you all the time.”

  She shakes her head. “Not when it mattered. You left without so much as a word, Colson.”

  “I saw it, that’s all the explaining I needed.”

  She holds my gaze, letting out a stuttering breath. “Looks can be deceiving.”

  Not exactly from where I was standing.

  “It all made sense, it added up. You started getting closer
to him again, you were drifting from me.” Her eyes soften, and I hate it. I don’t like her staring at me with feelings that my old self begs to go back to.

  We’re over.

  We’ve been over for a decade. There was no point in trying, solving, or fixing it. I’d never trust her again, and she’ll never stop trying to make it right.

  But wanting her, that was the only thing I was interested in solving right now.

  “I wasn’t going to leave you,” she tells me. “I didn’t want to make things awkward with him, we were in the same school. I wasn’t going to hurt you like your parents did.”

  “You knew you were the only one that could,” I cajole.

  “Did I?” Her eyes tighten around me. “Why would I want to do something like that?” Her tone is matching the way I feel; angry, hurt, over it.

  “You didn’t love me,” I deadpan.

  “Says who?”

  “You.”

  “When?”

  “I never heard those words from you.”

  “I said them to you a million times,” she mutters. “It was just in my head.” My stomach does this weird flip, endorphins rush through my body, and I’m filled with regret, except I didn’t do anything but give her all of me.

  I surrendered every piece of me to her.

  “Coward,” I accuse softly.

  “Deserter.”

  I shake my head, closing some of the distance between us but not enough to scare her off. I want her here. I want to see if she still held a piece of me with her. To know that I ingrained something in her to make her feel as vulnerable as I do right now.

  “You should’ve just let him go.”

  “I did.”

  “You didn’t, Bases. I had to hear it, see it. I fucking felt it.” Her jaw twitches, shooting a warning glare at me.

  “Let me guess, he told you every fucking detail.”

  Fuck no, he didn’t. I found out the hard way. From someone else.

  I wouldn’t let Ben tell me the details, nothing good would’ve come out of it because I already wanted to rip Gavin’s throat out. Him and I slowly changed, our relationship turned into animosity and hatred toward each other. We were both blind to the simple fact that I wanted her for myself, and have ever since she handed us back that ping pong ball.