Making Her Mine (Player Loves Curves Book 1)

by Hope Ford

  I sit down on the couch next to her, taking a break from packing. “Talk to me, sis. What’s going on?”

  She’s looking at her hands and starts to mumble, “I want to be happy for you but I can’t. You don’t know what you’re getting into. You were right about baseball players.”

  My stomach sinks with foreboding, but I dismiss it quickly. “Jasper isn’t like Carter. He’s different. I’m sorry you two broke up but only because I know you’re sad about it. You deserve way better than Carter.”

  “And you deserve better than Jasper,” Sheena says. “Look, it’s been killing me not to tell you, but I hooked up with Jasper while I was out of town at the after party. I was drunk, but I still feel I had to come clean because the guilt is killing me.”

  Her words are like an anchor tied around my neck, pulling me underwater. I jump off the couch and walk backwards away from her. “You slept with Jasper – my Jasper?”

  She slowly nods her head and when she looks at me with guilt in her eyes, I run to the bathroom, throwing up my lunch. When I retch until I have nothing left, I lean my head on my arm. What was I thinking? I should have gone with my gut. I trusted him… completely.

  I get up, brush my teeth and walk out of the bathroom. Sheena comes toward me, but I hold my hands up for her to stop. “I can’t right now. I can’t deal with you, not now.”

  Her voice is soft. “Sis, c’mon?”

  Shaking my head, I walk into my bedroom and slam the door.

  Minutes later, I hear the front door slam and I know she’s left.

  I fall to my bed, devastated. The future I was planning only minutes ago is already a distant memory. How could he do this to me? To us?

  Jasper

  I arrive at her apartment to surprise her before I have to be at the field for tonight’s game. Tomorrow is moving day and I can barely stand it, I’ve been so excited. But as soon as I open the door, I know something’s wrong.

  Trinity is standing there with red-rimmed, puffy eyes. As soon as I see her, I want to find out what hurt her and hurt it. I step toward her, but she holds her hand out to stop me. When she does, her hand hits my chest and she cringes, dropping it to her side. Almost like she doesn’t even want to touch me.

  “What happened? What’s wrong?” I ask her.

  A single tear trails down her face and it kills me a little that I can’t hold her. “Sheena told me what happened.”

  I shake my head, knowing how humiliated she must be that her sister was trying to hook up with me. I really can’t believe that Sheena came clean, but I’m glad she did. I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.

  I reach for her hand. “I’m sorry, honey,” I say to her, and then am startled when she jerks away from me.

  “Then it’s true! I will never forgive you for this, Jasper Reilly. You’ve shattered my heart. I hope scoring sisters was worth it to you.” She tries to yell at me, but she’s crying harder and harder until I can barely understand what she’s saying to me.

  Scoring sisters?

  Trinity slams the door in my face and locks it before I realize what she’s doing.

  I pound on the door until my hand is red. I holler for her over and over, but she never answers me. That damn Sheena. She fed her lies.

  I sit outside her door, refusing to leave until I speak to her. I keep knocking, begging her to answer the door, but she never comes. Neighbors are all looking out their windows and doors at me, but I don’t care. I can’t lose her.

  A policeman arrives, telling me that the neighbors have complained about the noise and that I need to move along.

  “Wait, you’re Jasper Reilly, aren’t you?” he asks me.

  I nod my head and look to the window of Trinity’s bedroom. I see the shade moving and I know she’s right there, probably watching me through the window.

  “Yeah, I’m Jasper,” I tell the policeman, hoping he’ll lay off and leave me be.

  He starts asking me for an autograph and I give him one, hoping he’ll leave after that. But no such luck. He tells me I have to go.

  I lean against her window. “Trinity, I’m leaving, but I promise you, I didn’t do anything with your sister. She came on to me and I told her no.” I plead my case one more time before I leave. I’m miserable.

  I no sooner get to my car, and I’m dialing her number from my phone. The call goes straight to voicemail. Banging my hands on the steering wheel, I scream “Fuck” as loud as I can, hoping to relieve some of my stress. But it doesn’t.

  My phone rings and I pick it up, hoping it’s her, but it’s not. It’s Shawn, our third baseman and my good friend.

  “Yeah?” I say into the phone.

  He doesn’t mince words. “Where you at, brother? Coach is losing it. Henry’s out today, and you’re going to start the game. You better get here.”

  “Fuck. I’m on my way.”

  I hang up the phone and look toward Trinity’s apartment one more time. I pull away, heading toward the field, hoping that I’m not leaving my future behind.

  11

  Trinity

  I don’t know what I expected when I slammed the door in his face. The cops came and told him to leave. But I’m still upset that he left. I don’t know why. I should hate him right now, but the way he told me he didn’t sleep with my sister, well, even through the window, I could hear the sincerity in his voice. Almost an hour goes by before Sheena comes back and she’s carrying bags of food in from my favorite restaurant. This is not Sheena. She’s not ever nice to me, so I have to assume it’s a guilty conscience. But what exactly is she guilty of?

  She’s pulling food out, and I wet a towel, wiping at my face. When I’m done, I turn to her. “We need to talk.”

  “Sure.” She hands me a plate and the whole situation is weird to me. I mean, if she truly slept with my boyfriend, do I really want to sit down to a meal with her?

  But I know anger is not the way to handle this. That’s what she wants. “I need to know exactly what happened.”

  She shrugs. “There’s not a lot to tell really. We both had too much to drink and one thing led to another.”

  Something’s not adding up. “Which night was it? 1st game in the series? 2nd?”

  She looks up at the ceiling like she’s thinking about it. “Second. Definitely second.”

  I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Really? Well, I remember that night. Do you know why?”

  She puts a big bite of chicken lo mein in her mouth and looks at me with big eyes. “No, why?”

  I sit down in the chair across from her and look at her through new eyes. “Why are you lying to me, Sheena? I talked to Jasper that night. He didn’t even go to the after party. He went to dinner with Shawn.” When she doesn’t answer me, I continue. “I remember because he was FaceTiming me and Shawn was making fun of him for being whipped. He got off the phone, but he called me when he got back to the hotel and stayed on the phone with me until I fell asleep talking to him.”

  Still, she says nothing. I stand up from the table. I want to scream, I want to throw a fit, but I don’t. I’ve put up with Sheena for so long, and now I almost lost the one person that means everything to me because of her.

  I turn away from her, but when I get to the door, I look at her again. “Just tell me why. Why would you do such a thing?”

  She shrugs her shoulders and with no remorse in her voice, she says, “Because Carter broke up with me.”

  My mouth drops. Does she think that explains her horrible behavior? Is she really that demented to think what she did was justified?

  I open my mouth and then close it again. There’s no use talking to her about it. I have to go see if I can get my player back.

  Jasper

  For the most part, I’m fucking it up. I can tell that Neil, the catcher, is frustrated and my coach is about to lose his mind. I keep throwing, trying to adjust and get my mind right, but all I can think about is Trinity.

  “Time,” Neil calls to the um
pire, and he gets up from his squat behind home plate and runs over to meet me. “What’s up?”

  Before he even gets to me I’m shaking my head because I know I’m not giving it all for my team right now. “I’m sorry… I just have stuff on my mind.”

  He spits on the ground and puts his hands on his hips. “Well, all right, you want to talk about this shit, get it off your chest? Because I want to win a ball game.”

  “Nothing, man. I’m fine. I’ll work it out.” I pat him on the back and don’t notice Shawn is standing next to me until he pecks me on the shoulder. He’s a big man and an awesome 3rd baseman. But an even better friend. He listened to me for a good hour in warm-ups today stressing about Trinity and what I needed to do. He points over my shoulder. “I think your little problem worked itself out.”

  I follow where he’s pointing and Trinity is standing there, waving at me. She’s not smiling, but at least she’s here. I start to walk toward her, but Neil stops me. “Two more outs, brother. Then you can go see your girl.”

  I hit him in the chest with my glove. “Let’s do it.”

  He walks back to home plate… and I throw six strikes in a row, striking out the next two batters. On the sixth one, the ball barely leaves my hand before I’m trotting off the field over to the fence where she’s standing. The crowd is going wild, but I only have eyes for Trinity.

  She’s holding the fence, her fingers wrapped around the metal. I put my glove in one hand and with the other, I hold on to her hand through the fence. “I didn’t sleep with your sister.”

  She sniffles, nodding her head. “I know. I’m sorry, I should have trusted you. I should have known. I ruined everything…I’m so sorry.”

  I lean into the fence, ignoring the fans eavesdropping around us. “I’m all fucked up without you. I’ll forgive you for anything, because I’m miserable without you. Just tell me you’re moving in with me tomorrow. We can work everything else out. I just need you with me.”

  “Get in the dugout, Reilly, so we can continue the game.”

  I don’t look at my coach, who’s hollering at me. Instead I wait for Trinity to answer me.

  She smiles. “Yes, I’ll probably just come home with you tonight if that’s okay with you. I think I owe you another IOU.”

  I lean in and kiss her through the fence. When I pull away, the crowd is cheering and they have us up on the Jumbotron. I can’t even stop myself from smiling. “That’s what the fuck I’m talking about.”

  I kiss her again and walk over to the dugout. “You think you can win this ball game now, Reilly?” My coach is a hard ass, but I don’t blame him. My first inning was shit.

  I pat him on the back. “I can do anything now, Coach.”

  I go on to pitch the best game of my life that night. The coach touts that it’s because of his motivational speech. But I know it was because I needed to get home to collect on my IOU.

  Epilogue

  Jasper

  One Year Later

  I throw the last pitch of the season and run off the field. My teammates are all celebrating, but not me. I have a better place to be. I was going to skip the game tonight, but Trinity promised she would wait for me.

  I pass the locker room, and my assistant has my car parked by the back entrance with the keys in and the engine already running. He holds his phone away from his ear. “You better hurry. There’s not much time left.”

  He doesn’t have to tell me. There’s a policeman in front of me. He turns on his lights and I follow right behind him to the hospital. I park illegally, running through the hallways in my cleats.

  I head straight for Birth and Delivery. They’re standing in the hallway and as soon as I get to them, they open the door, letting me in.

  But what I see causes me to about fall over. The doctor is already in position and Trinity is covered in sweat, breathing in and out quickly.

  She starts to cry when she sees me. “Oh my God, you made it. I was so worried you would miss it.”

  I shake my head, throwing my baseball cap across the room to the chair. I grab on to Trinity’s hand. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

  The doctor interrupts us. “Hell of a game, Reilly. You won the championship.”

  “We won it,” I say to him. And not only do I mean my team. Trinity too. This has been my best year, on and off the field. She finally agreed to marry me and now she’s bringing me a little Jasper Junior into the world. I couldn’t have asked for a better life.

  Trinity starts grunting, and I hear the doctor say, “It’s time,” but it doesn’t register until I feel Trinity squeezing my hand, screaming, and then the room fills with the sounds of our baby crying. Our baby. I’m a dad. The thought hits me right in the chest.

  I look between my wife and then my brand new daughter, and I can’t stop the tears from falling down my face.

  They take our daughter to clean her up, and I kneel next to the bed to look at my beautiful other half, my everything. She’s exhausted, but she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. “I love you, Trin.”

  She smiles and looks at me through hooded eyes. “I love you too.”

  THE END

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  About the Author

  Bestselling short romance author Hope Ford writes short, steamy, sweet romances. She loves tattooed, alpha men, instant love stories, and ALWAYS happily ever afters. She has over 70 books and they are all available on Amazon.

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