Out of My League: Complete Box Set

by Sharon Cummin

  As soon as they got back to their cards, I checked my phone.

  Wannabe: Was I better than your dream?

  Without thinking, I typed back.

  Me: Yes.

  Wannabe: Are you home yet?

  Me: Yes. You can't tell them, not any of them. Do you hear me? They already think bad enough about me.

  Wannabe: I get it. I don't really want to be on the other side of Lance's wrath either.

  Me: Not just that.

  Wannabe: I know, princess. Your secrets are safe with me. I want to talk to you again.

  Me: If that's what happens when we talk, then so do I.

  I let out a tiny giggle, and James' eyes came up from his cards.

  “Okay,” he snapped, “who the fuck is that? There's no way your ass is laughing at Jeff like that.”

  I heard Lauren snicker from behind me, and looked over to see her eyes on the screen of my phone. Shit!

  “Leave her alone,” she said. “Get back to the damn game. I'm not like your wife. This pregnant woman's ass is tired.”

  Then she looked up at me with a smile, and I smiled back, silently thanking her. Lauren really was a pretty cool person. She wasn't nearly as bad as I'd originally thought. I could see why they all liked her so much.

  I quickly put my phone on vibrate.

  “You sure you don't want to play?” Lance asked.

  “I'm sure,” I answered.

  I felt my phone vibrate and looked at it from under the table.

  Wannabe: You just want me for my body.

  Me: That's not so bad, is it?

  Wannabe: Not funny, Cassie. If you come by tomorrow, I'll help you finish what we were working on.

  Me: I could really use the help.

  I could feel Lauren watching me and checked to make sure she couldn't see what I was typing before sending another text.

  Me: And the dick.

  Wannabe: Not funny either. I'm sorry for what I said to you earlier. I've got some shit from my past too. Sometimes I let it get to me. I'm serious about tomorrow. I'd like to see you.

  I couldn't help the excited feeling that ran through me just thinking about him wanting to see me. I like him and couldn't help but wonder if he liked me just as much as I did him.

  Me: That sounds good. I'd like to see you too.

  The noise from the table and the television were mixing together, but I didn't miss it when I heard the words Pete Parker come from across the room, and my head snapped up.

  “Hush,” Sammie snapped out, as she turned toward the screen. “There he is.”

  There, on the television screen, stood Parker, in the very same suit I'd seen him in, just before giving me his number, the day before.

  “Will the Pirates trade him, or will he be back?” the reporter said, as the picture of Parker sat still on the screen.

  Instantly, I felt sick to my stomach. I felt like my breath had been sucked from my lungs.

  “What?” I snapped out, and before I knew it said even more. “He's a fucking Pirate.”

  “You didn't know that?” Sammie asked.

  I sat, watching the screen, as I shook my head no. Then I heard Lauren laugh from next to me.

  “Seriously,” Sammie said. “How could you not know? He's worn his jersey on days you were at my place.”

  “I thought he was one of those fans, the crazy ones,” I said in more of a whisper.

  I felt my phone vibrate in my hand, but I didn't look at it. Instead, I shoved it into my purse. I could feel Lauren staring a hole through me, but I wasn't about to look her way.

  “He's amazing,” Sammie said, and James shot a look her way. “What? He is. He's put a lot of time and money into my project.”

  “So have I,” James said. “I don't see you getting all excited like that over me.”

  “You know damn well I get all excited for you,” she replied with a wink.

  “We all do,” Lance hissed. “Always fucking pregnant.”

  “You see how much he helps the kids,” she said, ignoring her dad's comment. “Shit! He even let me auction him off for a date. You really didn't know? He's freaking huge right now.”

  Sammie's attention was right back on me, as I shook my head again.

  “Maybe you coming with me hasn't paid off as much as I thought,” she said with a laugh. “You're watching the games with me next season.”

  I nodded, as I stood up from my chair. There was no way I was watching him play, but it wasn't the time to say no to her. All I wanted was to get out of that room as quickly as I could.

  “I'm really tired,” I said. “I'm going to head up to my room.”

  Everyone said goodnight, and just as I took the first step away from them all, Lauren was on her feet and following behind me.

  “They might all be missing it, but I most definitely am not,” she said, as she caught me at the bottom of the stairs. “I don't know what exactly that reaction was back there, but.”

  “He's a ballplayer,” I said, cutting her off.

  “So,” she said.

  “No thanks,” I said, as I turned away and took the first step up toward my room.

  “That doesn't make him a bad guy,” she said, as she grabbed my arm to stop me. “Look at your dad, your brother, and your uncle.”

  “Doesn't matter,” I said. “It's not happening.”

  “Why?” she snapped out. “He's a great guy.”

  “Can't risk it,” I said.

  “Risk what?” she asked in a confused tone.

  “My heart,” I said. “You see how well that worked out for me the last time. He was gone for most of the summer too, and he only had one woman falling at his feet.”

  I pulled my arm from her grip and continued up the steps.

  “Cassie,” she yelled up after me, but I ignored her.

  I walked into my room, closed my door, grabbed my phone out of my purse, threw my purse on the chair, walked over to my bed, and fell back onto it with my phone in my hand.

  He'd sent me a message. I knew I couldn't avoid it forever, so I figured I'd just get it over with.

  Wannabe: Great! What time can you be here? I'll grab dinner.

  I read his words a few times before finally replying.

  Me: I'm not going to be able to make it after all.

  I set my phone down on my nightstand and let my head fall back onto my pillow. Tears began to slide down the sides of my face, and I reached up to wipe them away. I felt like such a fool. It felt good thinking I'd found someone that I could talk to, someone that wasn't my family, but Parker wasn't at all who I thought he was. He wasn't the right someone. I couldn't talk to him, I couldn't see him, and I definitely couldn't let what had happened earlier between us happen again.

  Chapter 11

  Parker

  I read her message twice, totally sure that I'd read it wrong the first time, but I hadn't. There had been a bit of time between her two last messages, but I had no idea what had her going from I'm coming to I'm not going to be able to make it in that little bit of time. Was she just fucking with me when she'd originally said yes? That woman was slowly driving me crazy. I wanted answers, and I wasn't about to let it go, not yet anyway.

  Me: Why?

  Princess: It's not a good idea.

  Me: Why not? I just offered to help you finish the paperwork you need to file. You were the one with the dirty mind.

  Princess: It's just not.

  She was closing me out, and it was irritating the shit out of me. I wasn't offering to fuck her again. She was the one making those comments. All I wanted to do was help her. That wasn't entirely true. I couldn't wait to be buried balls deep inside of her again, but I hadn't said it, and I didn't plan on it either. Being with her was a bad idea. Maybe I should just let it go, I thought. That thought didn't last long. She needed to give me more than it's just not, not after being all over the idea just minutes before.

  Me: What the fuck happened in the last five minutes, Cassie? What am I missing?
r />   Then she really pissed me off.

  Princess: Everything. I'm sorry, Parker. Goodnight.

  Fuck that, I thought. Screw her. I wasn't begging, never had and never would. I needed sleep. In the morning, I'd move on to something more important. If she didn't want my help, then she could do it herself. I was just trying to be a nice guy.

  I got in bed and stared out my window at the cold, dark night, but I couldn't sleep. My body tossed from one side to the next. I even covered my head with my extra pillow, but it didn't work. I couldn't sleep. My irritation grew with each passing minute. I knew it had been a bad idea to give her my number, and I hadn't been wrong. The woman was fucking with me, and it wasn't something I needed. My mind was already a damn mess with the talks of trading me. Did I want to leave, no, but I had to go where the job took me. That was the only time I considered what I did a job. Then I had my selfish bitch of an ex wife. Those two things were enough to keep me up. Add Cassie to that, and I was done. Even though I knew not to go near her, I couldn't stop myself. I'd heard stories, so it wasn't that I hadn't been warned. I'd promised myself never to get involved with someone like her. I'd been there, and it had bit me in the ass hard, still was. There was just something about her though. My warning bells were going off, but I kept walking toward trouble. I knew she was off limits, but I didn't walk away. We'd crossed a line that should have never been crossed, and I wasn't even sorry. It was different with her, so damn different. The harder I tried not to think about her, the more she filled my thoughts.

  “Fuck her,” I said, as I flipped my covers back and got out of bed.

  Other women would be happy to be with me, I thought. Shit! They were lined up. There was no way I was wasting my time on someone like her, and there was definitely no way I was planning to get serious with anyone. Being with her again would be the dumbest thing I could do. I was a one and done kind of guy. It wasn't always like that for me, but it had been for some time, and it was going to stay that way. We'd done our one time. It was time to move on.

  I found myself at Sammie's place as soon as it opened that morning. There was no point in staying home. It would only give me time to think about everything going on, and I needed to burn some energy. When Lance walked in, I knew I'd made the right decision. He'd put in a solid workout with me, and I'd be able to block the rest of the world out, for a few hours anyway, or at least that was what I thought was going to happen.

  “How are you feeling about those meetings?” Lance asked after only twenty minutes.

  “Okay,” I answered. “Trying not to think about it. Why do you ask?”

  “We saw you on the news last night. You were looking pretty spiffy,” he said. “Sammie was yelling for us to shut up so she could hear it.”

  I stopped what I was doing and turned toward him.

  “You were at Sammie's?” I asked.

  “Sure was,” he said. “You know how I am about my pregnant girls, Parker. Lauren and Lance were there, so I went over. Lucy went with me. I figured it would save me time since they were in the same place. They drive me nuts. I don't know why they had to do this shit together.”

  Lance was going one direction but my mind was going another. They were all together while the news was on. Was Cassie with me at the time, or was she there? I was racking my brain, trying to figure out how to ask without being obvious. Lance was the one man I didn't want to find out about what had happened at my place that night. You'd think it would have been James that I would have worried about, but it wasn't. It wasn't even her dad. The one man I knew would come after my ass was Lance. I wasn't family to him. He'd broken the nose of his own family for touching one of his girls. What would he do to me? The man still had it, and I had a career that was in a very fragile spot. There was no way I wanted to shake that up at all.

  “You should have seen Cassie's face,” he said, and my thoughts instantly went quiet. “That girl is something else.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, trying not to sound interested but wanting to know what he was talking about.

  “She looked like she'd seen a ghost when they said your name in the same sentence as the word Pirate,” he said with a laugh. “I love the woman, but she definitely missed the sports gene. Sammie stuck up for you though. James was not happy about that.”

  He was rattling on, but my mind was spinning. Why would my name and the word Pirate together have her reacting that way? Had she come to my place after the moment he was talking about? He'd said last night, so it had to have been after she'd gone home. She'd seen all my Pirate stuff, so why the reaction? Wait, why would Sammie need to stick up for me? What the fuck was I missing?

  “Hey guys,” I heard Sammie before I saw her.

  “I was just telling Parker about Cassie seeing him on the news and how you defended him,” Lance said.

  “Yeah,” Sammie said, as she pulled Jillian's coat off. “She's been acting weird lately.”

  “Her man is an asshole,” Lance said. “She caught him with another woman.”

  “Grandpa,” Jillian said, as she looked up at Lance.

  “Sorry,” he said, as he scooped his littlest girl up and twirled her around as she giggled.

  “Since we got back from Thanksgiving, it's gotten worse,” Sammie said. “You saw the pieces of her phone, Dad. That's not like her. Jeff must have done something. I don't want to push her. She needs to make her own decisions. I'm going to kick her ass if she goes back to him though. She'll be fine without him. She just needs to get herself together. Look at last night. She never even told anyone she was leaving. I know James doesn't want to say anything. He hasn't seen her in so long. I think he's just happy she's here, and he feels bad that he's been over at Lance and Lauren's so much. Not to mention the fact that he's keeping a pretty big secret of his own from her.”

  “What secret?” I asked, not being able to help myself.

  The front door opened, and in walked Lauren. She not only had Jackson with her, but she had Jenny and Jeff as well.

  “Parker,” Jenny yelled out, as she came running at me with Jackson right next to her.

  “Will you play with us?” Jackson asked.

  “Of course,” I said, as I kept my eyes on Sammie, trying to get even a tiny clue of what she was talking about.

  I played with the kids, but Cassie was all I could think about. Why hadn't she come? What the fuck was James hiding? Why had Sammie had to defend me with Cassie? None of them had said anything else about her, and after about an hour, I got the heck out of there.

  The next two days went pretty close to the same, except nobody mentioned Cassie at all. I'd picked up my phone at least twenty times to text her, but each time I put it back down. If she didn't want to talk to me, then I didn't care. There was no way I was chasing her. I didn't even want her.

  By the third day, I found myself worrying and had to ask about her.

  “Where's Cassie?” I asked. “I'm kind of surprised you've been bringing the kids without her. It seemed like you were dragging her here before.”

  “Just being her,” Sammie answered. “She's sitting at home, doing absolutely nothing.”

  As I watched her kids play, looking so much happier than they'd been the first time they were there, I couldn't help but wonder if she'd done anything about what I'd started helping her with. If not, she could lose it all. He could get their kids. She wouldn't really do something that dumb, would she?

  “She's not doing anything?” I asked, trying to get my answer without being super obvious.

  “Just moping around in sweats and a t-shirt,” she answered, as she shook her head.

  Shit! She had to finish the paperwork before it was too late, I thought. How would it look if she didn't? It would look as if she didn't give a shit about her kids. I wanted so badly to tell Sammie, but I couldn't. I told Cassie I wouldn't say anything, and I had to stand by that. I'd promised her. She was a grown woman. Her decisions were hers to make. It just pissed me off that she was putting the future of he
r beautiful children at stake.

  The second Sammie walked away, Lauren was right there next to me.

  “Why do you care so much?” she asked.

  “I don't,” I said, as I continued looking straight ahead.

  There was no way I was looking at her.

  “Oh really?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “You two are pathetic,” she said, as she lowered her voice.

  “What's that supposed to mean?” I asked, as I turned to her.

  “She's the same way,” she said.

  “Hey,” I snapped out from under my breath. “She's the one that walked away from me.”

  “And you don't care,” she said, as more of a statement.

  “Not one fucking bit,” I replied sternly.

  “Okay,” she said, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

  “Shut up,” I snapped again, louder than before.

  She didn't say anything right away, and I couldn't take the quiet.

  “Is she really doing nothing?” I asked.

  “Sits in her room all damn day,” she answered. “She did actually put some real clothes on and leave the house yesterday for about an hour. She said she had something to do. She took a bag with her. Everything seemed the same when she came back though. She went right back to her room and got back in her sweats.”

  “What kind of bag?” I asked.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Lauren,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

  “A laptop bag,” she said, and I nodded. “What's going on, Parker? What is it you know?”

  “Not a thing,” I answered innocently.

  “I know you don't care, but she'll be here tomorrow,” she said, as she turned to walk toward the playing kids. “Make sure you are too.”

  “What?” I yelled after her.

  “You heard me,” she said, as she waved me off from over her shoulder.

  I turned and walked toward the back to get my stuff. There was no way I was staying any longer. Laptop bag, I thought. Had she taken her computer? Had she finished the papers? Did she mail them? I had sent her one message on that first day. It reminded her that she needed to get moving along with the link of where she needed to start. Had she done it? She'd never replied, and that pissed me off too. A simple thank you would have been nice. Of course, she couldn't do that, not her.