by Alexis Anne
She slammed the door and strode past me. Her condo wasn’t huge, but it was swanky as hell. A state-of-the-art gourmet kitchen stood off to the right with a counter and bar stools that divided the space from the large, open living room. French doors led to a sizeable balcony that overlooked the beach. Every piece of furniture was expensive and carefully chosen to fit the space and whatever function it was supposed to serve. It was like living inside a useful piece of art.
“I’m sorry,” she said, offering me a tall glass of ice water, “I was out of control and I shouldn’t have done that.”
I didn’t take the glass. Instead I waited for her to look me in the eye. Her apology was genuine but it was also, I don’t know, forced? She generally never apologized for having fun.
Right about when I guessed her arm was starting to burn from holding out the water her eyes flicked up to mine. Even that colder than usual look was enough to ground me. Anchored my feet right to the ground and filled my chest with this warm sensation. Like I hadn’t been able to take a full breath since the last time I saw her.
“I didn’t mind.” I took the glass and swallowed a gulp.
“You were a little green.”
I shrugged. “And now I’m not.” We moved to the balcony, the warm breeze a welcome change to the air conditioning. “I would like to know why.”
“Why what?” She kept adjusting and readjusting in a chair she must sit in every single day. Nervous. I hated that she ever felt nervous around me.
“Why you got me plastered.”
The steady beach breeze kept flitting her loose hair around her cheek and she kept batting it away. I wanted to pull her into my lap, tuck all that hair away, and talk with her head on my chest.
She took a very deep, long breath and let it out slowly. Then, “I’m still baffled that I don’t remember that night. I thought maybe something was off.”
And it hit me. “You tried to recreate Vegas?” Of course the shots were the same, but we skipped the Three Wise Men. “Babe. You know that those cocktails are blitz bombs.” Then I took her hand—just her fingertips—just enough to connect but not enough to make her feel like I was forcing anything. “Do you really not remember anything?”
“Actually I do. It took a couple of recovery days but as I got my feet back under me I—I remember most of the night now.”
At least I wouldn’t have to completely lie anymore. “Me too.”
Her cheeks brightened but her eyes were still a blank wall. “And?”
“I still don’t regret a damn thing. We knew what we were doing.” I slid closer. “We want this.” Her eyes followed me as I stood up and leaned over her, my hands braced on the arms of her chair. “I remember thinking you never looked happier and that I wanted to put that look on your face every fucking day for the rest of my life.” When she tilted her head up, chest rising and falling, eyes searching, I took a chance and dropped a kiss on her lips. “I remember thinking this. This. Whatever this is . . . it’s what I’ve been looking for my whole life.” Then I dropped to my knees in front of her, seizing this chance she was giving me to say everything on my mind. I took her hands and placed them on my face, wrapping my hands around hers. “I love you. I want to be your husband and I want you to be my wife. Can we please stay married?”
She laughed and looked away for a split second before looking back at me. “Stay married? That’s almost as good as your first proposal.”
“You said yes to my first proposal. Say yes again.” Damn I was feeling bold.
“With you in Jacksonville and me in Tampa?”
“You make it sound like we live on opposite ends of the country instead of the state.” It wasn’t ideal but it wasn’t bad. Jacksonville to Tampa was a nice drive and I loved putting the top down on my GT.
“What about your trade?”
Okay, so that was a pain my ass. The fucking negotiations between the Waves and the Mantas were taking forever. “It’s complicated.”
“And getting more complicated by the marriage.”
It was true that my agent marrying his long lost love of his life was a problem. A problem we’d only just begun discussing. The fact that June was on the training staff of the Mantas wasn’t too bad. It was her sister, Eve, that was the problem. Roman’s new sister-in-law was an executive and it was starting to look a little too cozy.
“I’m getting a new agent.” Okay, technically Roman had only mentioned it as an option, but as I was here on my knees in front of the woman I needed, it made the only clear sense. “Roman is passing me off to another agent. Hopefully that will be enough separation to allow the trade to move forward at the end of the season.”
“I don’t want to ruin your career.” Her thumbs brushed my cheeks. Tender. She was being tender.
I was in.
“Babe.”
“What?” She smiled.
“I got this. Trust me. My baseball career is fine. And, believe it or not, I’m a diversified fellow with many outside interests.”
That got me the smile and laugh I was looking for. “Diversified fellow?”
“You know that Instagram shit and the videos are all part of my empire.” I wasn’t dumb. I knew my time on the field was temporary. Roman’s injury had scared the piss out of me. At least he’d always planned on a life after baseball, but me? It was all I ever wanted.
The minute Roman retired I started planning. That’s how Wes Allen, internet sensation, was born.
“I do.”
I bounced my eyebrows. “I love it when you say that.”
“Can we be serious for a moment?”
I immediately cleared my face and nodded solemnly.
“If we . . . stay married . . . I think we should make a contract. Make it really clear what it is we want and how to end this if it doesn’t work out.”
That had to be the most unsexy thing ever. A contract to end us? Fuck no. “All right. If that’s what you want.” I said it even though I hated it.
“It is.”
And then I realized she was agreeing to this. To me. To us. “We’re going to do this?”
A very small but very real smile curled her lips. “Yeah.”
A wave of relief hit me. Like a brick wall. I knew I was nervous and really fucking worried about losing her, but I had no idea just how freaked out I was until she said yes. I tried to hide just how overwhelmed I was by burying my face in her lap and hugging her waist.
“Oh shit,” she whispered. She stroked my hair just the way I liked.
“What’s wrong?” I didn’t move. I was too . . . well, quite frankly, I was kind of on the verge of tears of relief and I didn’t want her to see that.
“You really do want this.”
“Yes. I do.” Damn. I sounded like a frog. “Why is that so hard for you to understand?” Her hand kept stroking so I didn’t dare move. This was heaven after a week in hell.
“Like . . . you really want this.”
Even though I didn’t want to, I looked up just enough to catch her gaze. “I really do.”
“Not just for fun.”
I shook my head, eyes locked on hers.
“Or sex.”
I cocked an eyebrow and a tiny little grin may have escaped, but I kept shaking my head. “We are incredible, babe. But we’re more than sex.”
She swallowed. Her eyes kept darting around like she was putting together brand new information and trying to make sense of it all. “You want . . . me?” she whispered.
And that was our biggest flaw—the reason we might crash and burn. We were so busy having fun, getting lost in each other, that we—I—it was too much, too scary to go deeper. But fuck it all, what we had went as deep as my soul.
“Yes, I want you. I want us. I want this.” I held up my left hand and showed off my wedding band. I really liked the simple ring. It showed off the most important part of our marriage: I just loved her. Simply. Dangerously. Perfectly. Not in a flashy way or to achieve a status. What I felt was a basic human ins
tinct to spend my life with this woman, my own sanity be damned.
She touched my ring with the tip of her index finger. “Your face,” she shook her head, blinking, “your reaction. You looked so relieved when I said yes.”
I had my work cut out for me if she was this blown away that I wanted to love her. “Did it eat you alive being apart this week? Did you miss me after you broke up with me?” I took her hand and put it over my pounding heart. “Did you feel like there was a black pit where your heart used to be? That’s how I felt.”
She blinked faster, fighting back tears. “Yes.”
“Then why is it so hard to believe I felt the same way? If you felt it, I felt it. That’s how this works.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Do you get it now?” Even though she nodded I knew it hadn’t sunk in, not if the dazed, unfocused expression on her face meant anything at all. “Carrie, have you ever been in love before?”
Her eyes snapped back, clear as ever. “No.”
“Do your parents love each other?” I felt like I was digging at the surface of a great big treasure. How had I not seen this before?
She cocked her head to the side a little. “They like each other just fine.”
But not love. Not passion. How suffocating it must be for someone with fire in her soul. I slid my hands down her arms. She shivered. “My pop and my mom, they were something else.” I was so young when she died but I remembered. The way they were together made an impression on me. That. I need that in my life. “Always kissing. Pop would sing and sneak up behind her in the kitchen. They’d dance and make out until dinner burned. When she got sick, she still kept trying to surprise Pop, and Pop fought for her until the very end.”
Fuck, I was getting all emotional again. I sniffed back the feelings and cleared my throat. “I have always wanted what my parents had. I realized pretty quickly that you brought a special kind of magic to my world, Carrie. It scared me but mostly I was just so fucking excited. You blindsided me when you ended things and I didn’t know what to do. The only thing scarier than falling so hard and fast for you, was losing you. So yeah, you saying yes to giving us a real shot . . . it’s the best thing I’ve heard all week.”
Keeping Carrie, convincing her that marriage wasn’t some big bad end to her individuality and fun, was my new mission in life. It required cunning, charm, and patience. All of which I suddenly found in spades. If I played my cards right—and I planned on playing them like a World Poker Tour superstar—she’d be every bit as addicted to the idea of forever as I was.
“I DON’T THINK I can settle for anything less than a year.”
She choked on her water. “A year? I’m pretty sure we’ll know in a month. Tops.”
It was my turn to choke. A month? Holy fuck she was insane. “A month is barely enough time to eat breakfast together. We don’t even live in the same city.”
“Well the most I can possibly commit to is six months and—”
“Done.” I slapped my hand on the counter. Six months was perfect. I thought I’d have to fight for three.
She jumped. “No. I was trying to say that—”
“No take backs. I’ll agree to six months and nothing less.” A look of total fear crossed her face as she turned white. Guess it was time for the careful moves. Didn’t want to spook her on day one. I moved around the counter and took her hand. “Babe. We need time. Real time. I’m on the road all the fucking time and you’re busy too. This isn’t some conventional marriage where the little wife stays home and the big man works nine-to-five providing. We’re Wes and Carrie. We’re fire and fun. We’re busy and we like it. I don’t want us to change and I don’t think you want us to change, so give me this. Give me time to show you how a marriage like ours works.”
Her eyes moved from our hands to my eyes and back again. “Fun?”
“Yeah. Fun.”
“Like, midnight dinners, dancing all night, sex in the bathtub, fun?”
“Did you think that would change just because we got married?”
“Well . . . ”
I moved around the counter before she could think any more. Fuck. Sometimes her brain was our biggest problem, but it was also one of the things that made her so damn hot, so it was a conundrum. “You made your rules, right? You left home and said fuck it to everyone and everything and you’ve been doing that ever since. Why would we be any different?” I took her face in my hands and brought her gaze to mine so she could see and feel it all. “We decide what this looks like. Whatever you think marriage is, throw it out the window. We’re starting over from scratch.”
She blinked a few times but I saw the tears. “Are you real, Wes Allen? Or did I dream you up?”
“I’m as real as they get.” And here I’d thought convincing Carrie to give me a shot would be hard. That I’d need tricks and neon signs to make her see.
“Six months,” she repeated.
That should have been my first clue I was getting too cocky. I should have known better than to assume life with Carrie would ever be smooth sailing. Nothing about us was ever smooth or easy.
I only wish I’d had the sense to realize that back then, before everything went to hell. Maybe I could have saved us both a lot of pain.
9
Carrie, six weeks earlier
Cover your shoulders.
Your skirt is too short.
Ask Jacob McKay over for dinner. He’d make a perfect husband.
I grinned as I folded my sleeveless, short dress into my bag beside my makeup, heels, and hairspray. Jacob McKay married Becky Lewis at eighteen. They had four kids and were the perfect, Seneca, South Carolina family.
Meanwhile I was the disgrace that left and never returned, much to my parents’ disappointment and, I’m sure, relief. I never asked Jacob McKay over for dinner, nor did I ever obey when my parents demanded I change my clothes. My rebel streak was already wide when my mountain biking accident changed my life, but from there I became something else. Something new.
I was tired of being told what to do and who to be. It was amazingly freeing to let all of that go and choose your own destiny.
Except when the past kept coming knocking.
My phone started ringing on the bed beside my overnight bag.
MOM
She always called me. I never called her. I sometimes thought my dad had forgotten how to use a phone. They didn’t do things like Skype or FaceTime. Heck, they could barely text. Email was out of the question.
I would feel a little worse about being the black sheep if her calls weren’t exclusively to tell me about how I’d disappointed her.
It took everything I had to answer the phone but I did it. Usually out of some ingrained muscle memory.
“Hey Mom.”
“Do you have a minute to talk or is this a bad time?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m getting ready for work. So now is a great time.” If I simply said I was getting ready for work she’d get flustered and end the call. In her mind phone calls were private affairs that should be given my full attention. I should sit and focus solely on her for the duration.
Something no one ever did.
“Are you sure? I can call later.”
“I’ll be working later,” I said. “Honestly, now is a great time to talk. I promise.”
“Well, if you’re sure.”
Sometimes I really wanted the ability to reach through the phone and strangle her. “I’m sure.” I zipped my bag shut and slipped on my street shoes. Working for the Mantas took up a lot of my time, but not all of it. I still worked with clients privately. Today was a big one for me and the future of my career.
“Well it’s nothing really. I just wanted to give you an update.”
That’s how all the calls started, but that wasn’t how they ended. “Shoot away. How’s Dad?” I steeled myself for the inevitable.
“Oh you know. The same. He never really changes.”
That was an understatement. He was a man of
habit. Even without having been home for more than two nights since I was seventeen I could walk into my parents home and fall right back into the rhythm. That’s how little he changed. And Mom went right along with it.
“And the farm?” My parents had twenty acres on which they raised cattle. Nothing big or flashy. No interest in expanding or changing. They were happy with what they had.
This was a huge part of our divide.
I always wanted more. I craved change. Stagnation, to me, equaled death.
“Oh nothing different there either. Your dad and the cows are happy as can be.”
So what was this magical update she was calling about? If nothing was different then . . . ?
“Samantha Jessup moved home.”
And there we had it. The big bad reason she’d called. Samantha, two years younger than me, had moved home. So now it was my turn. That was the way it was with the last ten locals who’d dared to move off, only to return to their roots many years later.
“Good for her. Was there a reason?”
I could practically hear my mother gritting her teeth. “Does there have to be a reason?”
Yes, Mother. There is usually a reason a person picks up and moves. “Just wondering if it was a job or—”
“She missed home, Carrie Anne. Some people like it here.”
Meaning not me. Which was, of course, accurate. I didn’t enjoy life in Seneca. The quiet, the expectations, the necessity to conform . . . it about killed me. Moving back would mean accepting that as my life.
So that was a big, fat no.
“Well good for her. I’m happy she figured out what she wanted. If it’s Seneca, then great.”
That got me a lot of silence.
“You dating anyone special?”
I thought of the last couple of weeks with Wes. He was fun—way more fun than I ever thought possible. It was ridiculously attractive on him. Plus he was kind of sweet and incredibly sexy. It was easy to be around him and even easier to let go and relax.
But we were definitely not anything close to serious.
