Playing for Kinley (Cruz Brothers Book 1)

by Melanie Munton

  “I do, too,” Dawson said.

  My head swung back and forth between them, a sense of betrayal turning my blood to ice. “How the hell can you two say that? I don’t have a problem with alcohol like him. And I’m damn sure never going to turn into an abusive bastard either.”

  Mason responded first. “Nobody’s saying that. But coming from a person who knows first-hand, I can tell you that if you don’t start dealing with all the shit in your head, it will drag you down. You’ll never turn into him—none of us will—but you’re going to look for other ways to purge your frustrations with life. I think baseball has always done that for you, but it might not always be the case. One day, it may not be enough anymore. And you can’t play baseball forever.”

  “It’s not like both of you are always so eager to open up. Yet you’re not getting the third degree here.”

  “Dude, I’ve been in rehab,” Mason replied. “Therapy was mandated as part of the program and I have to say it actually helped. Now I’m not saying you need therapy, but talking to anyone helps a lot more than you think. And I bet Kinley would like to be that person for you.”

  Dawson spoke up. “And it’s not like being married for nine years hasn’t forced me to change my ways. Mickie knows more than I would ever be willing to tell anyone else, and she’s never once pitied or judged me for any of it. Back before we got married, she did what it sounds like Kinley’s done. She flat out told me that she would dump my ass if I didn’t talk to her, tell her things and open up.”

  “And you did?” I asked.

  He nodded, an amused smile playing over his lips. “Oh, yeah. I wasn’t about to lose her over something stupid like that. I sat my ass down and told her everything I was able to tell her, which seemed to be enough because we got married a few months later.”

  Then, he went serious again and pinned me with his stern cop look. “I’m just saying that you can’t be with someone if half of you is always closed off to them. I looked at it from Mickie’s perspective. I would have hated it if I’d known she was keeping stuff from me, especially serious issues that affected her that much. If I’d known that I didn’t have all of her, didn’t know all of her, it would have driven me insane.”

  That was a good point. I thought about it and I knew that he was right. Anytime I did have a suspicion that Kinley was keeping something from me—even something stupid like that she’d eaten the last ice cream bar in the fridge and tried to hide it from me—I relentlessly pursued the topic until I found out what it was.

  It was the same thing with Clay when he’d finally told me about him and Gwen after months of keeping it a secret from everyone, even me. I had to admit that a part of me had been wounded when my best friend felt he couldn’t tell me something serious like that. I felt like I’d failed him in some way.

  Now, I was keeping something from him.

  A big something, like the fact that I was in love with his sister.

  Holy shit.

  What the hell am I doing?

  I was shutting out the most important people in my life. No wonder Kinley was pissed at me. I was now pissed at myself, wanted to kick my own ass. I crossed my arms over the table and buried my face in them.

  “Oh my God,” I murmured to the table. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

  I felt two slaps on my back, one from the right and one from the left. “You’re a Cruz, man,” Mason answered. “There’s always something wrong with us.”

  Well, now it was time to fix it.

  As soon as I walked out of this bar, I was going to go find Kinley.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Kinley

  Apparently at twenty-eight years old, I still needed my mother to make me feel better when a boy hurt my feelings. Because after a week of sulking in the Sierra-Nevadas on a shoot and weeks of sulking in my New York apartment, I wound up sulking in my childhood bedroom.

  My mom let it go on for about two days—not even enough time to gain a good five pounds from her chocolate sheet cake—before she cornered me and forced me to spill what had me sitting by the window every afternoon, waiting for the ice cream truck guy to swing by.

  You know, to rob him of every ounce of chocolate chip anything that he had.

  “Alright, that’s it,” she said in exasperation after I spent almost an entire day in their living room binge watching Wings, my dad’s favorite sitcom. For the first time in my life it actually didn’t make me laugh and feel better. “What happened? You never come home just to come home and especially not to come home and do nothing. What’s the deal?”

  I sighed and fingered the ends of my hair, which I’d surprisingly managed to wash today. “Nothing. I’m fine. Just tired from work and I thought staying here for a few days might be a nice change of pace.”

  “Don’t lie to your mother, Kinley Nicole Masterson,” she said firmly, her facial expression one that brooked no argument.

  And she threw out the middle name, which made it a done deal. You couldn’t argue with Mom when she went all mom on you like that.

  I groaned and fell back against the arm of the couch. “I was dating someone, Mom. And we sort of broke up a little while back.”

  So many times I wanted to call him, ask to meet so we could work things out. But I forced myself to maintain strong in my decision. If he couldn’t open up to me and trust me, what was the point in even having a relationship? That wasn’t how I operated. When I was with someone, we were equal partners. If I felt that one was giving more than the other, I ended things.

  But this was Parker and I didn’t want to give up on him.

  After all, I’d loved him since I was eight and that love had only strengthened over time, not diminished, despite how miserable I’d been over the last month.

  “It was Parker wasn’t it?” Mom asked.

  The shock of that question caused my body to jerk straight up off the couch, giving me whiplash that I was sure I would feel tomorrow. I spun around to look at her and saw her smiling knowingly at me, seeming proud that she had kept a huge secret like that for however long she’d known.

  “What? Why would you say that?”

  She lowered her chin at me as if to say please and waved me off. “Honey, I’m your mother and I’m woman. I see and hear more than you think, so don’t try pulling one over on me.”

  Because I was much too exhausted of keeping this to myself, I didn’t deny it. Instead, I was interested in what she thought of the situation. “How long have you known?”

  She chuckled to herself and came over to sit beside me on the couch. “Well, I knew for sure at last year’s Fourth of July, but I’ve suspected it ever since you were about nine. I knew you had a big crush on him back then, and then I saw it blossom into something more over the years. And after your behavior that weekend last year, I knew something more was going on between you two.”

  “You haven’t said anything to Dad about it, have you?” I quickly asked.

  She shook her head, smiling, and patted my hand comfortingly. “No, I haven’t told Dad. I figured if you two were keeping it a secret then you clearly didn’t want anyone else to know. I wasn’t really sure why, though.”

  I shrugged, not really understanding our reasons myself anymore. “We just didn’t want to involve the whole family if it was nothing. And I especially didn’t want it to affect his relationship with Clay or with you and Dad if things didn’t go well with us.”

  She nodded in understanding. “So, if you’re sitting around here, watching Netflix and badgering the ice cream guy, I’m assuming that things didn’t go well with you two?”

  I flinched, recalling how angry Parker was the last time I saw him. I hated when he looked at me like that. “Things were great for a while. We started talking again around Christmas and spending time together. He came to one of my shows in New York and then he went to a wedding with me in Boston. We sort of made it official when he was at spring training down in Florida and I went to see him.”

  I’d alre
ady told the whole story to Norah on the phone, but I was dying to tell it to fresh ears, someone who hadn’t been involved in the whole situation from the beginning. Plus, Mom and Dad had been married for thirty-four years. I was guessing she had some good advice about relationships.

  “Go on,” she encouraged me.

  “Then, things got amazing between us,” I said with a wistful smile. “I went to his games, we met up on the road whenever we were close enough and I could get a flight in. But as the summer went on, it got harder and harder to see each other. He was moving from one city to the next and I couldn’t always rearrange my schedule to see him.

  “Everything changed around the time of the All-Star game. You remember I was in Vermont and there was that bad weather so my flight was canceled?” She nodded. “Well, he got frustrated at that. I knew he understood and just really wanted me there, but he said some things that I didn’t like and couldn’t ignore.”

  “What things?”

  I hesitated, not knowing how my mom would react to hearing this. “He mentioned that if I moved in with him, then I wouldn’t have to work and we could see each other all the time.”

  My mother sighed, long and deep, as if she knew exactly where this was going. “And you told him that was never going to happen, right?”

  “Yeah, I did,” I said quietly. “Do you think that was wrong of me?”

  She shook her head. “Absolutely not. You stood up for yourself and you were honest. If I had to guess, I’d say he just said that in the heat of the moment because he was emotional. He knows how important your work is to you.”

  I nodded. “I know he does. But about a month ago, he started acting really weird, closing himself off from me. When I asked him what was going on, he said that his father was dying.”

  Mom gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, those poor boys. I mean, I know the man is horrible, but I’m sure this still isn’t easy for them or their mother.”

  “No, it’s not,” I responded. “He wasn’t handling it well and when I tried to get him to open up to me, he got defensive and angry. He started saying ridiculous things like he wasn’t good enough for me, didn’t deserve me, that he would never be what I needed. Then, he thought I said something that sounded like I was comparing him to his father, which I didn’t. He just misinterpreted what I said. Anyway, he completely shut down after that. I left and we haven’t talked since.”

  She sat there for a minute, taking everything in and processing it. I got impatient, needed to hear what she had to say. “What do you think I should do?”

  “You love him?” she asked without looking at me.

  I nodded, whispering, “Yes.”

  “Then, you have to give him time to come around. He’s probably dealing with a lot, and we all know that Parker has never been the best about expressing his feelings. It sounds like he just has to learn how to explain all of this to someone else for the first time. He’ll figure it out and he’ll come back.”

  She sounded so sure. “But what if he doesn’t, Mom? What if he decides it’s too much work and he just stays gone?”

  She turned her head to look at me, that soft smile of hers on her face, the one that soothed your nerves. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, honey. For many years, he’s looked at you the same way. He’ll come back. Let me tell you what I think about Parker and why he handles things the way he does.”

  She turned fully to me, bending one knee and resting it on the couch. She gathered her thoughts for a second and then began. “When Clay brought Parker home for the first time, it was so obvious that boy didn’t have enough love in his life, it was almost painful for me to look at him. He was this frail little boy who watched your dad with big, hero-worshipping eyes and he just broke my heart. It didn’t take long for me to recognize that he had gotten attached to our family after just a few months.”

  Tears threatened to come as the image of an unloved, battered younger Parker came to my mind. She continued, “I saw how he was around our family and when he had to go back to his. He and I would talk by ourselves some and you could tell he loved his older brothers, thought both of them could walk on water.” She laughed but it faded quickly. “But he was afraid of his father, longed for his mother, and just wanted someone to be there for him. Our family filled that void.

  “You could tell he needed those sleepovers at our place to get away from whatever home situation he was dealing with. He needed us at his baseball games, especially when his own parents never showed up. I’m telling you all of this because I think Parker just needs to know you’ll always be there for him, that you’ll always be around to support him and that you’ll never leave.”

  “I’ve tried to tell him that, so many times.”

  She nodded. “I know and it will eventually sink in with him. When you missed the All-Star game, even though deep down he knew it wasn’t your fault, he probably felt abandoned, maybe lost. We were all there, of course, but you’ve clearly become very important to him and he probably wanted you there the most. When you refused to give up your work for him, he most likely just took it completely the wrong way and it hurt him even more.”

  It made sense. “What am I supposed to do? He still hasn’t told me anything about what he’s going through, what he’s went through in the past. I don’t know how I can deal with it if he never does. If he chooses not to.”

  “I know it’s hard but just be patient,” she responded. “A man like him who’s kept all of this in for so many years will need time to adjust when it all comes pouring out of him.”

  I let that stew in my head as I tapped my fingers against the couch arm. I wasn’t good at being patient, but for Parker, I would be the Mother Teresa of patience if I had to be. The doorbell suddenly rang and Mom stood up to go answer it.

  Before she got to the door, she turned back around to smile and say, “And for the record, I approve of you two. I think you’re good for each other, and I think your father and brother will agree. I know you guys were worried about telling us and I understand why, but I think they’ll surprise you.”

  Warmth spread through my chest to hear those words from my mother. I watched her look through the peephole on the door and saw another smile creep over her face.

  She glanced over her shoulder at me with a glint in her eye. “Maybe he doesn’t need that much more time after all.”

  When she opened the door, I got the first glimpse of Parker I’d had in over a month. Except for his games that I’d watched on TV. As always, he looked amazing. His eyes went directly to me over on the couch.

  “Hey, Kin,” he said softly as my mom tiptoed out of the room, giving us some privacy.

  “Parker.”

  He pursed his lips nervously and then asked, “Can we talk?”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Kinley

  My hands started to tremble in my lap. In an attempt to hide them, I crossed my arms over my chest as I stood up to walk over to him.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

  His rich brown eyes penetrated my green ones. “I need to talk to you.”

  I swiped a quick look around the house even though Mom and I were the only two there at the moment. “This probably isn’t the best place.”

  He huffed in frustration. “I don’t care if anybody finds out, Kin. Let them all know. We should have told them a long time ago anyway.”

  He was right. We needed to resolve this before it got any worse, and I was hoping that he had come here to make it better. “Alright. Let’s go up to my room.”

  He followed me silently up the stairs and into my room, closing the door softly behind him. I went over and stood at my window, staring down at our front yard where the big magnolia tree that we used to climb on as kids stood. I heard my bed creak behind me and knew that he’d sat on it.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I messed up, Kin. You didn’t deserve the way I treated you that day at my place, or the weeks leading up to it. I’v
e been this way for so long now, I just panicked when you stood there asking me to change. Nobody’s actually asked that of me before.”

  I turned around to see him sitting with his elbows on his knees, head down, staring at the floor. “I didn’t mean change as a person, Parker. Just share your thoughts with me. I give you all of mine so I think I deserve to hear yours, too. Besides the fact that I want to hear them. I want to know what’s going on with you so I can help in any way that I can.”

  He nodded several times. “I know that. And you have every right to expect it of me. I just didn’t realize at the time how much help I really needed. I’m not used to relying on anyone for that.”

  “If it’s too hard for you, if you don’t think you can ever give me that, then there’s no reason to continue seeing each other,” I said, even as the words choked me up. “Because that’s a deal breaker for me. I need to feel involved in your life. I don’t want to be a bystander.”

  His head snapped up and his eyes were wide, almost fearful. “It’s not too hard for me. I thought it was but I know now that I can do it.” His eyes hardened with steely determination. “I’m not going to lose you over this, Kin. Over some weakness of mine.”

  My heart began to beat faster. “It’s not a weakness. It’s just new for you and I understand why you wouldn’t want to talk about it. I just want you to know—I hope you know—that I won’t look at you differently after you tell me. I never would. I love you the way you are now, not because of where you’ve come from. I respect the fact that you’ve made something of yourself, but I love you for so many other reasons.”

  I could see emotion swirling in his eyes and decided I should keep going before emotion gripped me, too, and I wouldn’t be able to get the rest out. “But I also need you to understand that I’m not going to quit my work. I can’t give up that part of my life because it’s a huge part of who I am.”

  He stood up like he wanted to come to me but held himself back. “I know and I should have never said that. I don’t even know what I was thinking.” He turned away and gripped the back of his neck with both hands, sighing deeply. “I was just upset that day and missing you like crazy. I started worrying that that was how our lives were always going to be, constantly on the road, only seeing each other for one night at a time, making hotel rooms our home.”