Fuck.
He let his gaze dart around the room as he rubbed his hands together. He took a moment to walk over and pick up the sketch Zia had drawn. Every emotion she’d felt that morning had leaked onto the paper. Love. Happiness.
Now he needed to get it back. Fix it.
He grabbed his keys off the counter, set the alarm on the condo, and raced out the front door.
Her damn mother was still folding herself into her beat-up, old, piece-of-junk car.
But Brett ignored her entirely and left her on the side of the road as he peeled away from the curb, racing toward the bus station.
Ten minutes later, he slammed his hands on the roof of his car, cussing the damn bus schedule that indicated she probably left before he got there.
He rubbed his temples. Think, Brett.
Suddenly he knew what he had to do. He yanked his phone out of his pocket to place the call as he slid behind the wheel.
Chapter Twenty-One
Zia was exhausted when she got back to Miami. Thank God she’d caught that bus at all. It was the last one out for the day. But now, she had no choice but to head back to Monica’s house.
She ran the risk of having to explain things to Monica and face her problems with Brett, but her car was there. Besides, if Zia didn’t show up at Monica’s, her new friend would track her down at her apartment. There was no place to hide this time. She needed to face her reality and move on.
Zia’s phone vibrated in her pocket for the hundredth time. The majority of the texts and missed calls were from Brett, but some were from Monica, which meant Brett had already informed his sister of Zia’s disappearance. They would both expect her to show up at Monica’s. Eventually.
Not yet.
Zia’s hands were shaking. She stepped into the coffee shop inside the bus station and ordered a latte and a muffin. She hated coffee. But it wasn’t nearly as bad with milk and sugar. She needed the caffeine in order to get through the evening. The muffin didn’t go down so easily.
Zia picked at it where she sat in the corner of the shop, eventually giving up and dropping it in the trash on the way out.
With a deep breath, she headed for the public bus. She could have gotten a taxi, but she wasn’t in a hurry to face Monica, so the bus would buy her some more time.
It turned out the damn thing stopped so many times it was over an hour before she got off at the closest location to Monica’s neighborhood and started walking. Fifteen minutes later, she took a deep breath and knocked on the front door. She had a key, and she usually used the kitchen door, but somehow it seemed too awkward to just walk into Monica’s home this evening.
Technically, she wasn’t meant to return until late tomorrow night.
Zia’s knock was weak, but the door was yanked open in seconds.
She gasped as she stepped inside.
Monica held the door, but Brett stood across the room, wringing his hands together.
More shocking—the blonde from the ballpark sat on Monica’s couch.
Monica wrapped her arms around Zia and pulled her stunned body in for a tight hug. “I’m so sorry, Zia. Honey.” She held Zia at arm’s length and reached to wipe a tear from her face.
Zia hadn’t even known the damn tear had escaped. She hadn’t cried once. Not today. Not yet. She’d stared out that bus window for two hours, letting the world slide by in a state of total numbness. Hard. Stunned. Unable to process or even feel.
“I can’t do this.” Zia twisted around and reached for the front door.
Brett bolted across the room in seconds. He slid in between Zia and the door and reached for her.
She flinched and jerked out of his reach.
He dropped his hand. “Zia…”
“Yeah. Poor Zia.” Her voice was limp. Like her body. And her mind.
Monica set a hand gently on Zia’s arm and spoke softly. “Please. Don’t say a word. Just come into the living room. Sit. Let me explain. It’s my turn this time. My fuck-up. Not Brett’s fault.”
“No. Actually, I’ll take the blame.” Those words came from the pixie on the couch.
Zia spun around to face her. “Who the hell are you? And why do you insist on hanging around my boyfriend?”
She knew she should shut the hell up, but words kept tumbling out. She was pissed as fuck with Brett. And he would be the one to pay, but this woman? What was her deal? She somehow managed to show up everywhere Zia was, including Monica’s home in Miami?
Zia’s hands shook as she stomped farther into the house. “Well?” She set her hands on her hips in an attempt to control her body. She was seconds from collapsing in a ball of pitiful tears.
Monica was at her side again.
Zia jerked away from her touch this time, not taking her gaze off the blonde’s.
The woman, at least, looked chagrinned. She too wiped a tear from her eyes. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“Yeah. It is.” Monica stepped between Zia and the blonde to break the standoff. “Leslie isn’t interested in Brett, honey. She’s my ex, not his.”
Zia flinched as if she’d been slapped. “What?”
Monica smiled. “Yeah. We broke up a year ago. But she’s stubborn.”
Zia’s gaze darted to Brett, who had managed to inch close enough to reach out and touch her without Zia realizing it.
“Or maybe I’m the stubborn one,” Monica continued. “I wouldn’t take her calls. I refused to let her reach me.”
The pieces fell into place. “So she thought she could get to you through Brett,” Zia murmured, her gaze on the man she’d run from. Again. She lifted a shaky hand to rub her temple. This couldn’t be happening.
“Yeah,” Monica said yet again. “Smart move too. But Brett was too loyal to me. He didn’t want me to get hurt, so he tried to keep his contact with Leslie even from you.”
“Because he knew I would then be burdened with the secret and have to keep it from you too.” She spoke as if Brett weren’t in the room, still staring right at him.
Brett swallowed again, but he didn’t move a muscle to reach for her. Nor did he try to explain. He let the story unravel through the women.
Zia reached for the closest armchair, slid around to the front, and slumped into it. She set her forehead against her hands, her elbows on her knees. The world spun out of control.
Leslie spoke in her gentle voice. “I’m so sorry. It never occurred to me that you’d think I was after Brett or that we might have had a relationship. I always assume it’s obvious, you know, that I’m only interested in women.
“I was desperate. And I made poor choices, especially approaching you that day. You didn’t deserve that. It was not one of my finer moments.”
Brett finally spoke. “You spoke to Zia?”
Leslie sighed. “I did. But she was impenetrable. She wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Jesus, Leslie. That’s low.”
Monica lowered herself to crouch in front of Zia. “Please. Don’t be mad at Brett. He should have told you, but he was stuck between protecting me and sharing something that seemed unimportant with his girlfriend.”
Zia sighed. “I’m an idiot.”
“You aren’t,” Brett insisted. “In your shoes, I would have assumed the same thing.”
“I saw you hugging her this afternoon…” Zia told her feet. “And I lost it. It was too much. I felt like a fool.” She lifted her gaze and twisted her neck to face him. “I’ve spent my life being lied to. You know this. Over and over. I won’t live that way. Ever. Not again. My mother—”
“Yeah, speaking of your mother…”
“What?” Zia sat up straighter. “No. God, no. She hasn’t tried to reach out to you too, has she? Because if you kept that from me…”
“I didn’t keep that from you. She inconveniently showed up at the condo this afternoon while I was frantically looking for you.”
Zia flushed a deep red that burned her cheeks. She did not want her mom interfering with her relatio
nships. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
The tension in the room was palpable.
Zia stood and ran her hands through her hair, nearly pulling it out. “I can’t believe that woman. It isn’t enough that she treated me like dog shit under her shoe for eighteen years, she has to wiggle her way into my life again now after all these years and try to destroy the only good thing that’s ever happened to me? I finally find a man who loves me for who I am and fall head over heels for him, and she has the audacity to stick her grubby paws into the fray, hoping to score some cash? Did she ask you for money?” Zia stomped around to the other side of the chair to more fully face Brett. “Please, for the love of God, tell me you didn’t give her a dime.”
Brett reached out and snagged her with both hands. He hauled her against his chest, flattened her face against his rock solid pecs, and buried his hand in her hair.
He even kissed the top of her head. “Shhh. Baby, I didn’t give her money. Yes, she asked for it in her own special crazy-woman way, but I sent her on her way and gave her nothing.
“It was tough. I gotta tell you. I was frantically worried about you and how I’d fucked up again when she pushed her way into my condo and spewed her weird brand of venom, but I could see right through her. She’ll probably come back, but we’ll handle it. Together.”
He cupped her face and lifted her head, angling it back until she had to meet his gaze dead on. “I love you. I’m an idiot sometimes, but you have to stop running. My heart can’t take it. You have to know I’ll never do something to jeopardize what we have. I certainly wouldn’t risk us over some damn chick hanging around the ballpark.”
“Hey now,” Leslie said, half laughing.
Zia ignored her and kept her attention focused on Brett. “I’m so sorry. I should have said something. I never should have let it fester and grow until she turned into an entire ex-girlfriend in my wild imagination. I just didn’t want to be the type of girlfriend who was all paranoid and jealous. I tried to contain my stress over this instead of talking to you about it. In the end, I was that kind of girlfriend anyway. You’ll forgive me? Again?”
“If you’ll forgive me again. Though, there’s nothing to forgive. Just a giant misunderstanding. I should have thought it through better. Should have learned you have legitimate triggers that I need to be more sensitive to. Now that I’ve met your poor excuse for a mother, it all makes more sense. You weren’t exaggerating when you described her.”
“Nope. I might have even sugarcoated it. Do not let her in your front door again. I’ll explode into tiny little pieces.”
“Done.” He closed the distance between their lips slowly, his eyes darting back and forth between hers.
She put him out of his misery by lifting up onto her tiptoes and claiming his lips before he beat her to it.
* * *
Brett exhaled fully for the first time in several hours. He didn’t want to let Zia out of his embrace, but he had another problem that needed to be mentioned sooner rather than later. “Baby, I have to play ball in the morning.”
She stiffened in his arms. “Shit.”
“Yeah. So I have to get back to Jupiter. Please tell me you’re coming with me. I don’t think I can leave without you.”
Monica cleared her throat. She stood closer to Brett than he’d realized. “Why don’t you pack some more things? Stay in Jupiter. I’ll be fine here.”
Brett had never heard a better plan.
But Zia was nothing if not loyal. “Monica, I promised I’d be here during the week. You work hard. You can’t do it alone.”
“She won’t be alone.” That came from Leslie.
Brett turned to face his sister’s ex-girlfriend. “Leslie…”
Monica spoke again. “It’s okay. I need to face things with Leslie. Work it out one way or another. Maybe we won’t be able to piece it back together the way it was before…” She left the rest of that sentence hanging. “But we’re adults. We need to start acting like adults and talk things out.”
“You want her to stay here with you? Now? After all this time? What about Emily?” Brett was seriously concerned about this plan.
Monica shrugged. “You know I’ll do my best by Emily. I’m a grown adult, Brett. I’ll work this out.”
Brett glanced at Leslie to find her rolling her eyes at him. “Seriously, I know I’ve made mistakes. But I never stopped loving your sister.”
Brett hesitated. There was no doubt Leslie was in love with Monica. The question was: Could she accept Monica’s decision to have a baby and love Emily like she deserved?
He didn’t envy the pile of shit the two of them had to wade through. When Monica had announced a year ago that she wanted to have a baby, Leslie hadn’t been on board. She wasn’t ready. Monica made the difficult decision to leave Leslie and proceed with her dream of motherhood. She had made a choice.
He felt badly for Leslie. But on the flip side, Monica had been in a different place in life, and she’d done everything in her power to convince Leslie to raise a child with her.
Months later, Leslie started calling Brett. She’d made a mistake. She wanted Monica back. She knew she could love the baby. Blah blah blah. But Brett wasn’t the one who needed convincing.
He eased Zia out of his tight embrace but didn’t stop touching her. If he lost contact with her skin, he feared this entire fragile reality would poof and disappear. “Come home with me. I’ll help you pack.” He would explain the weird situation between his sister and her lover on the way.
“Okay.”
He released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
There was a God.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Six weeks later…
Zia tapped her leg as she waited for Brett to get off the bus. How many times would she continue to meet him at the stadium like this? It was crazy. She knew that. Other wives and girlfriends didn’t wait for their significant others at the Miami stadium. Nobody had time for that. Or maybe they all had when their relationships had been new?
Zia smoothed her hands down the sides of her sundress. She still got goose bumps and sweaty palms waiting for him to return from out of town. And she still preferred to meet him.
He’d asked her to travel with him to some of the games, but it seemed ridiculous to fly all over the country with the man. He needed to concentrate. As it was, she knew he didn’t get enough sleep when he was in Miami. Even though she stayed at his ridiculously huge Miami home when he was in town, she knew he was burning the candle at both ends.
Finally, players emerged from the bus.
Zia smiled, lifting up on tiptoes to watch for Brett. If it embarrassed him that she always met him, he didn’t say a word. In fact, he seemed pleased.
There he was.
His face lit as he sped up to reach her. Then he was in her space, all six-foot-two of him. He released his small suitcase and hauled her into his embrace. His lips landed on hers for a long kiss, melting her into his chest.
When he finally pulled away an inch, she found him smiling broader. “Miss me?”
“Always.”
“Good. Let’s get home. I’m exhausted.”
That was her biggest fear. Screwing with his career because she was interfering in his life. “Brett…”
“Don’t say it.” He squeezed her to his side as they walked. “I would be tired with or without you in my life. It’s the nature of the baseball season. It happens. As long as I’m still playing, it’s going to happen. Don’t internalize it. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Well, surely some of the parts have something to do with me. At least the times when you’re home and tired…”
He laughed as they stepped toward the parking lot. “That’s an entirely different kind of tired. One that I don’t mind a bit.”
When they reached her car, she popped the trunk, and he settled his suitcase inside. “You need a new car.” He narrowed his gaze at her, scowling, as he hauled her in for another ki
ss. If he didn’t stop the lip-locking before they got home, she wouldn’t be able to drive. As it was, she was shaking from the intensity of being near him.
When their lips broke apart again, he lifted a brow. “Please let me get you something more reliable.”
She shook her head. “We aren’t having this argument again. Let it go. This car is fine.” He was correct. It wasn’t that reliable. She’d gotten it used several years ago for a thousand dollars. Over time, she was pretty sure she’d invested enough money into repairs that she could have purchased something else. But she’d never had a month when it seemed reasonable to take on the added expense. And she wasn’t about to allow Brett to buy her a car.
They’d only been together for a number of weeks. Not months. Not years. They weren’t engaged or married or even discussing the idea yet. So, no way in hell was she going to let him buy her a car, no matter how many times he argued the point.
“This car is not even remotely fine,” he stated, glancing toward her dark green two-door. “And I barely fit inside it. If you won’t let me buy you a car, at least use one of mine. I have two perfectly safe vehicles sitting in my garage while I have to spend my days worrying about your safety in this death trap.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s hardly that bad.”
“You’re right. It’s worse.” He slapped a hand on the trunk. “I’m afraid the doors are going to fall off someday, and you’ll be left stranded because you were too stubborn to use my SUV. I know you aren’t fond of the little silver thing, as you like to call it, but at least take the SUV.” He chuckled, leading her around to the passenger side.
“What are you doing?”
He reached out a hand. “Give me the keys. I want to see how she’s running.”
She blew out a breath and then handed him the keys to her ancient piece of shit. After he drove her, he would pitch an even bigger fit. The car wasn’t running that well lately. And Zia didn’t have the time or money to get her into the shop.
Catching Zia (Spring Training Book 1) Page 18
