Instead of feeling the vibration of the bat making contact with the ball, I hear a loud popping and feel an explosion of pain in my right knee. It’s a kind of pain I’ve never felt before. Which is saying something, I’ve played injured more often than I care to admit. I fall to the ground, holding my knee as the bat drops, and the crowd silences.
The trainer runs out, making me release my leg. “Let me see, Slater, let me get a good look at it.”
I’m rolled to my back, as I feel them manipulating my limb, I open my eyes wide, looking up at the cloudless sky. I’m gulping deep breathes of air, trying to calm the pounding of my heart, the pain radiating through my entire body. The day has been picture-perfect, until this moment and when I hear the trainer’s words.
“Slater, I think you have a torn ACL, we’re going to transport you to the hospital to get your checked out.”
Just like that, the picture-perfect day, and my second MVP season in a row, is over.
CHAPTER ONE
Malone
May
Rolling over in my childhood bed, I reach over, grabbing my phone off the nightstand. Three months ago I was one of the most sought-after entertainment journalists in the world. My phone was never quiet, I always had at least thirty messages at a time.
Until the great fuck over.
I call it the great fuck over, because there was a concentrated plan by three people at the company I worked for, who’d conspired to get me fired. Spoiler alert – they succeeded.
Judging by the empty cell phone I have, I’m not sure I’ll ever have a job again, at least one in the field I love so much.
“Malone! Time to get up!” My Mom yells from the kitchen.
Oh yeah, did I mention I’ve had to move back home? As in with my parents. Back to Willow’s Gap, Georgia. A small town that holds too many memories? The last few months have been hard, but the last two days? They’ve been the absolute worst. Every turn of this town reminds me of something I’d rather forget.
“I’m up, I’ll be down in a few,” I yell back to her.
She’s trying to keep me from being depressed, by making sure I get up and do something every day. While I understand her intentions, I would really appreciate a few days to lick my wounds. I’m mourning the loss of life I know it. All the cool stuff I got to do, when I lived in Los Angeles.
Now I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do any of that stuff again.
* * *
“You’ve gotta get out there,” Mom is saying as I sit at the kitchen table, eating a piece of toast with her homemade strawberry jelly on it. “At least get some applications in. With the summer season coming up, people will be hiring, and beggars can’t be choosers,” she reminds with the raise of an eyebrow.
She’s saying it without really saying it. I have bills to pay, and if I don’t get off my ass, I’ll be stuck not only living with my parents but having my car repo’d and my credit completely trashed.
“I’m going to,” I sigh, taking a drink of my coffee. “Today I’m going to.”
“Del’s is hiring,” she hands me a piece of bacon.
I most definitely won’t be working at Del’s Diner. Too many memories. From the greatest to the worst ever. “I’ll look into it,” I tell her, just to pacify this situation. “I’m gonna head downtown and see what’s going on.”
“I love you, Malone. I just want you to not let this break you. Not like last time.”
And here we go. “Mom, I lost the love of my life last time I broke. This is a job. Not the person I was going to spend the rest of my days with.” Somehow, it still hurts talking about it. Even though I was a teenager the last time I left small-town Georgia.
“He’s back in town, ya know?”
“I’d have to be living under a rock to not know that,” I take a snapping bite of the bacon. It had been national news when Slater tore his ACL, and for a few weeks, no one had left him alone. Even though I’ve tended to be able to ignore stories about him since we broke up, this one I’d read. A part of me wonders who’s taking care of him. Probably some chick with fake tits and lip fillers.
“He’s at his momma’s,” she continues. “Going to physical therapy when he has to, the family is driving him around.”
“Good to know he’s still got them,” I take a drink of my coffee, staring off into space. “His girlfriend probably stayed behind in Birmingham.”
She snorts. “Malone girl, you got a lot to learn. For most of your life you’ve made a lot of assumptions, and I think having to come home and face the truth, is gonna be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
I have nothing else to say, so I set my cup down. “Guess I should get moving on finding a job. See ya later, Mom,” I lean down, kissing her on the cheek. “Be back later.”
As I step out onto the front porch, I take a deep breath, and hope that not everyone in this town has the same opinion of me she does.
Savage
“Want your usual?” Stephanie, the morning waitress at Del’s asks as I have a seat in the booth I’ve proclaimed as my own. She and my Mom are friends, they went to school together, and while my parents were married. Stephanie started a job here, that she’s never quite given up. The people of this town though, we love her to death.
“Hell yes, I’m starving,” I rub my stomach with the palm of my hand.
“You’re always starving,” she gives me a grin.
“Because I always come in here after going to physical therapy. They work me hard,” I remind her.
Sinking into the booth, I put my leg up, sighing as it’s finally allowed time to rest. The PT I’m going through is hard, but it’s what I’ll have to do if I want to be able to play professional baseball again.
“You want me to double your order?”
“Why not?” I shrug. It’s an omelet and I’m definitely losing more calories than I’m putting back in. I’ve lost ten pounds since the injury, and I can’t afford to lose much more. “Add some bacon and sausage to it.”
“Will do,” she sets a coffee and a water in front of me.
Glancing around the room, I nod at the group of older men sitting at a table not too far away from me, before I grab my phone and start checking emails. Even though my season is done, for the most part, I still have appearances I’m hoping to be able to make in a few months, endorsement deals, and paid sponsorships that have to be posted on social media. My agent has promised to keep me in the forefront of fans minds, and I know he will.
Logging onto Instagram, I see that I’ve been tagged in a multitude of get well posts. It’s happened every day since I went down in spring training. Most everyone told me I needed to rehab in Birmingham with team doctors, surrounded by my teammates, but the truth is I needed a break. I know myself and being with the team, while not being able to play, would have driven me insane.
“Here ya go,” Stephanie pushes a plate of food in front of me, along with a bottle of hot sauce.
“You know what I like,” I give her a smile before I liberally dose the omelet, and move to take a bite.
“She’s back, ya know?” Stephanie says right as the fork is situated at my mouth.
“Who’s back?”
“Your girl. She rolled into a town a few days ago.”
I force myself to put the bite of food into my mouth and chew, before taking a drink of my coffee. “Don’t have a girl.”
Stephanie laughs. “Sure ya do, and look alive, she’s walking in right now.”
Over my egg white omelet and the cup of coffee I’m holding in my hand, I see the girl, now woman, who broke my heart all those years ago.
Malone Fulcher. No one’s come close, lived up to, or taken her place in my heart since that summer night we both drove away from Williow’s Gap and never looked back. As our eyes meet, a film strip of memories replays in my head, and I wonder if this small town is big enough for the both of us.
Thank you so much for reading “Cruise”! If this was your first book of the Moonshine
Task Force, I encourage you to look the other’s up. “Renegade” is a personal favorite, but this one holds a really special place in my heart! I’m sure Caleb’s book will as well!
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Also by Laramie:
Hurricane
CHAPTER ONE
Tatum
I jerk my head upright as the roar of a motorcycle breaks through the otherwise peaceful Bowling Green, Kentucky morning. The book on my phone’s reading app is forgotten as I put a hand to my chest and cut my gaze directly across from Cash’s Customs, the body shop specializing in foreign makes and models I work at. Walker’s Wheels, which specializes in domestic vehicles and motorcycles, is my dad’s shop, and the man leaving the parking lot is the one who pissed me off a year ago. In all honesty, he’s still pissing me off. I glare at his leather-jacket covered back as he rides down the street. Pissed off because he ruined my concentration, I try not to think about how the guttural sound of the engine mimics the way he moaned when he came. Remembering our interlude in the garage of the Heaven Hill Clubhouse does nothing but make me angry – angry that things aren’t different than they are right now.
“It’s been a year Tatum, you ever gonna talk to him again?”
My eyes roll by themselves as I shift my weight to one hip. Leaning back against the counter with my other, I shoot a glare at my boss. Cash Montgomery has been fair to me, but this question? Makes me purse my lips and roll my eyes heavenward, letting out a huge sigh to go along with it.
“You think I should just because he’s your brother?”
He shakes his head, running a hand over his scruffy jaw. “I’m just a guy who knows that guys screw up, and I’m wondering if maybe you aren’t overreacting.”
“Overreacting?” I spit the word out like it’s on fire. “You have no idea what went down with us last January. Boss, friend, and his brother, or not, you should probably shut the fuck up.”
It was still embarrassing, the way we’d treated each other. I almost wish he’d left me on the side of the road. For weeks after, I’d cried, trying to figure out where the fuck we’d messed up. How had we gone from this crazy attraction that suffocated a room when we were in it together to me having sex with another guy? I know that part was my fault, and I feel guilty. I wish I could take it back. That part of my personality is a bitch – ya know the one where I have to hurt anyone who hurts me worse? Truthfully, I think I learned my lesson this time.
The words Remy spoke to me still ring in my ears. Are you proud of yourself? Even today, they cause goosebumps on my arms, and I rub my hands up and down the flesh to warm it. I hate the way we left things; I would change it if I could. But I can’t be hurt again by him, and I don’t think I can stand to hurt him, either. No matter how much I’ve had to harden my heart to him, I know it’s the right thing to do. We can’t seem to be mature around each other – we get stupid. Not speaking to him is my way to keep my head about me. I know the minute I give in, it’ll be like it always was with us. He’ll give me that sexy smirk he doesn’t give anyone else, be his quiet, brooding self, and I’ll be doe-eyed again, wanting to know all the secrets he keeps. Nobody knows how difficult this has been for me. We were good friends. I want to talk to him, I want his opinion on things, and I sure as fuck don’t want to have to avoid him at every club get together. We were building something, even if others didn’t know it, even if I was the only one willing to put my heart out there. Remington Sawyer has always been a loner – quiet, closed off, and happy to spend time on his own. I wanted to change that, be the person he could be his true self with, but we never got the chance.
“I’m gonna take lunch if that’s okay with you.”
Cash gives me a grin, and for a moment I’m reminded hardcore of Remy. In looks, they don’t favor each other, having different fathers. In mannerisms and smiles, they could be twins. “You’re gonna do it whether I say it’s okay or not, girl. Go ahead, I need to run by the bakery and pick up something from Harper anyway. Just stick a note on the door saying when we’ll be back.”
“Will do, see you in about an hour.”
I watch as he leaves, then stick a note on the door, giving the lock a turn. When I hear the click, I go to the back of the building and let myself out. Quickly I arm the alarm for the garage and get to my car, cranking up the heat and checking out the gray sky. The clouds are low today, a low-ceiling I’ve heard it called. Later on in the day, they’re calling for rain, and given how cold it is, it might turn into something more.
It’s reminiscent of the day last year when Remy and I stopped speaking to one another. I have no desire to relive that day, and stupid me never realized it’d be such a turning point in my life.
Remington Sawyer. I shake my head as I think of the teenager I met when I wasn’t even a teenager myself and the man he’s become. Even now, I get chills when I think about him. He’s an addiction I can’t quite kick, one I’m not sure I want to. As much as I want to feel his hand in mine, get more kisses, and generally have him around, the stubborn part of my personality won’t allow it. Especially not when he’s the one who created the issue by telling me I’m too young for him, thinking I don’t know my own mind.
What a fucking joke. I’ve known my own mind since I was old enough to know what love and sex are. My parents, Liam and Denise Walker, aren’t shy when it comes to showing how much they care for each other. I’ve grown up with a very healthy respect for marriage and sexuality, and I’ve wanted that with Remy since I realized the thumping of my heart when he’s around meant I like him in a way that’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
I threw myself at him. Let him take the first orgasm I’d never given to myself at a club party, and then given him the same pleasure before he pushed me away. Talking some shit about him being too old for me and he respected me too much to take my virginity.
“Oh, my virginity.” I curl my nose up as I make a left-hand turn at the end of Louisville Road heading for the strip of fast food restaurants, hoping that at least one of them didn’t have a line for lunch rush.
Thinking back to the night I gave my virginity to someone else, just to get rid of the obstacle, still causes a pain so deep it makes my chest hurt. Rubbing my hand against my breastbone, I wonder when that pain will go away. Because what happened that night set into motion this face-off between the two of us, and it looks like neither one is willing to give in anytime soon.
And that sucks, because before all of this happened, he’d been one of my best friends, and fuck if I don’t miss him. But I have enough friends. Tatum Walker wants a love like her parents, like my brother and sister have with their significant others, like every other member of the Heaven Hill MC has, and I’m not going to settle until I get it. Never again will I settle. Settling hurts, and I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.
Remy
“It’s co
ld out here today,” I comment as I enter my sister-in-law’s bakery in the Bowling Green downtown district. It’s quiet this time of day; most people want sweets in the morning, not so much after lunch, so I have the place to myself.
“You here, Harper?” I yell out, when I don’t see her manning the front counter.
“I’m here.” She laughs, coming from behind the wall that separates the front area from the private area. She’s fixing her hair, and I have to wonder what I’ve interrupted when my brother comes out from behind her, wiping his mouth of her lipstick.
“Shit, y’all. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay.” Cash gives me a shit-eating grin. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
They look at one another, giggling again, and I feel the kick in my chest. That damn loneliness. God, I want what they have so badly. The fact that my brother has been able to find it after the childhood we had gives me so much fucking hope. My problem is that the woman I want it with still won’t talk to me. Three hundred and sixty-six days now, to be exact, since Tatum Walker has looked at, let alone spoken, to me.
Oh sure, she’s said things when we’re in a group together, but it’s never directed at me. Never pertaining to anything I talk about or ask. It’s as if I’m an invisible entity to her, and I wonder what I’ll have to do to get her to see me again. Being invisible to her hurts, taking me back to my childhood when I was invisible to everyone except Cash and Harper. They were the only two people who truly cared about me.
Both of them come out from behind the counter, having a seat at the table nearest me. Taking the hint, I sit down too, waiting for them to speak.
“What brings you by here?”
“Harper, do I have to have a reason to come visit my sister-in-law?”
Cruise Page 21
