Make Me Yours (Top Shelf Romance Book 4)

by Devney Perry

  I’m on the second story, but I guess he had a good enough time with the guys tonight to forget how to count properly. I fight the smile tugging at the corner of my lips just like him being here tugs on the strings of my heart.

  “Guess what?” he asks, lowering his voice to a whisper like he has a secret.

  “What?”

  “I’m drunk as fuck.” His chuckle echoes up to me. “But I needed to come here. To see you. Do you know you live a long-ass way from me? Too far. Way too far. That’s why you need to give up your lease because it’s way too far to walk when you’re drunk. And I’m drunk. Wait, where was I?” He scratches his head with his good arm and looks like a little kid who just woke up from a hard sleep—hair’s a mess, clothes are rumpled, and a sheepish grin is on his lips. “Oh. Yeah. Explaining. I needed to come here to apologize. Apologize? Is that the right word? Yes. I believe it is.”

  I can’t help but laugh. He looks adorable, and I swear he’s actually smiling for the first time since he was injured in New York. “And so you decided to walk here. You could have called, you know?”

  “Nope. Not good enough.” He shakes his head a little too hard and then basically giggles when the world around him spins from the alcohol. “I wanted to try and be like one of your romance books, so I decided to come and stare at you up on your balcony.”

  “But I don’t have a balcony.” This is too much fun, he’s too much fun, to not give him a hard time.

  “Where is your imagination? Pretend, will you?”

  “Okay. What am I supposed to pretend other than I’m on a balcony right now?”

  “That I look like Fabio.” He flips his pretend long hair with his hand.

  “Eeeewwww.” I giggle.

  “You’re ruining the scene I’m setting here,” he scolds.

  “Yes. Sorry.” I try to keep a straight face, but it’s incredibly hard to do when he’s so endearing. “Continue. Please.”

  “As I was saying, I thought I should come across town, and say, Scout, I was a dick. A big and fat and hairy one. Not a manscaped one. The kind that’s so gross you get pubes in your teeth and can’t get them out.”

  Oh. My. God. I double over with laughter. Tears well in my eyes from laughing so hard and trying to take in what he just said. It’s a train wreck and hilarious and all I keep thinking is I hope my neighbors are not hearing any of this.

  When I stop laughing and can keep a straight face, he’s standing there with his hands on his hips and his eyebrows raised silently asking if I’m done yet.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh at you.” I snicker. “But how exactly do you know about a man’s pubes in your teeth?”

  “Oh. God. No.” And then his eyes grow wide as he realized how what he said sounded like. “I was just talking. Not from knowledge. That’s just . . . I’m doing something here. I’m apologizing, right?”

  He’s so damn adorable.

  “There’s only one problem with your apology, Hot Shot.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Romeo and Juliet both kill themselves in the end.”

  “Oh.” His face is a picture of shock, and regardless of how hard he tries to hold back his own laughter, the giggles hit him again. “I guess that shows you I can’t read for shit.”

  “We’ll just say that details aren’t your strong suit.”

  He shrugs. “Hey, Scout.” His voice is more serious now and pulls my attention.

  “Hey, Easton.”

  “I love you.”

  And there he goes stealing my heart again.

  “You’re forgiven.”

  “Good,” he says animatedly as he part-jogs, part-stumbles up the stairs to my front door. “Because when this alcohol burns off, my arm’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker, and I’m gonna need your nursing skills.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yep.” He looks back up to me. “Preferably the kind in a tight white uniform dress thingy with a zippered front and lots of cleavage. Oh, and garters. Garters turn me on.”

  I leave the window as he rambles and rush downstairs. When I open the door, he’s staring at me—three sheets to the wind—but he’s still the best thing I’ve seen all day.

  Scout

  “Just checking in to see how you’re doing?”

  “I’m fine, Scouty-girl. Just fine.”

  “Liar.”

  “Perhaps.” His chuckle is interrupted by a coughing fit. “How’s the program coming along?”

  I look to the charts and dry erase boards I have lining my office walls and smile. “Good.” I think. “I have Ramos traveling with the team so I can stay back and work with Dillinger and Wiseman.” And to be home just in case you need me.

  “The knee and the elbow.”

  “Yes.” I shake my head at our shorthand. “I want to be the one to nurse them out of surgery.”

  “And I’m sure you sending Ramos on the road trip had absolutely nothing to do with Easton still being in town.”

  I smile. Sigh. And then lie. “Not at all.”

  “I’ll start believing that about the same time you start believing I’m doing just fine.”

  Scout

  “Be sure to let us know when you need another break from East,” Tino calls from the locker room as I make my way out.

  “We had a great time.” JP snickers.

  “I don’t want to know,” I say, hands up in mock surrender. I’ve been in enough clubhouses not to be shocked by whatever it was they were talking about. Besides, ignorance is bliss.

  And yet as I push through the door, I can’t help the automatic smile remembering how that night ended. With Easton in bed with me for the first time in two weeks. Sure he was propped up on all kinds of pillows to alleviate any strain on his muscles and the healing tendons, but he was still in bed beside me, fingers linked with mine.

  “Privilege doesn’t guarantee you can handle the sport.” I hear Cal’s voice before I see him. And when I clear the corner, I’m startled to see Santiago opposite him. Both men startle back when they see me standing there, but there is no erasing the tension snapping in the air between them.

  “Everything okay?” I ask when I know damn well their conversation is none of my business.

  “Yes. Fine,” Cal says, taking a step toward me. “Just discussing a team matter.”

  “Oh.” My eyes flit from Cal to Santiago and then back to Cal, uncertain if I believe what he’s said. “Okay.”

  What the hell was that all about?

  The exchange is still on my mind as I head home but I’m probably making more of it than there really was. Maybe Cal was defending Easton. Maybe he was telling Santiago he’ll never be able to fill his son’s shoes. And maybe pigs can fly.

  I chuckle at the thought as I wait politely for sorority girl to exit the elevator, nodding to her in a brief hello, before getting on, turning my key in the panel to give me access to the penthouse.

  It’s not until I enter the condo that I realize how exhausted I am. When I find Easton reading some papers on the couch, I drop my purse on the counter and move toward him. He tosses his papers on the table the minute he sees me and smiles.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” He looks so damn inviting that I sit down and curl up next to him as best as I can without hurting his shoulder.

  “Watcha reading?” I ask.

  “It’s, uh . . . nothing. I’m just looking over some of the examples and new pamphlets for the upcoming projects for the Literacy Project.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I figure I might as well do something while I’m injured.”

  “That’s very honorable of you, Mr. Wylder. And very sexy.”

  He chuckles. “Sexy, huh?”

  “Incredibly.”

  “How sexy?”

  “Brownie points kind of sexy.”

  “I’ll have to keep that in mind and use it to my advantage in the future.” He chuckles and pulls me in tighter against him, and as the comfortable silence settles around us,
all I can think of is that he smells like home. It sounds strange but after traveling so much in my life, never having anything of permanence, it’s a welcome thought. “I talked to Finn today.”

  Proceed with caution. That’s my first thought considering the last few times he’s talked to Finn about the offer to be a guest commentator for a game on Fox Sports has ended in a fight.

  “You did?” I ask innocently enough.

  “Yeah.” He falls silent as he fidgets with a lock of my hair. “I still haven’t decided what to do. I kinda feel like it’ll look like I’m giving up. Public perception is always harsh . . . one minute they’re gossiping I took the gig because I’m washed-up and the next thing you know, the Wranglers believe it and let me go . . . And then I am washed-up.”

  “You’re being absurd,” I huff, knowing how fragile a man’s ego is, but also thinking these kid gloves need to come off so he can face reality. “People will think just the opposite. You’re not washed-up and never coming back. Instead they’ll think you’re smart for hooking a second gig while you’re recovering for next season.”

  “I think you’re underestimating how vicious the press can be.”

  “Who cares what the press thinks? You sure as hell never have, so why start now?”

  “It’s not that easy, Scout. You look at the world through these rose-colored glasses.”

  “And what of it? Maybe I like pink.” I shrug, not offended in the least of my positive outlook. “And it is easy. You’ve talked baseball your whole life. You go on camera, talk about the one thing you know inside and out. Give some color commentary and insight during the game and that’s it. I’ve watched you do it numerous times with the local Aces broadcaster, and you’re a natural.”

  “That’s not the only thing I know inside and out,” he chuckles, voice full of suggestion, as his hand finds the curve of my ass and squeezes.

  “True,” I murmur, those warm fluttery feelings returning with a vengeance because he definitely does know me inside and out. “But there will be no cameras or color commentary in our bedroom.”

  “You’re such a spoilsport,” he says playfully.

  “And you’re changing the subject.”

  “You noticed?”

  I roll my eyes. “You’re afraid it’s going to make you look like a has-been . . . how about you look at it from the glass half-full perspective? It’s visibility. It’s keeping your name relevant in the game when you can’t be on the field. Who knows? Maybe it will lead to something you can do off the field when baseball is over some day.”

  “After baseball is death.”

  “Stop being so dramatic. You know that’s not true. There will come a day when you can’t play anymore. Why not start trying to figure out a way to stay in the game, but not be the game?”

  He falls silent and I know I’ve piqued his interest. “Baseball is all I’ve ever known.” His anxiety is palpable and for the life of me, I don’t know how he can’t see what I’m trying to say to him.

  “That’s my whole point. If it’s what you know, then try to capitalize on it and plan for the future.”

  “It’s scary to think about then. About what happens when my arm gives out for good or my knees can’t take the abuse anymore. About when this game is over, you know?” His voice is raw with a vulnerability I never expected.

  “I know,” I say and press a kiss to the center of his chest before shifting so I can see his face. There are lines there, concern marring his handsome features that I wish I could take away. “Easton, there is no other sport on the planet where you play one hundred and eighty-six games in a season. None. That’s a lot of wear and tear on your body. At some point in the distant future, it won’t be worth it anymore. You have to realize there is life after baseball. The question is, whether you want that life to be free and clear so you’re not reminded of what you’re missing daily, or if you want to be a part of it somehow because it’ll always be in your blood.”

  I hate to see the tears glisten in his eyes. I hate knowing he’s this upset by the mere mention of when he can no longer play. Then again, he’s been living in this state for the past year with a cruel glimpse of his greatness between injuries . . . so maybe he knows all too well the hurt leaving the game will cause him. The void that will remain.

  “You think I can do it?” I hate that for a man always so confident in himself he sounds like a little boy right now.

  “I know you can.”

  Scout

  “He’s sleeping right now. Do you want me to wake him?”

  Yes.

  “No. It’s okay, Sally. How’s he doing?”

  I hate that she pauses when she answers. “He’s sleeping more and more each day. I hate it but at the same time know it’s the only time he really gets any real peace. The doctor said that’s pretty much what we can expect; the hours of sleep to increase more and more as his heart weakens and tires.”

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I take a deep breath to try and hold back the tears. I know the truth regardless of how hard I cling to hope. I don’t want him to die.

  “How are you doing, Sally? Are you sure you don’t need me to hire a nurse to give you a break? You do have a life of your own.”

  “I already told you I’m fine. Besides you know how stubborn he is. It’s a miracle he even lets me be here to help him,” she says.

  “I appreciate it. I really do. If there was a way to get this contract for him and take care of him, I would do it all myself.”

  “I love him too, Scout. You don’t need to thank me.”

  And there’s something about the way she says the words that makes the first tear slip over. It’s stupid to not think of them as a couple, but I find solace in knowing my dad was able to experience love again after devoting his whole life to loving Ford and me.

  “I’m glad he has you.” My voice is barely a whisper when I finally find the words to speak.

  “How about you? How are you doing? I know you must be under a lot of pressure to win that contract for your dad. Just know he loves you regardless.”

  I nod my head as I look to where Easton is shaving at the bathroom sink and know what she says is true, but I still wish I could hear it from my dad.

  “Can . . . can you just tell him I called? It’s nothing important. I just wanted to hear his voice.”

  “Tell you what. How about I go and put the phone in there with him? I know it sounds silly, but sometimes when I need to know he’s okay, I’ll go sit next to him and listen to his breathing. Maybe if you hear it too, it’ll put whatever is on your mind at ease for a bit.”

  She’s right. It does sound silly and yet I find myself saying, “Thank you. I’d like that.”

  “That’s what I thought. Just hang up whenever you feel better.”

  There is noise on the phone as she walks to him, some rustling as she lays the phone down.

  Then there is the sound of him breathing. It’s even and the rattle is a little louder than last time we talked, but it’s still there. I needed this. To know he’s still with me. To know his heart still beats.

  And just like when I was a little girl scared of the monsters under the bed, I snuggle deeper under the covers and listen to his breathing to soothe my fears away.

  I may not be snuggled up against him with his big hand holding mine like he did back then, but it still feels the same.

  Knowing he’s still there soothes me.

  He saves me yet again from the things I don’t want to face.

  Scout

  “Hey, Scout.”

  My back’s up immediately at the sound of his voice. “What can I do for you, Santiago?” I ask as I turn to face him, not one to ever leave my back to him for more than a beat.

  “I hear it’s a big night for that boyfriend of yours. He’s gonna try and make himself useful.”

  In my periphery I see some of the other guys stop what they’re doing at their lockers and turn our way.

  “So you need nothing, then?” I ask, face a
picture of innocence. I’m not giving the prick what he wants—to get under my skin.

  “I bet Daddy set this up for him. Don’t you? With all those connections of his, I bet he set up his wonder-boy-son nice and pretty just to keep that precious Wylder name in the spotlight.”

  “You have a good night then.” I give him a sickeningly sweet smile as I turn on my heel and head toward my office. By the time I round my desk and sit down, Tino is standing in the doorway.

  “You okay?”

  “For the life of me, I don’t know how you handle sharing the same uniform with him every night, let alone the same damn field,” I say.

  “It’s a job.” He shrugs. “There will always be coworkers you hate and you just have to deal. There’s nothing else you can do.”

  “Talk about team morale. Go Aces!” With sarcasm lacing my tone, I pump my fist in mock support

  “Believe me, most of us feel the same way. Our only hope is that Boseman ousts Tillman and then pushes Santiago out after him.”

  “Fingers crossed he does because it sure as hell would make my job that much easier.”

  He looks over his shoulder when one of the guys laughs out loud before looking back to me. “How’s he doing?” he asks, voice lowered.

  “He won’t admit it, but I think he’s nervous.”

  “Why? He’s done it a hundred times before with the local channel here.”

  “I know.” I think back to the murmured words of encouragement I gave him when he kissed me goodbye on the way to his flight this morning. “But he is.”

  “A bunch of us are heading down to Slugger’s to watch the broadcast and drink a few in silent support for him before we fly out tonight. You’re welcome to come if you want.”

  My smile is automatic. “Thanks, but I’ve got some work to do here and then I’ll probably catch it at home.”