by Hazel Grace
“Aren’t you going to tell me what Coach wanted?”
“Why the fuck would I—no.” I fold my arms along my chest. “Was that your question?” Skylar raises her chin, smoothing down her dress that was cut too low to be around the teenage boys on my team.
She perks a brow. “Dinner tomorrow night?”
“Fuck no.” Her eyes widen and she points a finger at me.
“I can bring you dinner. Where do you live?”
My brows descend. “Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
“Then you can come to mine, my real place.” she offers. “I have a small apartment on…”
I can’t help it, I chuckle. A sudden, uncontrollable chuckle that turns into a full-blown laugh.
When I was in California, girls just eye fucked and waited for you to approach them. In Freemont, Oklahoma, the girls hound-dogged you into submission to love and put a ring on their finger. The concept of “no” meant to try harder.
Skylar wrinkles her pointy nose. “What’s funny?”
“You, Skylar. You’re funny.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.” I shake my head in disbelief. “I honestly don’t know where the mix-up is, I was upfront from the start. Seriously, I think my exact words were ‘I just want to fuck you and nothing else.’ Now, after your little family dinner stunt, I really don’t want to be associated with you and whatever plans you had or have mauling around in your little head.” I hold up a palm. “And before you ask me why, because we both know that’s on the tip of your tongue, it’s because of your sister.” She freezes with startled eyes, coloring my intrigue.
So, sweet little cunning Sawyer hasn’t told her about us yet.
“I went to school with her,” I continue. “I pursued her then she fucked me over. So, the idea of being with you, makes me seriously want to bolt from this town like a bat out of hell. So—” I step closer to her “—the only thing I want you to do, is fucking get away from me. Don’t text me, don’t come to my field, don’t think about me, and don’t show up in my line of sight again. Or so help me I’ll not only make your life a living hell but no man in this town will lay eyes on you when I tell them that you have a hidden love child that you’re trying to pin on me to get child support.” I shrug. “Or we can just say that you’re a needy, self-centered bitch who likes to bring her one night stands to meet her daddy, you chose.”
I turn on my heels just to slightly catch Skylar's jaw drop to her pink flip flops.
Have fun explaining that one, Sawyer.
Ten years ago
“I could get used to this,” Gavin says, folding his hands behind his head and leaning back against the chain-linked fence. “Now, if only we had a hose to get their shirts wet.” My lips twitch in a half smile.
Stupid ass.
Tits, ass, blowjobs, and titty fucking are the only things Gavin has on his mind twenty-four seven. Even when we’re on the baseball field busting our asses on the verge of death from the six miles we had to run today, he still wants a pussy in his mouth and a handful of tits in his hands.
Gazing out at the field, Coach Gordon, the girls’ softball coach, has literally taken over the whole damn thing, asking us to sit in the dugout so that her girls could hit a few balls. Meanwhile, our coach, Anderson, has been chewing on a toothpick and tapping his foot on the dirt the entire time, clearly annoyed. Normally, we split it up and take turns, but the girls have their Alpena game coming up, and Gordon always gets agitated.
Happens every year like clockwork.
It wasn’t that the softball team was bad, they weren’t. Shit, a quarter of them could hit farther and harder than some of the guys on my team. But Gavin and I, we don’t have time to sit around and relax when a scholarship with forever-out-of-Freemont is on the line.
“Twenty minutes, Coach,” Anderson bellows to Coach Gordon.
She rolls her eyes in response and blows her whistle to get the girls to line up. She’s a short woman with a lot of spunk and discipline, wearing her shirts tucked in while dreaming about a decade ago when her team won the state championship.
“We’re going to get all tight from sitting here,” Ben complains, leaning over to stretch his legs. “This shit is stupid.”
“Sit back and enjoy the show,” Gavin alludes, crossing his ankles. “Look, they’re running across the field, I bet you can’t name which ones aren’t wearing sports bras.”
“Not interested,” Ben retorts, pulling his arm across his chest and wrapping his hand around it to stretch it. “I’m dating someone.”
My eyes jerk to him as I pull my back of cigarettes out of my baseball bag. “Since when?”
“Weren’t you fucking those blonde twins two weekends ago?” Gavin inquires, leaning forward in interest.
Ben eyes us. “That was before...”
I raise a brow. “Before...what?” Ben was what we called a fractional man whore.
He went off in spurts, fucked a few different girls, then would go stale for a few weeks. We thought he was gay for a little when he went cold turkey after Becky Jenason. That chick has tits of a porn star, real ones, with a body that would almost get me to go down to my knees.
Keyword here, almost.
Every guy in school wanted to talk to her, date her or screw her. She even had girls trying to convert her over.
“I’m dating Lauren,” Ben announces, causing Gavin and I to both furrow our brows.
“Who the fuck is that?” Gavin asks.
“Lauren Hirsch.”
Gavin almost chokes. “Library Lauren?” I let out a laugh that blows out the lit flame from my lighter. “Are you out of good pussy because I can —”
“Knock it off,” Ben bites out. “She’s a good girl and —”
“Exactly,” Gavin seizes. “She wouldn’t even know what to do with your johnson.”
“Since when do you care about Ben’s dick?” I blurt finally getting my cancer stick lit.
“I don’t,” Gavin scoffs. “I just don’t want him to be without. Lauren sits in the library for hours, doing God knows what. She’s always carrying around a damn book and shit. Fucking weird, dude.”
“Maybe she’s reading filthy crap that she can one day practice on me,” Ben points out. “Plus, I could teach her whatever I want.”
I shrug, good point, but Gavin continues to bitch some more about how he’ll get beginner blowjobs and, since I can only take so much of Gavin’s whiny ass, I put my focus back on the field, zoning him out.
Until I hear Coach Gordon call Sawyer’s name, and it narrows in on her.
I watch her jog out of the crowd of girls in baggy grey sweatpants that curve around her hips and a blue tee that knotted in the back, exposing her tan skin. She twirls her bat at her side, focusing on the pitcher and setting up her position over home plate. Her red hair is thrown up in a messy bun, strands sticking to the sweat off her skin.
She looks fucking good.
I inhale a hit of nicotine, my attention landing on her ass that sticks out slightly and I kinda miss staring at it. I’ve stopped staying after practice because I had more important shit to do than tutor Sawyer on how to swing a bat harder and the pinpoints of where to stand.
Couldn’t complain about the view still or the fact that fucking with her was fun.
Sawyer digs her cleats into the dirt, ready for the pitcher to throw the ball, and wiggles her hips a bit. The dugout suddenly got quiet and I notice I’m not the only one checking her out.
Fucking Josh, our shortstop, is practicing drooling on his shirt through the chain linked fence.
She raises her elbow up as I taught her, and I can’t help the smile that creeps up on my lips. So the little redhead does listen after all.
“Damn,” Gavin sighs. “I’ve been trying to break a piece off of that for weeks, but she has a boyfriend.”
“Who?” I mindlessly say, keeping my attention on the only thing worth looking at right now.
“Sawyer,” he confirms. “Le
ft some stupid ass guy in Michigan, long-distance relationship.” He releases a loud scoff. “Stupid as hell. I mean, fuck, we all know how that’s going to work out. But guess who’ll be there to pick up all the pieces?”
I never gave a shit before about who Gavin fucked. It helps pass the time here.
But the idea of him hunting Sawyer down makes me bothered and provoked at the possibility of him changing.
Changing our plan.
Our future.
The only thing that motivates me to keep moving forward and not end up working at the hardware store with six kids and a bitchy wife.
I know Sawyer’s type. I’ve fucked it, broke it, yelled at it, blew it off. I have it following me around school when girls will purposely stop by my locker just to “casually” talk to me.
And as much as I know it, there is something off with her. Something hidden behind her facade of sweet, cute, and innocent. I’ve seen it in her green eyes, the defiant way my words don’t affect her. Scare her. She doesn’t know what I’m capable of, she doesn’t want to.
I got the whole swim team snubbed of pussy my sophomore year because I fucked the captain’s alleged girlfriend, and he wouldn’t stop driving by my damn house with his lame attempt of intimidating me. So, to get him to stop, I paid off one of the guys in my Spanish class to put laxatives in their Gatorade cooler. Let’s just say them shitting their pants in the pool and all the way to the locker room spread like wildfire through the airwaves of school.
But Sawyer wasn’t diabolical. It was who she is that will taunted Gavin to give in to her soft, innocent words.
And I don’t need Gavin changing shit.
If she got her unmarked claws into him, she’d rupture his fantasies of forgetting his fucked-up dad and the way he’d bring his drunk buddies home. That he had no home, and his parents were screwed up.
He never had it easy. His dad did jail time for abuse, and his uncle, well, let’s say some of his buddies got a little on the too friendly side. His mom was a no-show for most of his life, bailing out on him at six-years-old. So, I stepped in like a brother, a living, breathing person who gave a shit.
I protected him. Told him we could have a better life and make something out of what we were good at, baseball. Gavin wasn’t book smart, so he never wanted to be a lawyer or a doctor, he loved baseball. And while he needed a dream, I needed a one-way ticket out of Freemont. Mom was currently on a cougar binge of guys that were just two years older than me. Ones that she spoiled, babied, and fucked loudly while I was at home. All while expecting me to cater to these assholes like they were going to be my new daddy.
Yeah, let’s imagine how that shit is not going to go.
“Just keep your brain ahead of your small dick,” I mention to Gavin, watching Sawyer not swing on an inside ball down home plate. “She’ll try to date you and complain about how you party too much.”
Gavin sneers. “Not happening.”
“I don’t know, man,” Ben chimes off a dreamy sigh. “There’s something about Lauren that makes me want to dirty her up and keep her around so none of you assholes can stick your dick in her.”
I crinkle my nose and stop my cigarette from going in between my lips. “I’m not into mediocre blowjobs, thanks.” Ben shrugs and sits on the bench next to me.
“Yeah, well, I can teach Lauren exactly how I like it, mold her to me.”
“Like your own personal sex slave,” Gavin beams, his eyes glistening with interest.
Ben shoots him an exasperated look while my focus lands back on Sawyer just as she hits a softball and sprints toward first base. Her teammates cheer her on as she rounds first, heading on to second, but she trips midway.
Laughter erupts in the dugout as Sawyer’s body collides with the hard ground, her head peering up at second base like it’s just within reach, but she totally missed it by several feet.
“Come on,” Coach Anderson bellows in irritation, hitting the chain-linked fence with his hand. “Get back out there.”
We all grab our mitts and bats, retaking the field while I make my way to the pitcher's mound, watching Sawyer dust herself off, which is pointless because her pants are caked in damp dirt and mud from the rain last night.
Our eyes meet, her cheeks immediately reddening in embarrassment, and I fight the snort that’s trying to leave my nose.
Did we have to teach her to run too?
“Nice job, Bases,” I rebuke, as she walks toward me to go back to the dugout. “Almost didn’t have it there.”
Her nostrils flare at my sarcasm, but she doesn’t respond right away, which leaves it open for so many more comments. As hard as it is, I refrain, she’ll get an earful from Gordon probably.
“Shut up, Hayes,” she mutters, passing me with her head tucked into her chest.
“I’ll have Gavin teach you how to run,” I offer behind her. “He likes a challenge.”
Her hand comes up from her side, and I think she’s going to give me the middle finger, but she doesn’t, to my utter disappointment. I’d love to see how mad she can get under her cool and naive exterior.
Too bad she’s just too much of a chicken shit to show it.
Present day
I hate my sister right now.
Harsh to say?
No, not really, because I’m standing on the front porch of Colson’s childhood home about to ring his damn doorbell.
Skylar and I went back and forth for thirty minutes after she stormed into Dad’s office, accusing me of screwing up their relationship.
Just thinking of that word in the same sentence as her and Colson makes me want to throw up my breakfast in the nearest trash bin.
It’s been hard enough trying to work in the first place without my sister’s sobs and snotty tissues that she tossed on my desk. She’d win an Academy Award with the amount of extra bullshit she spilled about how much she liked him and he could be the “one.”
I, on the other hand, forced myself not to cringe outwardly and scream at her that Colson Hayes is nothing but an emo dickhead who doesn’t commit to shit.
Except for the pretty blonde I found on Facebook two years back.
He didn’t have social media, I pathetically have looked over the years. Until I searched his name one day under a hashtag and—poof—a beautiful woman with piercing blue eyes and a breathtaking smile was cuddled up to my high school love.
Que in another gag reflex because Skylar has beautiful blonde hair too.
The woman with Colson was absolutely flawless, I couldn’t pick or find one blemish or defect about her. And after each picture, and my many months of internet stalking, the pictures suddenly stopped and disappeared.
So, I continued drowning myself in school, working part time at a restaurant as a waitress until Dad had his heart attack a few months back. And once one thing shifts in your life, it all comes tumbling like a Jenga tower.
God forbid Skylar steps up to the plate and helps. I had to put school on hold to manage his real estate brokerage because his doctor put him on limited work for a month. I mean, it’d be such a strain for Skylar to chide him about not drinking any beer while he’s supposed to be on a strict diet.
Mama doesn’t help either, he still buys him burgers and fries from Burger Joint and makes his favorite sweets.
Everything fell on me, it always did.
And here I am, saving my sister’s imaginary relationship with the man who used to be mine on the front porch of a very large house.
I blow a harsh breath out through my lips. I really need to grind the soft spot that I have for Skylar off my conscious and the simple fact that Mama still babies her.
If I don’t, she’s going to ask me to carry her children so she doesn’t have to gain the weight or go lingerie shopping for her and Colson’s possible anniversary.
Que in gag reflex number three.
Regardless, it’s still hard for me to believe that my sister and Colson actually have something. I’ve known this man for over a decade an
d he didn’t date.
He fucked, hard, mercilessly, and without trepidation except possibly for the blonde.
If that was the case, and Skylar and Colson ended up in a serious relationship, I was going to go live in a cave with no forwarding address. There is no way in hell that I’m going to deal with Colson Hayes at every birthday party, holiday, family get-together, and their possible children’s birthdays.
Fuck that.
Every inch of it.
Did I mention I hate her and my life right now?
I stare at the navy blue door of Colson’s house, realizing what’s about to happen.
I’m about to grovel.
I’m going to humiliate myself and never be able to live in this town if he stays here.
Inhaling a deep breath, I try to settle my body into a relaxed state, and hurriedly press the doorbell before I change my mind. I hear the chimes sound softly behind the door but hear no movement. I glance over at his car in the driveway and back at the door.
Maybe he’s on a run?
Biting my bottom lip, I ring it one more time, letting fate decide if I have to endure this or not.
Because I’m not doing it again.
I’ll change my number to avoid my sister if I have to. This was her one and only shot at me doing this.
I count to five then turn on my heel to leave when I hear the door open.
Fuck.
The air is ripped from my chest when I turn back around. Colson is standing in the doorway toweling off his wet hair and wearing a UCLA shirt that clings to his chest. Dark jeans hug his thighs and I want to vanish out of thin air.
I can’t suck in air. The man I used to adore expresses a look that goes from curiosity then right to glowering. Something I thought I’d be used to, but now, it’s so much more dark and dangerous.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He belts out, his brows puckered.
For a moment, I don’t remember, as I soak him in without my little sister clinging to his arm. The same arm I used to hang on when we were driving in his rusty pickup truck. The one that used to wrap possessively around me when we walked down the hallways at school.
