The Firsts Series Box Set

by M. J. Fields

  I went to church for the first time in Mississippi. It wasn’t awful. It was actually quite beautiful. It was forgiveness and love. I’m sure Tyson planned it that way. His love for Madelyn was evident, and so was his love for Jamie. It was real, but to me, it wasn’t without judgment of us. Doesn’t matter, though, not when we have each other.

  The Dominican Republic, fucking goals right there. Talk about living the life. The food, the drinks, the culture, the water, the sex on the beach. People who complain about getting sand in their ass cracks are fucking morons. I mean, there’s literally an ocean at your toes to rinse your balls off right there.

  I found it funny that horses scare the hell out of Jamie but snorkeling, swimming with dolphins and stingrays, and all sorts of shit you can’t look in the eye and tell what their next move is—that’s fucking scary—but not to her. Add to it that those fuckers can survive underwater, and you’re in the water; they clearly have the upper hand. Yet, she swam with them and, yes, I swam beside her.

  José brought a friend, Daisy. Oh, and friend my ass. They look at each other like Jamie and I did at first. Jamie and I were taking bets on how soon they’d be a couple.

  She got her hair done all in tiny braids and beads. It looked stunning, so fucking stunning.

  The best part, other than making love in paradise, was the bond between her and José. Nothing forced, uncomfortable, or off limits between them. She may trait after her mother, but her eyes and smile were his. I can’t believe I didn’t see it that first night I saw them together.

  Our summer was amazing. We hit the ranch again so I could check on my investment, the horses, and the ranch itself. We then went to New Jersey, where José had stayed on as assistant coach. It was awesome to see them training, even Trucker, I suppose. And when she asked me if the experience made me rethink my decision, I answered honestly.

  No.

  We went to a show across the river in New York City, Miss Saigon. Neither of us had ever been to a Broadway show, but as we sat there, I could picture her plain as day up on stage.

  “That’s gonna be you someday,” I whispered to her.

  Her eyes never left the stage as she whispered back, “In my dreams.”

  “I’m serious, Jamie. I see it.”

  She looked over at me, and in her eyes, I could see that she truly believed me.

  Two days later, on a day in early August, we drove back to where it all began, to get settled in before pre-season football began, and we did it together, her singing the whole way home.

  One year to the date that I met the girl who nearly knocked the wind out of me, only to breathe life back into my soul, we walk hand in hand to meet Cara for a hot chocolate after our last classes.

  When I tug her hand and pull her off the path, she says, “It’s this way.”

  “You sure?”

  “Big, marshmallow-looking thing is behind me, Addams Family house is right up there, so yes, I’m sure.”

  I turn, take her hips, and walk backward a few feet.

  “What are you doing?” she laughs.

  “Gonna kiss you.”

  I lean in, and she steps forward. I lift her, and set her down on the bench. Yes, the bench. Then I kneel and feel for the ring in my pocket, the one I saw her eyeing while in the Dominican. The handcrafted platinum ring was beautiful, but the stone wasn’t a real diamond. I had it replaced with a bigger, more beautiful real diamond at a local jewelry store.

  “I love you, Jamie.”

  She nods. “I love you.”

  “I know we’re young, I know we have a lot of things to get through, and our paths are sometimes going to lead in different directions, but never for a long enough time to forget who we are to each other. You’re my everything, Jamie.”

  She pouts her bottom lip and says, “Same.”

  When she looks at her phone, I can’t help laughing.

  “Cara will not like it if we’re late. She also—”

  “Flower.”

  She looks back at me, and I hold out the ring.

  “Marry me.”

  She gasps and looks around.

  I take her chin gently in my hand and bring her eyes back to mine. “Marry. Me.”

  “You’re not joking, are you?” she asks.

  “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t joke about this.”

  “I just totally screwed this up.” She shakes her head and looks down.

  I lift her chin. “The only way to screw this up is by having a panic attack, which we can get through, or by saying no, and we both know you—”

  “Yes.” She nods her head sharply.

  I smile. “You sure? I mean—”

  She grabs my cheeks. “Yes.”

  “Any doubt?”

  “I said, yes!” She laughs. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  I take her hand and push the ring on to her finger. The platinum band shines brightly in the afternoon sunlight against her dark, beautiful skin.

  “Is this—”

  “The ring you loved on the island, but a different stone.”

  “You are,”—she shakes her head—“amazing.”

  I lean in and kiss her, whispering, “We, Jamie. We are amazing together.”

  ~ The End ~

  Epilogue

  Mitch

  Walking out of the tunnel and onto a field, surrounded by a screaming crowd, had always given me the biggest rush. It was always the one thing that I could count on to put my head in the game. It was, after all, those people sitting in the stands on aluminum benches that gave me a reason to put one hundred and ten percent into the game.

  Playing here at the Dome was magical, but calling those plays, it was fucking off the chain.

  Two years ago, I got a call from Coach Brown, asking me if I’d consider coming back. I knew he was getting old, but sitting in the car, doubled parked, right off the corner of Broadway and 53rd near Shubert Alley, with a teething toddler in the back seat, finally asleep, waiting to pick Jamie up from her Wednesday matinee performances of the revival of My Fair Lady, I was pretty sure he had Alzheimer’s or something …

  “Coach, I haven’t played in a few years. I’m not sure how good I’d be. Plus, I think it may go against some rules or—”

  “No, you jackass, I need a man on the line.”

  “You asking me to be the pull chain?” I ask as Jamie opens the door and slides into the car.

  “I’m asking you, smart ass, to come be my assistant coach.”

  “Who is that?” she whispers.

  “Coach Brown,” I whisper back then kiss her quickly.

  “You there, Moore? Because I haven’t got all damn day. I’m offering you a job. You want it or not?”

  “I appreciate the offer and would like to discuss it with my wife first—”

  “He accepts,” Jamie answers for me.

  “That you, Jamie?”

  “Hi, Coach Brown.”

  “How’s your old man?”

  “He’s good. How are you?”

  “Grumpy, old, sick of this game, but don’t trust anyone to do my damn job.”

  She laughs, and I snap my fingers in her face to get her eyes back to me.

  She smirks. “Well, I think you picked the right man for the job.”

  I interrupt them, “I think—”

  “Not gonna be paying you to think. Need your eyes, your morale-boosting bullshit. Get here within a week.”

  He doesn’t say goodbye; just hangs up.

  “Jamie, you’re not giving up your dream so I can go—”

  “I miss the house. Our apartment is too small.”

  “Then we get a bigger one.”

  She smirks. “Too much money.”

  “We’ve got money in the savings ac—”

  “I’m well aware of that,” she quips.

  Can’t seem to let go of some old habits, like saving money “just in case.”

  A horn blows behind me.

  “Fuck,” I snap.

  “Fuck,” comes from beh
ind us, and we both whip around to look at our boy, Ren, who’s cheesing as he repeats, “Fuck.”

  “Truck,” Jamie tries to correct my fuck-up. “Tr-tr-tr-truck.”

  “T-t-t-fuck!”

  She looks at me as I pull onto the road. “See? We need to get out of the city.”

  “You have a contract. You love your job,” I say as I swerve in and out of traffic.

  “T-t-t-fuck!” Ren claps.

  I glance at Jamie as we both try not to laugh.

  “T-t-t-fuck!”

  “All right, little man, it’s truck.” I finally laugh.

  “Da-da, fuck.”

  “Good point, Ren.” Jamie giggles. “Which is another reason I’d like to get back to Syracuse.”

  “Come again?” I ask, slowing down for a light.

  When I stop, I look over at her.

  “I’m tired, you’re tired, and—”

  “We’ll be fine. He’s bound to cut those teeth soon.”

  “But when baby number two starts, it would be nice to have Carla around to—”

  “Okay, when we decide to have another, which I strongly suggest we do when he’s eighteen, we’ll—”

  She smiles as she sits back. Then she looks up and sighs.

  “Jamie?”

  “You meant eighteen months, right?”

  “I don’t know, do I?” I ask, as I carefully watch her reaction.

  “I’m late.”

  “Did you take a test?”

  She shakes her head. “Not without you.”

  “But you think it’s possible?”

  She laughs. “Oh, I know it’s possible.”

  I lean over and give her a kiss. “You sure about this. We can stay.”

  “I’m sure. Let’s go back home.”

  Coach Brown retired after he groomed me to fill his shoes. Today is my first game as SU’s head coach.

  I look up in the stands and see our friends, our family, surrounding my wife and my kids, Ren and Poppy, my everythings.

  She blows me a kiss, and I catch it, thanking God for her and for them, for finally blessing me with the greatest gift in life by putting her in it, an angel who healed the damned.

  Next In the Legacy world

  The Way We Fell

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  Flip the page to read chapter one

  The Way We Fell

  Ben

  On four hundred and seventy-two acres of prime farmland in Watkins Glenn, New York sits a four thousand square foot red barn converted into a luxury house.

  Amongst the photos displayed on the walls of my childhood home hangs a one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar piece of paper that promised my parents their only child would have a mind-blowing post-college degree life. A life that was purposely captured in photos so that, twenty-six years from now, I could sit back and look at the walls and dozens of photo albums of amazing experiences that my hard work provided myself and my own family.

  I would start at the beginning of baby pictures of me taking baths in the sink, my first steps—bare-assed of course—Christmases, birthdays, school pictures and events, which would have my future self asking, “Who the hell was that?”

  After getting through them, I would look at the picture of my mom and me canning meat from my first hunt, and vegetables from the huge garden that she and I planted and tended. My dad and me working on my dirt bike, and my ten-year-old self holding up my first trophy won due to my fearless twenty-mile ride through rugged, wooded terrain, navigating that same dirt bike Dad and I worked on through creeks, mud, rocks, and around and over logs for two hours, beating every other kid my age.

  Flipping the page, I would then see a picture of my first girlfriend and me, smiling as my mother snapped a polaroid of us before my first homecoming dance, the night I lost my virginity and took hers with it.

  The next few would be filled with family vacations, hunting trips, more dirt bike races and trophies, and parties at the pond with me and my buddies. I would reminisce as I looked at all the pictures and newspaper clippings of sectional wins, IAC championship games, MVP announcements, and state championships for all the sports teams I was on in high school.

  Flipping the page, I would then laugh to myself at pictures of school concerts where I played guitar or ukulele while the chorus butchered some song whose lyricist emotionally bled to write.

  Those pages would be followed by me and the many bands I played with, and the girl I sang with on stage, Tessa Ross—Abraham. The only girl I got stupid over and allowed my emotions to fuck with logic and distort lessons my folks had taught me about the heart.

  There would be pictures of my studies abroad, my first and only ex-fiancée, and finally, me in a cap and gown, holding a hundred and fifty-thousand-dollar piece of paper.

  My folks busted their asses so I could someday step into the dream that they had created for me. They wanted me to fill the house that took the first ten years of my life for them to finish with kids who would have their own redneck version of Disneyworld, and I say that with all the pride a country boy could have. It kicks ass. No place I’d rather call home.

  The problem is that it was their dream, not mine.

  I never asked for it. I didn’t want to be hunched over a grand oak desk, looking over a pile of bills, trying to make sense of how my life resulted in this after over twenty years of busting my ass to give my wife and kids the best life … my folks imagined for them and me.

  Fuck that.

  When I told them that I wanted to give my dream a chance, and then someday, maybe, settle down here, I didn’t expect to see my old man look at me like he was disappointed with me. But I did, and it was the very first time in my entire life. Was also the first time in my life that he told me my music career wasn’t a dream, it was a fairytale.

  My old man was one-half of the reason I had confidence enough to try anything I wanted to and succeed at nearly everything I put forth the effort to accomplish. I never expected the cold shoulder. Fucking hurt, too.

  Pretty sure he expected me to change my mind, but I didn’t.

  For two days, he didn’t talk to me and, for two days, I didn’t give a damn.

  Day three, he came to the barn, where he and I had set up a music studio my junior year in high school and told me he’d hold on to the place for two years after college graduation. If I succeeded, he’d talk to his brother about his boys taking over the farm. If I decided I wanted it, then it was still mine. But he’d been adamant that two years was all he would give me.

  That was a little over three years ago.

  Looking out over the crowd gathered at Whelan’s in Dublin, Ireland, guitar in hand, a smile on my face, filling in for my new buddies, the Murphey Brothers, bass player Aedan, wailing out a new song that I helped write is surreal.

  I always thought the best feeling on earth was playing in front of a sold-out crowd of half shitfaced locals, singing and dancing like nothing else mattered except the music the band covered until their first full-length album was complete.

  I was wrong.

  The greatest is when they start singing along to lyrics you penned.

  Surpassing greatness was last week, when the band’s latest Indie track released, flooding the airwaves, and they got signed.

  Tonight is the last night they would be playing without the label’s backing, and Aedan, who I’m filling in for, is missing it.

  A true win-win is I get to play a song that I wrote to a sold-out crowd, and he gets to hold his Irish Rose. His longtime girlfriend gave birth to their daughter, Rose, this morning. But shit will get even more real when the full-length album is released with the label, and my name, Ben Sawyer, is inside the flaps of that CD jacket, right after the word songwriter.

  I received twenty grand for the originals I wrote, and a twenty-G bonus for my work still to come for the album. When it takes off, I get a share of the royalties. And it will take off.

  Bought my dream bike, a Ducati; paid rent for th
e next year; and was gonna use the rest of the money to pay property taxes on the farm that Dad still won’t let go of, because he doesn’t believe this could be the life I want and doesn’t want me to regret it.

  Truth is that he can’t let go. Same reason my grandfather, who worked on farms all his life but never owned one, still shows up at five fifteen every morning to drive around the property.

  When I was younger, I asked him why he did it everyday when nothing changed, and he told me, “The land is alive and needs tending.” It’s what farmers do.

  Although it’s in my blood and part of my soul, I’m not a farmer.

  My folks don’t know about the money or about the fact that I succeeded at yet another dream. They will fight me paying the taxes, but I won’t back down.

  For the first time since that day, the one when I saw Dad’s disappointment, disappointment that still haunts me when I allow it, I feel like I can keep his dream and mine alive.

  I’m one hundred percent sure that they’ll get used to it, and I pray I can give them back at least part of what they have given me.

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  Thank you

  To Kris, thank you for all you do for my words. This one was a labor of love and I am so glad you stuck with me when the words wouldn’t stop.

  To Donna, thank you so much for always being here and working with my ‘crazy’ regardless of the hours it calls up me. See you in Scotland!!

  To Autumn, thank you for all you do. Thank you for loving this series. Thank you for talking me off the ledge.

  To Jules, THIS COVER…. So stunning. Thank you. Love you!!

  To Diane couldn’t ask for a better friend. Your heart is gold.

  To Keeana, A million hugs and love for all the feedback. Miss you boo. <3

  To the Blogs who share the love of my books, a million thank yous, for all you o for me. Sharing novels that touch your hearts is so very important, and not just to us author folks, but we readers need all the love, and so much more.