Game, Chelsea Girl. She could hear her mother’s voice in her ear. It’s just a game.
“How many outs do we have?” she shouted to the honorary team captain in the dugout, wincing at how loud and wild the words came out.
Kent Flowers answered with surprising volume for someone still recovering from a double lung transplant. “One!”
“Thank you,” Chelsea responded more sweetly, taking her place at the plate. She sized up the pitcher and swung the bat until she found a comfortable stance. The first pitch lobbed in the air, but never fell across the strike zone.
Ball one.
If she could at least hit a double, her team could easily win this game. For the cystic fibrosis patients, of course. Her gaze landed on second base, but the freckled blond woman who’d been playing there was gone. Replaced by a man with dark blond hair and blue eyes almost glowing in the shadow of his hat.
No. It couldn’t be.
“Steeeee-rike one!” The umpire called behind her. She might as well have taken a fastball to the gut.
Surely it wasn’t.
The next pitch brought her back to the present as it soared over the plate with just the right rise and fall to—THWACK! The ball sailed over the right fielder’s head. She dug in as fast and probably unladylike as she could, even faster when she rounded first and saw the right fielder throw it in. Her running shoes connected with a nice, loose patch of dirt, and she went for it.
A cloud of red sprayed in the air, showering the only person standing in her way as planned.
Grit scraped beneath her leg, breaking the skin.
The ball of her foot connected with the base a fraction of a second before leather glove slapped against her shin.
Safe by a nose—or toe.
She lay flat on her back for a millisecond to catch her breath and opened her eyes to the second baseman’s crystal blue question. And then there was no doubt.
“Scotty.”
It was him. “Nick.”
The cheers of her teammates dimmed as he hoisted her up. She looked into the searing blue eyes she’d memorized over a childhood of summers spent together, his blond hair darkened by years and sweat. Even though more than a decade had passed, she’d have known him from anywhere because of the scar running along his right jaw. The scar she gave him.
“What are you—” she stammered. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
He nodded slowly, his tall frame narrowing toward her, studying her as if he were actually face to face with the Abominable Snowman he’d been hunting for years. His mouth opened, but the crack of a bat snapped Chelsea’s attention to home plate. Foul ball hit cleanly by her brother, Brandon.
“I didn’t think I’d be, either.” Nick lifted a shoulder. “But here I am.”
“Uh-huh.” She leaned forward like an Olympic trial sprinter in the blocks, zeroing in on third base. But her mind was very much beside her, heart galloping in her ribcage. Nick.
Even though it was his M.O. to show up in her life when she least expected it—even though she’d been absolutely wrecked the last time she saw him—Chelsea couldn’t believe he was here.
Nick.
The next ball slipped in the pitcher’s hand, lazily arcing over the strike zone. Brandon crushed it over the left field fence for a home run. Good. She was pretty sure Rhonda would have had a conniption fit if she sweated any more.
Chelsea rounded third and tapped home plate, positioning herself in the mass that had poured from the dugout to celebrate the team’s walk-off victory so she could get a better look at Nick. To put on her game face before they had their first conversation since the end of that summer twelve years ago.
His face as she remembered it, soft and eager, had been sculpted by time and testosterone. It was no longer innocent, but she’d watched the youth dim from his eyes the summer his parents got divorced. He’d always been taller than her, but now he’d grown out of his long, lanky limbs into a solid, muscular frame that told the story of a man who’d done some hard work.
A man who just caught her staring at him.
“Nice hit out there, Chels.” A hard clap on the back startled her. Brandon.
She pinched the skin on the back of her brother’s arm to turn him around. “Why didn’t you tell me Nick was coming?” she said through her teeth.
“Hey—Ow! I thought you knew.” Brandon jerked his head toward Kent, still surrounded by people behind the backstop. “His cousin is kind of the whole reason we’re here.”
“Why are we whispering?” Missy joined the conversation before Chelsea could respond. “Who are we talking about?”
Chelsea gasped as Missy’s eyes found Nick and widened.
“Hey, man.” Brandon greeted Nick with a handshake-hug, giving Chelsea the perfect opportunity to tuck rogue strands of hair behind her ear and run her tongue along her teeth. Who was she kidding? At this point, any primping would only put Chelsea a shade above Pigpen from Peanuts—if she was lucky.
“Hi.” She gave Nick a crisp wave when he turned to her. “Do you remember my sister-in-law, Missy? This is Nick, my, uh…” Long-ago confidante. First kiss. First heartbreak, for that matter. “Kent’s cousin. Brandon and I used to play ball with them when we were kids.”
Missy mercifully remained cool. “Yeah, I think I remember.” She reached for Brandon’s elbow.
Good. The tension in Chelsea’s shoulders relaxed. There was safety in numbers with Missy and Brandon in the conversation. When Nick was involved, Chelsea simply couldn’t trust herself to be logical or coherent.
“Hey, Brandon!” someone called from the crowd.
Brandon waved. “Babe, that’s the guy I was telling you about.” He reached for Missy’s hand, already walking away. “We’ll catch up with y’all later. You’re coming by the house, right?”
What? Of course she was coming to the potluck Brandon and Missy threw every week for their church’s small group.
Nick grinned. “I’ll be there.”
Great. Chelsea gave her a sister-in-law a tight smile as she left—Thanks. Thanks a lot for nothing—before turning to Nick. “So.”
“So…” His gaze landed on the event banner fastened to the backstop with the Chelsea Scott Paper logo emblazoned across it. “Looks like some things have changed. Your name on a banner? Headlining events?”
She loaded a comeback for what was surely next. The jokes and uncertainties and general disbelief that she, the perpetually late and disorganized Chelsea Scott, had a company named after her, much less one that sold planners. But the disbelief never came.
“That’s awesome, Scotty—Chelsea.” Nick winced. “It’s going to take me a while. You’ve always been Scotty to me.”
She traced circles in the dirt with her toe, her skin crawling as if it should belong to someone else. “Yeah, well. I’ve never really been a Chelsea, now have I?” She flexed her lower leg, the side of which was now covered in gnarly road rash. Chelseas were well-behaved and actual human women, not dripping blood into their shoes. That would look really wonderful in the dresses Rhonda had picked out for the convention.
“What convention?” Nick asked.
Oh no. How much of that did she say out loud? “The International Stationery Show. My team and I are leaving next week, and I’m pretty sure my sales director won’t think road rash goes very well with stilettos.”
Nick’s explosive laugh immediately took Chelsea to warm summer days, baking in the sun next to him on their abandoned dock. But this summer wouldn’t include leisurely baseball games or laughing with Nick until she couldn’t breathe. No, those days were long gone. This summer was about the International Stationery Show, an important meeting there that could lead to a life altering deal, and doing right by the team that had sacrificed many late nights and paper cuts for a business with her name on the door.
“Will I see you at Brandon’s thing?” He tilted his head to one side.
Jiminy. It wasn’t fair that, somehow, after all these y
ears, he was even better looking.
“Yeah. I guess I’d better go get this leg cleaned up.” And maybe her life, her inventory, and the future of her company while she was at it.
After an awkward goodbye, Chelsea checked in with her interns, who were all but finished tearing down the event.
Nick Pearson.
In Greencliff, Oklahoma.
Coming to her brother’s house for the one regular event in her life she most looked forward to, as if he were part of her everyday life again. No, she couldn’t afford to think of it like that. Not when she knew how badly it hurt when he was gone.
Not when her company had suffered enough because of her misjudgments about men.
Nick was supposed to be watching baseball with Brandon and some other guys he barely knew, but he kept finding excuses to go into the kitchen. Coke refill. More chips and queso. Another peek out the massive picture window with a full view of the front walkway.
She was thirty-five minutes late, and there was no convenient way to ask if she was still coming or if she’d decided not to because things were weird between them now.
He crushed an empty Coke can and tossed it in the Scotts’ recycle bin, leaning against the counter in the middle of a half-dozen conversations. He didn’t expect to fall into the usual easy rhythm with Chelsea. The ability to pick right up where they’d left off with the depth they’d shared was impossible after years of radio silence. Especially after the way they’d left things.
Maybe it would have been easier if they’d spent that summer like every other, but the first day he’d arrived at his aunt’s house as he had every June since his parents divorced, he ran into Chelsea at Henry Carroll’s convenience store right away. After a year, her hair was impossibly shiny, something about her seemed taller, and she smelled like summer and cherry Icees. He’d grabbed her hand and practically stolen her from the canned foods aisle, then they’d spent the next eight hours going from adventure to spontaneous adventure.
“I’ve never laughed this much in one day before, I don’t think,” Chelsea had told him when he dropped her off, long after small-town Greencliff had shut down for the night. He hadn’t either.
He’d slipped his hand in hers like he’d done so many times as a friend. But then he smoothed her incredibly soft hair out of her face and kissed her, awkward and imperfect and definitely not as a friend.
They spent the rest of the summer getting it just right.
Movement outside the window jolted Nick to the present. It was Chelsea, balancing a Crockpot on one hip and a huge bag in the other hand. If he’d thought one year had done wonders for her then, she was even more beautiful as a thirty-year-old woman.
He moved to the door to help her.
“Thanks,” she breathed, extending the Crockpot to his outstretched hands. He took it to the kitchen counter, doing a double take when he saw Li’l Smokies inside. So fitting that she’d bring a dish with literally two ingredients. His smile disappeared when he saw the concern etched into Chelsea’s forehead.
“Sorry I’m late,” she told Missy.
“Did you lose track of time arguing on the internet again?” Brandon snickered and scooped some Li’l Smokies onto a plate. “She likes to troll college football message boards.”
Chelsea leveled her brother with an indignant scowl. “I happen to have very strong opinions about the playoff structure is all.”
That was the girl Nick remembered.
“But, no, it was work-related this time.” She winced and clasped Missy’s shoulders. “I need you to look at something with me real fast, please.”
Missy took Chelsea’s bag, and Brandon disappeared into the living room. “Yeah. Sure. Make yourself a plate, and I’ll set this up in the office.”
Nick leaned against the counter as Chelsea spooned queso onto her plate. “Everything okay?” Disappointment leaked through his words. Was she going to be working the whole time?
She nodded. “We may have a small transportation glitch, but we’ll get it worked out.”
“Ah. Well, good luck.”
“Hey, Nick.” She wrapped elegant fingers around the doorframe. “Can I catch up with you later? Will you be around?”
He nodded and shrugged. “I should be here.”
Chelsea bit her lip and tapped the doorframe. “Good.” And she was gone.
Three innings of the baseball game, two Sloppy Joe sliders, and a lively conversation with two of the Scotts’ guests later, Chelsea and Missy reemerged.
How was this going to go down? Nick had no time to wonder because Chelsea marched right to him. “I need to get some air. Do you want to take a walk?”
“Let’s go.”
And then Nick was walking next to her on the dark small-town streets. So surreal after all this time.
Chelsea took a deep breath. “It’s really good to see you, Nick. Like, really good. I know I handled things the worst way possible last time I saw you, but I don’t want it to be weird between us.”
“I don’t, either.” They turned down a neighborhood street.
“I mean, we were friends first—friends for so long.” Slender hands motioned as she talked. “I got scared at the end of the summer when it was time to leave for college, and I just—was stupid.”
Nick shook his head. “We were young. Babies, really.” But those words were cleansing in a way, though the frayed end of their relationship had dulled some over time.
“But here we are.” Chelsea let out a long breath.
“Here we are. And look at you”—he bumped her with his shoulder—“a successful business owner and you still can kill it with a bat.”
“I don’t know about all that.” She chuckled and nudged him back. “You still driving trucks for your dad?”
“He promoted me to the office now, actually. Two years ago.” The time had flown by. “So, if you ever need to move, you’ll have to deal with this mug.” He flashed her an overkill grin that she didn’t return. “What’s wrong?”
She sighed. “I feel like I should tell you that I’m not that successful, Nick. I had to hire a sales director two months ago or else there would be no company left.”
“Is that why you’re doing the convention?”
Chelsea glued her gaze to the asphalt at their feet. “We have a pretty important meeting set up, and my sales director thinks it will expand our audience and generate more revenue. It better with how much we’re paying for it.” She rolled her eyes. “Especially now, because we hired this company to transport our product, but when we called to confirm for next week, they now want over double what they originally quoted us and won’t do it even though it’s in writing.”
“And you can’t just ship the stuff?”
“No!” Chelsea grasped his wrist. “I’ve heard horror stories about entire shipments being lost or delayed, blank exhibit spaces with company names on them but no product. You’d better believe I’m not going to let my planners out of sight.”
“Okay, then.” He raised his eyebrows, and an idea hummed in his chest. “Why don’t you let me drive you in one of our trucks?” The most logical solution and yet maybe the most foolish.
Washed in the glow of a streetlamp, he saw the slightest quirk in her lips, but she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “I just can’t imagine what I’d do with no product there.” Considering his offer or deflecting.
“I mean, you don’t have to, but it would save you a lot of money.”
“…I could never recoup that kind of loss—all the paperwork and increased insurance premiums.”
“And you can tell me all about those college football playoff opinions of yours.”
Chelsea stopped walking at the edge of a cul-de-sac. “You could really do that? Your moving trucks could take me?”
“Well, yeah.” Nick said. “We’d be moving your products, wouldn’t we?”
She trapped her bottom lip in her teeth. “Let me talk to my sales director and get back to you. Are you sure?” Was she asking
if he was thinking clearly? No, he probably wasn’t.
He reached into his wallet and pulled out his card. “We could always use the extra business, but it’s completely up to you.”
She took it from him, running a thumb along its glossy surface, and a smile spread across her face. “Look where we are, Nick!”
They stood in a cul-de-sac of newer-construction homes he didn’t recognize with sparse young trees and freshly poured driveways. But as he shrugged, he saw the familiar worn blue fence that backed up to a strip mall.
The baseball diamond. Here. A collision of memories so strong he could almost smell the sweet summer grass.
“You hit so many balls over that fence.” Chelsea pointed to a two-story house west of them.
He remembered. Only because of the hot-and-cold difference his home runs earned from Chelsea. When she was on the other team? A plunge into an icy pool that was supposed to be heated. When she was on his team? A ray of strawberry sunshine with a killer hug-attack waiting for him when he rounded the bases. The image tugged the corners of his mouth now. “Yeah, those were some great summers.”
Then something in the air shifted, as if the wind had picked up the reason he’d used the past tense. As they walked back and paused beside Chelsea’s hatchback, the full weight of what he’d just volunteered to do hit him. Sure, the logistics worked—using accrued vacation time and making sure their older truck that was almost ready to be put out to pasture cleared the pre-trip regulations.
But it also meant hours next to a beautiful woman he was historically unable to stay away from. Yes, things would have been easier if their last summer had been normal. If it had happened when they were older and more established instead of heading into their freshman and junior years of college.
But when he looked into Chelsea’s glittering dark eyes to say goodbye and agreed to call her at the office to discuss the specifics, he couldn’t blame his younger self at all. Because that morning when Brandon had called to see if he was coming to the softball game—heck, even when his big mouth offered to give Chelsea a ride without asking first—no bone in Nick’s body could say no, either.
Love at First Laugh: Eight Romantic Novellas Filled with Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever After Page 59
