by K. Bromberg
“I know, but it’s for kids and under the circumstances, all of us owe them our all given what they’ve sacrificed for our country.”
“You’re the best, Easton. Thank you.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
I’m just about to put the phone down when it rings in my hand.
“Kelly!” I say to the empty room when I see his name on the screen, and then answer. “Hi.”
“That’s a very enthusiastic greeting if ever I heard one,” he says through a laugh.
“It was?”
“It was.” I can see him nodding. “And you have every right to be preemptively enthusiastic, because I found your man.”
“You did?” I clap my hands together like a little kid. “Tell me everything.”
“I’m sending it over in an email right now. Where to find him. All about his background—”
“You did a full PI background on him without me even asking? Thank you, Kell,” I say, scrambling to get my computer and download the email despite the hotel’s shitty Wi-Fi service.
“I figured you’d want every in on how to find him.”
“You know me too well.”
“Mind telling me what you plan on doing when you find him?” he asks.
“That’s up for debate.” I chuckle. “It’s a cross between letting him know his dream wasn’t baseless. If he still plays, maybe trying to get him a tryout with an MLB team so he can say for posterity’s sake that he had a shot. Or it could go a whole different way and we could sponsor a veteran game to thank our heroes. Any and all of them could possibly give KSM some good publicity.”
“Ha. That Finn thing is stuck in your craw, isn’t it?” He chuckles.
“No. Yes. Whatever.” I laugh at my own expense.
“Not sure your guy’s going to bite on that if I’m being honest though.”
“Why do you say that?”
“War changes a man. On paper he appears completely different now than he was then.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t see anywhere that he’s played since he returned. He had a small-time record before enlisting and since he was discharged, is squeaky clean. I mean, it’s like the guy is a completely different person. Hell, he doesn’t even go by his name anymore, just a nickname given to him by his platoon. I mean the guy’s a war hero and does a shit ton for the veteran community as a whole on top of owning his own bar.”
“Wait. What did you say?” My chest suddenly constricts, and I sit up a little straighter.
“The bar part? He owns one. I’m looking up what it’s called. Give me one sec because I don’t want to get it wrong—”
“FU-Bar,” I whisper more to myself than to him.
“Yes. That’s it. Why didn’t you tell me you found him?”
“I didn’t. I don’t think. His nickname. What’s his nickname, Kell?” At the same time, Kelly’s email finishes downloading. I’m met with a picture of Gunner looking back at me. He’s a little younger, dressed in desert camo, with a grin on his face and dog tags around his neck.
Jesus Christ.
I stare, blinking over and over as if doing that is going to make any sense of my current reality. As if Gunner isn’t Ryan and Ryan isn’t Gunner. As if everything that has happened during the past week just shifted and tilted, when it’s the last thing I wanted it to do.
“Chase? You okay?”
“Yeah. Yes. Sorry. I was just reading your email.” I refocus on it now, but don’t really see anything. The words are a blur.
“He seems like a helluva guy. Make sure to tell him thank you for his service for me when you talk to him.”
“I will.” I stare at the picture again. “Thanks, Kelly.”
The call ends. My phone drops to the bed beside me. And all I can do is stare at that image of a young Gunner and die a little.
How is this possible?
How have I been so busy enjoying the man I found that the possibility didn’t cross my mind?
I’m mad. Furious. Because this screws everything up. Everything.
We both think the other person is someone else. Correction, I thought he was someone else, but now know he’s the man I’ve been looking for. He still thinks I’m someone else—or that I do something else. What’s he going to think when he not only finds out I’m a sports agent, but one who came here to let him know he was, in fact, recruitable before? The one who was coming here with thoughts of exploiting his veteran status for the benefit of my company?
Deception.
Isn’t that what he said is a deal-breaker for him?
Isn’t that what I’ve done? Deceived him?
My head spins as I walk to the other side of the room and pull the tattered envelope from my bag. I run my fingers over the handwriting and wonder who the twenty-year-old was before he became the man I know today.
Coach Bassett said he was arrogant and wild and yet the person I know is the complete opposite.
How is this possible?
How did this happen?
Dear KSM,
I just recently learned of your interest in me as an athlete and wanted to thank you. However, my dream to play in the major league is over. I’ve been advised to let old dreams go. To accept that life has changed forever.
-Ryan Camden
I try to make sense of everything as I walk from one side of the room to the other.
There is nothing worse than being lied to and finding out that you were.
It shouldn’t matter—he shouldn’t matter, because like we talked about last night, I have goals and achievements and everything else to do. I should just let dead dogs lie, pack up my shit, and head home. Walk away from this fling no worse for the wear other than him wondering what the hell happened.
But I can’t.
I just can’t, because even with all that bullshit I said the last night about not having time for a relationship, and having goals to reach etcetera, it rang hollow to my own ears. Words I’ve recited time and again, thoughts I’ve had over and over, now feel canned. Silly. I stood there and spouted the words to him while my heart ached in my chest in a way I’ve never felt it feel before.
And then, of course, he called me. He called me and made that ache I didn’t understand burn brighter—in all the best ways.
How does someone go from not believing that something like this exists to suddenly hoping maybe it does?
This is insane.
Would you listen to yourself?
But the problem is that I am. I am listening and hearing and paying attention to every damn thing my body is telling me, and all it cares about is wanting more time, more moments, more laughter—more everything—when it comes to Gunner.
Leaving here, cutting my time short with him, isn’t something I want to do.
But lying to him is even worse. Right?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Chase
With a deep breath and my heart in my throat, I walk up the sidewalk to Gunner’s house. Anger owns me.
At how this happened.
At how I didn’t see it.
At how I never asked him if he knew the Ryan Camden I was looking for.
At how this might all be over.
I’m just about to knock on the front door when he pulls it open and startles at the sight of me standing there.
“Hey, what are you doing—Chase?” he asks, immediately framing the sides of my face and bending down so we’re at the same eye level. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
I open my mouth to speak and then close it, because this is Gunner. Sweet, sexy, selfless Gunner who owns the bar, dances in the rain with me, and has my complete adoration.
My stomach twists in knots as I stare at him.
I can’t do it.
As my anger turns to fear, and my fear turns to the understanding that the truth is going to hurt him.
I can’t hurt this man in front of me. He’s too good. Too selfless. Hurt enough already.
Whatever this is between us will be over.
And then I’ll have to leave him.
Fuck.
“Chase? Talk to me.” Concern reverberates in his voice, his breath feathering over my lips as his eyes search mine, asking for answers I don’t think I’m ready to give now.
“It’s nothing. No ghost.” I shake my head a little to knock some sense into me and give a half-hearted chuckle to sell it. “I promise.”
He didn’t lie to me.
He doesn’t deserve to be hurt or to know about the deception.
“I was—I was just excited.”
“About?”
“Um. About. We have a family friend who announces baseball games for one of the networks. I talked to him earlier about ways we might be able to get a major league club to help sponsor The Center. New equipment, team uniforms, maybe some extra funding. He and his wife have a foundation that helps out underprivileged youth so I thought he would be the one to ask.” Breathe, Chase. You’re overexplaining like a little kid who’s lying.
“Are you kidding me?” he asks, his eyes wide, his smile growing to megawatt proportions before he scoops me up in his arms, spins me around, and presses one of his knee-melting kisses on me. “That’s incredible. Fantastic. I don’t even know what to say or how to thank you or—”
“Nothing’s happened yet,” I caution with a laugh. This time when his lips find mine, I’m less caught by surprise. I’m so much more aware of how he makes me feel. Of how much he has become to me in such a short space of time.
So I deepen the kiss. Try to get lost in it, in him, to the point that I’m trying to apologize to him through a kiss without him having a clue. It’s all I have. All I can manage.
“Woah,” he says when the kiss ends, and he gently lowers me so my feet touch the ground. Our gazes hold, and I pray that he can’t see the tears I’m fighting back. He narrows his eyes as I hold my breath. “You sure you’re okay?”
Other than the fact that I’m not who you think I am? Sure. Perfectly fine.
“Of course.” I clear my throat, needing a reason to explain the emotion he can clearly see. “I was just excited about it all, and happened to be driving by on my way to the coffee shop to work, and—”
“You figured you’d stop and tell me?” he finishes for me.
“Something like that,” I say and then take a step back. “I’m sorry. I should have called. You’re clearly on the way out the door—”
“I’m heading to FU-Bar to meet with a supplier, but don’t ever apologize for stopping by with such great news or for no reason at all.” He reaches out and brushes the back of his hand down the side of my cheek, his smile softening, his eyes darkening.
“What?” I murmur.
“You called in a favor to help the kids. Do you have any idea what that means to me?” I swallow over the lump in my throat and shake my head, as words are eaten by the guilt. “You’re amazing. Absolutely amazing.” He brushes his lips over mine one more time before saying goodbye and heading to the bar.
I’m left sitting in my car staring at his tail lights as guilt eats me whole.
Where was your normal Chase Kincade assertiveness? Where was your take-no-prisoners attitude?
Where was my honesty?
Now he thinks I’m a way better person than I actually am.
If there is one thing that has been highlighted over and over since I’ve been in Destiny Falls, it’s this: he is selfless.
And I’ve just proven that I’m the direct opposite.
And I have no clue how to repair that additional lie.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Chase
I drive.
I’m unsettled and restless and fighting with my own thoughts while putting mile after mile on my car. The two-lane highway stretches endlessly and takes me past the base, past fields with cows, past schoolyards with kids playing. I take it all in, the normalcy of what feels like small-town America, and find myself pulling off the road when I see a baseball field to my right.
I can’t figure out if it belongs to a high school or a community college, and it really doesn’t matter. I welcome the sight of it. Of feeling like I’m home in the oddest sense. I’m mesmerized by the guy who’s taking swings at the plate and his teammates shooting the shit in the outfield as they shag the balls and make plays with them.
This is what I know.
This is my comfort zone.
It’s no wonder I sit in my car and get lost in the easy cadence and familiarity of batting practice. It’s so much easier than having to face the fact that I’m a chicken.
I pick up my cell several times as I watch only to put it back down. But around the fourth or fifth time, I finally push send.
“Oh, look who’s actually making time to call us and act like she cares?” Brexton teases as she greets me when she answers.
“I’m not in the mood, Brex,” I say, as the kid at the plate goes deep and hits it over the centerfield wall.
“Who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?” She snorts.
“No one. Nothing.” I sigh, and it pains me to even have to say the words. “I need advice.”
“What?” she sputters, clearly wanting to make me suffer.
“You heard me.” I lean my head back on my seat, pinch the bridge of my nose, and close my eyes.
“Wait. You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” The word comes out in a croak. Being the youngest of four, I’ve railed defiantly against asking for advice. At some point I was sick of hearing how much older and more experienced they were, so I made it a point to not ask for any advice and to pretend like I didn’t hear it when it was given.
Childish? Definitely. But when you grow up without a mother, your three older sisters all try to pretend they are that to you, and the last thing I wanted was for her to be erased from my memory.
I’ve since learned that their advice is invaluable. I also know the bratty stigma has stuck. And they like to bring it up or throw it in my face every chance they get.
“Should I get Dekk in here?” Brexton asks, already calling her name across the office before I can answer. I was going to say yes, but the fact that she assumed just adds to my irritability.
“I’m here,” Dekker says winded, but curious. “What’s going on?”
“Chase needs advice,” Brexton says.
“Ohhh.” It’s all Dekker says. I’m grateful that she’s not rubbing it in. “Talk to us.”
“So the bartender—”
“You mean Hot Bartender Boy, as in the one you’re sleeping with bartender?” Dekker asks.
“Something like that.”
“For specificity’s sake, can we say yes or no so that I have a clear path to give advice with?” Dekker says, already annoying me. I’m fully aware my irritation is with myself and the situation with Gunner.
“Yes. That hot bartender. The one who I’ve known during my time here as Gunner but who earlier today, Kelly informed me is one and the same as Ryan Camden.”
“Oh, shit.” I’m not sure which one of them says it, but they sum up my train of thought perfectly.
“You know this doesn’t count as dating two guys, right? I mean, we know you’re goal-oriented and all, but this isn’t what we meant,” Brexton says lightheartedly, but her chuckle falls flat and dies.
“So that’s my dilemma,” I say, ignoring her comment entirely.
“What about it is a dilemma?” Dekker asks. “You tell him the truth, that you’re Chase Kincade with KSM. That you received his letter and wanted to find out how he was, who he is, and if he’s still playing. It’s simple.”
“And you explain that you didn’t tell him who you were upfront because you didn’t think anyone would give you info on this Ryan Camden guy. And, lo and behold it’s him,” Brexton continues.
I don’t respond. I can’t. The woman I was a few weeks ago would have clearly agreed with them. She would have said, I know, I’ve already done that.
&
nbsp; But now I know him.
Now I like him.
Now . . . I’ve—
My groan is all I’ve got. I will not believe that I’ve . . . fallen for him. Gunner Camden is one hell of a catch. Maybe even the ultimate one, so it makes sense that I’m . . . taken with him. Taken with him? Jesus.
My head hurts.
No, I can’t not like Gunner. He’s one of the good guys. He’s proven that over and over again. And even if I did think I’d fallen, it’s just not possible. This isn’t possible. We live hundreds of miles from each—
“Earth to Chase. You can’t groan like that and then leave us hanging,” Brexton says.
“She’s pissed that she’s not going to accomplish one of her beloved goals. She’s going to tell him and he’s going to tell her to go to hell and then OMG, she can’t cross ‘recruit Ryan Camden’ off her goal list,” Dekker says.
But it’s more than that. So much more than that. But how do I put that in words? It shouldn’t be hard with Dekk and Brex, as they know me inside out. But where are the words—
“Chase? Talk to us. You’re not arguing. That means there’s definitely something more going on here, right?”
“I can’t tell him who I am, but at the same time, I have to tell him who I am. I’m in a no-win situation.”
“Why do you say that? Tell him. So what if he gets mad? He’ll get over it when he finds out you came to find him,” Brexton says. “When he knows that he wasn’t forgotten. That there could be an option to play again in a PR game to support other veterans. That in itself will make up for the lie.”
“I can’t tell him,” I whisper, despite seeing her logic.
“Why not?” Brex laughs. “You lied to him for the greater good of shock of all shocks, finding him.”
“It’s not the same,” I say.
“A little white lie has never stopped you from moving forward,” she continues.
I don’t respond. Can’t. My head is swimming with thoughts and ideas and what-ifs.
“You’re not hearing what she’s not saying, Brex,” Dekker says. Her voice is softer this time, more compassionate. “You like him, don’t you, Chase? Like, really like him?”
“Ohhh.” Brexton finally gets it. Perhaps Dekker heard it in the first phone call I had with her when I first arrived in Destiny Falls. Even though I didn’t even understand it at that point. “That kind of changes things.”
