Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 82132 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82132 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
My boots are by the door. I slip them on and then head across the lawn. Carter sees me coming when I’m three steps into the grass and hauls ass across the yard. His hair flows behind him, and his smile is as wide as Texas. It does something to my insides that concerns me.
“Okay,” he says, stopping on a dime at my side. Then he walks beside me, no worse for wear. “I’ve been thinking. Some guys are field guys. Some guys are batters. Maybe you’re a batter.”
This child. “Carter, buddy, I have some old videotapes of me playing baseball that my mother took when I was in high school.”
“Really? They had videotapes back then?” His face contorts. “Wait. What’s a videotape?”
I sigh. “Anyway, maybe we can sit down and watch some of it before we practice again. Just so you know that I know what I’m talking about.” And that I was recruited by colleges my senior year.
“Okay.”
He has no idea what I’m talking about.
“Hey, Jay?”
“Yeah?”
“My brother might hate your guts, but I don’t. I like you.”
Whoa. I clear my throat. “Did Dylan say he hated my guts?”
“No. But it sure sounded like it.”
Fair enough.
Still, my hated guts twist as we reach the front porch. Carter babbles on about how to hold a baseball, but my mind is elsewhere.
I wonder if I could talk to Dylan. Would that be overstepping? Would that make it worse?
I take a deep breath. Easy, Stetson. That’s sounding an awful lot like being involved on a deeper level.
Fuck. But isn’t that what I’m supposed to be wanting now? To become involved?
My heart hurts for the boy. I want to help because I know I can. But helping always winds up biting me in the ass.
Gabrielle comes out wearing shorts and a genuine smile.
Maybe it won’t bite me in the ass this time. This is different from my situation with Melody and Izzy. I feel it in my soul.
“Hey,” Gabrielle says, running her hand through Carter’s hair. She grins at me. “Do you think it’s safe to work on this since it’s so damp out here from the rain?”
“As long as the electrical parts are dry, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
She yawns and sits on the porch swing. “Is it just me, or has this been the longest day ever?”
“It’s been the longest day ever for me,” Carter says. “We had music class today. Do you know how long that takes? Forever.”
Guess no piano, after all.
“It was pretty long for me too,” I say. “I had a lot on my mind.”
“What’s that mean?” Carter asks.
I chuckle. “It means I was distracted, which is never a good thing at work.”
“Oh.” He squints at me. “Your eye is still black, you know.”
“I’m aware.”
“Okay.” He turns to Gabrielle. “Can I have a snack? An itty-bitty one? It’s a long time before dinner, so it won’t spoil anything.”
She holds out a hand. “Yes. You may. Only one, though.”
I’m not sure Carter hears anything past the yes over his shouts of victory and the door shutting behind him.
“Can I sit by you?” I ask, making my way to her.
“Please do.”
I lower myself onto the swing, and then Gabrielle snuggles up next to me. Instantly, the stress of the day fades into thin air. How does she do that? Make everything just feel . . . right?
“Do you know what’s weird?” she asks.
“What’s that?”
“Having you here makes things just . . . better.” She looks up at me and grins. “I don’t want to sound clingy, but it’s true.”
I kiss the top of her head.
Her admission doesn’t sound clingy. It sounds like I’m a lucky man. But I don’t want to tell her that—not here. Not after last night’s debacle with Dylan and at a moment when Carter could run outside jabbering away about baseball. But I do want to tell her how I feel. I want Gabrielle to know that this isn’t even the situation I thought it would be when I warned her the first night we had sex.
This is something more.
It’s real.
And as scared as I was to fall for anyone—a single mom, no less—being with Gabrielle and Carter and Dylan, eventually, is the easiest, most right thing in the world. I don’t know where in the hell it’s going, but I know where I hope it leads eventually. I think we can get there.
That’s what I want Gabrielle to know. She’s not alone. I’m here and I want to make their lives richer, safer. And in some way, in the earliest form, I might even be falling in love with her. I might also care a lot more than I want to admit about those boys.
“Do you think we can figure out how to get the evening to ourselves tomorrow?” I ask.
“Probably. Why?”
I smile at her. “I just want to have you to myself and talk to you about some things without keeping one eye open for a baseball coming at me.”