Dear Life(90)

“You think so?” His eyebrows lift in question. “Think you could be a little more excited?”

“So full of yourself.” I shake my head. “I’ll be more excited when you make it up to me.”

“Is that so?” His arms wrap around me, pulling me into his strong chest. “All right. Let’s get back to my place and I’ll show you just how sorry I am. Okay?” Tempting. So tempting

“Perfect.” He pinches my chin with his thumb and forefinger, bringing me up to his lips where he places a gentle kiss on my lips. When he pulls away, I ask, “We’re talking about more kisses, right? And not some weird making it up to me by offering me a pack of cigarettes and a Scooby Doo pencil you’ve had since the third grade.”

His head flies back, a laugh flying out of him. “Oh, Snowflake. No pencils and cigarettes, just a lot of mouth work on my end. I want to taste this earth-shattering body of yours. I know your pussy tastes like candy.”

Oh jeeze, why does saying the p-word make my legs clench with satisfaction? And why do I want him to do a lot more than just mouth work? Aren’t I still meant to be angry at him?





JACE


With a nice fine looming over my head from the club, I make my way out to my car so I can still make my flight back to Denver tonight. After my little phone call with Hollyn, I decided she doesn’t really get an option in this whole avoidance thing. She’s scared, unsure; I get that. But instead of hiding, I want her to talk to me because I can help her work through everything and also, I fucking need her. For my whole life, I have kept my problems and thoughts to myself, having had no family to lean on. But right now, I feel like my head is about to explode. But with her, with beautiful Hollyn, I don’t feel quite so alone. So much about her attracts me, soothes me . . . completes me. Her mind. It’s as though she’s become the balm my soul needs. Her vitality. I’ve seen the witty and amusing girl Carter once knew, and I want to be around that. Her touch. I want so badly to bury myself deep inside of her, take in her scent, her beauty, and feed off it.

It would be just my luck that the one person I crave is a widow, scared of moving forward from her past.

I find my keys and go to unlock my car when I see a shadow move from the corner of my eye, startling me slightly.

Rebecca.

Christ.

“Getting into fights now? Do you think that’s going to help your court case?” she asks in a smug tone.

I don’t answer her, instead, I say, “What are you doing here?”

“Meeting Ethan. But thanks to you, I have to wait longer because he’s getting stitches.”

Damn right he is. I have a black eye, but that fucker ended up with a cut above and below his eye. Another reason why Coach fined me so heavily, Ethan’s eye is swollen shut.

“He might be there for a while, might want to take a seat.”

Wanting to end this interaction with Rebecca, since the hairs on the back of my neck are already raised, I unlock my car and reach for my handle. However, she steps up behind me. I just want this night over. Her gone.

“How could you do it?” It’s a simple question, but the weight of the answer is so incredibly heavy. “How could you give her to two strangers? She’s your daughter.”

“Yeah, and she’s your fucking daughter too,” I snap, spinning on her. “You had no problem handing her over to me without a second thought.”

“That’s not true. You have no idea the thought I put into this decision. I handed her over to you because in my mind, I thought you were going to take care of her, give her the home she deserves with the slight possibility that when I got my shit together, I would be able to come back and be the mom she needs.” She never fucking said that.

“These were your words, Rebecca. ‘I’m not keeping her. I thought I could do this on my own, but I can’t. I’m sorry, but when I give birth, she’s yours.’ Your words. You can’t just decide when you want to be a mom, Rebecca. It’s not a decision like whether you want to put makeup on for the day or not. When you have a child, you have the responsibility of being a parent. It’s not an on and off switch.”

“And yet, you turned your switch off.”

“For good fucking reason,” I say through my teeth, trying to tamp down my rage.

“Yeah? So you can play baseball? Isn’t that a little selfish? Perusing your dreams rather than being the father you should be?”

What the ever-living fuck? Where the hell is she coming from right now? Does this woman not realize that she made the same decision as me?

“Are you hearing yourself?” I point to my ear. “You did the same thing, Rebecca. You gave up.”

“I didn’t give up,” she shouts. “I depended on her father to take care of her, not hand her off because it was inconvenient.”

“She wasn’t fucking inconvenient.” Fuck, I’m choking up, the roller-coaster emotions of making the hardest decision of my life coming to the forefront of my mind. “You don’t get it, Rebecca. I have no education, and no way of providing for her other than baseball. And there was no way in hell I was going to be an absent parent, traveling the country, playing late nights of baseball while a nanny I barely knew took care of her. I was a foster child. I have no family. No family to help out, no family to lean on. And I didn’t want Hope growing up with no one there to love on her like I experienced.” My voice cracks, my past hitting me with such force.