Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 75754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Not because I wasn’t good at baseball, but because I was. Well, softball, anyway.
It brought back memories that hurt.
Memories of Lily and me when we were happy.
Before anything Bender related ever happened to us.
“What will you give me if I play?” I asked, surprising not just myself, but him as well.
“A ride?” He answered helpfully.
I laughed. “Why do you do all these baseball games, anyway?”
“Because it’s easier to see where Cormac is and keep him ready for anything,” he explained.
I wanted to roll my eyes.
“What you guys do isn’t what I would call a game. It’s a bunch of guys drinking beer, while the women watch from the sidelines cheering their men on,” I challenged.
He grinned, and his eyes glowed with happiness.
If times were different…if life was different…Sterling and I might have been able to pursue what I could feel between us.
But times weren’t different, and my life wasn’t all shits and giggles like Sterling needed.
I had demons.
I had so many demons that it was a wonder I functioned at all.
And Sterling deserved a woman that would stand by his side, make him proud to have his arm around her.
And I wasn’t that woman.
So I made a promise to myself, while staring at that smile. A promise that I wouldn’t drag Sterling down with me.
He wouldn’t get caught up in me and everything that floated around me like a hurricane ready to destroy anyone that entered my proximity.
“Regardless of what it is, I want you to come. I know you used to play. And we could use some new blood,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at six.”
I blinked as I watched him throw a twenty on the counter as all three men walked out only moments later, bickering about someone having the ‘hots’ for a woman that was way too straight laced to ever date him.
I had a feeling they were speaking about me, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Sterling didn’t deserve to have to deal with my crap.
Not even a little bit.
“Now that you’ve had your fun, how about you get your shit together and go clean the bathroom,” Dane ordered.
I smiled at Dane.
He was a great boss.
He knew I had a secret crush on Sterling.
Knew it and loved to tease me about it.
“What’s wrong with Allison doing it like she usually does?” I asked, walking around the counter to grab the mop bucket out of the storage closet.
“Allison called in sick because she thinks she has the flu,” he said. “So it’s just you and me this week, chicka.”
Yay!
Not.
That would suck.
If it was just me and him, that’d mean that I would be needed for more hours, which would hack in to my nap time.
“Just don’t expect me to work tonight or tomorrow night. Or Friday night. I have plans tonight, and the bar the other two nights,” I told him.
Dane nodded. “I know. I was listening to that boy try to ask you out.”
I smiled.
“He wasn’t trying to ask me out.”
Dane gave me a look.
“Honey, I have a dick. I know what it looks like when a guy’s dick is hard. And his was hard. For you. Trust me,” he said, sitting down on the stool behind the register and turning his eyes to the TV screen that was sitting next to the register.
Rolling my eyes, I rolled the mop into the bathroom and started the tedious job of cleaning up the bathroom.
The girl’s room was never that bad.
It was the men’s room that always got me.
How could grown men miss the toilet like that?
By the time I was done with the men’s bathroom, I felt the need for a hot shower and a beer. Both of which I couldn’t have right then…and since I had somewhere to go later, I wouldn’t be having it for a very long time.
But just the thought of seeing Sterling again made my heart race.
“Your phone’s been ringing the whole time you were in there,” Dane said as he shoved three cheese crackers into his mouth.
I rolled my eyes.
Why wouldn’t it have occurred to him that I needed to answer that call if they called that many times?
I smiled when I saw Lily’s smiling face lighting up the screen of my phone.
“Hello?” Lily answered breathlessly.
“Hey! What’d you need?” I asked.
Lily called once a day regardless of whether she ‘needed’ anything or not.
It was just who we were.
And I’d missed her constantly when I was locked up.
“I have someone who wanted to talk to you before you she went on stage,” she said happily.
I smiled as Lily’s daughter, Toni, got on the phone.
“Aunt Ruthie, guess what!” Toni yelled loudly.
I looked down at my hands and smiled through the pain.
“What, stinker bell?” I asked softly.
“I hit a home run today at Putt-Putt!” She squealed.
I smiled, my pain taking a backseat to the excitement in Toni’s voice.
See, Toni and my daughter, Jade, would’ve been the same age right then.
But my husband had nearly beaten me to death when I was almost eight months pregnant, and I’d lost my baby girl before I’d ever even held her.
Lily had found out she was pregnant the week before I’d lost my little Jade, and it was heart breaking to talk to Toni when I couldn’t talk to my own little girl that would’ve been doing something similar had she been able to live.
“Don’t you mean hole in one?” I asked her, a smile in my voice.
I could practically see her shaking her head when she replied.
“No. I mean, daddy tossed me the ball, and I hit it with my golf club. And I hit the ball into the last hole at the very end of the course,” she corrected me.
I closed my eyes. “Your daddy should know better.”
“See,” Lily said as she came back on the line. “That’s what I said. He’s like a big two year old.”
I smiled at my hands.
Dante was such a good guy.
He started an auto recovery business when he got out of the Air Force and, from what I’d heard, was a pretty successful businessman now.