Page 32 of Curve Balls and Second Chances (Pickwick Pirate Queens #1)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

R ose couldn’t ignore it anymore.

At the ball field, when she bent to tie her cleats, she caught two players on another team staring, whispering behind their hands.

At the grocery store, Mrs . Lanham from down the street tilted her head in that pitying way that said she knew something .

Even Riley noticed, slamming his hand on the counter at the coffee shop when a couple of men chuckled on their way out without explaining the joke.

“You want me to go after them?” Riley demanded.

Rose grabbed his arm before he could storm out. “ No . That’s exactly what Briana wants. She wants a show.”

“Why not give her one?” Riley’s voice dropped “ This is killing me, Rose . Acen too. We’re supposed to be protecting you. Standing up for you. This waiting game is crazy.”

Rose didn’t answer, but her silence was enough.

He swore under his breath, tugging his cap lower. “ Then we need a plan. Because this town? They love a whisper. They’ll build a mountain out of a pebble if you let ‘em.”

Rose nodded slowly, her chest tight. She’d fought hard to build a life that felt steady again. She wouldn’t let Briana wreck it with shadows and half-truths.

But she also knew Briana .

And Briana wasn’t done yet.

By Friday night, Rose could hardly breathe under the weight of it. The whispers felt like gnats. Small . Annoying . Impossible to swat away because as soon as she smacked one, three more rose up buzzing around her ears.

She told herself she was imagining it. That folks had always looked twice when she walked by because she ran the only coffee shop for twenty miles, and because she’d never exactly blended in with her wild red hair and tendency to speak her mind. But deep down, she knew.

Briana’s fingerprints were all over this.

Tasha followed her into the stockroom after Cindy left for the day, arms crossed, her braid swinging against her shoulder. “ You gonna tell me this isn’t eating you alive? Are you gonna keep pretending you don’t notice every time somebody looks sideways?”

Rose stacked sugar bags a little too hard. “ Nothing’s eating me alive. Just stress. Tournament’s this weekend. You know how I get.”

“Mm-hm.” Tasha didn’t budge. “ You also chew on your thumbnail when you’re lying, and right now it looks like you’re fixin’ to gnaw it clean off.”

Rose glanced down. Sure enough, her thumbnail was raw. She shoved both hands into her apron pockets. “ I don’t want to talk about it.”

Tasha softened, stepping closer. “ Rosie … I know Briana . And I know you. This has got her perfume all over it.”

Rose’s throat tightened. She wanted to laugh, wanted to shrug it off, but Tasha’s eyes, the same steady gaze that had seen her through a hundred mistakes and a thousand heartbreaks, were too sharp, too knowing.

Finally, she whispered, “ I'm making a plan. I’m not sure I can go through with it yet so I'm not gonna tell you what it is. Okay ? And please don’t mention it to Riley or Acen . I can’t stand for them to pester me about what it is.”

The look in Tasha’s eyes said it was all she could do to nod her reluctant agreement.

That night, Rose couldn’t sleep.

Her lake house felt darker than usual, shadows thick around the windows. She tossed and turned, memories swirling. Briana and Acen kissing on graduation night. Acen leaving town. Briana leaving town. Her secret dragging her down, down, down into a dark place she thought she’d never recover from.

Now, Briana was dragging her back there.

And Rose hated herself for letting it work.

But the fear in her chest felt exactly the same.

The silence pressed in on her. Out at the lake, nights could be achingly quiet, so quiet that the sound of water lapping at the rocks seemed louder than her own heartbeat.

The old house creaked in its bones as if it, too, remembered what had once been buried here.

She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at her reflection in the black kitchen window.

Her face looked older, wiser maybe, but the eyes staring back at her were too familiar. They were the eyes of the girl who had once cried herself to sleep, terrified that everyone would know her mistake, her weakness, her shame.

She had promised herself, back then, that she’d never give Briana the satisfaction of seeing her broken. Never again.

And yet, here she was, pacing the linoleum floor like a teenager waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She poured a glass of water just to keep her hands busy, then set it down untouched.

The clock ticked past two-thirty. She thought about calling Tasha , just to hear another voice, but she didn’t.

Tasha would hear the wobble in her tone, would press her until she said more than she was ready to say.

Instead, she went to the porch and stepped into the night.

The air was damp, heavy with the scent of honeysuckle and lake water.

A thin mist floated above the shoreline, wrapping the world in secrecy.

She leaned against the porch rail and let the night press against her skin.

Out here, away from town, she could almost believe the whispers didn’t exist. Almost .

But her mind wouldn’t let go.

She thought about the way Mrs . Lanham’s eyes had softened in pity.

The way those men had laughed at the coffee shop.

The way the some of the people in town had nudged each other and smirked.

Each glance, each whisper was like a drop of acid.

It didn’t destroy her all at once—it wore her down, slowly, carefully, until she was raw.

She remembered being eighteen, sneaking out to cry by the lake when it all got too heavy. She remembered the panic, the dread that the truth would spill out, that people would look at her differently forever. And here she was, twenty years later, still bracing herself for the same storm.

She gripped the rail until her knuckles turned white. “ No ,” she said aloud, her voice swallowed by the night. “ Not again.”

Inside, she forced herself to sit at the table, pulled a notebook toward her, and opened it to a blank page. If she was going to get through this, she needed more than stubbornness. She needed to make a plan. The one she’d told Tasha earlier that she was already working on.

But staring at the empty paper, her mind refused to cooperate. What could she write? That she’d expose Briana ? That she’d confess her secret before Briana could use it? That she’d act like nothing mattered at all?

Every option felt like a trap.

Her pen hovered. Her hand trembled. She thought about Acen .

His eyes when he’d told her he still cared, the way his presence stirred something she thought had long since burned out.

She thought about Declan . Steady , gentle, showing her what it could feel like to be chosen without drama or conditions.

And she thought about Riley , protective as always, furious that he couldn’t fix this for her.

For them, she had to be stronger.

She scribbled a single sentence across the page: Briana does not get to win.

The words steadied her.

It wasn’t a plan, not yet, but it was a promise.

The clock chimed three. Her eyes burned from lack of sleep, but she felt a thread of steel slide through her spine. Briana wanted her rattled. She wanted Rose to look over her shoulder, to doubt herself, to break down in public so everyone could see.

But Rose refused to play the part Briana had written for her.

She tore the page free, folded it, and tucked it into the pocket of her robe. A talisman, small but fierce, something to hold onto when the whispers felt louder than the truth.

Finally, she turned off the lights, lay down on the couch, and closed her eyes. Sleep came in fits and starts, tangled with dreams of softball fields, coffee cups, and shadows whispering her name.

And when dawn broke over the lake, painting the sky in streaks of pink and gold, Rose sat up with the sun on her face and whispered again, steady this time:

“I’m not eighteen anymore.”