Page 42 of Curveball (Tennessee Terrors #9)

Max

We’ve hardly crossed the threshold into Gavin’s house before we’re surrounded by a multitude of friends, and those who like to act friendly with any kind of celebrity. Not quite the low-key entry I hoped to make, but it’s sort of how it goes. Palmer’s sticking close, though, right where I like her.

“You okay?” I have to raise my voice so she can hear me over the noise.

“Not my first rodeo,” she yells back—and it reminds me that she lived this life, or something similar, for several years with her husband.

Ex-husband. The guy who was a prick and left her to pick up the pieces of her life.

I’m thankful she decided to move on and make her life better in my city. With me.

“All right, cowgirl. Let’s lasso us up something to drink,” I say in an exaggerated western drawl, and she laughs at my antics. After the contradictory vibes I’ve been feeling from her ever since we entered the courthouse, it’s good to know I can still make her happy.

I push into the throng, widening a path to bull our way through the house, but it takes real effort to cross the open layout of the lower level and into the back yard. Gunnar said his brother was having a party; he did not mention half of Davidson County would be in attendance.

I’d just fished a couple of bottles of water from a super-sized cooler on the deck when teammates Jake, Chase, and Lucas all appear together.

“You guys just get out of the pool?” It’s a rhetorical question. They all have dripping hair and damp towels slung over their shoulders. “Or maybe you all just enjoyed a group shower?”

“Old man has jokes,” Jake laughs out, and the other two are already cracking up. Palmer’s chuckling, too, and I don’t even care if she’s laughing with me or at me. It’s good to see her smile.

“I didn’t get introduced to your girl, Max,” Chase says to me with a chin nod, but before I can answer, Tripp walks up.

“Hey, guys,” he says to our group. We all say hello, then the three young guns grumble about not hanging out with the boomers, and take off.

Tripp focuses on me. “You just get here? I was looking for you earlier. Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Then, he notices Palmer standing back a step and reaches for her hand. “Palmer! I thought you might be here, too.”

Palmer steps forward and stiffly shakes his hand like they’re in a business meeting. “Nice to see you again. It’s Tripp, right?”

“Unless you’d rather call him Cassidy,” I throw in, because I know that’ll piss him off.

“Nope, Tripp it is,” he affirms, his eyes shooting daggers at me. “You guys seen Gunnar, yet?”

“Nah, we just rolled up a few minutes ago. Haven’t even made it all the way through this madhouse.”

I take Palmer’s hand, and Tripp slides up beside us. We walk three abreast across the massive stamped concrete patio and deck, and then into the grassy yard, stopping to say hello to other guys from the team.

Tripp peels off when we stop to take a break under a wide shade tree. My water’s gone, so I find one of the trash bins scattered about.

“You ready to get out of here, maybe start the honeymoon?” I murmur, leaning in so I can speak softly.

“All right, love birds. Gavin has rooms for that shit,” Gunnar yells at us from ten feet away, and Palmer chuckles into my neck.

“We are so busted,” she says before I pull away to give Gunnar shit for interrupting us.

“Last I heard, he rents those rooms by the hour,” I throw back at him, and he explodes into laughter.

“There’s a rumor going around that you have jokes today, but I had to see for myself. I guess the babies aren’t telling lies.”

“Better watch who you’re calling babies, or you’re going to lose your backup on the field and find yourself scrambling after those line drives.”

Gunnar scoffs like he’s got it covered, then looks out toward the pool area where the children seem to have taken over.

“Hey, Gav,” he says as his brother crosses the lawn to approach us, a sweating bottle of beer in his hand. I’m adding a beer to my list of things I want as soon as the season’s over.

“I heard my name over here, but it’s been a minute,” Gavin says, before shaking my hand and raising his hand to wave at Palmer.

“Thanks for the invite. It’s a hell of a place you have here,” I say, because my mama taught me manners.

“Glad y’all could make it. You out in the yard gossiping about me like a couple of old women?”

“It’s not always about you, Gav,” Gunnar says with a laugh.

He’s talking to his brother but he’s got his eye on Palmer, and what the fuck? Dude is not seriously hitting on my wife in front of all these people.

“I’d write you a song about it, but I think somebody already did that,” Gavin jokes back to his brother, like they haven’t noticed I’m about to lose my ever-lovin’ shit.

Gunnar ignores that last dig and addresses Palmer directly, his expression pensive, his brow furrowed.

“Sorry if I’m being forward, but have I met you? I’ve been trying to figure it out, but you look so damn—er, darn —familiar to me.”

Gavin’s gaze cuts over to his brother, then to Palmer, like he’s trying to make the connection.

Palmer sucks in a quick breath and reaches for my hand, clutching me as though she needs my touch for strength, and what is going on here? I pull her in closer to me.

“Babe, you holding out on me?”

I think I want to tease her out of whatever’s happening right now, but also, she’s got her fucking ring turned around . What exactly is going on?

Palmer chuckles, but it’s a poor attempt.

“I’d love to be able to say I know you, but I think you have me confused with someone else,” she tells Gunnar.

“Or maybe you saw her at the ball field?” I suggest to him.

“Maybe,” Gunnar answers, and it could be to either of us. “You ever been to Texas?”

Palmer shakes her head. “Never. I moved here from Southern California years ago.”

“That’s it. Yeah, yeah. Orange County, maybe. Or San Diego. I had an off day and some finance dude had a box, invited me. You were there. It’s your hair. Memorable. I bet you get that all the time.”

“Yeah, I was there with you,” Gavin cuts in. “Who was that guy? Hoo-wee, dude caused a shitload of trouble shortly after that.”

He asks the question idly, but I know the answer. Palmer does, too. This is the shit show she’s managed to avoid on her own for ten years, and I just dragged her into the middle of it.

“Yeah, he did,” Palmer says. She tugs her hand from mine and takes a step to the side, as if distancing herself from me. “His name is Alex Lopez.”

Palmer seems calm and unruffled, discussing her ex and his shenanigans with these two men she hardly knows. At the risk of looking like I’m chasing her around, I move half a step closer, just so she knows I’m here. I support her. I’m so fucking proud of her.

“You knew him?” Gunnar asks, then doesn’t wait for her to respond before he tells his tale.

“Man, I was hella mad, at the time. I was still young, had a new contract and money to burn. Dude made promises and I was sold. Fuck, I was stupid.”

“Lucky, too,” Gavin says. “We both were.”

Gunnar doesn’t seem angry at all, and I can’t help but ask.

“Lucky? Doesn’t seem like luck if you get taken in some sort of Ponzi scheme. Isn’t that what he was doing?”

“True, that,” Gunnar says. “Money was gone for years, which was a bitch, of course. I thought I finally hit the big time. But there was recourse—the courts, insurance—I got most all of it back. Then, I think there was some sort of tax help. My accountant made bank unraveling the mess.”

“Yeah, same,” Gavin says, then shakes his head, as though removing the images from his brain, before he pulls Palmer back into the conversation. “I hope you didn’t get taken by him, too.”

Palmer’s been silent, letting them speak, but now, she reaches out, lays her hand on Gunnar’s bare forearm.

“I’m sorry that happened to you. I didn’t have any money, but he got everything else from me.”

“Bummer,” Gunnar says, but he doesn’t understand everything Palmer just revealed. “Whatever happened to the guy anyway?”

“He got eighteen years. It’s been ten.”

“Sounds like you knew him well,” Gunnar says, and both men are watching her closely.

Palmer reaches for me, squeezing our hands together till our palms are flush. I furtively feel for her stone, but it’s not there. I look down and see she’s turned her ring back around, and the diamond glints in the sun.

“Yeah, I knew him,” Palmer admits, chin high, as regal as the fucking Queen of England. “He was my first husband.”

We stick around for a few platitudes from Gunnar and his brother, but all I want is to get my woman away from here.

She’s fine, relaxed and smiling, as if she’s at a barbeque and enjoying herself and she didn’t just own her worst fear with grace.

She even pauses to say hello to Christy on our way out.

“So, where to?” I ask as I help her climb into the Escalade.

I give her a minute to think about it while I round the hood and climb in.

“I was thinking I’d like to FaceTime the kids. You want to do that from your house?”

“First off, before we go any further?—”

I pull away from the curb in front of the neighbor’s house. She buckles in.

“It’s our house.”

“Max—”

“Nope.” I hold up a hand to stop her. “Maybe I am an old man, because I’m old-fashioned about this. We’re married. You’re planning to live in my house. The house is yours, too. You’re not a guest there, and I don’t ever want you to feel that way.”

“All right, I’ll rephrase. Do you want to FaceTime the kids from our house?”

Not gonna lie, I thought I’d get more of an argument from her. But she already knows I’m adamant about getting her a new car. There’ll be no talking me out of this. I want her in my house, and in my life.

“I do want to call our kids,” I tell her as I merge onto the freeway, heading home. “But first, I want to fuck my wife.”