Page 13

Chapter 13

Sweet Ache

Delilah

I’ve barely swiped my keycard in the door when it flies open, nearly smacking me in the face.

“She’s back!” Rae’s voice hits me before I can even step inside. She drags me in, hands wrapped around my biceps, looking me over. “Are you okay? How are you feeling? We should process?—”

Harlan appears behind her, visibly vibrating with excitement. “Well? Did you do the deed with”—she makes a revving sound—“Diesel? We need every detail. And I mean every. Single. One.”

Rae continues the grilling, “Was it three strikes and you were?—”

“Look at her, Rae—she made it on base! But was it a single, double, triple, or a home run?”

I brush past them, still feeling Damien all over me. My lips are definitely swollen from his kisses, and I know I probably have that disheveled, thoroughly-fucked look going on, but I’m definitely not sharing.

“You two are the absolute worst. I’m not talking to either of you.” I head to the bathroom then stop and turn around, facing them. “But let me say one thing, those prank calls? Really? I was this close to having the best night of my life when the phone started blowing up with you two being … stupid.”

They both gasp and feign wounded … Ugh .

So I lied, but whatever. This right here is a precedent setting.

“I’m getting ready for bed, and when I come out, this whole conversation is over and I’m in the zone, finding my Zen to prepare for tomorrow.”

I shut the door behind me, hear them giggling, and fight back my own smile. Then I mentally kick myself because, yes, we share every good thing. And the bad … well, we turn it inside out and make it better.

But not this.

Undressing, I remind myself that if I don’t draw a line, they’ll be standing at the end of the bed … with popcorn … commentating the next time.

Sex with Damien is worthy of commentary. Hell, throw in subtitles, too. Maybe then I’d know the words for the sounds I made, ones I didn’t even know I was capable of.

Okay, maybe not subtitles, but an internal dialogue. It would have been handy when I was confused. Had I heard, “Delilah has just encountered her first orgasms—plural,” Damien wouldn’t have seen me … confused.

Standing beneath the hot shower, the feel of the water pounds against muscles I didn’t even know I had … but damn, this ache … the sweetest I’ve ever felt.

Who knew doing almost zero of the work could be so exhausting? Damien really ought to come with a warning label. That man is relentless. It doesn’t seem humanly possible to have that much pleasure, yet here I am, completely spent after what? Thirty minutes, an hour … of his undivided attention.

A shiver runs down my spine despite the heat of the shower, and I lean my head back into the stream, trying to let it all soak away, but also in. I never want to forget this. And as I scrub my scalp, my mind keeps wandering back to how effortlessly he took control, like it was second nature to him. Yes, he’s a professional athlete, but no, he’s something more—a legend, on and off the field.

He’s not just a pro baseball player; he’s a sexpert, a magician in bed, the MVP of my pus?—

“Gotta pee,” Harlan calls as she walks right in, like I’m not even here.

“This suite has two bathrooms,” I yell to her, annoyed, as I glance out and see Rae stepping in, too.

Rae jumps up on the counter and settles in like she’s about to watch a show, swinging her legs back and forth like a little kid on a sugar high. “I think Hellion here wants to be close to her big sis”—she grins—“because she never gets to see you since you’re in Nashville and she’s all the way in Connecticut, carving out a better life for herself.”

“Us, the three of us,” Harlan states as she flushes the toilet, totally undeterred by my annoyance.

“Seriously, do not guilt me. And you know Damien wanted to come for Gary, and I saved him.”

Rae clutches her imaginary pearls and gasps as I point my suds-covered finger at her.

“You owe me. Now, both of you should get out,” I say, rinsing off.

“You could have saved yourself the trouble of a shower if you’d just gone for another round with Big D,” Harlan teases.

Rinsed, I reach out and grab for the towel as Rae nods in agreement like a bobblehead.

“I’m not talking to either of you, remember?”

I walk out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, and dig through my bag for undies and a tee.

“Nope, not that one.” Harlan snatches the tee from my hand.

I whirl on her and stop when I see she’s holding Mom’s old Dolly Parton concert tee—pale pink, vintage, so damn soft … like a lullaby. There are tiny circular stains where rhinestones once clung to it, but they have long given up.

“Dolly’s 1997 tour tee, the one Mama swore was?—”

“Dolly’s best hair year,” we say together.

“You have a pre-show ritual, like all players. And this is now the only thing you wear the night before every show.” Rae smiles as I pull it on. “You sleep in it, it absorbs your dreams, and gives you some of that Dolly magic.”

I laugh but barely as my throat tightens with rising emotions. I pull on my panties and let the towel drop. Then I flop down in the bed and hug myself, imagining dancing with Mom in any one of houses she made home.

“You look like her,” Harlan whispers.

“Yeah,” Rae says, smile soft. “And tomorrow, you’ll sound like her, too.”

Harlan dims the light, and they both climb on and sit cross-legged on the bed like kids at those summer camps we never could afford.

Rae holds up a candle. “Bourbon and bonfires. Saw it at the Nashville airport and knew we needed it.” She holds it out for me to smell.

“Charred oak, smoked vanilla, and carmalized sugar.”

“Me, me, me.” Harlan leans forward and inhales. “Flannel shirts, tailgate parties.”

Rae inhales it next. “All that with a slow southern drawl.” She lights it. “All right, time to pray.”

“Shouldn’t we, like … wait until tomorrow?” I ask.

“No. This is sacred.”

Harlan holds out her hands. We take hers, and then each other’s.

Rae bows her head dramatically. “Dear God, and Dottie West, too, if you’re listening …”

Harlan giggles, and I shake my head, fighting a smile.

Rae keeps going, her voice only slightly sarcastic but somehow still sweet. “Please help Delilah remember her lyrics, find her pitch, and keep her knees from giving out mid-note. Give her the peace of Jesus, the soul of Lorretta Lynn?—”

“Or Lorretta Donovan,” Harlan whispers.

Rae continues, “And the boobs of early two thousands Faith Hill.”

I snort-laugh, covering my face. “ Rae! ”

“When you talk to God, you have to tell the truth . ” Harlan giggles. “Great rack year for her.”

Rae clears her throat and gives us a look, silence . “Let her voice be strong, her eyeliner be even, and her fans be loud,” she finishes. “Amen. And yee-freakin’-haw.”

“Amen,” Harlan whispers as she holds out the candle for me to blow out.

***

I wake up before the sun.

Nerves. Not fear, exactly, just that buzz. That ache in your chest that means something big is about to happen, and the one between my legs where I’m still feeling him.

Rae’s still out cold, star-fished across the other bed in her Easter jammies, Gary clenched in one hand, and Harlan is curled under her blanket like a burrito.

My game day routine starts with silence; the rest they sent in text that I had to swear to not look at until morning.

Heartbreakers what’s ours?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you pick it and tell me tomorrow at lunch.”

“Why don’t you pick it? You love music.”

“And if you love me, you will.”

I couldn’t pick a damn song.

When she and Ty were together, and he wasn’t in earshot, she was always humming a tune, always the same one. And when she got sick, when we lost her—I heard it, that tune, and knew it was our song.

Feeling things hurt too damn much, so I stopped. Simple as that.

But Delilah’s voice? It has smashed right through the quiet I built around myself.

And standing here, shoulder-to-shoulder with the team, I’m not thinking about the game. I’m not thinking about stats, or streaks, or Dawson’s chiding or anything that I would usually have filling my head right before a game.

I’m thinking about her .

How she doesn’t just sing, she feels. Ho w every word pours out like it matters. How she’s not afraid to be heard, even in a stadium full of strangers. Even having gone through all she has, she’s… unafraid.

And suddenly, I’m afraid for maybe the first time in my life.

Not of losing the game, not even of losing the season, but of losing her . Of never figuring out how admitting this game would take time away from caring for a heart like hers, like it deserves to be cared for—unselfishly.