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CHAPTER 1

CAMDEN

“ A re you serious?” I yelled at my TV screen while my brother’s extremely pregnant girlfriend sat on the other end of the couch.

Harlowe Chandler and I had been best friends for a very long time and she was the one person I’d thought wouldn’t ever fall for any of my brothers’ bullshit.

Yet here she was almost to term with my brother’s baby. Brooks had pissed me off with that, but since there wasn’t anything I could do and I was so excited to be an aunt, I got over it. That is, after the sting of their lies had dissipated.

“What happened?” she asked, looking at me with her hazel eyes as she rubbed her hand over the huge belly sitting on her lap. Harlowe wasn’t a very big woman and that belly was about to overtake her, though the doctors said the baby was measuring normal size and Harlowe had only gained the appropriate amount of weight. The problem was her pregnancy was one hundred percent in her belly. Her copper hair was pulled up into a bun making her look younger than she was.

Seeing her from behind, you couldn’t tell she was pregnant. She wasn’t even waddling like so many did at this point .

“Were you sleeping?” I asked. “Did I wake you?” Recently, Harlowe had been known to doze off randomly when she was just sitting there.

“No,” she insisted. Yeah, right. “I just had my eyes closed.”

I snorted. “You know you can pick one out of like seven beds to take a nap in if you need to. Brooks’s old bed is even available.” I shrugged. “Though I don’t know what he’s done in that thing, so…”

She curled her lips in disgust. “I don’t want to think about that.”

But I couldn’t help the laugh that came out. “I’m fucking with you. My mom has replaced that bed since he lived here. He moved out, like, ten years ago.”

“Not true.” She held a finger up. “He was back for summers.”

I rolled my eyes. “Barely. He played summer ball, so he was only here for a few weeks at a time.” They’d all done that on their conveyer belt to the pros. There had never been a time when they weren’t playing baseball. When their high school or college season ended, they had another team they’d join. Then it was back to school and working out, sometimes playing some games in a winter league down south. They never played a full season of winter ball because they had school, though none of my brothers had graduated from college since they’d gotten drafted before that.

“No,” she insisted. “I’m fine. Sometimes it just feels nice to close my eyes.”

“Better do it now. You’re almost at the finish line and then, I hear, babies keep you awake all night and you know my brother isn’t going to be all that helpful most of the season.” Which wasn’t his fault, but it sucked… I heard.

“I do know that. I also know that I have a best friend who will happily help by playing night nanny when I need it.”

“True.” Because there was no way I wouldn’t be there for her or the baby. “Or you could have my ridiculously wealthy brother hire a certified night nanny.”

She cringed. “I don’t want that.”

Which I knew. She was very against any kind of permanent help who wasn’t family because she wanted to be hands-on. Harlowe wanted her baby to feel a kind of love she’d never gotten from her own parents. Which was why she was fully taking off three months for maternity leave. She swore she wasn’t going into Cleats & Kegs at all during that time. She had a system in place that everything would hopefully be taken care of and if an emergency popped up, Brooks or I would handle it.

Now that she owned the restaurant, she could make these decisions, though I had a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn’t last three months without any kind of work. Maybe paperwork would be the extent of it, but it would happen.

“You should be there.” She pointed at the screen showing all four of my brothers playing baseball on the same team.

I shook my head. “Promised Brooks that I’d be the cheese to your macaroni. Where you go, I go. ”

“You have school.”

“Yeah, barely. Graduation is a few weeks away. I’m here with you so that when anything happens, he gets a call. Then he can jump on my parents’ private plane—which is just waiting for him—to be here with you.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble.”

I shrugged. “It isn’t. Brooks wants to be a better dad than we had and that starts with catching the baby in the delivery room.”

She scowled at me. This was something she’d been hearing her entire pregnancy, given that her baby daddy was in fact a catcher. Cobb was a pitcher, Silas played second base, and Urban was on first. “I have a couple more weeks.”

“I know. He’ll be here because they have, like, eight games at home after our opening day before he has to go out on the road.”

Harlowe groaned. “Don’t remind me. That means I’ll be alone with a fresh from the oven newborn.”

I shook my head. “You’ll never be alone if you don’t want to be.”

Filling in for my brothers wasn’t anything new. I’d done it when they were on road trips more than once for various things, but filling in with Brooks for this… it wasn’t a hardship. Harlowe was my best friend—basically my sister even before she’d gotten with my brother, though they weren’t married—and that baby was going to be my family.

“I can’t believe you’re having a girl,” I told her as the game moved on .

“Why not? It was a fifty-fifty chance.”

I shrugged. “I just can’t imagine Brooks with a daughter. A son? Yeah, sure, of course. I’m not sure he knows what to do with a daughter. Plus, I thought Briggs sperm only made boys and that I was a one-time anomaly.”

Harlowe snickered. “Do you really want to talk about your brother’s sperm?”

Well, that made me cringe. “No, I do not.”

Then I went back to watching the game, though I had a communications book on my lap so I could pretend to do homework. Pretending because I loved baseball and the game was on. But also because I was so close to being done, it was hard for me to focus. Just give me my degree already.

Everyone thought it was so weird that I loved baseball as much as I did yet hated baseball players to an extreme. Excluding my brothers, of course.

We turned our attention back to the game. Thankfully, these things were televised because normally, I would have been down there for some games. Sure, I’d fly back and forth because of school, but I would’ve been there today. However, Brooks wanted me to be with Harlowe.

The batter swung, hit a line drive that looked like it was going to be at least a double until Jenner Greene—my brother Silas’s best friend since forever and shortstop for the Kalamazoo Knights—leaped into the air and snagged the ball.

He smiled at something Silas said to him and I paid no attention to his perfect teeth or blue eyes that were made to look even bluer with his brown hair. It was an interesting combo.

“Shit,” Harlowe muttered. “That was a good catch.”

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I said, “Yeah. It was.”

“He’s really started to shine,” she told me and it took everything inside me not to roll my eyes. “I mean, he’s always been good, but last year, he really stood out.”

“Yeah. He’s good at baseball,” I said dismissively. “But remember, he’s just like all the other professional baseball players. They’re all alike so it makes it a little hard to appreciate it when he makes a good catch.”

Harlowe scoffed. She knew I hated baseball players and desperately wanted to know why, but I’d never told her. Never told anyone what had happened five years ago when I was seventeen. Though sometimes, I thought I should. At least Harlowe. She’d keep my secret and honestly, maybe it shouldn’t even be a secret.

Though I thought it was better to keep it to myself.

“You know, I don’t love to hear how baseball players are all assholes,” she snapped. I’d chalk it up to pregnancy hormones because she’d never had an issue with it in the past. “That they all cheat, given that my baby daddy is a baseball player.”

“They do cheat,” I countered. “I never said my brothers do, though. Besides, if they don’t cheat, they at least are super dismissive of people’s feelings. ”

“Camden.” Harlowe pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I really wish you’d just tell me what happened between you and a baseball player. Or even at least who made you hate baseball players so much because this is beyond your brothers being assholes. I think it’d help you.”

“Look.” I turned to her so that she knew I was focused on what I was saying. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to keep the player-bashing to a minimum, at least until you squeeze this baby out.” I set my hand on her shoulder. “And my brothers absolutely can be assholes. You know that as well as I do, but they wouldn’t cheat on their girlfriends. Never have, as far as I know.”

“Do you mean us specifically or just any girlfriend?” she asked.

“Both. Either. I don’t think my brothers would be in a relationship if they had any intention of being with anyone else at any point. They’re responsible.”

She blew out a breath that sounded an awful lot like relief.

“Besides…” I pulled my arm back. “You know that if I had any knowledge of any of my brothers ever cheating, you would already know. I’d have told you immediately.”

“That’s true.” She went back to rubbing a hand absently over her baby belly. “Does that mean you’ll tell me who made you hate baseball players?”

I groaned inwardly. No. I wouldn’t because she’d want to know what had happened and I’d decided not to tell anyone that. My guess was that she assumed I’d been cheated on by one and that wasn’t what happened .

“If I said my dad, would you believe me?”

Harlowe let out a loud laugh. “Yeah, actually, I would.” Because we all knew how much of an asshole my dad could be. Though he’d shaped up since finding out Harlowe was pregnant, he wasn’t exactly overjoyed by the news, given that he didn’t want any of his sons tied down with “easy pussy,” as he’d called it, until after they were out of the game. Said that it would distract them.

Yet my brothers were all at spring training right now, all playing for the Kalamazoo Knights—a team my grandpa owned, but my mother ran—all while each of them having a partner that they were devoted to.

Didn’t seem to be hurting themselves at all.

But I was going to have to watch what I said about players and my brothers specifically, given that my best friend and all of the women I spent any time with were connected to my brothers.

Amity Kincaid was with Silas, which honestly, should’ve happened a long time ago. Somehow, Urban had snagged Everly Rose, even though neither of them had ever wanted a relationship. A fateful day in a coffee shop had thrown Monroe Phillips at Cobb and he couldn’t walk away from her even if he’d wanted to. Now, my very best friend, Harlowe, was with Brooks.

None of them wanted to hear my opinions on baseball players, though they’d all probably be interested in my opinion of a single baseball player. The one who had made me form my opinion in the first place .

“Does your hate for a baseball player have anything to do with your scars?” Harlowe asked, making my eyes widen.

No one talked about my scars because I’d freaked out on them when it happened. It hadn’t been pretty, but the one thing I’d gotten out of it was that none of them mentioned the scars on my body. I’d wanted them all to ignore it and a lot of time had passed, so I thought they’d put it behind them.

“Uh…” How could I tell her yes without telling her the whole story? Absently, my fingers traced over the two jagged, round scars on the right side of my chest. One above my breast and one below it.

“We don’t talk about the accident,” Harlowe said quietly.

“That’s the way I like it,” I told her while staring at the screen. Clearly, this was something she’d thought about before but had just never said it.

“Is it?” she asked. “Because you know I’ll keep your secrets, Camden.”

“It was a stupid accident,” I reminded her almost automatically.

That was sort of true. It’d been stupid and it’d been an accident. The question that had never been answered was why I’d been running through the woods when it happened. I’d lied to everyone. Not a single person knew the truth. Well, that wasn’t true. There was one person who knew everything, but he’d also kept his mouth shut probably so my brothers wouldn’t murder him and stuff his body in the very woods where he’d found me. And he’d just made an impressive catch during spring training.

I’d told everyone that I’d been taking a walk. At night. In the woods. Very unlike me. And that I’d fallen. That was how I’d gotten impaled. I couldn’t hide it, so I’d lied about it. They’d known that part had happened due to the surgeries I’d needed to repair everything and the fact that I had two visible reminders that I’d been impaled by two very large, sharp sticks.

What I’d lied about was why I’d been running in the woods at night in the first place.

Trying to ignore the fact that Harlowe had brought any of that up, I focused back on the game and the communications book on my lap as I pretended to study for my exam but was really watching the game.

“Are you going to work for the team after graduation?” Harlowe asked. “As much as you love baseball, I’d think it’d be the dream.”

“I’m not sure I have a choice.” I chuckled. “The guys had to follow my dad, so I think I have to follow my mom.”

Harlowe scowled. “You know you don’t have to. You can do whatever you want.”

I shrugged. “I know, but my mom is kind of a badass. And I do love the game. I don’t think I’d mind being in charge of everyone and everything.” Then I gave her an evil grin. “Bossing my brothers around would be kind of fun.”

“You’re diabolical. ”

I snorted. “Yeah. I know. But yeah. I think working for the team would be a great fit. I do love baseball. I know the game. If I start out in their PR department, that would be amazing. I could start at the bottom and learn the franchise on the way up.”

Harlowe furrowed her brows. “‘Learn the franchise’? Is there anything about it you don’t know? You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. Always have been. You know the stats of all the players without trying. What would you have to learn?”

“How to run a business,” I told her honestly. “Besides, my mom’s not going anywhere anytime soon. I just want to be an asset to the organization. Learn everything that I can in case she decides to hand it over to me one day.”

“‘In case she decides’?” Harlowe snorted. “I’m not sure you’ll give her a choice. No one will be better suited to it than you.”

“I take that as a compliment."

“You should.”

Though if I were running the team now, there’d be one player I’d want traded away as soon as possible. However, he was also a great player and that would hurt the team, so I wouldn’t be able to do it. Which was something I’d have to learn.

How to keep your personal feelings out of business decisions.

For most things, it wouldn’t be a problem. When it came to Jenner Greene, it was a huge problem. Probably the biggest problem .

Luckily, he’d be done playing long before I’d have any power to make that kind of trade.

If I was really lucky, he’d want to go sooner.