Page 14

CHAPTER 14

JENNER

N o one had let it slip why Camden hadn’t come to the game on Saturday. It’d been two days and not a peep, which meant they either didn’t know or it had completely slipped their minds because they weren’t focused on their sister like I was.

It was during my free time when I typically grabbed lunch that my phone rang. Normally, I didn’t answer shit from a number that wasn’t in my phone, but something told me to answer it.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Hi, Jenner Greene? This is Kimberly Jones, Director of the Youth Development Foundation of Kalamazoo. We spoke recently after your donation.”

“Right. I remember.” She’d wanted to thank me herself, so I’d taken the call.

“You said then if there was anything else you could help with that I should reach out. Is that offer still good?”

“Of course it is. I mean, depending on what you need.” I sat down at the table in my kitchen. I’d gone home to grab some lunch since I didn’t live far from the stadium. “What’s up?”

“We’re launching a fundraiser with a lofty goal. Your donation is life-changing for so many kids in Kalamazoo. This fundraiser, which was pre-planned, is for an expansion for next year so that we can hopefully make this something for the entire county.”

“So what would you want me for?” I was always down to help, but I did have to know exactly what they were asking before I could commit.

“It’s a low time commitment. Basically, we’d like to use you to promote the fundraiser. I can send you our proposal for your attorney to look at.”

Yeah. I usually had him read that kind of stuff. “What’s the campaign?”

“That is less clear at the time. We try to keep our PR in-house, but we do want to go bigger for this one and would need to know if you agree to be involved before we can settle on a plan. We’d build the campaign around you if you’re willing and of course you’d have full veto power if there’s anything you don’t want to do.”

Anytime anyone mentioned PR, my mind went right to Camden. “Do you need help figuring out the campaign? I know someone. She’s about to graduate with a degree in public relations. I bet she’d love to help. Something to put on her resume. I’m pretty sure she’ll be working with the Kalamazoo Knights after graduation.” But I wouldn’t mention that her mother owned the team. Or rather, her grandfather did. People got weird.

“If she would offer her time, we would definitely take it. We try to keep our overhead as slim as possible so more money goes to the kids.”

“This sounds great. If my attorney doesn’t have any objections, I’d love to be a part of it. ”

We spent a few minutes working out when I could come to the office, which would be Thursday. That was our next day off. Then we’d have three more home games and be back on the road for eleven days. Camden may or may not agree to work with me, but I thought that since it was for a good cause, she’d put her hate aside.

And maybe she’d see she doesn’t need to hate me.

Maybe I was selfish thinking that this might allow me some time with her, which I shouldn’t want yet did.

Now I just had to convince Camden.

I waited until after the game that night so if I irritated her, I wouldn’t have to deal with her brothers right away.

First, I sent a text asking if I could call. That I had something to talk to her about.

She answered, No, thanks.

I chuckled as I shook my head and pressed her contact, anyway.

“I thought I said, ‘ No, thanks ,’” she said, but she was hesitant.

“You did. I don’t listen very well.”

She sighed. “No. You don’t. What do you want, Jenner?”

“I have a proposition for you.”

“No, thanks. Bye.”

“Camden, wait?” I called out so she wouldn’t hang up. “It’s not for me. I got a call about a PR thing that I’m going to do, but since it’s for a non-profit, I thought you might be able to help with it. They try to keep their overhead as low as possible so the kids benefit more.”

“Kids?” she asked. Camden had a soft spot for kids of all ages. “What kids? Tell me about it.”

So I did. While sitting on my couch with my feet on the coffee table, I told her everything Kimberly had told me. What she was looking to do. How much money they were hoping to raise. There weren’t any details I could give her about the actual plan because they’d said they’d build it around the fact that I was willing to help.

“When?” she asked and I suddenly realized that she had school on Thursday. Fuck. There went my chance to spend time with her.

“Well, we set it up for Thursday at ten, but you have class, right?”

“No.” She cleared her throat. “I mean yes, but my classes are canceled on Thursday.”

Well, wasn’t that fortuitous?

“I’ll do it,” she said, putting me out of my misery. “For the kids. Not for you. I’ll brainstorm some things based on what you said, so I’ll have at least a few concepts for Thursday.”

Of course she would because one thing was very clear: Camden was going to be excellent at her job.

“It’s going to be a social media thing.”

“I know. I heard you the first time.” She was quiet for a moment before continuing. “Why me, Jenner? You could afford to hire someone who knows what they’re doing. I know it’s not a money thing because you’d just look at it as another donation. ”

“You know what you’re doing,” I countered while scratching the back of my head to fight the urge to tell her that I wanted to spend some time together. It’d just scare her off. “I thought it could help you out too. If it goes well, you can put that on your resume or whatever as precious experience.”

“And if it goes poorly?”

“No one knows you yet. Act like you had no part of it.”

When she finally snickered into the phone, some of the tension released from my shoulders. “OK. I’ll be there at ten on Thursday.”

Which meant I had three days before I saw her again.

Three days that passed so fucking slowly.

On Thursday, I got to the office ten minutes before I needed to and waited in my car until Camden pulled in. When she got out of the car, she took my breath away. She was wearing a floral skirt paired with a long-sleeved V-neck tank top. She looked like the perfection of business casual. She’d paired the clothes with flats. I’d rarely ever seen Camden wear heels and she had a bag over her shoulder.

That dark hair that I wanted to sink my hand into was down in waves .

This woman was beautiful. Always had been.

“Hey,” I said when I caught up to her before she got through the door.

She barely glanced at me before saying, “Hello.” But it was too formal. I just wanted her to open up and talk to me.

I pulled open the door for her and the two of us went inside where we met Kimberly—a tall, mid-thirties woman with a pixie cut—and the person who normally did their PR stuff in house. Marceline was barely older than Camden with almost black hair and a septum piercing.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” Marceline said to Camden. “I have some ideas, but they depend on what Mr. Greene is willing to do.”

“‘Mr. Greene’?” Camden snorted. “You can call him ‘Jenner.’”

I bit back a comment and a laugh. “Listen, whatever Camden thinks will work or whatever, I’m fine with. I’ll do whatever she wants me to.”

Her eyes quickly jumped to me, but my gaze didn’t budge when she looked away right after. “You might regret that,” she mumbled.

I leaned over close to her and whispered, “I don’t think I will.”

They started to talk about what the director was looking to achieve and when I heard the term social media strategy , I was ready to clock out. I knew how to play baseball. I didn’t know any of this shit, but I saw a couple of boys in the great room on the other side slowly tossing a ball to each other. Normally, I’d say they shouldn’t have played catch inside, but it got me out of listening to whatever the women were planning.

When I got over to them and said hello , the younger of the two—maybe eight—looked up at me with wide eyes.

“I watched you play on TV,” he said with a little awe in his voice. “Last night.”

“Yeah, that was a hard game.” We’d lost, but not because we hadn’t tried our best. “Can I toss the ball with the two of you?”

“Yeah, sure,” the older one agreed. “We don’t have a glove for you, though.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think I’ll need one, but I do have one in my car if I’m wrong.” Because I always had a glove and ball in my car. Had since I’d started driving and didn’t see a need to change it now. I just didn’t think these kids were going to throw so hard that I couldn’t catch it with my bare hand.

As we played, I gave them some pointers on how to get in front of the ball, get the glove down for a ground ball. Things like that. We couldn’t fully throw it in here, but right now, we were working with what we had.

Every once in a while, I’d glance over, sneaking a look at Camden in her element. She spoke and held herself confidently and absolutely looked like she knew what she was doing. Hell, Marceline kept nodding excitedly, which meant she was loving Camden’s ideas too.

With the power Camden had right now, she could suggest so many things that would make me look bad in the end. She wouldn’t because she wouldn’t want to be known as the person who’d done that. No. Camden’s revenge was usually more about cutting you out completely. Like you were a bad limb she couldn’t hold on to anymore.

“Have either of you been to the summer camp that the owners of the Knights have?” I asked the boys. They did more than baseball there, so even if these two didn’t actually like the game, it was a possibility.

“Nah,” the older kid said. His name was Byron, I’d found out. The younger one was his brother Wolfgang. Not names I heard every day. “Our mom wouldn’t be able to afford it.”

“They have scholarships for it,” I told them. “If it’s something you’re interested in, the woman I came with’s family owns it. We could ask her about it.”

Both of them were suddenly excited and talking at the same time.

I chuckled. “Some of the Knights players volunteer there a couple of weeks. To run a baseball clinic.”

“So we’d play baseball with real baseball players like you?” Wolfgang asked.

“Do you play baseball now?” I asked him and he nodded proudly. “Then you’re already a real baseball player. But yeah. Some of the guys—like me—come out to the clinic.”

“We definitely need to ask Mom,” Byron said to his brother.

Seeing the two of them together reminded me of when Camden would be outside trying to play with us. Whether we had just been throwing the ball or playing a mock game. Without enough kids, it hadn’t always been a game. She’d been so much smaller, but she’d pushed herself to prove herself. She’d been just as good as any of us, she’d said, and she hadn’t been wrong at the time.

Playing with the Briggses was the reason I’d gotten to where I was today.

Some kids needed that. I wouldn’t have had it without baseball and really without the Briggs kids.

And I loved working with the kids, so being able to see Byron and Wolfgang again would be a cherry on top.

Still, I glanced over at Camden anytime I had the chance. Watching that skirt brush against the backs of her legs when she leaned over to point at something almost had me in a state that would’ve been really inappropriate for where we were.

So far, the season has been going really well for me. Which meant Camden was the only thing in my life that I needed to right.

“Jenner,” Camden called over, then she waved her hand, so I knew she wanted me back with them.

“Sorry, boys. The boss calls.” I ruffled each of their hair then headed over to her.

“So we’re thinking that for now,” she started as soon as I was in earshot, “we could record a few social media spots, urging others to donate, be clear about where the money is going, and what the goal is.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“We can set up a recording time that works for you,” Kimberly told me. “There will be some of the kids in it whose guardians have given permission, so we’ll get them prepped.”

“Can we have those two in it?” I pointed back to where Byron and Wolfgang had gone back to playing catch.

“Absolutely. There mother already signed the release form. You’d come in. Record. Shouldn’t take long, but we think that noting your generosity in matching donations will really call people out to contribute.”

I raised my eyebrows and turned to Camden, who was biting her lips together to keep from laughing. “What?” she finally asked. “It’s for the kids.”

I chuckled. “Yeah it is. I’ll match any donations. Sure.” That was so Camden. Joke was on her because I didn’t mind donating more money. “Do you have the team’s schedule?”

The question was met for Kimberly, but Camden rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Jenner. I have the schedule. Probably know it better than you.”

“Right.”

“I’ll be setting it all up with them,” she said to me. “So don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll get an alligator without teeth.”

“What?” I practically yelled.

The three of them laughed before Marceline said, “No. No. No alligators. I promise.”

Standing next to Camden talking logistics was hard. She was polite in everything she said, but since I knew her so well, I could hear how guarded she was being with me. Her responses to me tended to be short, but I couldn’t call her out on it in front of these people. That wouldn’t look good for either of us.

Luckily, she did glance over at me every once in a while and I hoped I caught all the glances. Because every time, she looked away quickly, like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been doing.

She kept wetting her bottom lip and biting the corner each time there was reference to the fact that we would be working together or when Kimberly said we seemed to make a good team. But we had to make this happen soon before the team was gone on the road again.

Not to mention Camden was about to go into final exams and have her graduation, which I seriously wanted to be at but knew I wouldn’t be.

Time wasn’t exactly on our side if they wanted to get this launched right away.

“Well, thank you so much for coming in,” Kimberly said as she walked us back toward the door. “I can’t express how much I appreciate it.”

“No problem,” Camden told her as they shook hands. I did the same then pushed the door open for Camden to come out. I put my hand on her lower back to lead her through and I could’ve sworn for a moment she pressed into me. But as soon as we were outside, she stepped away. “This is going to be fun. It’s a worthy cause.”

“I think so. Hey, thanks for hopping on this so quickly.” We were standing outside in the sun and it made her look like an angel .

“It wasn’t for you,” she said, but there wasn’t any venom behind her words. “Like I said, it’s a good cause and this is great experience.”

“Right, yeah. Of course it’s not for me,” I told her, trying to sound serious. “I didn’t think that. Did you think I thought that?”

She took a deep breath like she either had to calm herself or was annoyed, raising her breasts with the movement, and I had to look away.

“Oh,” I added. “Those two kids in there want to come to summer camp but said their mom wouldn’t be able to afford it.”

“I’ll take care of it,” she said immediately. “I’ll get their names from Kimberly and send an application and scholarship to them. If Mom fills them out, I’ll make sure they get a scholarship.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.” I grinned as we came to stop at her car. “Hey, do you want to grab some lunch?”

The intensity in her eyes changed and her breath quickened. “No. Thanks. I’m going to go home and start working on this. I’m excited.”

At the very least, it wasn’t the normal disgusted “no” that I got from her about anything , really. This sounded more like she really did just want to go home and get to work.

I’d rather have her at lunch with me, but I’d take the crumbs I could get. At least until I broke through her hard exterior.