Page 25

CHAPTER 25

CAMDEN

“ W as that Jenner?” Amity asked almost as soon as I’d hung up the phone and came out of the room.

“Yeah. He let me go rather quickly.” I met her gray eyes. “Said my brother was there.”

Amity closed her eyes tightly and blew out a breath. “I should’ve known he was going there when he left.”

“Well, what’d he say to you?”

“Just that he needed a minute.” She shook her head as she laid her hands on the counter. “I should’ve stopped him. Or gone with him.”

“No,” I countered. “Whatever’s happening over there right now was going to happen, anyway. It’s not like either of us could stop it.”

“That’s true.”

“Probably better that it be at his house than in the clubhouse, anyway.”

She snapped her fingers. “Also true.” A moment passed between us where I imagined what actually was happening at Jenner’s house right now and thought she probably was too. “So all of these years of protest… it was Jenner.” She scrunched up her nose like she smelled something funny, which made me laugh.

“Yeah. He was the reason I hated baseball players and now he’s the reason I don’t.” Though I rolled my eyes. “Actually, I never did. I just wanted to really badly.”

“I can see it, though. You and Jenner. Silas is just being overprotective.”

“I know.” Hopefully, that wasn’t going to matter in the end, though. Whatever Silas had to say had better not spook Jenner, that was what I knew. “And I love my brothers, but the problem is, I think, that they know how they were with women until they found all of you—I assume—and then just figure that’s how he is with me.”

Monroe came walking through, noticed us, and joined us, though she’d been on a mission to do something else. “I don’t even want to know how Cobb was before he met me.” She visibly cringed. “I could imagine if I wanted to and that’s bad enough.”

“Now, I almost got my head torn off when I said that players cheat,” I told them and Amity nodded since it was to her I’d said it.

“Yeah, you did,” Amity said with humor in her voice. “Silas was ready to go off.”

“But I didn’t mean them . To my knowledge, none of my brothers have ever cheated in their lives. With women or baseball. They’re good guys, but they still see me as a little girl.” I took a breath and blew it out. “I mean, I’m grown enough to help their girlfriends navigate this life, grown enough to help take care of their babies, but grown enough to have a man touch my special places?” I gave my head an exaggerated shake .

Amity glanced at Monroe as Everly came to join us. Now there were four of us standing around the island in my brother’s white kitchen while the guys were in the living room with a game on. There was always a game to watch.

Then Amity leaned her face on her hands and elbows on the counter to look up at me. “I mean… he has touched your special places, right? You two have…” She spoke quietly, like she was worried my brothers had dog ears and it would start a whole other thing.

I fought a smile and tucked a chunk of hair that had fallen forward behind my ear. “I mean… yeah.”

They snickered as Harlowe joined us. “What’re we talking about? What am I missing?”

Everly leaned close and whispered, “We’re talking about whether she and Jenner have had sex and are trying not to rile up the overprotective brothers in the other room.”

“Oh,” she said, not trying to quiet her voice at all. Leave it to Harlowe to not care about whether she pushed Brooks’s buttons or not. “I mean, yeah, for sure.”

I let out a long sigh. “You women are braver than most. Not only because you put up with my brothers.”

With her arms stretched over the counter, Amity grabbed one of my hands and ran her thumbs over it as she held on with both of hers.

“Is this a ‘I’m going to hold your hand while you tell me this’ moment?” I asked, but she snorted .

“No. I just have a question. It’s super inappropriate”

Biting the inside of my cheek, I told her, “Go ahead.”

“I’ve just kind of always wondered about Jenner…” She was fighting valiantly against a smile, a squeal—something. “I’ve never had even the smallest inclination to find out myself because he’s just never been attractive to me in that way. I mean he’s a good-looking guy, sure…”

“Yeah, I get it. You never wanted my boyfriend. Good news. I never wanted yours, either.”

The entire group broke into a loud laugh.

“I mean… that’s really good.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “So…”

My chest heated. I could’ve just said I wasn’t comfortable talking about this with them and not one of them would’ve pushed me, but that wasn’t the case. I was comfortable with all of them. The flush now spreading over my body was because her question brought on memories of the last night I’d spent with him.

“It’s… good. Like, really good. He’s… ” I struggled to find the right word. Something other than telling them that he put his head between my legs like an eager man looking for his perfectly cooked steak dinner. “Very attentive,” was what I settled on.

A round of quiet giggles rippled over us.

Amity stood up, releasing my hand. “You know… I always thought he would be. ”

“At least they all have that going for them,” Monroe added, making me pinch up my face as I turned to look at her. “I assume, anyway. Cobb is always eager to please.”

My stomach turned a little. “I think I’m going to throw up,” I told her, but that just made them laugh more.

“Hey,” Everly countered. “You are kind of going to have to get used to some of this talk if you’re in our WAG group.”

I rolled my eyes and flung myself down on the counter. “I don’t like the WAG label in general, but those are my brothers.”

“Pretend they aren’t.”

Harlowe had a hand over her mouth as if she thought that me not being able to see her laughing meant I wouldn’t know she was. She and I had talked and I already knew too much about Brooks, even though she at least went out of her way not to be graphic.

But Everly was right. This was my group, whether I was with Jenner or not, and it wasn’t like they should stop sharing… whatever with each other because I was part of it. These women were going to be my sisters at some point.

I’d have to compartmentalize things in my head.

Then my phone rang and I hurried away from them to find a place where I could talk to Jenner without an audience. Upstairs in the room that I usually stayed in would work for me. Except when I rounded the corner, Cobb asked, “What’s taking Monroe so long? ”

I hit the button to answer and told Jenner, “Hold on.” Then I looked at my brother. “We’re talking.”

“About what?”

I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “How eager to please you all seem to be.”

My brothers roared with laughter as I climbed the stairs as quickly as I could and got to what I affectionately called “my room” at Brooks’s house.

“Hello?” I answered again, though Jenner would’ve been able hear what I’d said to my brothers.

“Hey. What did you just say to your brothers?” But there was humor there.

“Ugh. So gross. I was in the kitchen talking to Amity and the others came in. They were talking about how eager to please—sexually—my brothers all are. It was disgusting.”

His laugh put me at ease. If he was finding any humor in anything right now, that must’ve meant things were all right with Silas. “I have heard that about them before.”

“So gross. Tell me what happened?” I thought about sitting on the bed, but pacing right now was better.

“Silas just left.”

“And? Please don’t make me beg for information.” I absently chewed on the corner of my fingernail.

“It’s fine, baby. I told you it would be. He was pissed. We had it out. Now it’s fine.”

“Right.” A wave of relief washed over me until I realized he hadn’t told me how they’d worked it out. “Wait. Did you work it out physically? ”

He snorted. “No. Do you think either of us want to risk an injury right now? I mean, I would’ve if he wanted to go at it, but no. Nothing physical. Just the normal shit.”

“What was his threat?” Because there had to have been one.

“He said that if I hurt you in any way, your brothers would figure out how to dump a body without being caught.”

My eyes widened, even though that wasn’t surprising. “And what’d you say?”

“That if I hurt you, I’d help them make a plan before they killed me.”

With a sigh, I flung myself down on the bed. “Well, at least you have a plan.”

“And now we don’t have to hide anything. We can be open.”

“Right.”

We were quiet for a moment before he asked, “What’d you tell the women about me?”

I closed my eyes and cursed myself for even mentioning it. But it wasn’t like I would lie. “I said you’re very attentive.”

His deep rumble reached far places inside of me. “You make that very easy.” When I didn’t respond, he did instead. “So, am I coming over there or are you coming here?”

“I’ll come to you. We should talk about tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Dinner at my parents’.”

“Right. Yeah. Head over here. ”

We ended the call, then I went back downstairs and I told them I was leaving. No one needed two chances to guess where I was going, but I didn’t say it. The women had rejoined the men in the living room by then.

“We’ll be leaving too,” Cobb added as he stood, grabbed Monroe’s hand, and pulled her with him.

I pushed my feet into my shoes and when I went to open the door, it opened for me. Silas stood there with a scowl on his face, but I wouldn’t be the one to break eye contact. Then he said, “You ready, Amity?”

“Suuuuure.” She drew out the word but got up to get her shoes on.

The group of us walked out to our cars, called out goodbyes, and got on our way. Silas was just going to take a little longer to be fine.

When I arrived at Jenner’s, he pulled the door open before I could knock, cupped my face, and kissed me like he hadn’t seen me in a month. It was good, deep kiss that would’ve led somewhere if I had let it, but instead, I brought it to an end.

“We need to talk about tomorrow,” I told him.

He nodded and shut the door so we could go into the living room, where I dropped my purse. “What do you want to talk about?” he asked when we took our familiar spots on the couch. This tended to be how we did our talking. Facing each other—though I folded both of my legs under me.

“I just have some anxiety about how my brothers will react to seeing us interact. Seeing you touch me even innocently.” I spilled out the words quickly so I couldn’t turn back. “There’s been a strict on-the-other-side-of-the-room policy for years. It might be weird.”

“I’m not worried and that was your policy not mine.”

Rolling my eyes, I said, “Of course you’re not.”

“They’ll get used to it, Camden. They’ll have to.” He brushed his thumb over my cheekbone. “It’s not like I’m going to fuck you on the table in front of them.” He grabbed my hand in his. “But I might hold your hand. Or make contact in other ways. And they will be fine.”

I blew out a breath. “I’m not worried about anything hitting the media.”

He furrowed his brows. “Uh, neither am I. Is that something you’ve thought about?”

I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes. “Of course I do. It’s literally my job, but mostly, the media don’t post stories about players lives unless you’re dating a celebrity. Now, I am basically the owner’s daughter, so you could get asked about it.”

“Let them ask. I don’t care about that shit. Hell, I want people to know we’re together.”

“All right,” I agreed, though the nervousness about tomorrow wasn’t completely gone. In the end, he was right. There’d be bumps, but my brothers would have to get used to it.

We spent the night cuddled on his couch until we moved it to his bed. I really needed to start bringing extra clothes with me. I was doing the walk of shame far too often. It’d be nice to take a shower and put on clean clothes instead of going home to do it .

The team was in the spotlight right now because they were a young team and had just won the World Series. There was no chance that I wouldn’t be mentioned eventually. The same way Brooks being a new father was sometimes mentioned.

People would know Jenner wasn’t available, though that would make him even more attractive to some. For those women, it wouldn’t stop the offers. For him, hopefully, there’d never be a better offer than me. Even if there were, though, I believed him when he said he wouldn’t act on them.

I just wasn’t sure if Jenner truly understood what that meant. If we didn’t work out, it could hurt him in both his personal and professional life.

But he seemed fine to take the chance.

During the game the next day, my brothers’ girlfriends were at my parents’ house with me making sure everything was set for dinner. We weren’t cooking. Dad brought in a personal chef to make all of Mom’s favorite foods. He was diligently working away in the kitchen.

I was just there in case he had questions and to get everything else set up. Once the food was done, the chef would leave. When the others had found out that was what I was doing, they’d offered to come hang out with me and I appreciated the company.

Mom and Dad got home first. I’m not sure where they were but they hadn’t been here when I arrived. Then my brothers trickled in with kisses for their girlfriends. We’d each gotten a gift for my mom, but she wouldn’t open them until later. All she’d wanted was to have us there for dinner, anyway. I thought she’d still like the book I’d gotten for her since she loved to read and it was a signed first edition of her favorite classic author. Not exactly easy to find.

We were all talking when the doorbell rang. Silas was the closest, so he turned to answer it, though I knew exactly who it was.

Silas led Jenner in to us with a scowl on his face. Jenner greeted everyone, giving my mother a huge bouquet of lilies already in a vase.

“These are beautiful,” she told him. “Thank you, Jenner.”

“You’re welcome, Mrs. Briggs.” Then he turned to me. “Hey.”

“Hi.” I rolled my tongue over my top teeth nervously.

“Do I get to kiss you?” he asked quietly, but all I could do was nod before he gave me the same perfectly respectful kiss that my brothers had given their respective girlfriends.

“When did this happen?” Dad asked and when I turned, he was looking directly at Jenner and me.

“Recently,” I told him.

“Why does it look like I’m the only one surprised?” His eyes darkened a little.

“Because you’re the last to know,” I told him honestly. “Mom was the first. The guys found out yesterday.”

Dad grunted then swung his gaze to Silas. “And you’re fine with this? ”

Silas shrugged. “Not much I can do to stop it. Trust me. I would if I could.”

Jenner winced, but I was pretty sure that I was the only one to notice.

“If you two are done talking about my life with each other…” I started.

Dad held his hand up. “Don’t start with me, Camden. Not today.”

“I’m not starting,” I countered, never the one to let my dad get away with anything. “I don’t want to fight with anyone, but I will.” I took a step forward. “Jenner is part of my life and if I have to argue with every single one of you, I will.”

“You don’t,” Mom answered first, then she looked pointedly at Dad. “She doesn’t.”

And that was the end of the conversation.

No one groaned when he put his hand on my lower back or when he leaned in to say something to me when others were talking. By the end of dinner, my brothers were talking to him the way they had before Jenner had been with me.

It was like everything was falling into place exactly where I wanted it to be.