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CHAPTER 29

CAMDEN

W ith our first big fight in the rearview, things slowed down. I didn’t stay at Jenner’s house every night, though if he could have it his way, I’d be moving all my things there as soon as possible. Over the next four days, we talked but didn’t see each other. I had some shopping to do for my new job. College clothes and professional clothes weren’t the same, even though the organization was pretty laid-back. Still, I wouldn’t be wearing jeans to work most of the time.

My schedule was set and a lot of the time I could work remotely if I wanted to, given that I’d be writing a lot of press releases and things like that, which didn’t need to be done at the park. Still, I thought I’d go, anyway, because I liked being there and it was a good way to make work friends. Amity would be there most of the time too. We could go up to work in a suite together and watch the guys get ready if we wanted to.

And we could stay to watch the games.

The shopping was a success. I didn’t only buy clothes for work, but other things that I liked. A few things that Jenner would really like. Brooks gave me his credit card and begged me to take Harlowe with me to force her to buy something too. We roped Monroe into it with us. Everly and Amity still had to work, so they couldn’t come .

We probably came home with more for Kelsie than either of us had bought ourselves, but it was a fun few days.

On the team’s next day off, Brooks was hosting a lunch. It was tradition for whichever of the brothers were playing in Kalamazoo, whether for the Knights or if their days off lined up. I was always there and Jenner had been too, even back when I hadn’t wanted him to be.

But the only time the group could for sure get together were on rare off days, so while it used to be once a month Brooks would have everyone over, the guys should’ve thought about this when they’d gotten with women who were going to be friends with each other. There was no keeping us apart.

Plus, they were about to get back out onto the road again.

“Hey,” Jenner said when I opened the door. He swept me into his arms and off my feet for a hello kiss.

He’d wanted to pick me up at my parents’ house for lunch. That way, he could convince me to either do something with him after or just go to his house. I was voting for his house because we hadn’t had sex since the day we’d made up and I was jonesing for it.

“Well, hello to you too,” I said when he’d put me back down. Jenner pulled the door closed then took my hand to lead me to the car.

“Any chance I can convince you to skip this lunch? ”

I shook my head with a smile. “Not a one. This is tradition, Jenner. And just think, now you won’t have me scowling at you the entire time.”

We parted so that we could both get into his car on the appropriate side. “I highly doubt you’re not going to scowl at me.”

“I said, the whole time .”

He snorted then pulled out of the driveway to get us to my brother’s house. His hand was on my bare knee the entire time.

My brothers were a little less forgiving than I was. Because according to them, it was their job to hate anyone who made me cry. Again, I explained it had been frustration, so they’d started to ease up. He and Silas were getting back to their normal.

I thought that the more they saw us together, the better it would be.

Brooks’s house was full of laughter and voices the entire time we were eating. Kelsie was up for more and more time during the day now, so she got to sit with us too. Not once did Harlowe or Brooks tell anyone to stop cursing because the baby was there.

“Hey,” I called out over the noise. “How come you’re letting them say the very bad words in front of your baby?”

Brooks snorted. “Listen, she’s going to grow up around us, so it’s inevitable.”

Harlowe rolled her eyes, but she’d been known to curse as much as anyone else. “We’re just going to teach her adult words are for adults and hope for the best. ”

“At the very least,” Brooks continued, “we’ll teach her time and place.”

A rumble of laughter went over us. I wished them the best of luck.

As we were cleaning up, I was in the kitchen scraping plates with a plan to put leftovers in the refrigerator while Harlowe and Everly were doing the dishes. Monroe had the baby in the dining room, which was attached to the kitchen, so it wasn’t like the conversation had ended.

This wasn’t a sexist thing, either. The guys had put lunch together, so we were taking care of the cleanup. The guys were still clearing the table and wiping it down. Then Brooks was going to sweep because spills happened.

Jenner brought me two more plates, but when I tried to take them from him, he didn’t let go.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

He leaned in and gave me a lingering—but appropriate—kiss.

“That’s fucking weird,” Cobb said, which broke the moment. Not that it had been going anywhere.

“What?” Jenner asked, humor playing on his face.

“You were the biggest player of any of us. It’s weird to see you at something.. I don’t know… tender with a woman. Kissing her like that. Even weirder that she’s my sister.”

Monroe gave him an exaggerated elbow to the stomach with her free hand then mouthed “Sorry.” I shrugged because I didn’t care.

“Get used to it, brother,” I called out .

“None of what I did before matters,” Jenner told him, but he was looking at me. He ran a thumb over my jaw. “There’s only one person who’s important to me. Only one I care about.”

A collective groan came over my brothers while quite a few aww s came from the women. Jenner loved me and he was done hiding it.

On his last trip to the kitchen, I pulled him aside after he’d set the plates down. “This is where you first kissed me,” I said quietly.

“It is. I’m not sure what came over me that day, but thank god that I did it.”

“It did change the course of our relationship.”

“Yeah, it did.” He pulled me to him and held tightly until I lifted my head, set my chin on his chest, and looked up at him.

“Are my brothers bothering you?” I asked. “I can probably get them to quiet down. Put them through a little humiliation about stuff from when they were younger.”

His body shook with his laugh. “Nah. They need to get it out of their system because I made you cry. They’ll get over it and I can handle anything they throw at me.”

“Are they being this way at the park?”

He loosened his arms and shook his head. “Nah. They’re normal there. I’m happily leaving behind anything they might throw at me, so I don’t really care. I’m in this for the long haul. They’ve gotta do what they’ve gotta do. ”

The fact that he wasn’t asking for an easy way out calmed me. I don’t know why, but it was like he was more than ready to prove everything I needed him to.

But one thing was for sure. The next time any of my brothers was being an ass, I was going to pull out something embarrassing that they’d done. I didn’t care if it was the time Cobb had run down the street in his tighty-whities. Extra embarrassing because he’d pushed his little wiener through the flap before taking off. Which meant his penis had just been bobbing in the wind and the eighty-year-old woman who used to live down the street had brought him home that way.

He’d been six, but I don’t care. I’d still use it.

After another quick kiss, Jenner helped in the kitchen so that we could all go out to the living room because there was always a baseball game on.

Seating was a little more limited out there. Monroe sat on the end of the couch—still holding the baby—with Cobb on the floor in front of her leaning back between her legs. Urban and Everly did the same thing, as did Silas and Amity on the other end.

Brooks sat in one of the big, comfortable chairs and pulled Harlowe down onto his lap so that she was half-sitting next to him and half on him.

Which left one chair.

Jenner sat first then pulled me onto his lap, only I was fully sitting on his lap with my back against the arm of the chair where his arm lay and I tucked my bare feet beside the cushion. I was wearing a skirt, so I made sure nothing was showing that shouldn’t have been. But his hand ran up and down my calf, almost as if he didn’t realize he was doing it.

“That’s disgusting,” Silas muttered, earning him a look of death from me. Amity had been lightly running her hand through his hair, so she grabbed a fist of it and yanked his head back. Gently but enough to get his attention. He looked up at her while she looked down at him.

“Knock it off.” Clearly, she’d had her limit.

“I’m just saying. She’s shoving her feet beside the cushion. Do you know what could live in there?”

I broke out into a loud laugh and she released his hair while she joined me.

“Listen,” I said after wiping away a tear. “I helped every single one of you with your girlfriends in one way or another. Now it’s your turn to be good brothers to me. I love Jenner and that’s not changing anytime soon. Most likely ever. We’re good. You need to be good too.”

“I’m not babysitting him on road trips,” Silas told me, though I wasn’t sure he’d meant for everyone to hear. They still had.

“I don’t need a babysitter, man,” Jenner told him.

“He doesn’t,” I agreed, but I turned to Silas. “But even if he did, of course you would. If you thought Jenner was doing anything that would hurt me, you’d take care of it. You’d make sure I never even had to deal with it.” I flipped myself over so I could reach my brother and held his face between my hands. The thing is, I don’t need you to. ”

Then I righted myself. “As much as you all might not want to hear it,” I told them, “I trust Jenner with my heart.”

“And your body,” Harlowe added, making Brooks clamp a hand over her mouth, but the rest of the women roared with laughter.

“And my body,” I agreed through tears.

Because if there was one thing I was sure of now, it was that Jenner would hurt himself before he’d ever hurt me.

And he’d play my body like a violin.

After the game was over, it was time for the Briggs siblings to scatter. The rest of the evening and night would be spent with their women since they all had to fly out in the morning.

Once we’d gotten into his car, before pulling out of the driveway, Jenner asked, “I’m not taking you home, right?”

“I mean… your home,” I said. A sexy grin appeared as he slammed that car into reverse, causing me to squeal. “We have to get there alive, buddy.”

“Oh, we will.” But he did calm it down.

We were barely inside his house when he grabbed my hips and moved me to the couch. I fell back and he followed, pressing his body to mine. I loved the laughter that was coming out of me and I loved this playful Jenner even more.

He kissed me, letting his hands do a little roaming and I let him because I wanted this too, but then he pulled back, making me pinch my brows together.

“What’re you doing?” I asked .

“I have to give you something before I get you naked.” He stood and walked over to the table, making me pinch my brows together in a scowl. “Baby. If I don’t do this now, I won’t be doing it today.”

“Uh, when we’re done?”

“I’m never done with you.”

My cheeks heated and he was at least telling the truth. I’m never done with him, either.

So I pushed myself up to sit, toed off my shoes, and turned so that when he came back to me, I’d be facing his way.

“First, this.” He held up a key. “To my house. You already have the alarm code.”

“I do.” I wrapped my hand around the key to take it from him.

“The minute you’re ready to move in here, say the word. Because I’ve been ready.”

After wetting my lips quickly, I nodded. “How about after your road trip? I’ll have to hire someone because you guys won’t have time to move and I’m not doing it on my own.”

A wide grin spread across his face. “Done.”

Some might’ve thought that it was too soon but I’d known Jenner most of my life and given the time we hadn’t been together, I didn’t want to waste another minute.

“What’s that?” I asked about the blue box in his hand. It wasn’t small enough to be a ring, so my heart wasn’t going haywire, though I realized that if he asked, I’d say yes .

“For you. ”

It was a beautiful, expensive box. The kind you knew held a beautiful, expensive piece of jewelry inside. Slowly, I opened it. Lying inside on expensive-looking velvet was a thin, silver chain with two charms on it.

“Jenner, this is beautiful.”

“You had a bracelet on the night you were hurt. It had a baseball charm on it, which I didn’t necessarily understand at the time but am now hoping it was a little reminder of me.”

My eyes began to fill with happy tears. “I totally forgot about that bracelet. But yeah… I mean, I had you on my mind when I’d bought it, but I would say it was to remind me of my brothers, too.” And I had forgotten all about it. With everything that had happened that night and the following weeks, I’d never thought about the bracelet again.

“Well, this one…” He plucked it out of the box and began to put it on me. “Has the baseball, glove, and bat like your other one did.” It was one intricate charm with the three of them together. “And the other is my number, so I know for sure this will remind you of me.”

After swallowing back the emotions running through me, I put my hands on each side of his neck. “This is beautiful, Jenner.”

“ You’re beautiful. And you’re the only future I see for me.” He kind of shrugged. “Well, you and baseball.”

I let out a watery laugh as those happy droplets ran down my cheek.

My brothers didn’t want him to make me cry, but this… I welcomed. “I love you, Jenner. ”

“I love you so fucking much.”

Then he lowered me back down onto the couch and I was relatively certain we wouldn’t be making it to his bed.

This bracelet was going to be a part of me, something I cherished for the rest of my life, but I didn’t need it to remind of me of Jenner.

Because he was right in front of me.

And neither of us was going anywhere.