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CHAPTER 4

JENNER

A s I drove to the field, my entire interaction with Camden played through my head. She’d fucking pissed me off by asking if they could trust me with the baby. She was saying that I dropped people. It had nothing to do with the baby. It was just her way of getting a dig in. To remind me of what happened between us as if I needed the reminder. Her saying snide shit about me wasn’t new, but fuck, it had rubbed me the wrong way.

It also fucking hurt, though I wouldn’t admit that to a single person. Especially not Camden.

In the years since her accident, she’d gotten a cruel edge to her. I didn’t think she meant to be cruel, but everything that had happened jaded her. Mostly when it came to me or baseball players in general because the way she saw it, I’d fucked her over, which meant every player would do that.

Hell, she’d once implied that Silas would cheat on Amity in front of Amity. Which could’ve caused Silas a whole shit ton of problems with the one woman he’d been in love with but hadn’t thought he could have. Luckily for Silas, Camden was able to backtrack, so it hadn’t caused problems with Amity.

Seeing her in the elevator had been expected. I had just been told I should go right away if I wanted to see the baby because the brothers had worked out a schedule and since each of them would be bringing a girlfriend with them, they could only go in pairs. There’d been no mention of Camden going this early.

Damn, she looked beautiful. She’d had her brown hair—the color of milk chocolate—down and it was long. I’d imagined sinking my fingers into it for years. But her hazel eyes had turned to stone as soon as she’d seen me. That hadn’t stopped me from letting my imagination run wild while we’d been in that hospital room and she’d held the baby.

All of that needed to get the hell out of my head now because I was about to spend a day surrounded by most of her brothers.

One thing became clear to me at that moment.

I had to figure out how to get Camden to see me differently than she did. Not because I thought I had a chance with her. No. Her with me would never happen no matter what, but she needed to change what she thought of me. I was around her family all the time and the thought of her being uncomfortable in my presence didn’t sit well.

I’d thought she would’ve gotten over it by now, but the open hostility was getting harder for her to hide. As much as I would’ve loved to tell her brothers what had happened back then, she’d been the one to tell me she didn’t want them to know, so I didn’t. It probably didn’t help that she had scars she looked at every day in the mirror as a reminder of why she hated me.

Now, it’d be a shitshow if they found out because there’d been years of lying.

For fuck’s sake, I’d done what I had done for her .

I was still working out when Silas came in to start his own workout. After we’d greeted each other, he hopped on the treadmill for a quick warmup while I was on weights. We didn’t have that long before we’d have to move on.

“You see the baby?” I asked once he’d come over and grabbed some weights.

“Yeah. She’s cute as hell.”

I nodded. “Brooks a dad,” I said while shaking my head.

Silas snorted. “No shit. But then again, he’s been parenting all of us for years.”

Now that was true. I often wondered if he was glad to have all of his brothers on the same team so it’d be easier to keep an eye on all of them. Not that he meddled in their lives too much. After all, we were all grown men, but he sure was the first to tell one of us if we were fucking up.

“Hey,” Silas said. He dropped the weights to his sides. “What’d you do to piss my sister off?”

I stopped my lift as my gaze jumped to this. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

He snorted again. “Of course you don’t. When I was at the hospital, Brooks said you were there with Camden, but she looked angry. That she even asked if they could trust you with the baby.”

I scowled. Yeah. I remembered. “I was there. Not with her. We got on the same elevator, but I have no idea what kind of bug crawled up her ass.” It was a lie. Being near me was the bug. “But I didn’t think she seemed too pissed,” I lied. “I mean, maybe that I wanted to hold the baby.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. She wouldn’t want to give that little bundle up to anyone.”

Because we all knew Camden loved babies.

But this just showed that I had to get her to see me differently. Not like me exactly, but just not hate me so much. Others noticed and if she wasn’t careful, pretty soon, they’d start asking questions.

“Either way,” he continued, “Brooks said she seemed irritated and wanted me to get to the bottom of it. I’ll ask her, though. Just thought you might know if something happened.”

My stomach clenched hard. She wasn’t going to tell him that she just had an utter disdain for me, but what was she going to tell him?

I had to figure out a way to fix this.

We went on with our workout then did all of the other things we had to do when we were getting ready for a game. It wasn’t until we were in the clubhouse again getting dressed for the game that anyone brought Brooks up.

“Sucks that Brooks isn’t playing.” Urban looked to our backup catcher and added, “Not that you’re not great. That’s not what I mean.”

Johnson, our backup catcher while furrowing his caterpillar eyes, just gave Urban the finger then they all chuckled.

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “But you’d want to be there as long as you could if it were Everly. ”

“Yeah. Of course. I’d probably try to time it in the off season so I could be there more than three days.” He sat in his chair to start putting his cleats on. “Think about it. Yesterday’s game counts as a miss. They go home today and he’s missing today. Then tomorrow. So his kid will only be, what? Three days old and he’s back to work. That’s going to be tough.”

“Mostly for Harlowe,” Cobb countered. “She’s the one who has to handle this new baby.”

“Yeah,” Silas agreed. “But could you imagine being here playing knowing that your woman was home with your very new baby?”

“True.”

Yeah. I’d hate that too, which was why I would also try to time it for the off season, but accidents fucking happened. But if I timed it right, then I’d be with my woman and my baby for months. That was time you don’t get back, though I knew Brooks would work his ass off to make sure he was present in every way he could be.

Fuck. Why was I even thinking about this? I wouldn’t be having kids anytime soon, mostly because I wasn’t interested in any baby mama drama or a relationship.

Right after I’d put my cleats on, my phone rang. I was about to toss it into my locker and forget about it, but I saw that it was my mom. If I could help it, I wouldn’t ignore her call.

“Hey, Mom,” I answered.

“Hi. How’s your day going?” She always sounded so upbeat, even when she wasn’t. As if I hadn’t learned how to hear behind what she was saying a long time ago.

“I’m good. We’re about to head out for the game.”

“Right. I was just watching the pregame show and they said that Brooks is out on paternity leave?”

Shit. That was right. I hadn’t called my parents after last night’s game. “He is. Sorry. I didn’t call. Harlowe had the baby last night. It’s a girl and they named her Kelsie.”

“How big was she?”

Well, shit. “I don’t know. They said it, but I honestly don’t remember.”

She snickered. “You men are the worst at the details.”

“Yeah, sorry.” But I had to chuckle along with her. She wasn’t wrong.

“Well, I won’t keep you, but I’m going to send them something.”

“I’m sure they’ll love it, Mom.”

My mother was the sweetest woman out there. Some would even say I’d had normal-ish parents growing up.

We had a good game, but it was tough and we lost. It happened. You literally couldn’t win them all. Since it was a game day, that left me with an actual night to do something, though there wasn’t much I wanted to do right now.

In the past, I might’ve found a woman to pass the time with, but that wouldn’t lead to Camden developing a better view of me, now would it ?

Silas and I were walking out of the clubhouse, where we met up with Amity. After a kiss, she glanced at me as Silas put his arm around her and asked, “So what are you doing with your free night?”

I shrugged. “Not sure yet.”

“Come to our house. We’re grilling some steaks since the weather is decent.”

I groaned internally. “Is this a whole Briggs family thing?” Because I wasn’t sure I could handle two run-ins with Camden in one day, given that every time she was around, I had to be aware of how I was looking at her. One of her brothers would catch me in a second if I let my guard down.

“No,” Silas answered for her. “It was just a me and Amity thing.” He nudged her.

I chuckled. “Then no thanks.”

She elbowed him in the ribs. “It wasn’t a just us thing. It’s just that we were the only ones going to be there. Trust me.” She rolled her eyes. “If this was supposed to be a romantic night, I wouldn’t be the one grilling.”

Silas let out a loud laugh that echoed down the hall right as we got to the door to the outside. Once he was done, he said, “Seriously. You should come over. I think we were going to watch some post-game analysis.”

“See?” Amity leaned up so she could see me. “No romance whatsoever.”

After snorting, I said, “Well, I do love steak. If you’re sure. ”

“We’re sure.” She walked quickly right out of Silas’s arm and called out, “See you in a little while.” She’d clearly driven separately from him because what girlfriend wants to come to the park so damn early?

I went home to drop off all of my stuff because I didn’t want to get to their house at the same time they did. What if they had to stop at the store or something? I didn’t know.

So it was an hour later that I was knocking on their door. Silas pulled it open then stepped back for me to enter. There was a time when we hadn’t knocked on the doors at each other’s houses. Hell, Silas still didn’t. I’d started to when he’d moved in with Amity. There was no way I wanted to see that woman in any state of undress and you just never knew.

Amity said it was our job to prepare the sides while she put the steaks on the grill. Her dad had taught her and I had to admit, she made some of the best I’d ever eaten.

While Silas and I prepped the sides, we talked about the game and the season. Normal stuff. Even joked about our bet. Most home runs was an old standard and in the end, it didn’t even matter because we both donated to charity a ton.

Once we were gathered around the table to start eating, Amity asked, “Are both of you volunteering for Camden again this year?”

“Every year,” Silas told her. “I’m her brother. It’s not like I can get out of it.” When she raised an eyebrow, he added, “Or would want to. ”

“Yeah, Camden would have all of your balls if you even tried to get out of it.” Though she’d absolutely prefer I not volunteer. I still did because it was a good thing to do but also, deep down, I always hoped that it’d show her I wasn’t all bad.

Silas snorted. “She is tough.”

“I mean, growing up with you all, we kind of had to be.” Amity popped a piece of steak into her mouth and gave us a closed-mouth grin.

She wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t that we’d done anything to them. No. My dad would’ve kicked my ass if I’d ever hit a girl, even when I’d been super young. It wasn’t that we’d been rough on them physically. It was more about the people who wanted access to us and would’ve done anything to get it.

I hadn’t had much of that for most of high school because I had a girlfriend and was committed to her, but my senior year… that was a different story. I’d found out she’d been cheating on me and decided I’d never do that shit again.

There was only one woman who could make me want to, anyway. And she really hated my ass.

After the three of us had cleaned up from dinner, Silas and I settled on opposite ends of the couch in the living room. He flipped on a sports channel.

Sure, it was a little cliché to think that we were consumed with baseball, but we were and watching these shows helped us keep up on what the other teams were doing. It wasn’t just about our games.

“I’ll be back in a while,” Amity said before leaning over and kissing him. I kept my eyes on the screen. “ Bye, Jenner,” she added over her shoulder before leaving the house.

“Where’s she headed?”

“To see her dad.”

“Is he marrying his girlfriend?”

Silas shrugged then took a long drink of water. “Don’t know yet. But I’d bet yes. Or well, maybe I wouldn’t. I don’t know that he wants to get married again.”

“What about you?”

He turned to me with a look of horror. “I’m not marrying Kincaid’s girlfriend. That’d just be weird.”

I held up my middle finger. “You know that’s not what I was asking.”

He chuckled but nodded. “Amity and I will be getting married. Or I assume so, since I haven’t asked her yet. But it’s inevitable, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Why haven’t you asked?”

“Not the time,” he said honestly. “I would’ve married her as soon as she came back.” Then he winced and I knew the memories were flooding in. “OK. Maybe I wouldn’t have, given that I had shit to get past, but there’s no rush. We’re together and it’s coming up on a year, so probably then. I just didn’t want to rush her.”

Nodding, I slowly sipped on my own water to buy me some time. Silas was the only person I’d talk to about certain things, but fuck, was it tough when the subject was his sister and I couldn’t let him know that.

“What if you had someone you’d like to see you differently than they do?” I asked out of nowhere .

“What?”

I sighed. It hadn’t sounded right to my own ears. “If there was someone who had a certain opinion about you and you wanted to change that, how would you start? Especially if she thinks you’re absolute trash.”

His eyebrows rose as I spoke. “Jenner Greene. Is there a woman who’s finally caught your interest for more than a night?”

My jaw tightened and I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t say it was a romantic thing, asshole. I just meant in general.”

While fighting a smile, Silas said, “I think I need to know if it is or not. Totally changes how you go about fixing your image.”

I sighed loudly so he’d know I was annoyed, but that wouldn’t stop him. “Let’s go with not romantic.” Because in the end, I needed Camden’s opinion of me changed just so we could be around each other.

“Well, just be a good person. Eventually, she’d see it. You’re not an asshole, so that should help, though I’m really curious about what made this person think you are.”

Yeah. I bet he was, but that wasn’t something I could tell him. “I already do that and it’s been years. The opinion hasn’t changed.”

He shrugged again. “Then it has to be a feelings thing. She must have feelings for you or had feelings for you for her to hold a grudge for years, right? I think it’s harder to fix things when one of you loved the other.” He’d know since that was how it’d been with Amity. But he’d fixed it. Or rather, they’d fixed it together.

“So, like… woo her? Even if we’re not ever going to be together? But if she had feelings, I have to woo her.”

He nodded. “Sort of, right? Fuck, I don’t know. Brooks probably would, but we’re not calling him. He’s got a lot going on right now with Harlowe coming home from the hospital. So yeah. Do what you’d do if you were trying to get her to fall for you.”

“She’s not going to fall for me.”

“Right. She doesn’t have to. If you don’t want a relationship with her, you don’t want to send mixed messages, but do it the way you would a friend who’d you pissed off.”

I blinked twice. “I don’t think any of this helped at all.”

His loud laughter filled the room. “Sorry, brother. It’s the best I got. Give Brooks some time and ask him. He seems to know all about this shit.”

Yeah. He did because he’d lived longer. Not even that much longer, but Brooks was the older brother in every way, so I supposed that counted for something.

So now, I had to figure out how to make Camden fall for me without letting her know that I had feelings of my own. Make her friend -fall for me.

Or at least not hate me so god-damned much.