Page 55 of Reality With You (Arden Beach #1)
T he downtown Arden Beach skyline shimmered against the dark, velvety sky. As the distance between Lennon and the mansion grew, the pressure in her body gradually eased. She still felt on the verge of throwing up.
“What do you need right now?” Dylan asked, his tone calm, though she sensed the anger simmering beneath it. The muscles in his neck and hands flexed as he gripped the steering wheel.
“I’d like to hit Kelsey in the face with a baseball bat,” Lennon answered. With sarcasm. Mostly.
“Anything else that won’t get us put in jail?”
She considered it. “No.”
He chuckled, but then abruptly stopped, a thought cutting it off. A conspiratorial smile tugged at his mouth. “Actually, I have an idea.”
Fifteen minutes later, they drove through another mansion-lined neighborhood in a quiet suburb and stopped at a massive iron gate leading to a long driveway.
He pressed a button on the roof of his vehicle, opening the gate that led to a palatial Spanish Mission-style home at the end of the winding driveway.
Dylan asked her to wait in the living room, which shared a large space with a dining room.
It was the kind of house Lennon had always dreamed of calling home—warm, lived in, full of character.
Dark-stained wood beams stretched across the two-story ceiling, while three ornate wrought iron railings framed by arches offered a peek at the second floor.
A massive fireplace molded from the Venetian plaster walls had her imagining curling up there with her guitar as a fire crackled in the hearth.
Framed black and white photographs lined the wood mantle.
As she waited, Lennon started at one end, admiring each one.
His parents when they were young and happy on their wedding day.
He and Erin sitting on his mother’s lap in the stands at the Tidebreakers’ stadium.
The four of them on the beach about a year before his mother passed.
His parents posing together after Rhett was inducted into the Hall of Fame, his mother smiling in the black dress Lennon wore to the gala.
Another made her heart hitch—a photo of Lennon, Dylan, and Erin in middle school on the ballfield cheesing it up for the camera. She reached out to touch it but then dropped her hand as she heard one of the sliding doors to the backyard open behind her.
Dylan returned with his jacket removed and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his elbows. “Come on,” he said, inclining his head.
He led her outside to his batting cage. The air was thick with the scent of sea salt, the ocean only a few yards away.
Rhett’s house had a batting cage and a large backyard with plenty of room to practice baseball, but Dylan had always dreamed of having one of his own.
Pride warmed her heart as she approached the cage, knowing how much it must have meant to him the day he contracted someone to build it.
He opened the metal door and picked up the bat leaning next to it before gesturing for her to enter.
As Lennon stepped inside, she followed his nod to a bullseye at the far end of the cage. She realized a photograph was taped to it.
A photograph of Kelsey.
Lennon expelled a loud, whooping laugh. She held her stomach as she threw her head back. “Did you print that out just now? You are a fucking psycho .”
“And you love it.” Dylan offered the bat to her with a smirk.
A wicked grin split across her face, taking the bat from him.
As she rolled it in her hands, getting a feel for its weight, she tried to remember what she’d learned from times playing together as a kid.
She was never that into it, but she’d played occasionally with Erin and Dylan on the field after games and at their house.
“It’s been a while since I’ve tried to hit a ball. ”
“Muscle memory is your friend. Just lock your eyes on the target and let your instincts do the rest,” he said casually, closing the door behind her.
“Easy for a pro to say. Especially one not wearing heels.” Lennon got into a stance, digging her shoes into the clay dirt and wrapping her hands around the base of the bat.
“Ready?”
She gave him a nod. A moment later, the machine whirred to life ahead of her.
Lennon’s heartbeat increased, the anticipation of a ball flying toward her at any moment instinctively waking up her system.
When the ball finally shot out and raced toward her, she swung and missed.
It plunked into the dirt an embarrassing distance from the cage wall.
She realigned herself. A few seconds later, another ball went out.
She missed again. On the third try, she clipped the side and it went foul, colliding with the side of the cage. “ Damnit .”
“Keep your right arm close to your body,” Dylan instructed, “and keep it bent at a ninety-degree angle as you follow through.”
Lennon corrected herself and aggressively swung again when the ball came at her.
The next few were all either complete misses or foul balls.
She wanted to see one of those things hit Kelsey’s photo straight in the center.
She needed something to go her way. Frustration coursed through her as she wondered why she couldn’t even hit a damn ball once.
She was batting zero in life and in this stupid cage.
The machine powered down, and the door squeaked open behind her. She let out an exasperated sigh as she let the tip of the bat drop to the ground, the base hanging from her grip. “It’d be easier if I just walked down to the target and hit her in the face.”
“We already agreed murder was off the table,” Dylan reminded her.
“Here, let me show you.” The light touch of his hand on her elbow sent sparks fanning across her skin.
The frustration in her evaporated. His presence at her back made every nerve in her light up, rooting her into an intense state of awareness.
She followed his nudge to pick up the bat, then allowed him to adjust her hips, legs, and torso to stand correctly.
His arms encircled her, the length of his body lightly pressing against hers.
Gentle hands positioned her arms in the proper hold before settling atop her grip on the bat to shift her hold on it.
“You want to stand like a triangle, with your head in the center of your feet. Keep your front leg firm and back foot on your toes so you can easily rotate,” Dylan explained, his voice slightly deeper and quieter than before, the vibration of it tickling her ear.
Butterflies chased each other up her spine.
Layering over the sea and freshly cut grass, she smelled his cologne again, and it took everything in her not to lean into him. “Got it?”
Lennon realized she’d been distracted, her eyelids fluttering as her gaze refocused. She nodded tightly. “Mmhmm.”
The corner of his mouth nudged upward. He’d noticed.
“Good. Now, focus on your target—envision the ball hitting it. See it like it’s already happened.
” The slow, focused way he spoke and the way his tongue rounded over certain words from his comfortably familiar accent made her legs feel like they were about to melt into the dirt.
That certainly wouldn’t help with her batting average.
“Take a deep breath, then exhale it all out. Watch the ball.”
Dylan let go, stepping away from her. For a moment, she felt his absence so profoundly that she almost instinctively dropped the bat to go after him as if she were magnetized to him. She managed to keep her feet planted and reminded herself to focus on the target.
Lennon followed his instructions. She zeroed in on the picture of Kelsey. Imagined the power in her swing, the crack of it hitting the ball, sending it soaring through the cage, square between Kelsey’s smug eyes.
The machine whirred back to life.
She took a deep breath and let the exhale take the tension with it. When the ball came, she swung with force and precision and sent the ball into the right-hand corner of the photo.
“Hell yeah—that’s it!” Dylan shouted over the buzz of the machine.
The next several balls were all pretty good, hitting somewhere around the target. When she finally hit it square in the middle, she screamed in delight, shooting her hands up over her head. “I GOT IT!”
The machine clicked off, and the chain-link door screeched open. She dropped the bat before jumping into his arms, and he spun her around. When she landed back on the ground, she said breathlessly, “I want to do it again.”
Dylan laughed as she picked up the bat and went for several more cathartic rounds.
Once she’d tired out her arms, they stretched out on the lawn as her heart rate came down, her dress clinging to the sweat on her skin.
Lennon discarded her heels so her bare feet could sink into the cool grass, and he’d done the same with his socks and shoes.
They stared up at the full moon hanging in the clear night sky peppered with stars.
“Remind me never to piss you off if there’s a bat nearby,” Dylan mused.
Lennon smiled as she looked over at the battered photo of Kelsey.
She’d drawn devil horns and a mustache on it, and Dylan pinned it to a palm tree to celebrate her victory.
“Well, if this whole reality show thing doesn’t end up giving my music career the boost I was hoping for, at least I have a backup plan now. ”
“I hear the Tidebreakers are looking for new players,” he remarked wryly.
Lennon’s stomach tightened with the reminder. She played with the grass between her fingertips. “You haven’t told me what’s happening with that since you left.”
Dylan kept his eyes on the sky and took a deep, slow breath. “This past week, Carmichael Enterprises’ stock took a big hit. The company’s been struggling, but now everyone knows. Add that to everything that’s been going on with the team … . They’re pushing him to sell it. Soon.”
“They?”