Page 77 of Reality With You (Arden Beach #1)

THREE MONTHS LATER

W arm, amber hues of a setting sun glinted off the end of her pen as ink glided along the lined pages of a notebook.

Notes filled the margin, various lines scratched out and notated, the beginnings of musical notes scribbled alongside the lyrics.

Under her breath, Lennon hummed a melody repeatedly between fragments of lyrics, making small changes, exploring different arrangements.

Boisterous sounds of excitement called her attention up from her spot on the bleachers behind a black net separating her from the field.

One of the kids, a nine-year-old girl, booked it for home plate.

Dylan cheered her on from the sidelines along with her friends on the field—a mix of boys and girls around her age—and a group of parents on the bleachers.

Lennon watched the girl’s tiny sneakers carry her across the clay mounds, the opposing team trying desperately to wrangle the ball from the outfield and send it back before she completed a home run.

She made it just in time, sending everyone into a frenzy.

Dylan whooped the loudest, as though they’d won the National Series. He ran out to the field and cheered with the players like a kid himself, praising the girl and everyone else for their teamwork. They tackled him to the ground, covering his white t-shirt and jeans in orange clay.

Lennon laughed, enjoying the sight of Dylan in a genuine state of joy. Her heart radiated warmth through her body like the afternoon sun beaming down on the field, comforting her against the crisp chill in the air.

When he finally stood, he went to the other team and praised them for playing such a great, competitive game.

Instead of looking dejected, they looked proud, motivated, and pumped for the next match.

Dylan had discovered he had a gift for striking that balance—seeing the beauty of both winning and losing and playing the game on your own terms.

Lennon’s hand drifted across the pages of the notebook again as an idea popped into her head. She then grabbed her phone, opening a text thread with the name Raquel at the top.

Lennon: What do you think of this for the bridge?

She then recorded a voice memo with some alterations to the lyrics and melody they’d been working on together.

It joined the long thread of texts and voice memos they had been sending back and forth for weeks, the last being Lennon’s text to Raquel a week ago letting her know she was beginning her tech blackout at a cabin in the mountains with Dylan.

They’d finally turned their phones back on that morning, but the terrible cell service in the area had kept them disconnected from the outside world for a few extra hours.

After the recording from the party leaked, Dylan and Lennon found themselves thrust back into the limelight and Lennon’s new serving job called to rescind their offer, stating that her publicity would be “disruptive” to their clientele.

But the saying was true—when one door closes, another opens.

Not twenty-four hours later, she received a call from Oscar about a songwriting opportunity.

She’d nearly burst when she showed up at his house the next day and Raquel was there, wanting to hear the other songs Lennon had played for Oscar and any others she was working on.

And she’d loved them.

Raquel hadn’t officially announced it yet, but she was producing a new album and looking for something fresh.

She asked Lennon to be one of the songwriters on it.

Though Lennon was grieving her ability to record her own music—and actively working with Dylan’s lawyers to fight it—it was another dream come true to have one of her idols sing her words.

Because they could work on things remotely, Lennon also said yes to Dylan when he asked her if she’d like to take the road trip they’d always dreamt about.

For the last month, they’d been driving across the country, stopping at small ball parks along the way.

While Lennon worked on her music, Dylan spent a day at each one volunteering with the kids, teaching them how to improve their baseball skills and drumming up interest in youth programs to keep them funded after he left.

His love of baseball had transformed when he shared it with others, seeing the game through their young eyes.

It helped him cope with the powerlessness he felt over the fate of the Tidebreakers.

With Diego back on the team, they made it to the postseason but lost the series match-up that took them out of the running for the championship.

Though disappointing to come so close, it infused some confidence back in the team’s future.

Eddie was able to leverage their late-season comeback to convince the Commissioner to hold off on forcing a sale of the team, but its fate still hung in the balance. A lot was riding on the next season.

But that was a problem for later. Right now, they were enjoying their break from it all.

They’d made it to California to a small mountain town in the desert the day before the show premiered, spending the past week in a secluded cabin with their phones off.

Only Rhett and Erin had the number to the landline to reach them in case of an emergency.

Erin was in the second week of her own tech-free mindfulness retreat in Florida, on break from work and school.

They’d timed them to avoid the inevitable media circus when the show premiered.

The dry air was a change from the humid climate Lennon was used to in Florida, as was the desert landscape and mountains cutting across the horizon beyond the baseball field. All the different cities and geography they’d traveled through had served as rich nourishment for Lennon’s creativity.

Making love to Dylan in a different place every night hadn’t hurt, either.

A memory of their time in Arizona brought a smile to Lennon’s lips and a flush to her cheeks as it flashed through her mind.

They’d stopped at a drive-in movie theater to watch Grease and were nearly kicked out when things got a little too heated between them in the back of his SUV.

They stopped and finished the movie, then pulled over on an empty road on the way to their next hotel to finish what they’d started.

She bit down on her pen, hiding her smile as she tucked in her chin.

“What were you thinking about?” Dylan asked with a grin as he approached the net.

“Sedona.”

His smile grew as he dug his teeth into his lower lip, eyes sparkling mischievously.

Dylan’s face was already flushed from playing on the field, but she swore the color in his cheeks deepened a bit.

He raised his arms, hooking his fingers through a couple of holes in the mesh, and she stood up to meet him.

The underside of his arms, bronzed and corded with taut muscle, glistened with sweat.

Lennon’s hands latched onto the loops under his, and he curled his long fingers over hers.

Pressing her body against the fence, their noses brushed through one of the holes. Fireworks exploded in her chest.

“We could see if they have a drive-in somewhere around here, too,” he whispered.

“It’s worth looking into,” she agreed. They kissed through an opening, restricted by the limited diameter to do anything more than a simple peck and a careful flick of the tongue. It made her even hungrier for him. “Are you finishing up here soon?”

“Yeah. I just need to shower off, and we can go,” Dylan said, his voice low and laced with need.

“Too bad this is a family place. Otherwise, I’d join you.”

Dylan released a strained sigh from deep in his throat. “I’ll probably need another one when we get back to the hotel.”

“You are really sweaty.”

“Really, really sweaty.”

“And dirty,” Lennon added, glancing at the clay marks on his chin, down the front of his tight white t-shirt, along his biceps.

Dylan bit his lip as he hung his head. “Lennon, there are still some kids around, and my pants are too tight for you to talk like that.”

“Then, you’d better hurry up.”

He dropped another peck on her lips, nudging her fingers with his before pressing off the fence, a stupidly happy grin on his face as he turned around. She whistled. “Man, I do like those tight pants.” He laughed, shaking his head as he jogged off.

Lennon’s phone pinged with a notification. Her message to Raquel had been unable to be delivered, and there were still no bars on her phone.

Good.

Their hands rested intertwined on the center console as music from a mixed hits station played low in the background. Dylan’s fingers absentmindedly drummed the steering wheel while Lennon looked out the passenger window, taking in the unfamiliar sights as they passed.

“You know how the Arden Beach Ballpark has been closed for a while? Just sitting there, overgrown and empty,” Dylan said.

“I was thinking … what if I got some investors to go in with me, maybe some buddies of mine from the team, to rehab it and get some youth programs involved again? Maybe even start one of my own. I think it’d be good for the community.

Give them a place to play and have fun.”

“Dylan, I love that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

His smile grew as he faced forward, eyes on the road, but she could tell his mind was venturing into the possibilities.

As they drove further into town, their phones began to buzz and ding rapidly.

“Well, we’ve got cell service back,” Lennon remarked grudgingly. Unlocking her phone, it opened to Raquel’s text thread where Lennon’s message to her from earlier finally zipped through and the progress bar on the voice memo inched forward. A couple of texts from Raquel popped up after it.

Raquel: Lennon!!!

Raquel: YOU’RE A STAR BABY