Page 13

CHAPTER 13

HARLOWE

O nce Brooks was out of my door, I leaned against it and let all of the worry I’d had about his reaction go. He’d said if I’d told him that day at the field, he would’ve been shocked but a little excited. That would have been good enough for me.

Having him here had been hard because my entire body was screaming at me to run into his arms, which clearly, I couldn’t do. He wasn’t mine. We were going to have a baby, but we weren’t together and he gave no indication that he wanted to be. I’d be able to push these feelings down into the dark recesses of my heart and put my kid first. Something I didn’t think my parents had ever known how to do and I was going to be better than that.

With both of us focused on what was good for our baby, we’d be fine.

But would Camden?

My best friend wasn’t unreasonable. She just had boundaries when it came to her brothers that she didn’t want crossed and I understood that. In the moment, with Brooks, I’d marched right over every single one of them without much of a second thought, which had landed me right where I was.

It wasn’t unreasonable for Camden to want something of her own. To not want to share her best friend with one of her brothers. The fact that she’d become friends with girls in school who’d turned out to only be befriending her to get close to her brothers had made her more adamant and I couldn’t blame her. It sucked every single time.

Her brothers had always rejected the girls who’d done that, but their actions had still hurt Camden.

But I was her best friend. The one who’d sworn she’d found her brothers disgusting. I wasn’t supposed to cross the line and now, there was a baby involved and I wouldn’t be able to deny who its father was.

No. I just had to find a way to break it to her gently, letting her know that there wouldn’t be anything between Brooks and me in the future.

I always thought that part of her complex when it came to the guys was that they were always in the spotlight. Her parents loved her and gave her attention—though her father was a dick with all of them equally—but the light had always been on them. They were the athletes who were going to play professional baseball. People adored them and wanted to be near them.

I’d always wondered if that was the real reason she’d vowed to never date a baseball player. She’d had enough of being in the shadows of the spotlight.

I didn’t have too long to dwell on it because after lunch, Camden called. Now, maybe I should’ve expected her call, but for whatever reason, I hadn’t. I’d thought Brooks would back off, given that he knew I didn’t want her to know anything yet.

“Hey,” I answered on speaker so that I could finish making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“Hey, do you work today?” she asked without saying hello .

“No.”

“Perfect. Go to the game with me. Son of a bitch!” she yelled and I knew right away she couldn’t have been talking to me, but I decided to use it to my advantage.

“Not when you ask like that.” Though I desperately wondered how Brooks had gotten her to ask me without it sounding suspicious.

She snickered into the phone. “No. I’m driving and someone cut me off. Almost hit me.”

“You’re all right, though?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. So come to the game.”

A smile played on my lips. Brooks wanted me there and while I couldn’t let it mean anything, it kind of did.

“Sure.”

“Perfect. It’s a weird 4:10 game, so I’ll pick you up at three.”

After agreeing to the time, we ended the call. That gave me a few hours to freak out about it. Instead, I stared at my phone contemplating whether I wanted to ask Brooks how he’d done it or ignore it. In the end, I wasn’t that patient, so I had to ask.

How did you get your sister to ask me to come to the game? My thumb hovered over the send button for almost thirty seconds before I rolled my eyes and took the plunge. After all, we were going to have to be in contact at some point.

I didn’t.

That was just confusing. Of course he had, so I had to dig deeper. Come on. She asked and I don’t think it was her idea. Spill it.

I tapped my foot nervously against the carpet as I waited for his reply. Brooks always made me nervous. It was one of the reasons I tried to never be alone in a room with him. My feelings for him made me nervous and now, I had to get over it. We were going to share a kid.

Silas had Amity ask her.

Oh , I told him.

Amity could’ve just asked me herself, but either way, I was going to the game at Brooks’s request. Even though it was only because I was having his baby, it still made me feel some sort of way about it. But I had to reel all of that back in. This wasn’t about him wanting me, but more about him wanting us to be able to parent this baby.

Holy shit. I was going to have Brooks Briggs’s baby. I’d known that before, but now that he knew… it was settling in.

Right on time, Camden sent me a text saying she was here. I grabbed my purse and hurried out of my apartment. She was alone when I got into the car, which meant the other women were coming separately, assuming they were all going to be there.

“Hey,” I said when I slid into the passenger seat.

“Hey.” Then she glanced at me and I waited for her to decide if she was going to say or ask whatever she was thinking. “So, I have something I have to tell you.”

My stomach clenched hard. “OK.”

“I sort of accidentally told my brothers that you’re pregnant.”

At first, I didn’t see why she was telling me that because I’d already known that had happened. Brooks told me. Then I realized that she didn’t know that I knew. She couldn’t have.

“Are you mad?” she asked when I hadn’t said anything.

“Oh.” I paused for a second, like I had to think about it. Sure, I’d been irritated when I’d first found out, but now… there was no sense in that. “I’m not mad. I told their girlfriends myself, so I assumed they’d know, anyway.”

“Right.” She took a quick turn that had my stomach turning a little. “But I told them first and Brooks was there and I know you don’t really get along well with him. And I didn’t really tell them, anyway. Urban made a joke that it sounded like you’re pregnant and I guess my face gave it away.”

“Yeah. I can see how that happened.” Even when Camden didn’t say something, her face played the subtitles of her thoughts. It wasn’t that easy for her to conceal what she was thinking, at least from those of us who knew her well. “I wish you would’ve waited, but I understand. You can’t control your face.”

“I really can’t,” she said, then we both laughed.

The way I saw it, Camden was going to be high-level pissed when she found out this baby was Brooks’s. I wasn’t going to waste any time being mad about this and hoped that she’d remember and give me grace when she found out.

This was such a touchy subject for her and I knew that. Yet I couldn’t force myself to wish that nothing had happened between Brooks and me. At the very least, I no longer had to wonder what it’d be like to be with him, which was something I’d done for years.

Sure, he’d been injured, so maybe he hadn’t been at his best, but for me… it had literally been the best. That wasn’t something I’d ever tell him.

We were having an unusually warm September, which had me wishing the days would hurry up. The best part of this whole thing was that I was going to be pregnant over the winter and I hoped that meant I wouldn’t be a sweaty, beached whale the entire time.

As we climbed down the stairs toward Camden’s dad’s season ticket seats, we passed a row and heard someone yell out, “Camden.”

We both turned at the same time to find Monroe there with two men who looked old enough to be her dads. The row in front of them hadn’t filled up yet, so Camden and I went down there to say hi .

“These are my dads,” Monroe said. “Jonathan and Chris.” She pointed to them. “They’ve already met Camden, but this is her best friend, Harlowe.”

After a round of greetings, Monroe asked, “Are the others coming?”

Camden shook her head. “Not all of them. Everly doesn’t finish work in time and she said she had some grading to do. Said she’s trying to stay on top of it for when she has to push things aside for the playoffs.”

“Smart,” Monroe said at the same time the dad she’d introduced as Jonathan said, “You’re not skipping for the playoffs.”

Monroe snorted and shook her head then shrugged. I had a feeling that if skipping classes proved necessary, then she’d be doing it.

It was such a dad thing to say.

Amity was already in one of the seats when we got down to where Camden’s parent’s seats were. After we all greeted each other, our gazes went out to the players.

The team was out on the field stretching, but I didn’t see Brooks. As if he knew I was looking for him, he stepped out of the dugout with all of his catcher gear on except his helmet and face mask. Those were in his hands and his glove was tucked under his arm.

Whenever I’d seen the team stretching, Brooks had left a minute before the others so that he could get all the pads on. We must’ve been talking to Monroe when that had happened. He turned his head to the right and spit—not my favorite thing about baseball players—then looked up toward us.

The corners of his mouth rose, but not enough to create a full smile when he saw us. He dipped his head the way the players did to acknowledge someone since they weren’t really supposed to interact with the crowd at all once the game was on the way. It was all about focus then.

“What’s up with him?” Camden asked no one in particular.

“What do you mean?” Amity countered.

“He almost looks… happy. I don’t know. He’s usually so grumpy and that wasn’t really a smile, but it was something that wasn’t grumpy.”

The three of us snickered. Though Amity leaned forward and raised an eyebrow as she looked at me.

Shit. Did she know? I’d have to ask Brooks because if she knew, I had to think others would too. Camden didn’t because she wouldn’t be sitting here talking to me this way if she had. I sank back into my seat and folded my arms over my stomach, suddenly not feeling so well.

The game started and since we were the home team, the other team, Chicago, was up first. Cobb was pitching and it was always fun to watch him pitch. He was so young but so good.

In the second inning, the batter tipped off the ball, barely making contact, but enough for him to hit Brooks’s facemask pretty hard. All of us gasped. Time was called as he stood up and pulled his mask off. A trainer ran out, but it wasn’t bad. Brooks waved him off.

“That’s kind of sexy,” Amity said, taking the words right out of my mouth.

I didn’t love that I found the fact that these guys sometimes took a beating so sexy, but I did.

Even though I agreed with her, I kept my mouth shut, but Camden vehemently disagreed. Sometimes I thought she was pretending to dislike players as much as she said she did. Though I had a sneaking suspicion that she’d had a bad interaction with one that none of us knew about. It wasn’t like she’d been into players before, but there was a point where they had suddenly become the most odious creatures on the planet.

As a woman, I knew that probably meant a bad interaction of some kind, but she’d never tell me.

By the third inning, the heat was starting to subside, but it was still so muggy and the air felt heavy. I wished it would rain. Sure, that would interrupt the game, but it’d cool things off a little. It wasn’t until Camden got a hot dog that I knew I needed to find a bathroom.

This irritated me. After all, I’d been good for so long now, but this fetus had a mind of its own, I supposed.

“I’m going to be sick.” I quickly pushed myself out of the seat and took off running up the stairs. I would’ve taken two a time if I could’ve, but my legs were way too short.

The wave of nausea became a tsunami as my stomach turned again. What was the point of morning sickness that happened at any time of the day, anyway? The doctor had said hormonal changes were most likely the reason, though there could be a sensitivity to some hormone that the placenta released.

Whatever the cause, I wanted it to stop. The baby hated me.

Luckily, the family restroom wasn’t occupied, though an usher told me it was for families only. I didn’t care. I slipped inside and flipped the lock before falling on my knees over the toilet to release the kraken.

At least I was getting to do this alone and not in the regular bathroom and I tried to push out of my head that I was on the floor of a public restroom vomiting into a toilet where who knew what kind of crimes against humanity had been committed. I’d shower as soon as I got home because there was no doubt in my mind that I was leaving as soon as this was all done.

The wave subsided, so I could sit back and catch my breath. Once I had it, I flushed away my nightmare and washed up in the sink as best I could. Once outside the restroom, I leaned against the brick wall and got my phone out to send a text to Camden letting her know that I was grabbing a ride share and going home. That I thought the heat had gotten to me.

She asked if I was sure because she’d leave to take me home, but I didn’t want that.

I just wanted a shower and my couch.

On my way out of the stadium, I ordered a ride share and only had to wait a minute before it arrived. They were usually all around during the game for this exact reason and then also to grab people who’d drank too much to drive home.

When I got home, first, I grabbed a bottle of water and drank down half of it. If there was one thing I’d learned during this whole thing, it was that staying hydrated was important. If I got dehydrated, I’d be throwing up even more.

No, thank you.

As I continued to sip my water, I started a nice, warm bath then went to get my pajamas so I could change into them once I was done. This bath felt better than almost any I’d ever taken. Once I was done, I’d scrubbed the public restroom off me and hoped to never have that happen again.

In my pajamas, I grabbed a Diet Vernors because, after all, everyone from Michigan knew that Vernors cures everything. I’d been keeping my apartment cooler than normal, so I tossed a blanket over me and turned on the game.

This way, I could still watch.

Just like Brooks had wanted me to.