Page 3 of Faking it With the Player Next Door

As he steered his bike past Gram’s house, I felt my mouth grow dry and swallowed hard.

This wasn’t fair.How could a person charge another person’s desire so quickly, and after so long?

I had a feeling coming home to Coleman may have been a huge mistake.

Chapter Two

Van

“Oh, come on,” I groaned as the cold water sluiced over my body from the overhead shower. Placing my hands on the wet tile in front of me, I bowed my head so the water could trickle down my chest and onto my back.

Closing my eyes, I conjured up the image of Taylor standing on the back deck, the oversized tee shirt billowed in the afternoon breeze, and teased my body with a glimpse of her upper thighs. I felt a twinge in my groin, then and now in the shower.

As soon as she disappeared inside the house, I couldn’t finish my workout. My heart was beating way too fast, beads of sweat dripped down my chest and I was at a loss for words. My mind was too distracted with Taylor’s appearance, and I decided to call it a day with my physical therapy workout.

Wonder why Hunter didn’t tell me about Taylor’s arrival?

I opened my eyes, and raised my head.

Hunter, Taylor’s older brother, and my best friend, would have known that his younger sister was coming home, and he surely would’ve told me,right?After all, Hunter told me about all of Taylor’s life since she moved away.

I knew about her relationship with Travis, when he had proposed to her, and how they were planning their wedding.

But the one tidbit that really stuck with me was when I was first recovering from my ulnar collateral ligament surgery a few months ago, and Hunter was furious. He rarely got this angry. When I asked what was up, he finally told me that Taylor had broken off her engagement to that Travis character, and that she wouldn’t tell him why. He could only guess that it had to be something pretty damaging for good-hearted Taylor to bow out of marrying the guy.

All I knew was thatthat Travisguy needed his butt kicked into the next century. I had a feeling that Travis had done something beyond forgiveness, and that pissed me off. Even though I still harbored feelings for Taylor from years ago, and I wanted no one else to be in her life romantically, it infuriated me that someone could hurt her to this level.

Taylor Miller was the most caring, understanding, and forgiving person I knew.

After I felt as if my body was water-logged from the extended shower, I turned the faucet handles off and let my body drip free of water for a few minutes.

Not a day in the last five years has passed without me thinking about Taylor, but more so since I returned home over a week ago to continue my rehab from surgery and finish my physical therapy during the off-season.

Seven years ago, I’d been recruited by the Los Angeles Stars Major League Baseball team as a starting pitcher, and shortlybefore Taylor graduated from high school with the highest honors, I was packing my bags for spring training in Texas.

The hardest part about leaving Coleman was knowing I wouldn’t be able to see Taylor daily. During the two years I was away at college, I made sure to come home every weekend I could, and I spent the holidays nestled in my parents’ house, right beside Hunter and Taylor’s.

I saw Taylor for every holiday, most of my summer breaks, and at every opportunity. No matter how bad of a mood I was in, all I had to do was see her, and my spirits were lifted.

Like that time when I was home for Christmas break, feeling so low about not being recruited to an MLB team, and Taylor told me to suck it up and stop being so negative. She added that I was the best baseball pitcher she’d ever seen, not that I asked how many major league games she’d watched, but it felt wonderful having her boost me up.

By the time I headed back to college a few days after the New Year, I was so full of myself and ready to conquer the world. It also didn’t hurt that during that school break, Taylor and I shared our first kiss.

The memory of that kiss lived rent-free in my head all this time, and to this day, it was the most perfect moment in my life.

Stepping out of the shower, I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my waist. Standing in front of the sink, I wiped the condensation off the mirror and glanced at my reflection. Raising a hand to my chin, I held my head back and decided I could go another day without shaving.

While I preferred to be clean-shaven, I was fine with having some stubble for a few days during the off-season. I was out of the limelight, and the paparazzi weren’t hovering; not that I cared what pictures they published. But I had the clean image, whereas many professional sports players had the bad boy image, and I preferred to be the good boy.

I stopped working out about half an hour ago and came inside to shower as I had planned on strolling next door to see Taylor. When I saw her from a distance standing on the back deck, after I got my heart rate under control, I decided I’d clean up and stop over for a visit.

All I had to do was get dressed and saunter over the fence line. Smiling at myself in the mirror, I turned and headed into my bedroom to get dressed. As I was buttoning my jeans, my cell phone jingled, announcing a new message had come through.

Grabbing the device off my nightstand, I saw it was from Hunter. He invited me to meet him at the local tavern just outside of town for an early dinner and a few drinks. I began typing back to turn him down, but then decided I’d find out why he hadn’t mentioned Taylor’s arrival.

Sure, I could walk forty feet and ask Taylor, but I wanted to know why Hunter kept this from me.

‘See you there in twenty. I have something to ask you.’

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