Page 23 of Last Fall

“Couldn’t afford a fancy car,” he said, shutting the door. “I felt bad enough spending that much on dinner. I was brought up from the minors to replace Johnson. I honestly didn’t think I’d stay after he came back. It was a dream come true to play at that level for any amountoftime.”

Smart. Humble. Frugal. All things I’d heard about him before but somehow didn’t expect to confirm in real life. “What about when they offered you acontract?”

His gaze darted across the lawn to his agent, Marie Hamilton. “All that money was already spent in my mind. We went out to another big familydinner.”

Already spent millions of dollars? I’d find it hard to believe if I wasn’t doing the exact same thing. My book deal money was all invested and divided out safely. I hadn’t spent a dime of my movie deal money. I had some very smart people handling my finances and while everyone kept assuring me it was really mine and I could, say, buy a new car, I hadn’t madeamove.

“Family sounds important to you,”Isaid.

“It’s everything.” He pulled me to a stop outside of the crowd. “Aboutlastweek.”

“Pleasedon’t.”

He blinked at me in surprise. “Don’twhat?”

“I just want to enjoy theparty.”

He moved in front of me, lowering his voice. There was a pretty intense amount of worry in his eyes, too. “And I ruin thatforyou?”

“Yes. No.” Wow, I was tongue-tied again. Why did this man caring about my wellbeing have such a dramatic effectonme?

Even worse? He waited patiently for me to pull it together and reply in a way that madesense.

“You aren’t ruining anything. I just don’t want to talk aboutlastweek.”

“I was only going to tell you nothing had changed. I meant every word I said. When you’re ready,I’mhere.”

My heart skipped because holy wow. The amount of sincerity in those dark eyes just about killed me where I stood. “What if I’m neverready?”

He grinned and that dimple of his made my stomach do a backflip of Olympic proportions. “Then I guess I better get used to nursing a broken heart.” Then he rubbed his hand over his chest and nodded toward the out-of-tune singing we weremissing.

Max stood on a stool behind her unicorn cake with a megawatt smile. Her parents stood on either side while June and Roman each manned acamera.

“Happy birthday to you...” The crowd sang. Kids added the “cha-cha-cha.” Max almost bounced off her stool she was sohappy.

The entire scene made my heart want to explode with happiness. These people weren’t my blood but they sure as heck were my family. “Family by choice,”Eve had said once. I learned a lot about putting demons in the past and building my own life from the Spencers but it was still a work in progress for me. It was always nice to see them at times like this—surrounded by so much love—because it reminded me that one day I’d eventually gettheretoo.

The crowd included a mishmash of people. The entire Daniels family was here, even the one’s from out of state. Jake’s cousin and his wife had stopped by, several of their friends from work, which meant a concoction of engineers and people who worked with the team, plus the parents of the kids. Many I knew well, a few I only knew in passing. The thing that struck me was how well everyone always got along. You’d think ballplayers in particular would be divas, or at least not very good at hanging out in family environments, but I was wrong about that. Several of the players were dads themselves and a few, like Erik, were just laid-back guys who always seemed to enjoy the mix ofpeople.

Standing so close to Erik I couldn’t help but wonder if I could ever let him be the guy I built something like this with one day. Was he worth the heartache of dating again for the first timesince...

“Zoe! There you are. I’ve barely seen you today.” Carrie jammed herself into my comfort zone, all while throwing Erik some serious side-eye. “Wes is acting weird and I need abreak.”

She hooked her elbow through mine, standing beside me as we watched the hilarity that was kids eating cake. Max was covered in purple frosting. Hands, cheeks, it dripped off her chin and back onto theplate.

“It’s a good thing there’s a hoseandpool.”

“And the funny thing is they’ll probably love the cleanup process,” Carrie said, shaking her head. “If you tried to hose me down I’d probablyscream.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t eat cake like a cavewoman, then,” Erikchided.

Carrie narrowed her eyes and she looked over my shoulder at Erik and I had to wonder what was going through her mind. She had herdon’t mess with meface on. “Good gametoday,Bear.”

“You were there?” He bounced on the balls ofhisfeet.

“Always. I never miss ahomegame.”

“No wonder Wes was out of there like a rockettoday.”

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