Page 1 of The One for Me
Chapter One
Sean
“Iam so done!” Devney gives a small little giggle before covering her mouth.
We’ve spent the last four hours in her barn, laughing, drinking, talking about life . . . I had forgotten just how much I love being with her.
“One more drink,” I urge.
“No. I have to meet Oliver tomorrow.”
I roll my eyes. I don’t know what the hell she sees in him. He’s the complete opposite of the kind of guy she needs. Devney is strong and defiant, and yet, she has many weaknesses she doesn’t let people see. Like how she wants to make everyone around her happy, even at the cost of her own wants. He doesn’t see that or know her heart. Oliver is just . . . nice.
That’s the best I can come up with.
He’s. Nice.
She doesn’t need nice. She needs someone to rival her and bring out her spark and fire. A long time ago, it raged inside her. I hadn’t thought there would be a chance it would be extinguished, but then, about nine years ago, it went out.
I don’t know why or what happened, but she changed.
No one stays the same, I know this. Hell, I’m not even close to the same man I was before the night of the accident that changed my life, but Devney doesn’t have some dark secret. She tells me everything, and I withhold that one story.
Oliver, though, he doesn’t know her secrets.
“How is our perfectly nice friend Oliver?” I ask. I’m just on the fringe of being drunk enough not to care that I’m being a dick.
Usually, I mask it. The feelings that simmer are able to stay down, but tonight, I just don’t care.
“He’s going to propose.”
My eyes lift, and I find myself staring into her coffee-colored irises, hating the words that came from the lips I’ve dreamed of kissing.
She can’t marry him.
Not when . . . not when the lies we’ve been telling each other for all this time are between us.
I have to stop this. “Dev—”
“It’s good, though. He’s . . . he’s really good to me, Sean. Oliver will take care of me, be here, and he won’t push me. You should be happy and not looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
She tucks a lock of brunette hair behind her ear and shrugs. “Like I just kicked you in the face. You know, you looked like this the day that Debbie Sue tried to kiss you.”
“Well, Debbie Sue also kissed two of my brothers.”
“She was on a mission to be struck by the Arrowood brothers.”
We both laugh. “Yeah, she was.”
Devney shifts, leaning her head on the back of the couch and angling her body toward me. “It’s not any different than the girls you hook up with now. What do they call them? Homeplate Hussies?”
I roll my eyes. “You have no idea what I look for.”
“Right. Ohhh”—Devney lifts her head with a smile—“that’s right, they call them Bat Rats! Or maybe Cleat Callers?” She taps her chin. “Strikeout Sluts? Homerun Hoes?”
“Cleat chasers.” I give her one of the many names they have for the girls who want to fuck a ballplayer.
