Page 149 of Wild Pitch
“You look beautiful a little wild like this.”
My heart skips.
I try to fix up my hair and straighten out the open Orlando Wild jersey that shows his last name and number one on my back, and my yellow bikini top. “Better?” I ask.
“Still you, and I like all versions of you.” Cade reaches over the console in the middle and I fully turn into the kiss. The last time we kissed was as we were leaving Orlando, and I’ve missed his lips so freaking much.
Honking behind us forces us to separate. Sighing, Cade gets the car going again.
I don’t move one bit, though, drinking him with my eyes instead. He’s also wearing some shorts that ride high enough to show the defined cuts of his quads around his knees, plus an Orlando Wild shirt he custom made with my last name that he also kept open the whole way For Reasons. Them being that I really enjoy looking at his abs and the hint of V at his hips.
“Do you think the shirts are overkill?” I ask, propping my elbow on the middle console and my chin on my hand.
“Why would they be overkill?”
Has anyone told him that the way he turns the steering wheel with one hand is supremely mouth-watering?
Oh, right. I have. Multiple times.
I force my brain to get back to work with a deep breath that brings in the familiar scent of his aftershave. “Erm. I’m just wondering if it’s too on the nose. Too middle school.”
Cade shrugs. “I have no problem telling the whole world that I’m yours and you’re mine. I’m making up for almost three decades of not belonging anywhere.”
I reach for his knee and give it a squeeze—and I don’t remove it. Cade flashes me a quick look, but the GPS instructs him to take a right turn and he focuses back on the road.
“Listen, if this Friendsgiving is in any way uncomfortable for you, you call for a wild pitch and I’ll bail us out of here,” I say in all seriousness.
“Ditto. I may or may not have looked up some hotel alternatives already.”
That might actually be preferable to this. I’m debating whether to just tell him that we should ditch, but too soon we’re pulling to Kelly and Mitch’s street and it feels like too late.
We’re a bit earlier than I would’ve arrived normally, and there’s still plenty of room by the curb of their house. I instruct Cade to park under the shade of a massive oak lining the street, and we get out of the car to put the top back up and secure it. After getting our overnighter bags from the back, Cade locks the car and pockets the key so he can offer me his hand.
A new development is that he’s learned to rub the back of my hand with his thumb even as I grab his hand in a vise. I can’t do the same in return because of the sheer size of his hands, but also because I’m not hypermobile and with fingers nimble enough to hold a baseball with a million different grips.
Taking a deep breath, I ring the doorbell and wait.
A few seconds pass. Setting my bag down, I tug Cade lower and start combing his hair back into order.
That’s when the door opens. “Hey guys.” Mitch smiles at us—although it turns into a grimace as his baby girl pulls at his ear. “Come on in.”
“You doing okay, man?” Cade’s lips curl in amusement as the baby keeps pulling and papa keeps grimacing.
“Living the life.” Mitch grins though, like he means it. “You can leave your bags here and head to the back. We got drinks and food already.”
“Great, I’m starving.” I try to smile but the truth is that just setting a foot inside their house has my stomach turning already.
The literal last thing I want to do is see the judgy faces of the other people I went to college with. I debated whether to come at all or just excise myself from that toxicity forever, but Kelly and Mitch don’t deserve that. They’re probably the reason I even hung out with this clique in the first place, because Kelly—and whatsherface—were my OG friends I thought would always be my ride-or-dies.
“Wild pitch?” Cade whispers to me.
I steel myself. “Not yet. I’m not a coward.”
He runs his thumb across my skin again and the little spark there fires up my engine, so I keep going.
Their previously picture perfect house is now much homier, with colorful toys and cushions strewn all over the place, and some curious stains on a wall that can only be the masterpiece of a toddler with some markers. It reminds me, like Cade’s hand in mine, that sometimes things do change for the better.
This house isn’t the same and neither am I, so what happened last year has no damn chance of repeating itself today. Whatever my ex friends do, it won’t faze me.
