Swing and a Mishap Read online

  Shaped like a bean in the Atlantic a few miles off the coast of Virginia, Summersweet Island is around four square miles, has seven hundred year-round residents, and two main roads: Summersweet Lane, which I’m currently on, that crosses perpendicularly in the middle of the island, taking you across the longest length from north to south, and Ocean Drive, which takes you vertically up the middle of the shortest length of the island east to west. Ocean Drive will take you from the ferry dock—golf cart and bike rentals and public beach down on the lower west bank—to the golf course and the one upscale hotel on the other side of the island on the east bank. Summersweet Lane’s north and south banks are for the permanent residents and where the houses, long-term cottage rentals, schools, vet, hospital, and other residential necessities are located. The stretch of Summersweet Lane right in the middle of the island that I’m currently walking on is what everyone considers downtown or Main Street. That’s where you’ll find a couple of bars, a diner, a pizza place, one Italian restaurant, the best ice cream stand in the entire world and where I’m currently headed, the grocery store, three small motels, and short-term cottage rentals. As well as a handful of other tourist spots and places for the locals to hangout, unwind, or grab stuff they need until they can get to the mainland or get something delivered.

  “Well, hey there, Shepherd! I didn’t know you were in town. Your mom just had lunch with mine last week.”

  Stopping on the sidewalk again, this time in front of the arcade, I spend a few minutes talking with Tisa Graves. Our mothers have been in the same book club that does more wine drinking than book reading since Tisa and I were both in diapers and shoved into playpens to fend for ourselves while our mothers day drank and read porn.

  On my last trip here, I only went to the high school baseball field and then returned to the ferry dock to go back to Washington when the game was over, keeping my identity a secret so it wouldn’t be splashed all over the tabloids by morning. Now, I have no problem flipping the brim of my baseball cap around to the back of my head, smiling and greeting old friends. It’s not just because it’s a Wednesday night, summer is almost over, and pretty much all the tourists have thinned out, making it less likely my whereabouts will be made public anytime soon. Summersweet Island residents are very private and protect their own. As soon as I got off the ferry earlier, one of the local police reassured me he’d make sure no paparazzi stepped foot on the island, and he’d do everything he could to keep hordes of fans away if word got out.

  I didn’t keep to myself a few weeks ago because I was worried the entire world would find out I was on the island by midnight. I kept it to myself and swore her family to secrecy, because I didn’t want Wren to know I was on the island until I was standing in front of her and she wouldn’t be able to run away from me until I had a chance to apologize. Now that I’m making my way down Summersweet Lane, past the arcade, the candy shop, and the diner, and the bright glowing lights from the Dip and Twist are in sight, I don’t care who sees me or knows I’m back.

  Aside from the few places to eat, almost all the businesses have shut down for the night. Usually when you walk down Summersweet Lane at 10:00 p.m., it’s bustling with people and activity. Golf carts are whizzing by on the street, tourists are shouting and laughing, island music is playing from the loudspeaker mounted above the tourist information booth, and all the lights from all the businesses are flashing brightly. The end of summer means shorter hours for everyone, the dark storefronts and closed signs on all the windows I walk by and the chill in the air from the ocean breeze making this island feel almost like a ghost town aside from the handful of locals walking home from a late dinner or out for a late-night stroll. No matter what time of year it is, the Dip and Twist never closes before ten and, if there are customers, never closes until the last person is served. Where other businesses strictly close by seven this time of year, since they get less and less customers the later into the season it is, the only ice cream shop on the island will remain open late into the night, because Summersweet Island residents can’t resist its treats and will make damn sure they make up for the loss in tourist revenue during the chilly months.

  My heart thumps rapidly in my chest, and I have to wipe the sweat off my palms on my black athletic shorts as I pick up my pace the closer and closer I get to my destination, but my happiness right now far outweighs my nerves. As soon as I stepped off the ferry and back onto Summersweet Island, it was almost like a huge weight was lifted off my chest, and I felt like I could breathe again. I hadn’t felt that way since the last time I’d been here a few weeks ago, but my trip was too short for it to have much of an impact. Now that I’m here again, now that all my suitcases and half of my belongings have been delivered to the cottage I’m renting until I decide on a permanent place and the rest has gone into storage, I want to jump up and down and scream like a little kid, knowing I never have to leave again if I don’t want to.

  I’m happy, because this is the first step to a new and hopefully much less lonely future.

  I’m happy, because living here means living closer to my family, and I’ll be able to see them all the time now instead of just a handful of times a year.

  I’m happy, because I can walk down the street and not be hounded for pictures, and autographs, and pieces of myself. The only thing people want from me on Summersweet Island is to genuinely know how I am.

  I’m happy, because I can throw on a pair of tennis shoes, athletic shorts, and a white Adidas hoodie with a hat and not worry that a paparazzo is going to snap a picture of me from the bushes, where TMZ will say Shepherd Oliver looks lazy and like he’s given up on life, when it’s the exact opposite.

  Hopefully my life is right inside the building I’m now standing in front of, and I’m going to make it damn clear I will never give up on her again.

  My smile almost hurts my cheeks as I stand here on the sidewalk in front of the Dip and Twist. I forgot how much I missed this old-school place I used to work at in high school, where Laura Bennett taught me the value of a hard day’s work as well as taking pride in it.

  It was also where the boss’s oldest daughter taught me about “hardness” in a different way every time she bent over into the freezer. I learned that strategically placing a gallon of ice cream over my crotch would help me with that problem by immediately deflating my cock, because that shit is fucking cold.

  Just like your standard, old-school ice cream stand, the Dip and Twist building is around eight hundred square feet with a brick façade on the bottom half, and from the waist-high counter and up, it’s nothing but windows. Those windows are covered in advertisements for all the cold treats Dip and Twist has to offer, and I can just make out some movement inside through a few of the posters as I make my way around to the back of the building and the door to get inside. My happy-go-lucky, bouncing footsteps come to an abrupt halt when I get to the back of the building and I’m standing in front of the propped-open door that leads into the Dip and Twist, the bright florescent lighting from inside spilling out into the darkness.

  I was a man on a mission as soon as I made sure all my boxes and shit made it to where they were supposed to. I didn’t unpack anything. I didn’t move anything out of the way. I just climbed over boxes and haphazardly placed furniture the movers put wherever they wanted and jogged all the way into town, too excited to even think about going back down to the ferry dock to rent a golf cart. That could wait. I didn’t want to waste one more second not talking to Wren, and I headed right here without even thinking this might be a bad idea.

  Am I really going to barge in here late at night and chance scaring the hell out of her if she’s here alone? Is it really a good idea to surprise her like this after dropping her without an explanation and ignoring her for a year?

  She’ll probably kick me in the nuts. She’ll definitely punch me in the face.

  “…fucking Shepherd Oliver. That’s your problem right there!”

  A muffled female voice coming from inside
the building has my mouth stretching into a wide smile and my nerves disappearing like one of my homeruns into the stands. I’d know that voice anywhere, even after a year. I’ve seen enough videos of her son playing ball where she was yelling, cheering, and chanting in the background to recognize that sweet, delicate timbre with the mouth of a sailor when she’s super pissed anywhere. The fact that news must have traveled faster than I expected around Summersweet since I got here an hour ago, Wren knows I’m here, and I’m the reason she’s super pissed only makes me smile wider as I take a step into the building, not even caring that my element of surprise is gone.

  I don’t care how pissed she is or how much it’s going to hurt when she kicks me in the balls. I just want to hear her say “fucking Shepherd Oliver” again, but this time, let’s try it as a verb.

  The temperature immediately drops at least ten degrees when I step inside the back of the Dip and Twist, since the ladies keep the thermostat low at all times just to ensure nothing melts from the time they make the ordered treat until the time it gets to the window and into a customer’s hand. I shove both my hands into the wide front pocket of my hoodie over my stomach to keep them warm as I walk past a metal shelf filled with napkins, stacks of paper cups, and tons of Styrofoam bowls in various sizes. A shelf I was in charge of stocking as soon as I walked inside the door for my shift back in the day.

  When I get to the end of the metal shelving and turn the corner, my feet come to a stuttering stop again. But this time, it’s with the added bonus of a rise in my blood pressure, a drop of my mouth wide open with my tongue hanging out, a sweaty palms reappearance that I’m currently squeezing together in the pocket of my hoodie, and a goddamn hard-on that a gallon of ice cream definitely won’t be able to make magically disappear.

  I hear the crack of a bat followed by the cheer of a crowd, and the fact that I’m listening to one of my favorite sounds in the world while looking at one of my old favorite sights has me yanking one hand out of my hoodie pocket to grip tightly to the wooden counter next to me that’s used for cutting up fruit for toppings before my knees give out.

  Even though it’s been a lot of years since I got chubbies watching Wren Bennett lean over into a huge deep freezer, my dick definitely remembers how equally hot and adorable it is to watch short little Wren have to rest her stomach on the open lip of the freezer while bending the whole upper half of her body inside the thing. The very tip of one tennis-shoe-covered toe is scrambling for a hold on the floor, while the other one kicks back out behind her as she stretches and reaches for the three-gallon tub of ice cream that must have been pushed to the far back of the freezer.

  I’m on a sensory overload unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before, my eyes and ears being filled with so much goodness that any second now my head is going to explode. Both of them. I was clearly wrong with my initial assumption.

  Wren didn’t find out I’m here, and thank you, Lord, for the blessings you are currently bestowing upon me.

  “The Hawks give up another run to Tampa as center fielder, Kilo Lucas, tries to make a run-saving catch with a long fly ball but just can’t get there in time, making the score now eight to two, Tampa.”

  I don’t bother looking away from the sight before me to glance at the small, flat-screen television hanging on the wall when the next play results in an easy out at first and the game goes to a commercial break at the end of the inning. It brings me enough joy just hearing baseball currently playing in the back of the Dip and Twist for a woman who swore she never watched the game on TV, not even mad about the fact that I’m not in Tampa right now playing in that game a hell of a lot better than my shitty replacement.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, everyone knew Kilo wasn’t going to make that catch. He couldn’t catch the south side of a barn if someone threw it at him. You seriously replaced Shepherd Oliver with a piece of trash like Lucas. You went from having an MVP center fielder who didn’t even finish last season, and he still ended it with a .305 batting average, forty-seven homeruns, 115 RBI, and a nineteen defensive runs saved rating, for a piece of trash who can’t catch a fucking ball!”

  I don’t bother looking over at the game on TV, because doing more than one thing at a time right now is too much for my brain to handle while Wren not only loses her shit on my behalf, but rapidly spouts off my facts that even I sometimes have to look up when someone asks me for them. And also, because of that God. Damn. Perfect ass on full display while she loses her shit about me, deep in the belly of the deep freezer.

  Holy mother of God is it hotter in here all of a sudden?

  “Fuuuck me.”

  Thankfully, Wren’s head is so deep into the freezer she doesn’t hear the quiet mutter I can’t stop from slipping out of my mouth as I stare at smooth, tan, and toned legs, leading up to a perfectly full and round ass covered in a pair tiny jean shorts. The frayed and tattered edges are currently sliding up dangerously high with the position she’s in until my vision tunnels and I see nothing but the underside of two smooth, sweet, perfect ass cheeks peeking out from under them that I just want to sink my teeth into.

  A gentleman would immediately rush over and assist the poor, tiny, adorable woman, but I was never a gentleman in high school when I would stand off to the side and quietly enjoy the show, and I’m not about to start now.

  “We need to get these bats going. You boys better remember that Tampa pitcher’s got a nasty backdoor slider with a perfect break back over the plate…”

  Wren’s muffled voice gets clearer as the upper half of her body pops up and out from the freezer and she slides down the front of it until both her feet are back on the ground.

  All of the air in my lungs leaves me in a whoosh, my chest gets tight, my heart starts pounding so fast it feels like I just ran the bases a hundred times, and the grip I have on the counter next to me has turned my knuckles white and made my arm start to shake with how hard I’m holding on so I don’t launch myself across the room at her. I knew seeing Wren again after so long, after the bond we formed that I so selfishly ripped away, and after how goddamn much I missed her that it would be a struggle to just stand here in her presence and not yank her body against mine so I can finally know what she feels like in my arms, or crash my mouth against hers so I could finally know what she tastes like.

  All of those things are still scrambling around in my brain. But now they’re magnified by a thousand at the sight of Wren standing a few feet away with her back to me, wearing a white T-shirt and her long hair up in a high ponytail so I can clearly see 26 in purple smack dab in the middle of her shirt, along with OLIVER printed in all caps and also in purple stretched across the back of her shoulders.

  She’s wearing my fucking name on her back.

  All those months of conversations, all those times I teased her….

  Her own words typed on a screen rapidly flash through my mind, and it’s a wonder I don’t rip the counter from the wall.

  Sorry! Don’t think I’ve ever watched one of your games.

  Nope, I have no clue what position you play.

  You know I only watch the sport when my son is playing.

  Stop asking if I’ve watched you play. The answer will just make you cry, like always.

  #soboring #likewatchingpaintdry #idratherdomytaxes

  Wren Bennett, the woman who swore she’d never watched one of my games and who clearly knows more about the sport than half the coaches I’ve had over the years, is wearing my goddamn name on her back!

  I’ve seen plenty of fans, female and hot, wearing my name and number over the years, and it always brought a smile to my face from their support. Knowing Wren has been supporting me when I didn’t even know it, seeing my name touching her skin, it brings something out of me I can barely control no matter how tightly I’m gripping the counter.

  She’s mine. She’s been mine since the first day I met her; it just took me too many fucking years to do something about it. But I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.
I’m going to finally do something about it, and no one is going to stop me.

  Like maybe wrap that ponytail around my fist while I’m bending her over the—

  Stop it! Apologize for being an asshole first!

  “Come on, DeVera, you’re our only hope,” Wren mutters, her back still to me as she hugs the three-gallon drum of ice cream in her arms and looks up at the TV mounted on the wall next to the freezer. Two pitches sail right into the catcher’s mitt. “That’s fine; let those two go by. You saw them, so now you know what to do. Lay off the high ones, DeVera. Give us a nice line drive out to center.”

  Hearing her talk about my friend calms the beast inside me a little, and I finally let go of the tight grip I have on the counter to shove my hand back inside my hoodie pocket with the other one. I still want to bend her back over that freezer and fuck her from behind while looking at my name across her back, but I can smile about it now instead of growling like a wild animal.

  “Franklin’s backdoor slider breaks over the plate, and that’s a swing and a miss for Nick DeVera,” the announcer states.

  “Son of a bitch… you had one job to do.” Wren sighs, making me chuckle softly to myself in spite of my hard cock I have nothing to shield with.

  “Yeah, Nick really does like the high ones. No clue why the league pays that clown so much.”

  My hands are shaking inside my pocket as Wren’s body slowly turns around to face me when she hears my voice. My last name across her shoulders disappears from sight until her gorgeous blue eyes are wide and locked onto mine. Not 3,000 miles away from a photo on a screen, but three feet and close enough to touch.

  Mine.

  It’s the only word flashing over and over in my head as I drink in the sight of the woman in front of me whose mouth drops open in shock, and a small gasp comes out of her before the giant drum of ice cream drops from her arms. It lands with a thunk right at her feet, but she pays no attention to it as she stands here in front of me, not saying a word, just rapidly blinking like she can’t believe I’m here.