Swing and a Mishap Read online

  My eyes pop open, and I turn my head to see Birdie standing on the other side of the fence, resting her arms on top of it right next to mine. Her blonde hair is parted down the middle in two French braids, and she looks as adorable as always in one of the outfits she wears to work—a white fitted T-shirt with the SIG logo on it in black, and a matching black-and-white short golf skirt. I paid more attention when grabbing a shirt out of my closet this morning and at least didn’t put on one with Shepherd’s freaking last name in all caps on the back. But I’m still wearing one of my kid’s old T-shirts like always, with another pair of ratty jean shorts and my favorite worn-in pair of white Converse. At least I put a new messy bun in my hair when I woke up instead of leaving in the one I went to bed with after my shower last night. That’s progress I’d say.

  “I want to vomit into the nearest trashcan, and I wish someone would turn off the sun. It’s so bright,” I whisper and then hiss after that last part, making my sister laugh.

  “Sorry. Tess and I probably should have taken the rest of the wine with us when we left. And I didn’t mean about your hangover. I meant about he who shall not be named.”

  “You can say his name. It’s fine,” I tell her, pausing to glare at my son a hundred yards away and then shouting across the field when he unnecessarily falls to the ground and rolls after making a catch. He almost dropped the ball with his need to make himself look cooler. “Stop trying to showboat, Bennett! Just catch the ball!”

  “Oooh, Owen got yelled at by his moooom!”

  Sadly, that burn wasn’t shouted by one of Owen’s teammates, but by his aunt. Owen sticks his tongue out at Birdie before getting back in line.

  I have never been one of those parents who wears rose-colored glasses around her child. I will be the first one to call him out when he’s being an idiot. When I made the decision about stepping in to coach, I made absolutely certain Owen would be okay with it. He’s always been okay with me helping out at practice, but this is different. I’m running practices, and I can’t let my own kid walk all over me or get away with anything, or fifteen other teenage boys—all of them taller than me by at least six inches and outweighing me by no less than thirty pounds—will think they can do the same thing. Owen doesn’t want me to treat him differently than anyone else on the team, so I don’t. And that includes calling him out when he’s being an idiot.

  “I called him human garbage,” I finally say with a sigh a few minutes later when the boys are all doing what they’re supposed to for the time being.

  “If it smells like garbage, then it probably is garbage, and what that man did to you smells like absolute shit.”

  “You have very strange analogies sometimes,” I muse, quickly sobering as my thoughts go back to what we’re discussing. “I don’t like that I was mean to him, Birdie. I’m not a mean person. I could be a smartass and a little lippy when we were talking, but not mean. He’s not a pile of human garbage, he’s the exact opposite. He’s sweet, funny, kind, caring, and generous. I can’t treat him badly just because he found someone who appreciated all those things about him and he didn’t need me anymore. I can’t be mad at him for having a life or for falling in love, but I am still hurt. We were friends. He called me his pen pal. I mean… it was silly of me to ever have any kind of fantasies about him or get mad about him finding happiness.”

  I just wish he would have found it with me.

  “So that’s it? No threats to bust his kneecaps with a bat? No shouts of limp dick from across the parking lot? You’re just going to forgive him and go about your merry way?” Birdie asks, a little disappointment on her face that there won’t be any violence.

  “I’m not the kind of person to hold a grudge.”

  You know, going forward. We won’t count this last year.

  “Like I told you guys last night, I’m going to be mature about this. As soon as I see him again, I’m going to apologize for being mean, so I can ease my conscience, and then give him a chance to explain,” I finish.

  “Probably a wise decision to make peace as soon as possible.” Birdie nods. “Audrey Hessler at Island Brew told me when I stopped for coffee this morning that he’s renting a long-term cottage, not a short-term one. If he’s gonna be here for a while, you’re bound to run into each other, and there’s no sense in making it awkward like I did with Palmer when I kept running away from him and avoiding him.”

  She did do that, even though I kept telling her not to.

  And I heard the same thing about Shepherd and the cottage rental from one of the other moms before they started talking about him like a piece of meat. Summersweet Island law states that when a rumor is told twice, it’s now fact, so that’s just great.

  “Harrison!” I shout, pausing our conversation again to focus my attention on practice and our shortstop behind the plate. “You can’t hit the ball if you can’t see it! Keep your head down all the way through your swing.”

  Birdie and I are quiet for a few minutes, watching Harrison step up to the plate for his next pitch. He keeps his head down like I told him to, and if he were hitting in a game instead of taking soft-tosses from one of his teammates sitting on a bucket right next to him, and his hit went out into the field instead of into a net a few feet away, it would have definitely been a nice line drive. I shout out some words of encouragement to Harrison, a small smile of satisfaction on my face until I start talking to my sister again as I stare blindly out at the activity on the field.

  “The next time I see Shepherd, I’m going to be polite, and mature, and apologize. You’re absolutely right, and there’s no point making things awkward.” I sigh, looking down at the hem of Owen’s old T-shirt, focusing all my attention on a string that came loose as I fiddle with it. “It’s going to be awkward enough seeing him all the time and pretending like he doesn’t mean anything to me, even after how much he hurt me.”

  He’s got someone important in his life now. I don’t know if she’ll be joining him here on the island or not for his extended stay, but I might as well just assume it and start preparing myself now. Even if he gives me a rational explanation for what happened between us, he’s still not mine. He never really was; I just borrowed him for a little while. Now, he has someone willing to go on national television and tell the world how much she loves him, when I couldn’t even tell him watching him play on TV was always the most thrilling moments of my life, aside from messaging with him. I can’t even hope for friendship again. No woman in their right mind would be okay with their man talking to another woman as much as we did, and I really can’t blame her.

  My sister pats my back soothingly right when I hear the ding of an incoming text on my phone. Pulling it out of my back pocket, I click on the new text without paying attention to who sent it.

  “You’re welcome!” Ashley chirps from the stands behind me when the photo she sent opens up as large as possible on my phone and my knees almost give out.

  “Jeeesus Christ, that’s what he looks like under his Hawks jersey?” Birdie groans from over my shoulder as she looks down at the phone in my hand, and I can hear her panting in my ear.

  Or maybe that’s me…. Yep, that’s me. Sweet mother of God, he looks like he was chiseled out of marble.

  Unable to help myself, I press my fingers against the screen and zoom in a little, bringing the phone up closer to my face while Birdie is practically climbing the fence behind me to get a better look over my shoulder.

  “Forgive him. Forgive him immediately, even if he tells you he dropped you because aliens invaded his brain and he lost all control. Doesn’t matter what he says with a body like that.” Birdie hums in approval, her chin now resting on my shoulder.

  “Wow… I mean…. Wow” are the only words I can manage to mumble as I look at a picture of Shepherd covered in glistening sweat, sand kicking up behind him as he jogs a few feet away from the crashing waves, wearing nothing but a pair of blue athletic shorts, a baseball cap on backwards, and a truckload of lean, rippling, sweat-co
vered muscles.

  “Sharon must have the newest iPhone with multiple camera lenses. Look at that detail,” Birdie whispers almost reverently. “You can count the hairs of his happy trail.”

  I’ve seen plenty of pictures of Shepherd over the years, some he posed for and some that were candid taken by paparazzi. Plenty of them hot as hell. But this is otherworldly, and I’m starting to wonder if the possibility of him being taken over by aliens is true and they genetically altered him.

  “I mean… that can’t be real, right? Someone must have Photoshopped this from the time Sharon took it until now,” I mutter, cocking my head to the side to really appreciate the beauty of the V-shaped indent by his hips and lower abs.

  “Oh, that’s definitely real. And it’s not even my good side.”

  Birdie and I both screech at the same time, but where she has the luxury of being empty-handed when she turns to face the man we were just ogling, my shock at being caught red-handed makes my phone fly up and out of my hands. Bobbling with it for a few seconds before I finally get a hold of it again, I ignore the chuckle from the man behind me. Willing the embarrassed blush off my cheeks as I quickly shove my phone back into the pocket of my shorts, I lift a determined chin in his direction when I finally turn to face him.

  And then regret it immediately when I see his dimples, my eyes wanting to look anywhere but at them. Naturally, they fly right down to his torso. Doesn’t matter if it’s now covered in a soft, black, cotton T-shirt with the Hawks mascot on the front. My eyes will never, ever stop seeing Shepherd Oliver shirtless whenever I look at him. That image is now burned into my brain, and another soft chuckle from him, that does indeed feel like warm, melted chocolate being poured over my body, tells me he knows that image is burned into my brain.

  Look up at his eyes, you idiot!

  When I finally do, the satisfied smirk on his face is still there, but it softens a little when he speaks.

  “Hey, Wren.”

  When my body threatens to break out in goose bumps just hearing him say my name again, a spark of annoyance flashes through me, and I glare at him. He can’t just sneak up on me like this, twice, and be all, Hey, Wren. Who does he think he is?

  “What do you want?”

  The short, clipped words are out of me before I can stop them. Instead of immediately feeling bad, the smile on Shepherd’s face that grows bigger when I’m rude to him just ticks me off more.

  What are you doing? You’re supposed to be apologizing to him!

  “Just wanted to check out practice for a few minutes.” He shrugs easily, flipping the brim of his baseball cap around backward, so his eyes aren’t shielded anymore.

  “Oh, now he’s just playing dirty,” Birdie whispers in my ear, always melting whenever Palmer turns his hat around so he can see her better.

  Whatever. There’s no melting happening just because a few silky tufts of brown hair are adorably poking out of the hole in his hat now and I can clearly see his bright blue, sparkling eyes that are so gorgeous I’ve had multiple dreams about them staring down at me.

  And multiple orgasms—

  Nope! Absolutely not. He sucks!

  Crossing my arms in front of me, I hold steady with my glare, looking at a spot between his eyes instead of right at them.

  “Well, now you’ve checked it out, and now you can leave. If my players see you here, they will never finish practice.”

  “So you’ve got it covered?” Shepherd asks, a look of total seriousness on his face, and for a minute, I think he’s actually going to listen to me. I instantly feel bad about my attitude and my shoulders droop a little. “You don’t wanna maybe, I don’t know… do a little practicing out in ‘middle field’?”

  His use of the stupid terminology I messed up with him on purpose, and the fact that he’s probably been standing here for God knows how long watching me pretty expertly hold practice, means he absolutely knows the jig is up and that I lied to him.

  “Isn’t it called center field?” Birdie pipes up, because of course she does. “I don’t know much about baseball, but I do know where my favorite nephew plays.”

  Shepherd lets out another small laugh, but this one borders more on annoyed than filled with humor as he mirrors my pose and crosses his arms over his chest. It causes another spark of annoyance in me, but this time it’s an entire Fourth of July grand finale filled with fiery explosions.

  “Funny thing about that,” Shepherd muses, with absolutely no amusement at all as he continues to hold my stare while he talks to Birdie. “I didn’t think your sister knew a damn thing about baseball. Knew for certain she’d never done something as boring as watch me play on TV. So color me surprised when I was here a few weeks ago, and you told me what a big fan she was and just how many of my jerseys and T-shirts she owned. I think you said over twenty, right? Or was it twenty-five?”

  Now Shepherd does smile as he looks at me, and my head slowly swivels to glare at Birdie over my shoulder.

  “Oops!” she squeaks, making a grimace face with her teeth. “I might have forgotten to mention I let that part slip.”

  Knowing my brain can only handle one thing at a time right now, I look away from her and decide to deal with her betrayal later. Who gives a crap if he knows I lied? We’re not even friends anymore. If he thinks he can stand here being all high and mighty with me when he was the bigger jerk, he can kiss my butt.

  “Whatever. So I’ve never missed one of your games,” I tell him with a roll of my eyes. “Your ego was big enough. You didn’t need someone else fawning all over you, giving you a bigger head with compliments. And I never told you I didn’t know anything about baseball. When I told you I never watched you play, you assumed I didn’t know anything. I just didn’t bother correcting you. If you don’t mind, I’ve got a practice to run and don’t need any distractions right now.”

  “So I’m a distraction, am I?” Shepherd asks, with a stupid twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his lips.

  A flash of Alana Caldwell kissing those lips while they stood together on home plate goes through my head, making my chest get tight and my throat clog with emotion, which just pisses me off even more that he’s trying to be all cute with me.

  What is wrong with you, Wren? Get a grip! Take a deep breath, remember who you are, and stop being mean! This is not you! Start over, apologize, and then agree to avoid each other at all costs for the rest of his “extended stay” here.

  Right when I take a deep breath of courage so I can take the high road and kill him with kindness, another incoming text chimes from my back pocket.

  “You might wanna get that,” Shepherd tells me when I ignore it. “Unless you’re afraid it’s another shirtless picture of me and you won’t be able to handle it.”

  Growling a little under my breath, I pull my phone back out of my pocket, no need to open the text when I can clearly see what it says on my lock screen.

  There’s no way.

  “Is that a joke?” Birdie asks, once again looking over my shoulder.

  The group text to all the parents on Owen’s baseball team from the athletic director is definitely not a joke, and I read it three times before it sinks in.

  Dear freshman baseball parents, I’m happy to announce I’ve finally hired a new coach. It is with great pleasure I let you know Summersweet’s own Shepherd Oliver has decided to retire from professional baseball and take the position permanently! Let’s all give him a great big welcome back home!

  “Well, this is awkward,” Shepherd says, nothing but humor ringing loud and clear in his voice. “Looks like you’re fired, Coach. Don’t worry; I’ll be gentle with the middle fielders while they’re scoring touchdowns and hitting goals.”

  All right, I didn’t act that stupid about baseball.

  “You… You…” I stutter, unable to believe what is happening right now.

  “You, you amazing, wonderful, handsome man who looks Photoshopped with his shirt off?” Shepherd suggests when I can’t find my words.
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br />   I had every intention of apologizing to this man for being rude to him the last time I saw him. Because I’m not a mean person and I don’t say mean things to people just to make myself feel better. My mouth just opens and closes like a fish out of water, trying to form the words to apologize to him and start over, but I can’t make them come no matter how hard I try. He’s still standing here smirking at me, I’m still mortified he caught me drooling over his naked torso, and now he’s going to be Owen’s freaking baseball coach, and I’ll never be able to avoid him!

  So many words are flying around in my brain, all of them wanting to be heard, the insults wrestling with the apologies until everything bubbles up all at one time, and I’m only able to sputter out the first ones to cross the finish line.

  “You… You… fuck wagon!”

  “What happened to being mature?” Birdie whispers in my ear as I whirl away from Shepherd’s wide, shocked eyes to face her.

  “Eat shit, limp dick!”

  “Whoa, hey now!” Birdie shouts, holding her hands up in front of her and taking a step back from me. “I’m on your side.”

  “I’m sorry,” I quickly mutter as she lowers her hands and nods.

  I don’t even know what is happening with me right now. I feel like I’m going crazy, and now that the flood gates have been opened, I can’t close them, and I can’t stop being mean, and it’s all because of the hot and infuriating man standing right next to me.

  “Forgiven. Totally understandable. Carry on,” my sister encourages.

  When I hear Shepherd loudly and obviously clear his throat like he’s waiting for his own apology from me, I bend down and grab the red drawstring bag with the Summersweet High School mascot on it that I put a few bottles of water and a granola bar in for myself before standing back up to face him.

  “You’re still a fuck wagon. Sorry, not sorry.”

  With that, I turn and start to head off to the parking lot victoriously, my feet stuttering to a stop when I realize we had an audience through this entire exchange. All the mothers in the stands sitting huddled together are staring between me and Shepherd with their mouths dropped open in complete and utter shock. I’m not really sure if it’s because Shepherd Oliver is standing right in front of them, Shepherd Oliver is now going to be coaching their sons, or that I just called Shepherd Oliver a fuck wagon. Loudly. Twice. After scolding them for being inappropriate not ten minutes ago.