Catching to Win (Over the Fence #3) (16 page)

P
acking
up the house goes about as well as playing nine innings with two broken hands. Everything smells like her, feels like her. I can see her pale curves laid out on my comforter as I fold it and stuff it in the trunk. There are tiny red strands scattered on my sheets and pillows. Little love notes she'd doodled and stuck into the pockets of my jeans litter my desk.

I can't even step foot in her room. Minka has to pack it up and has it all shipped back to the O'Brien's mansion in Mitchum.

No one knows where Kelsey escaped to. Minka and I have called her phone 50 times a day each. Chloe hasn't heard a peep from her. If I was worried the first day she left, I'm in a downright perpetual state of panic now.

All I do is sleep, pace the house, go for runs and spend hours on my computer. Hours spent trying to track her down. Obsessively checking her social media to see if she updates one single thing. I have calls in to Jackson, which wasn't pleasant or easy since I still want to sucker punch the guy in the gut, to alert me if anyone at any preserve around the globe sees her.

But she's gone. Her phone has been off for a week, no way to trace it. We've filled her voicemail until we can no longer leave pleading, threatening, crying messages. I feel like a helpless, scared child.

Kelsey's always been impulsive, but I have never seen her more emotionally raw in my life than when she was standing in that trailer doorway, scorching earth beneath her feet. She had a wild, untamed look in her eye. She might be doing something stupid, dangerous. And I couldn't do anything but wait by the phone.

To make matters worse, I have nothing to distract me from it. After leaving the college house and coming back to Alabama, I don’t know what to do with myself. None of the non-profits I reached out to have called, no new job offers put on the table. I mostly spend my days now sitting on my parents old ass couch in their tiny ass ranch.

Don't get me wrong, I love my parents. I made peace with their faults long ago, and vowed to never to settle into the same path. But I can't help but feel depressed. The one thing that made my life bright and sunny was Kelsey, and now she's disappeared. Vanished.

And it’s all my fault.

I knew I never should have kept my suspicions from her. I should have spilled to her in the car on the way home from the preserve the first time I ever met Jackson. But instead, I'd internalized it. Made it my mission not to hurt her. And by doing so, I'd sliced her heart right open.

I still can't get that horrified look on her beautiful face out of my brain. It’s ingrained on it, branded into my skull. It haunts me when I do manage to fall asleep.

Mom and dad don't know what to make of me and my new attitude. They've called my brothers, all three of them stopping by at some point or another to lend a wise word, a shoulder to lean on. None of it helps. I can't shake the slump I'm in, and part of me doesn't want to. Pain is the only thing I can feel right now, and I welcome it. Crave it.

I'm lying on my back in the grass behind my parent's house, melodramatically contemplating my life that has gone to shitwhen my phone rings. Startled, I immediately jack up to a sitting position, adrenaline and hope surging through my veins. It’s what I do every time the phone rings these days. It could be Kelsey.

But it’s not. Only Miles, the obnoxious picture of him crossing his eyes flashing across the screen.

"What's up?" I answer.

"Nice to hear from you too, buddy. Miss you, hope you're doing well."

His voice is dripping with sarcasm and goofiness, typical Farris, but I'm not in the mood.

"Yeah, yeah. Was there something you needed?"

"Fine, man. I wanted to uh...to let you know something."

My stomach does that weird twist it has always done right before I left the locker room for a game. Maybe he has news about Kelsey. But his voice sounds off. Suddenly I don't know if I want to hear it. He doesn't give me the chance to stop him.

"Kels has been staying with us the past three weeks."

It feels as though I've just been beaned in the skull by a wild pitch. What did he just say?

"Huh?" I shake my head, trying to clear the fuzzy shock clouding my thought process.

"She flew straight here from Virginia, she didn't even have a bag. Chloe met her outside, she was like a zombie, Clint. Still is. Thing is-"

"You fucking knew where she was this whole time and you both fucking lied to me?!" I am practically screaming through the phone. The violence in my blood is visceral, I want to reach through the phone and grab Miles by the throat.

"Dude, I know. I'm fucking sorry-"

"YOU'RE SORRY?! I have been going out of my goddamn mind trying to track her down. Worried sick about her. And she's been sleeping in your cushy penthouse for three fucking weeks? Fuck you, Farriston."

I think I hear him wince on the other end of the line. "I'm sorry, man. I just...we didn't know what happened. And let me clarify that we live in a third floor walkup..."

"Farris." My voice is deadly quiet. He seems to get the message.

"We didn't know what happened. She won't talk about it, just keeps knocking herself out with sleeping pills and junk food. She's left our spare bedroom all of four times. Chloe told me we needed to give her her space, let her process. But...something's changed, man. I think you need to get up here."

The knots forming in my stomach twist. "What's changed? What do you mean?"

"Dude, just...you need to get up here."

I only stay on the phone long enough to get his address. Then I'm running inside to throw clothes into a backpack and book a flight.

C
hloe has called
in the cavalry.

I know she has as soon as the spare bedroom door hits the wall, causing me to roll over on the bed where I'd been facing away from it. There stands Minka, pissed-off mama bear written all over her face.

"Minks, what are you doing here?"

Her gaze doesn't even flit to my face as she stomps over to the bed and grabs my wrist. She squeezes, and I realize she's timing my heart beats.

"Chloe says you refuse to see a doctor."

It’s not a question, but a ticked off accusation.

"Look I know you're mad I didn't tell you where I was." I struggle to sit up I'm so tired.

"We'll discuss that fucking issue later. Right now we're going to the Ob/Gyn. I won't sit by as you avoid getting the medicines and checkups you need."

So Chloe's told her about the baby. Fuck. The baby. I can't even fathom that those words are running through my thoughts.

I pale, tears clogging my throat. "I don't even know if I'm keeping it, Minks."

I see a flicker of sympathy and sadness wash over her eyes. And then she goes steely. "Even so, you may want to give it up for adoption. And for that you need to keep yourself healthy. We're done with this moping routine. Get your ass up, meet me in the living room in five. Chloe will drive us."

And with that, my bossy best friend leaves me alone. I push up, adjusting myself as the room spins once around me. She's right. I haven't been taking care of myself, or this baby. I've barely eaten at all, the only thing I do is lay in bed. I haven't researched into my options, haven't started taking the right vitamins.

I wish I could drown my days in alcohol or weed. But obviously one of things I want to drown my sorrows about the most is preventing me from that. A baby. Mostly I've been sleeping. My brain has taken all of the thoughts about my father, the baby, Clint...and put them in a sealed off box way in the back. I just can't think about it. If it hits me all at once, I don't know if I'd ever stop crying.

Slowly I get up, pulling on whatever sweatshirt is closest and shuffling out to the living room.

Minka and Chloe sit huddled together at the breakfast bar on the kitchen counter, and both guiltily stop talking when I walk in.

"Traitor." I grumble at Chloe.

She sighs and shrugs, her violet eyes apologizing so profusely that I almost let her off the hook. "I had to. You wouldn't move from the bed."

I don't blame her. I wouldn't know what to do with me either.

"So are we going?"

The cab ride there is deadly quiet with the three of us squished into the dirty backseat. I just lean my head against the glass, trying to wipe my brain of any thought.

Minka comes in to the exam room with me once we're at the doctor. Says I won't be absorbing all of the information, so she needs to take notes.

She's right. I only hear snippets of the conversation. Words like "folic acid" and "abortion" are brought up. The doctor goes into the gestational cycle, and takes what seems like gallons of blood from me though, I barely even feel the needle prick. Minka's face is pinched and concerned the entire appointment. I almost cry when the doctor takes a look between my legs, the cold speculum invading my vagina. As deranged as it is, the last thing to be inside of there was Clint, and I clench back tears at the memories. The whole thing is just awful.

Afterwards, I'm rewarded for my cooperation with a vanilla milkshake from Shake Shack. Which I only take under duress. Who am I kidding? I scowl and ask for a second one.

When we get back to the apartment, I plan to go straight back to bed. But Minka's glare and her wiry body blocking my path tell me I have other plans, so I join her and Chloe on the couch.

Chloe goes first, her sweet disposition designed to put me in an easier mood. I can tell they've talked about how to tackle this. How to tackle me. "Kels, we are so worried about you. We just want to help. What is going on?"

I smile, but it feels sour on my lips. "I'm pregnant if you didn't notice."

"That's not why you left Grover." Minka cuts in, throwing all of the nice bullshit out the window.

I stare at my hands, silently begging for them to drop this. I wish the floor would open up and swallow me.

Chloe touches my fingers with her own. "We're your best friends. Whatever, or whoever, is causing you pain, we will crush it. Together."

My kind, innocent best friend's statement of violence is what finally breaks me.

I choke on a sob before telling them the entire sordid tale. Minka and Chloe’s faces go from sympathetic to horrified to pure rage as I describe everything from the way my mother dropped the biological dad-bomb on me to finding Clint and Jackson conspiring.

They sit in stunned silence as I finish, sucking in a shaky breath.

“Fucking, bitch.” Minka grumbles, and I know she means Madeline.

“I can’t believe Jackson never told you. That he could…keep this such a secret. I can’t believe I never noticed…” Chloe is shaking her head back and forth, trying to make sense of it all.

“Do you really think Clint meant to hurt you?” Minka’s expression is too hard to read, but I know she’s psycho-analyzing me as she loves to do. She wants me to come to a conclusion without her dictating the facts to me.

And I have thought about it. I never heard his side of the story. I ran too quickly to consider that. But no matter what his explanation is, he hurt me.

“You should have heard them in there. Having a conversation that was so personal, so about me. It was like I was being staked through the heart.”

Chloe nods in my direction. “I know. But maybe Clint went there to try and get Jackson to fess up. Maybe he
was
only trying to protect you.”

“You didn’t see him after you left, Kels. He was a wreck. Like the universe had just taken away his will to live. He couldn’t even pack up his stuff because it smelled like you. I swear I had to send him away with tears in his eyes while I did it.”

The haunted expression on Minka’s face relays just how horrible it must have been to see Clint over those few weeks.

“Even now, Owen says he won’t pick up the phone. And when he does it sounds like he’s withdrawn into himself. He kind of sounds how you look.” Minka raises one eyebrow in that smarts way of hers.

“I don’t…I don’t know what to think.”

Chloe winces before speaking. “Can we change gears? What are you going to do about the baby?”

We all grow silent while a few fat tears escape from my ducts.

“I don’t know about that either. Guys, I am not ready for this. I can barely take care of myself, even when I’m fully functional and happy. A baby? I wouldn’t know the first thing about raising a kid. Look who my fucking parents are. My mother is about as warm and nurturing as an electric chair.”

Minka contemplates, biting at her lips. But Chloe is the one who immediately speaks.

“I don’t know anyone in this world who would be a better mom. You are fiercely loyal. Remember when you almost dragged Allison through the hall when Minka went through that whole thing sophomore year? You think on your feet, which is the best parenting skill I can imagine. You are constantly adapting and changing. Kids are like one big roller-coaster, I can’t think of anyone who would handle that better. You give your whole heart, every time. You know how to soothe hurt, have fun, and you’re the best game maker-upper ever. So yeah, I think you will be an awesome mom. And who is ready for anything in life anyway? If we were never ready for anything, nothing would ever happen.”

Leave it to the fairy godmother of the group to make me all teary-eyed and sappy with her magical, fairy dust speech.

Minka chimes in. “She’s right. You will be an amazing mom. That baby is the luckiest little sucker ever. Plus…he or she will have some kickass aunts.”

I finally smile a true, genuine smile. I feel better than I have in days.

“You are the best friends any girl could have, you know that?”

They smile and Minka clucks her tongue. “Yeah, we know, we’re awesome.”

“Okay, Minks. Time to fill me on every drug, food and beverage I can’t have for the next nine months.”

I
fucking hate planes
.

Hate everything about them. The heights, the germs, the claustrophobia.

I’m a big guy. Smaller than I used to be, but still just larger than your average person in both height and bone structure. Stuffing me in a circular metal tube for five hours is akin to death for me. Not to mention we’re 39,000 feet off the surface of the earth and I’m stuck next to this jack hole who’s been wiping his runny nose on his sleeve for four hours.

But all of that is barely a blip on my radar today. All I can think about is seeing Kelsey in a few short hours. Just being in her presence, hearing her voice and smelling her scent. God I’ve missed her.

My mind is on one-track, powering through baggage claim and out onto the sidewalk at JFK. There are people everywhere. It’s like New York is covered in honey and humans flock like bees to claim it. I could never live like this, but for Kelsey, I’ll endure anything.

I wring my hands and jiggle my foot the entire way to the apartment. Miles has ensured me that he and Chloe will be out all day, and that Kelsey will be where she’s been the entire four weeks; in bed.

The busy city streets whiz by. People dressed in suits and ties, the occasional actress/model in six inch stilettos, and even a guy dressed as Mickey Mouse. This place is always moving, like it has a pulse and heartbeat of its own. I hate it. I want to rescue Kelsey like she's my flag to capture and smuggle her out of here. Get us either back to suburbia, or the country. Wide open spaces is where we belong. I want it so bad I can taste it.

My whole body is a bundle of nerves, exactly how I feel for the first pitch of every game. Will it land in my glove? Will I get hit today? Will we succeed?

Kelsey is for sure going to be pissed off. She's probably going to rip my head off. But I guess what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. That's what they say right? Unless she actually does kill me.

Miles gave me the door code, so I buzz myself in and head for the stairs. He's a millionaire who's on his way to the majors and he can't afford an apartment building with elevators? Rich kids.

As I'm about to knock, knowing Kelsey is right on the other side of this door, my stomach seizes up. My fists clench at my side and I have to take measured breaths until the anxiety passes. It’s a heavy thing when the girl you love is about to rake you over the coals.

And then I knock, wrapping my fist loudly against the door. I hear quiet shuffling from within, which isn't what I expect. The Kelsey I know would be shouting, asking who it was, before she even neared the peephole. Two shadows appear at the bottom of the door, and I know she's staring at me from behind the wood. She makes no noise though.

I wait a couple of seconds, see if she'll magically open the door without resistance. No luck.

"Kelsey, I know you're there. Please, let me in, Roo. I want to explain. I want to..."

"Go away." Her voice is raspier than usual, that sassy, sexy tone it usually carries is no longer there. I can tell just by her voice that she hasn't been sleeping or eating.

"Please, Roo. Please. You know Miles will just let me in when he gets home anyway."

She's silent, and then I hear the metal click of latches and locks being undone.

"That asshole called you, didn't he?" She shakes her head as she opens the door.

I don't even recognize the tiny woman in front of me. She looks frail and exhausted. Kelsey is all fire and boldness, she sets any room she walks into ablaze. And now it’s as if someone snuffed out her flame, doused her in that white fire extinguisher liquid and left her to crumple.

She's wrapped in a baggy sweater and even baggier sweatpants. All of that beautiful red hair looks greasy and flat, the wildness has been obliterated. I want to take her in my arms and shake her, stoke the fire back to life. Because despite her messy state, she still looks hauntingly beautiful.

This woman in front of me just looks defeated as she huffs onto the couch, wincing as she throws her body down. Never would my Kelsey have opened the door as quickly as she did. That fact that it didn't even take me hours of pleading has me suspicious.

I move around the chairs in the bright, sunny yellow living room. "Roo, I...I've thought about what I would say to you if you had agreed to talk to me for the last month now. Except now that you're in front of me, I can't...I don't know."

I wipe a hand over my face and try to collect my scrambled thoughts. Kelsey is looking anywhere but at me, currently picking at her cuticles. "I'm so goddamn sorry. I never, ever meant to hurt you like that. I was trying to protect you from something that I should have held your hand through. I should have walked with you through it, together, instead of trying to slay the dragon alone. It wasn't fair to you. But running wasn't fair to me. I love you, Kelsey. So fucking much. You have to know that."

She lifts her head slowly. Those brilliant, warm, whiskey-colored eyes are rimmed by dark circles and hold pools of tears in the bottom lid. She looks like a shell of her former self.

"You lied to me. The one thing you said you wouldn't do. You went behind my back, spoke about me without having permission." Her voice is rough and jagged, cracking on each syllable.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, baby. But my only instinct ever is to go to bat for you. To defend you and protect you. I didn’t know for sure that Jackson was your dad, it was only a hunch. A hunch I wanted to explore myself before bringing you in on something that might hurt you. So excuse me if my judgement was a little off, but I did this for you. I would walk through fire for you. Throw my hand on a blade. All of those things in that goddamn Bruno Mars song you used to love, yeah I would do them all." I'm practically shouting at her, but I can't seem to cool down.

"Well, you're not going to want to stick around for much longer..." Kelsey grumbles and I can barely make out what she said. But I hear enough.

"That's what you think of me? You think just because we're fighting and you're angry that I'll give up? Walk out? You must not know me at all-"

"I'm pregnant, Clint."

It’s like all of the sound that has been filtering up from the street goes dead silent. My body flushes hot and cold as nausea, fear, hope, glee and every other emotion in the book slams my central nervous system at once. My head feels suddenly too heavy to hold up, and I have to drop onto the couch with my forehead buried in my hands. All of our other problems go out the window. They aren't even a tick of on the scale of issues anymore.

"How..." I don't even really say this to her, it’s just a thought that flits into my brain that I must verbalize.

"Really, Clint? You need a lesson on the birds and the bees? We didn’t use a condom a couple of times, I’m not on the pill because of the horrible side effects on the female body. I mean I knew you were a virgin but come on..." Her voice is a harsh crack of the whip, slicing my heart even further in two. She's taken my base level insecurity and used it to protect herself.

When I look up, she's scowling. I still can't process it. My mouth feels dry as the Sahara as I try to talk to her. "When did you find out?"

"Last week."

"Jesus." I exhale, knowing now why she's in this state. "Are you...do you want to...will you keep it?"

I hold my breath. I don't know what I want her to say. Obviously we aren't ready for this. I don't even know where we stand as a couple, not to mention I'm currently an unemployed ex-athlete living on his parent's couch. But on the other hand, I want this baby more than anything. This little possibility, a glimmer of unadulterated peace and happiness. Perfection. I know in my bones already that I'll fight her if she says she doesn't want it.

"I'm keeping the baby." Kelsey is all matter of fact about this. I see through it though. It’s a coping mechanism. If she doesn't say too much, she can't get emotional.

"Thank god." I smile, exhaling the breath now burning inside of my lungs.

"I said I'm keeping it. I don't expect anything from you."

Anger hits me like a line drive to the face. "That's my child too, Kelsey. Don't you dare think I'm going to leave, or be some deadbeat dad. You can't keep me away."

I know I must be close to tears because I can hear the break in my voice, can feel the lump threatening to close up my throat. So I play the only card I can. "Would you really do the same thing to our child that your mother did to you? Keep our child from his or her father?"

Kelsey inhales sharply before standing, walking across the room, and promptly slapping me in the face with all the force she can muster.

"You fucking asshole!" She spits.

My cheek stings like only a slap from the woman you love can make it. But at least she's gotten a bit of that fire back.

Jumping to my feet, I wrap my arms around her now that she's close. She slaps at me, growing more hysterical by the second. I just grip her in my hold like a vice, waiting until she calms down. Eventually, she tires out, slumping against my chest while I run my hands up and down her back.

"I'm never going to leave you. And I will try never to hurt you again. Wherever you run, I will come after you. And not in a creepy way, but because I love you. I've loved you since the moment you walked into my life and sent my world up in fiery red flames. So I'm going to keep fighting for us. Even when you're scared, or you feel like quitting. I'm always going to be here. You're stuck with me, Roo, so get used to it."

I feel her exhale against my chest. "Why won't you just leave me alone?"

"I told you, I love you. When you love someone, you never give up on them."

Her muffled cries soak the front of my shirt, breaking my heart and sowing it back together at the same time. She's allowed me to hold her and pick her back up, and that's all I can focus on right now.

"I'm sorry I gave up on you. On us." Her tears come harder now, her breaths coming in warm hiccups against my abs. She's going to wear herself down and that's just not what's best for her right now.

Scooping her up, I can tell she's lost weight that she can't afford to as I carry her towards what I assume is the spare bedroom. I lay us both down and circle my limbs around her.

"Sleep." I instruct her before planting a kiss on the crown of those scarlet locks.