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

So instead, I turn on my heel and stomp through the dirt, my gauzy gypsy skirt floating around me as I go. The dirt packs into my sandals and I relish the feeling of the earth on my feet.

The last thing I hear before I slam the door to my red Jetta is my father’s chilling voice. "Don't forget who let's you play the animal lover. Who funds your love."

I
've been reading
and re-reading our chat conversations from when Kelsey was in Africa a couple of months ago all afternoon like some thirteen-year-old middle school girl. Maybe I thought this would make me feel better about my tantrum this morning, but its only making me feel worse. It makes me miss how our relationship was. When it was only cyber chatting and videoing. When she wasn't here, hooking up with guys in front of my face. But I am a glutton for punishment, so I will take seeing that and having her close by then her being a continent away.

I hadn't meant to blow up at her, or to trick her with my play on words. I just wanted to see what she would say.

And dammit if she hadn't looked like she was about to hurl chunks of Reese's Puffs when she thought we'd slept together.

There was your answer, Clint. You asshole. I'd gotten what I wanted, a reaction. Too bad it had been the exact one to crush my already wounded heart. When I'd seen her face - her mouth a round O-shape at the breath she'd just inhaled, her cheeks red with shame - my stomach had plummeted through the floor. It felt like someone had taken a crossbow to my heart and shot it straight through my body, where it landed as a bloody mess on the wall behind me.

I was pathetic. Here I was, 100 pounds down and eating grass for every meal trying to impress a girl who clearly only saw me as her humble, funny fat friend. 

I wasn't flashy. I wasn't cocky. I wasn't rich.

I was quiet. I was down-to-earth. I would rather go to the movies or to a causal dinner with friends than party.

I was everything Kelsey was not. Or everything she didn't want.

It was time to end this. The pining. The self-pity. The beating Kelsey up. This was my problem, and something I needed to get over now. For her sake and for mine. I needed to find a nice girl, someone I could grow with and experience what it was like to be in a relationship. Because believe it or not, just because you're on a top tier college baseball team does not guarantee you a piece of ass every Saturday night. Especially not when you weighed almost 300 pounds.

The thump of a car stereo shakes my bedroom floor, which is located closest to our driveway, and I reckon Minka and Owen are home. I haven't left my room since I slammed it to spite Kelsey, so I wouldn't even know if it was nighttime at this point if I didn't have two windows in here.

Another loud smack and the walls shake. Whoever slammed whatever door in this house, might have just broken it off the hinges

Ambling up from where I'm slouched in my desk chair, I throw open my door. "Hello?"

Minka and Owen come running out from his room, his hair a rat's nest and her shirt on inside out. "Nice, guys. It’s like four o'clock."

"There is always time for-" Owen winces when Minka punches him in the arm before he can get the rest of his sentence out.

And I'm envious that he has a girl who wants to do that with him at all hours of the day.

I can't contemplate that much more though, because another crash comes from the spare room on the other side of the house. And one thought runs through my brain. Kelsey.

The three of us look at each other and then run, almost tripping over one and other in the tiny hallway. We slide through the kitchen and up to the spare room door.

Minka throws it open. "Are you hurt?!"

There is panic in her voice and I can Owen physically restraining her from barging into the room. I peer through the doorway and see Kelsey, fine as wine, standing in the middle of the carpet.

The three of us take a collective deep breath, not voicing the situation we were all inevitably running through our heads. Two weeks ago, we woke up to a screaming Kelsey. When we'd barged into her room, some drunk asshole was on top of her, her mouth face down in the pillow and her hands behind pinned behind her back. I'd almost murdered the douche bag before Owen pulled me off of him. It was one of the handful of times Kelsey had gotten in too deep since she'd been living here the last two months. Minka said she usually wasn't this bad, that yes, she had her fair share of hook ups, but Kelsey usually screened the guys well. The ones she was bringing home now bordered on dangerous.

"I'm fine." She looks around the room in a crazed fashion, and that's when I see the suitcase laid out on the bed. Kelsey starts throwing items haphazardly into the open mouth of it, not bothering to fold or sort anything. "I just have to get out of here."

"What? Where are you going? You just got home." Minka steps up to her, puts a hand on Kelsey's shoulder to rouse her from the daze she's in.

"My parents, they know I'm here." Now she looks Minka in the eyes, dread and panic spreading like a rash over her beautiful pixie features.

Minka sucks in a breath, and anxiety washes over my flesh. I can feel the toxicity in the air and I don't even know what the problem is. It may be because I've gotten so used to reading Kelsey's body language that I know whatever that sentence means, its causing her to run. And fast.

"Okay, calm down. Owen, Clint can you give us some space?"

Minka throws a cautious look our way. Owen shrugs, turning to go, knowing he's not wanted in the situation. I on the other hand can't move my feet, which are now cemented in the doorway.

"I want to help. Kelsey knows she can talk to me."

Hurt mixes with the panic in her face as she finally acknowledges my presence in the room. I know she's thinking about my outburst this morning, and I couldn't feel more like shit right now remembering how I'd yelled at her.

"Clint, please." Minka shoots me another look, this time annoyance clouding her exotic face. One last look at Kelsey and I know she wants me gone. Fine. It only solidifies my decision to get over whatever I feel for her. She clearly doesn't need me as her shoulder to lean on.

A
n hour
and a half of struggling to concentrate on the movie I’d thrown on while trying to keep thoughts of Kelsey out of my brain later, a soft knock comes on my door.

"Come in."

My door swings open to reveal Minka, looking wiped out.

"Hi." She gives me a small smile.

"What's up?"

"Just thought you might want an update on our girl."

I shrug. "Sure, whatever you want."

Minka eyes me, doubt and annoyance flickering in her eyes. "You're telling me you haven't been sitting here for an hour chewing your nails over why she was freaking out?"

Trying to hide my anxiety and come across nonchalant, I shrug again. "Kelsey is a big girl who is going to do what she wants to do. If she doesn't want my help, I can back off."

"Oh, really? That's what you were doing last night? Backing off?"

I sigh heavily, not wanting to get into this with anyone. Especially Kelsey's best friend. "What's up, Minka?"

She hesitates for a moment, but relaxes into herself as she takes a seat on the edge of my bed across from where I sit in my desk chair. "There are some things you don't know about Kelsey. I'm not going to get into it, because it’s not my place to tell you, but she hasn't had an easy life. Despite what it might look like from the outside. Her parents are in town, and that's a problem for her. She wants to run, take off again, but I bought us a few extra days. Maybe a week. This is the best place for her right now. I'm scared of what she might do if she disappears again."

I take a moment to process all of this.

And decide I need to guard myself right now rather than take care of the girl who has been pushing me away, or keeping me at arm's length from the very beginning.

"Listen, Minka. Kelsey is my friend, and I like having her here. But I'm not sure what you're asking me to do?"

She doesn't hesitate for even a minute. "You guys have a special bond, Clint. Convince her to stay here for as long as you can. She'll listen to you."

"No, she won't. She barely does now. I'm sorry, Mink, I don't mean to put you in a tough position. But I really just can't keep saving someone who doesn't want the help. I have to start looking out for me."

That sounded bad, and inside I felt like my organs were being ripped apart, but I meant it. Or at least I had to convince myself that I did.

Minka's face filled with disgust. "And here I thought you were the nicest guy I knew, Clint. Jesus, selfish much? I thought you cared about Kelsey. Whatever. Thanks for nothing."

And with that, she stormed out of the room and back into Owen's, where she promptly slammed the door.

Great, two women under my roof were now pissed off at me. For the first time in my life, I felt like I needed to get drunk. Usually, I drank at parties. Sometimes I get hammered, sometimes I chilled with a beer or two. Never had I felt the intense need in my veins for a drink. For the hot burn of alcohol.

But right now, it was exactly what I needed.

Picking up my phone, I texted Parker. That asshole was never home anymore, but I needed a drinking buddy and Parker was the best.

It took a couple of seconds, but my phone dinged with his response.

"
H
ow about her
?"

Parker's gruff voice invades the white noise swarming through my brain. I turn my head, my synapses moving slower than usual after four Jack and cokes.

The blonde he points out is pretty. In an obvious way. She's got the whole big boobs, tiny skirt, hair extensions thing working for her. I'm usually not into that kind of bombshell, but tonight I'm up for anything.

I've pretty much obliterated my nerves with how much alcohol is in my system, although thinking about trying to hit on a girl scares the crap out of me. These weren't things I had to do or think about when I was heavy, since no girl wanted to come near me, and now I pretty much suck at it. Last winter Parker had tried to hook me up with some baseball groupie at a party, after I'd lost about 75 pounds, and I'd been so nervous I'd spilled an entire can of beer down her shirt. I didn't even know that was possible. If my friends knew just how inexperienced I was in the girl and dating departments, they'd laugh their asses off.

"Sure. Let's do it."

He downs the rest of scotch on the rocks, a "gentleman's drink" as he calls it, and motions me to follow him out to the dance floor.

The dance floor parts as we walk through it. Even with the spring semester over and the lighter summer session in full swing, Sammy's was packed. It seemed like since our class would be going into senior year, even more people had stayed at Grover for the summer. Unlike me. I’d decided after championships, I was done with school. I was never here for the degree or the classes anyway, and without my friends, who were all moving onto the majors, there was nothing left here.

While I might have been heavy the past few years, if you were on the baseball team people knew who you were. You were treated differently, given things, comped for free meals at all of the local restaurants. It was a blessing and a curse. Especially for a guy like me who didn't particularly want the attention.

Parker nodded to various random girls as we moved through the gyrating crowd. He finally stopped a couple of feet from the blonde he'd pointed out and her friends. Parker nodded at another blonde within the dancing circle and immediately moved in behind her to start rubbing his crotch on her ass.

I always found it so awkward to start doing that. Just going up to some random girl, grabbing her hips and essentially having sex with her through your clothes. Did they like that?

Apparently Parker's girl did, because when she looked up to see it was him, she snuggled in closer, moving her hips even faster back and forth.

What the hell? I'm trying new things, stepping out of my comfort zone.

I scoot around the group, single in on the girl Parker pointed out to me, take a deep breath...and grab her hips.

She doesn't even flinch, as if this is a totally normal occurrence. Somewhere in the back of my brain, buried deep beneath the drunken haze, an alarm bell goes off. I don't like this. I don't treat women like this.

But the thought doesn't make it to the surface, and I move in closer to her, trying to time my rhythm to the beat of the music.

I've never really danced with a girl like this. I've never really done a lot of things with girls.