Full Count (25 page)

“Wh-aa-t, what are you doing,
Dylan? Why would you do this to me? I thought you loved me. And with her?” This
time I couldn’t keep the tears back and started all out sobbing at the
overwhelming feelings running throughout my body. The betrayal, the hurt, the
broken heart.

My whole body started to shake and
I felt a chill creep down my spine, making me feel sick to my stomach. I had
never seen his face look at me this way before and they both just stood there
and watched me fall apart. “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it, Sparky?” He bit out,
before slamming his lips back into Kylie’s once again as she squealed in
delight. The sound making me even sicker to my stomach.

 It was like a bad car wreck and I
couldn’t look away, her hands roamed all over his body, her hips arched into
him, and he grinded against her leg, all right in front of me. What I was doing
was pure torture to myself, but it had to be done. This would truly close the
door on me and Dylan Turner forever.

 Finally, my feet unfroze and I
stumbled back to the table through a blur of tears, finding the one person I could
always depend on. He shot straight up, wrapping an arm around my waist when he
saw how much of a mess I was. “Baby girl, what’s wrong?” His fingers went to
work brushing the tears away, his blue eyes staring intently at me, but it
wouldn’t work. Who knew when they would actually stop? “Jakey, take me home
please.”

“Yeah, sure just let me borrow the
keys from Charlie, I’ll run you home real quick and I’ll come back to pick them
up when their finished.”

“No Jake,” I sobbed out, grabbing
onto his arm even tighter like the anchor it was. “Take me HOME.”

Dylan

“What in the hell did you do, Dylan
Turner?” Kitty’s voice screeched out, breaking me from my blissful sleep, as
she threw back my bedroom door, most likely cracking the wall behind it.

“Calm down, Kitts.” I managed to
open at least one eye and see that it was almost noon and my head was pounding
from one hell of a hangover. Her blonde hair was piled on top of her head and
her face was free of all makeup, something I had never seen. Her eyes were
bloodshot like she had been crying all night and that got me sitting up
immediately. “Hold up, what’s wrong? Is everyone in the family alright?”

“Yes, everyone’s fine,” she bit
out. “Except for maybe you, I think you are seriously fucked up in the head if
everything I heard is true. I can’t believe you drove her away like that, she
was my best friend too.” She plopped down on the end of my bed, scrubbing at
her eyes where the fresh tears were rolling out.

 Yup, it was all coming back to me
now. I might have had a lot to drink last night but I still remembered what I
had done. Yes, I felt guilty as hell about what happened and Paige’s breakdown
had nearly pushed me over the edge, making me want to scoop her up in my arms
and never let her go again, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t forget what she had done
to me behind my back.

“What do you mean I drove her away?
I was just doing what she did to me with Jake, she just thought she got away
with it. Why not rub it in her face? She fucking ripped my heart out Kitty, do
you think I deserved that?”

She shook her head and stood up
straight again, glaring down at me and jabbing her finger into my chest. “You
have it all wrong, Dylan, I don’t know what you think you saw but Paige stopped
him. He came onto her and she pushed him away, telling him how in love she was
with
you.
She told him that she couldn’t be friends with him anymore if
that’s how he was going to act because in the end she was always going to
choose
you.

“She felt guilty for not telling
you and she was going to, and then you started treating her like a piece of
shit. Do you know how horrible you made her feel? And then you sink to probably
the lowest level, finally giving into that slut, who is supposedly a friend,
and practically have sex with her in the hallway, in front of Paige?” She
didn’t even give me a chance to respond and I really wasn’t sure how to after hearing
everything she had to say. One thing I knew was that I was a complete ass.

She waved her hands around the room
wildly. “And now this? She’s gone and it’s your entire fault. You’re the only
one here to blame.” My eyes followed her hands and I quickly realized that the
normal mess that seemed to follow Paige around was absent.

“What do you mean she’s gone?” I
jumped out of the bed, whipping open closet doors and dresser drawers, all
empty of everything Paige. “What the hell Kitty? Where did she go, is she
staying with you? I need to talk to her. I need to explain what I thought
happened. I need another chance.”

“Nope, she’s not with me. I got a
text late last night from her telling me that she was with Jake and going home
to Florida. I haven’t heard from her since, I’ve tried calling and texting at
least a hundred times combined but it’s just going straight to voicemail now. I
really think you lost out on your chance. You destroyed her.”

My heart clenched in my chest,
knowing I had intentionally destroyed the one good thing in my life over a
stupid misunderstanding. And she had run away from me as far as she could. I
didn’t know if I deserved her back in my life, but I was going to at least try
with everything I had in me. I had to.

Paige

Six long months had gone by since I
had last seen Dylan Turner and my heart still wasn’t whole again, I wasn’t sure
if it ever would be. The night he had ripped out my heart, I left without
looking back. Dad had been wary at first about me coming back home, thinking I
was just back because I didn’t want to be away from him, which was semi-true.

But as soon as he saw what a mess I
was and Jake had somewhat explained the situation, he had welcomed me back home
with open arms. Jake was there for me as much as he could be that first week
home, but I pushed him away.

He needed to have his own life and
didn’t need to be stuck taking care of me. He went back to school and contacted
me almost every day until he figured out that I wasn’t returning any of his
calls or texts. Then I think he just gave up.

 I had run into his mom at the
grocery store and according to her, he was dating a nice girl he had met on
campus and was
very
happy. I think she loved to rub that part in my
face, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t.

Dylan was just as persistent with
the phone calls, so much so that I finally changed my number so he couldn’t
contact me anymore. I had talked to Kitty about a month after I went home and
after making her swear that she wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone in her
family, including Dylan, that we were talking, we quickly updated each other on
everything that had happened in our lives since we had been away from each
other.

Kitty tried sticking up for Dylan,
telling me that he had seen Jake kiss me and jumped to wrong conclusions but I
hung up on her and wouldn’t talk to her for a week. So what if Dylan had seen
it? I guess that explained his cold attitude, but he didn’t even give me a
chance to explain. Instead, he went straight to Kylie and was clearly willing
when it came to everything he had done with her right in front of my own eyes.

After that Kitty never mentioned
Dylan again but called me regularly to catch up and fill me in on all of the
details about everyone else. Maddie and Jared were still going strong, along
with Chris and Claire, but Bryce and Marcy had broken up, which meant Bryce was
around the house a whole lot more.

Kitty had left the sorority house
after I moved back to Florida and took over the spare bedroom in the house, so
she was now living with all three of her brothers. And Dylan. But he was always
left out of all of the conversations, thankfully. The one thing that I found
hilarious was that Kylie had gotten kicked out of the dorm after being caught
sneaking in one too many guys and her parents had come and dragged her evil ass
back home.

I think being home seemed to help
my dad. I rarely saw him have a bad day and when he did, he locked himself in
his bedroom so I wouldn’t have to see him like that. I got along with MaryAnn
who had moved in recently, and she was often trying to teach me how to cook.
After a few disasters, I had finally perfected a decent meal and even managed
to make my favorite part, dessert.

MaryAnn was a great lady, quiet and
kind, and always so caring when it came to my teddy bear of a dad. I just
wished they had more time together. Even though my dad seemed to be doing well,
the cancer was still there and it was beyond treatable. The doctors still only
gave him a short time left.

“How you doing today ,Paigey girl?
You feeling alright?”

“Yes Dad, I’m fine,” I muttered out
while handing him the remote to get ready for the game that would start any
minute. He was constantly asking me that, even though I always told him I
should be the one asking that question. “You ready to watch the game, Dad? The
Rays are looking pretty good this season.”

“I know,” he replied, rubbing his
hands together. “It would be great if I could see them win a World Series
before I go.”

My chest instantly clenched up when
he said it. He talked about his own death, like he was talking about the daily
weather, so nonchalant. I tried to control my emotions in front of him, but
sometimes it was so hard.

I stood up quickly, grabbing a
tissue out of the bathroom to dab at my wet eyes before he could see. The
doorbell rang and I figured it was the perfect distraction. Instead, who stood
on the front porch was anything but. “Hey, you done avoiding me yet because
I’ve really been missing you.”

“Look at me, I’m a mess. How could
you possibly want to deal with this?” I snorted out a laugh as another tear
dribbled down my chin and he reached up to swipe it away. “You’re not a mess,
you’re beautiful. Come here.” He held out his muscular arms and I willingly
jumped right into them, I was done fighting this. “Mmm baby girl, I missed you
so much. You smell so damn good.”

Paige

“I can’t believe I’m actually
around to see this. As long as they keep playing this way, they’re heading to
the playoffs, and then off to the World Series. Boy oh boy, it sure is
amazing.”

Amazing was the right word to
explain it. Dad had baffled the doctors with how he was still kicking, sure he
was a lot frailer in the almost ten months that had passed, but he was still
here and that’s all that counted.

And today I was making his dreams
come true, by taking him to a game. He had been regularly purchasing his season
tickets, but he hadn’t attended a game in almost a year, so when he asked if I
wanted to take him, I jumped at the chance. I think I surprised him a little
bit, since I rarely left the house, but he was happy nonetheless.

We had brought along a wheelchair and
I had wheeled him from the parking garage, all the way to the closest ramps. He
had refused purchasing any of the handicap seats and insisted he was going to
sit in his front row seats. So with the help of me and one of the ushers, we
made our way carefully down the last set of concrete steps.

I called to check in with MaryAnn
as soon as we sat down and then we settled back into our seats to watch batting
practice. Dad always loved to get to the stadium early, so he could watch it, I
think it was truly his favorite part of the whole experience.

“How’s Jake doing with the whole
knee thing, I haven’t heard you talk about him much.”

Jake and I talked regularly every
day. After he had basically forced his way back into my life, we always kept in
constant contact. I could tell he still wanted more with me, but I couldn’t let
it happen. I wasn’t about to put my heart out there again.

And he had been a little distracted
lately. He had finally got some playing time during football season but was
almost immediately injured and would probably never play the same again. So he
dropped off the football team and instead was concentrating solely on the
sports medicine program.

“He’s fine Dad, just super busy.
I’m sure he’ll stop by when he can.”

“That’s good. Paigey, I figured I
should tell you something…”

“Nope Dad, no big dark secrets
today. We’re here to watch baseball and that’s what we’re going to do, nothing
else. Let’s just enjoy this day together.”

“But Paige…” he stopped midsentence
again, waving his hands out in front of him but they quickly dropped when I
narrowed my eyes. I had perfected that look lately and he knew I meant
business. “Alright, fine. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Hey Sparky.” It was that
unmistakable voice that I had managed to avoid, even though it still haunted
every one of my dreams, called out from out on the field. I squeezed my eyes
shut, hoping that I was just imagining things but that hope crumbled to bits
when Dad nudged me in the side with his elbow. “Told you so.”

I reluctantly turned my head and
locked eyes with those brown ones that were so familiar, even after so long. I
guess letting Kitty never mention Dylan was biting me in the ass right now. I
had no clue that he had been drafted to a team, let alone the Tampa Bay Rays.

 He hadn’t changed much since the
last time I had seen him. The uniform fit his well- defined body perfectly and
I could see that messy brown hair peeking out from underneath his hat, my
fingers itched to touch it. A small smile touched his lips and I could just get
a hint of those dimples that I had loved so much. Okay Paige, get it together,
he destroyed you. He is an asshole, a complete asshole. “Dylan,” I replied
stiffly.

“Wow, I never thought…how have you
been? I never got a chance…I just don’t…,” he stumbled over his words, baffling
me; he always knew what to say, no matter what the situation.