Jock: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (85 page)

A
s little as
I come back here, and as wrapped up in my own life back in New York I am, there’s something just
warm
about walking into the house I grew up in. It feels wholesome, and comforting. It smells like Christmas trees of years gone by, family dinners at a full table, and summer vacations all at once, and I can’t help but just feel
love
the second I walk through the front door.

I guess that’s why they say home is where the heart is.

The same soft white curtains, the same wallpaper, and the same collection of wind-up clocks across the mantel. There are the same photographs on the wall leading into the kitchen - expanded a little with more memories, more friends, and Carter now, of course.

The wall is of course
less
a few pictures too - there’s one of Carter stuffing Jello in his mouth where I
know
a horribly awkward picture of Silas and I at prom once hung.

Where that’s gone to I can’t even imagine.

Nor do I need to.

“There she is!” My dad comes bursting out from his study, a big grin on his silver-bearded face, his still-thick hair combed back and to the side like it’s been for as long as I’ve been alive.

“There’s my big shot!”

He’s been calling me that since the first blog took off, and he chuckles deeply, his broad-chested frame booming as he brings me in for a big hug, squeezing me tight. He steps back, beaming like the king of a castle - ever the reverend at a pulpit watching over his flock.

He gives another squeeze before he puts an arm around our mom, and I can’t help but grin at the two of them -
exactly
the same. Maybe a bit grayer, a bit softer around the edges than they once were. But 40 years, five children, and more memories than I can imagine later, they’re still happy.

Still as in love as the day they got married.

There’s a shriek at the top of the stairs, before Sierra comes tumbling down in her usual whirlwind state. My little sister half jumps into me, shrieking again into my ear as she holds me tight.

“Well don’t knock her over, honey!” Mom chuckles, leaning her head against Dad’s chest.

“What? I see more of her on the stupid
internet
than I do in real life.”

I pull a face as Sierra sticks her tongue out at me. “I can’t believe you’re actually
here
.” Her eyes drop to my shoulder bag and her demeanor suddenly shifts. “God, where did you
get
that bag, I love it.”

“Now where’s that boy of yours?” Mom raises her brows and looks past me, as if Blaine’s hiding on the front porch.

My mom loves Blaine, and I think it’s for two very main reasons. For one, he makes me happy. But for two, he is
nothing
like the boy who I know broke her heart almost as much as mine. Sunny, cheery, golden-haired Blaine is nothing like the boy who always had a cloud over his right shoulder he could never shake.

Hell, even my dad seems totally enamored with him, which is no easy feat. But I know that part of that is that
this
man who his daughter is wrapped up in is from the right family, the strong family, without the baggage and the darkness that came with the one long before.

Dad clears his throat as mom bustles back into the kitchen with Stella in tow. “Rowan’s short-staffed right now, so he’s still at work.”

Work being O’Donnell’s, the townie bar up the hill from the piers. Back in high school, we used to steal warm beers off the loading dock out back and drink them on the roof. Now our older brother owns and runs the place.

The preacher’s son, running the town dive bar.

Perfect, really, for the family black sheep.

And I know most people - most people being our dad - think of
that
night as the kink in the ladder that threw Rowan off his path. But the truth of it is that the oldest Hammond’s been the black sheep since even before the rest of us were born. Given, the hockey scholarship to Boston University
may
have been a chance of leaving that moniker behind, but that all changed that night.

A lot changed that night.

Of course, Rowan also being Silas’s best friend explains why the little shit seems to have neglected to tell me about who I might run into back here in Shelter Harbor. I may have ended up being just some silly young fling for Silas Hart, but he and Row were like brothers up until the end.

“The end” being the night of rain and sirens and heartbreak.

I clear my head of the memory that I put to bed long before.

Because the boy I fell in love with who was almost a sixth sibling here in the Hammond house - the boy my father taught to shave and drive, the boy who my mom used to teach piano to, the boy who seemed to finally be leaving the criminality and zero direction of his home behind…

Well, that boy turned out to be
exactly
who he was always meant to be.

A criminal.

A liar.

A thief who stole my heart.

“Ok, dinner’s about ready, gang!” Mom calls from the kitchen. She pokes her head out and frowns. “Oh,
shoot
, should we wait for Blaine?”

I smile as I scoop Carter up, tickling him until he giggles and squirms in my arms. “I can always heat him up a plate later,” I say, tossing a shrieking Carter up and down.

My dad chuckles and puts an arm around both Sierra and I, kissing us both on the top of the head like he’s always done as we all head through the house to the backyard.

It’s been eight years.

Eight years later, I’m not the same person I was, and I honestly don’t even care if Silas is or not.

Because I’m past it. I’m taking it off the wall like the goofy prom pictures.

And right there as I step out through the kitchen door to picnic table in the backyard surrounded by family, I decide that I
will
see Silas Hart one more time.

And this time, we’re getting a fucking divorce.

I
sit
on the hood of my truck out at the end of Commercial Street, at the edge of the piers where the town sort of runs out into the edge of the woods. From here, the long stone and evergreen curve of Turner State Park circles out around the harbor itself.

The park’s closed after dark, which also means there’s not a soul around down here, which suits me just fucking fine right now.

I reach for the pack of smokes in my pocket like some sort of phantom limb syndrome. They’re not there, of course, but the habit of putting my hand on that pocket remains, even thought I gave them up years ago.

I gave a lot up years ago.

So now I’m home, I guess. Home in a place that isn’t even home anymore - a town that’s forgotten I existed, and a girl who wishes she did.

Oh yeah, coming back here was a
great
fucking plan.

Of course what she doesn’t know - what I don’t think
anyone
knows aside from Rowan is that I’ve been a lot closer to home than Ireland for the last year.

Because after five years in Dublin doing everything I always said I wouldn’t get into, I finally threw in the towel and came back to the States.

It’s worth mentioning that five years in the Federal statute of limitations on bank jobs.

Except I never actually made it
home
until three days ago. A year before, when I touched down at Logan, I didn’t make it past Boston itself. And so I landed in Southie and then spent three years working up the courage or whatever to make it to Shelter Harbor.

Because there was nothing for me here.

And yet here I am, and I already know it was a mistake coming

back here. I also know my being here puts Rowan in a tough spot. Besides that, there’s the guilt. I mean hell, the guy knows I dated his sister, but he doesn’t know how much deeper it got.

None of the Hammonds know
how “
like family” we all really are.

My hand makes one more phantom pass for the cigarettes in my pocket that aren’t there before I shake my head. I bring the same hand up instead, pushing my fingers through my hair as I watch the last of the light fade over the breakers on the other side of the harbor.

Fuck it, this was a terrible idea. Because all it’s taken is one run-in with the girl whose heart I broke to know there really
isn’t
anything left for me here.

The engine turns and the truck creaks into gear before I turn it around and head back downtown. I’m heading to O’Donnell’s to see Rowan, and then I should just keep on driving until I hit Boston.

I’d also
really
like to ask him how it is Ivy had no idea I was going to be here.

“
H
ey babe
.”

Blaine’s ultra-surfer California accent mellows through the phone. He’s actually originally from Ohio, but the blonde, top-knot and tanned surfer look is kind of his
thing
- it’s his brand. And believe me, I get brands. So, even though I know the voice is fake, I guess I
get it
to a certain degree. He’s just owning his own image.

The thought of what Silas would say about someone going through life with a carefully cultivated and
fake
accent enters my head, and I scowl momentarily. For one, because I know his reaction would be so typically childish, and two, that he’s even entering my head at all.

I’ve gone eight years with forgetting Silas Hart as a full-time job. I am
not
quitting now.

“Hey!” I say brightly into the phone, standing off to the side of the backyard garden watching Stella and Sierra setting dinner. “We’re just about to start dinner! Are you in?”

“Aww damn, sounds so good! It’s just…” he trails off, and I frown.

“What’s up?”

He groans dramatically. “Ivy, promise you won’t be, like, mad at me?”

I furrow my brow. “Blaine, what-”

“I missed the last ferry, babe.”

My face falls. “Oh.”

“Aaaah, shit, I knew you’d be mad!”

I shake my head. “No, I’m not
mad
, I just-” I look at my toes in the grass. “I just thought you’d be here soon.”

“Yeah, well hey, I just thought I’d crash here for the night and come on up tomorrow.”

I frown again. “Wait, what? You can just take the late train tonight you know, you’ll be here in like ninety min-”

“Uh, yeah it just sounds like this whole big
thing
though, you know?”

“
What?
”

No, I don’t know. It’s quite simple, actually. You get on the train, you sit down, you arrive an hour and a half later in Shelter Harbor.

“Blaine-” I sigh, bringing my hand up to run it through my hair. “I just sort of needed you here today.”

He makes a strained sound into the phone. “Babe…”

“What?”

He makes a clicking sound with his tongue and his teeth. “Babe, you know that’s not really my thing. I mean,
you
gotta do
you
, you know? Thought we talked about this, Ivy.”

And we did, too. Well,
he
talked about it, a few weeks back over dinner at Roman’s in Williamsburg. How we need to “maintain our own strong independence as a couple.”

I frown, shaking my head. “Yeah, no, I know we did, I just-”

I just what?
I just saw the man who left me shattered and stuttering eight years ago, and I need to forget about him with you? Like I’ve done with every relationship ever since him?

I don’t finish my sentence.

“So, we’re good then?” he says brightly.

“Yeah, yes,” I say quickly.

“
Rad
.”

Rad.

“So, I’ll check you tomorrow, kay?”

I nod, eyes closed and blowing air slowly through my lips. “Yeah, tomorrow.”

“
Awwwwesome
. Great talk, babe, I knew you’d understand. Later!”

The line goes dead.

I stare at the phone in my hand another minute, blinking in confusion before I open up my texts and fire one off to Ainsley, letting her know. The phone buzzes instantly with her reply.

I shrug as I type a quick “thanks, I’ll let you know” back, before pocketing the phone and heading back to my family.

* * *

“
I
’m so
happy you’re home, honey.” My mom squeezes my hand later after dinner, sitting next to me at the big wooden table beneath the Japanese maple tree out in the back yard. Cafe-style string lights illuminate the garden she and my dad have tended for more than thirty years - an oasis I’m definitely
not mad at having grown up with.

She lets go of my hand to pass me a plate of pie, cut from the lattice-top dish my dad apparently baked this afternoon.

Yeah, welcome to the Hammond house - we
seriously
are this much of a Norman Rockwell painting.

If I were back in Manhattan right now I’d be - I glance at the time - I probably wouldn’t have even had
dinner
yet. Maybe I’d be at Nomad at the Liberty Hotel getting cocktails, or calling a friend of a friend to get reservation hookups at Blue Hill. I’d be drinking an expensive, local craft-distilled all-potato vodka martini or a non-impact environmentally friendly, eco-farmed chardonnay.

Not homemade raspberry pie.

That said, after a day like today, I
seriously
need a drink, and the good Reverend Hammond isn’t exactly known to keep much in the house. Sure, Mom keeps a bottle of sweet, cheap, sauvignon blanc for occasions, but between her, Sierra, Stella and I, that was about a tenth of what I need right now.

“So tell us about this new line!” Sierra beams at me across the table. “Are they
seriously
going to carry it at Lululemon?”

Yes, they’re seriously going to carry the new line of sports bras and yoga pants at Lululemon, just like that coffee chain has been sniffing around for distribution rights on the new organically sourced anti-oxidant tea line we’ve been working on.

But I don’t want to talk about that.

I don’t want to talk about brand meetings and making sure the makeup I used on camera is fair trade and doesn’t contain anything terrible so I don’t get raked over the coals in some YouTube comment. I don’t want to talk about the fact that at some point while I’m here, I need to have pictures taken of me doing bikram yoga, or jogging or something here in quaint New England for the website.

I want to talk about the fact that the ghost from my past just welcomed me home for the first time in eight years.

I want to talk about the fact that my heart is still somewhere in my throat, or that I’ve been reliving and rewashing
every
damn memory I have of him in my head since the second I walked away.

Every
memory, from running around as kids, to him showing me how to pick locks with a pin. From first kisses, to, well, first much more than that. My cheeks flush at the thought, and I reach for the glass of wine next to my plate of pie only to remember the
one
glass I had is long gone.

“Ivy?”

I look up to see Mom, Stella, and Sierra all looking at me intently, waiting on an answer. Dad’s playing with Carter on his lap, not paying attention.

“Oh, yeah,” I say quickly, clearing my throat. “It’s going into distribution.”

“That is
so
exciting, honey!” Mom gushes.

Five years ago, when the fashion and lifestyle blog I’d started in college started to take off, Mom and Dad thought I was insane to not pursue grad school.

“What are you going to do with an undergraduate in psychology?”
Dad had finally pointedly asked over dinner.

Sell the
fuck
out, that’s what.

Because an Instagram account with 900 thousand follows is a goldmine, for the record. Wear that certain sports bra while I’m doing yoga at an eco-retreat in Mexico for $5,000 from the brand that makes it?
No
problem. Wear those certain shoes when I go for a run through Central Park? For $8,000, I’ll do it singing Britney fucking Spears at the top of my lungs.

But it’s not the money that Mom and Dad are proud of, they’re just happy that I’m happy, which is so “parent” its nauseating.

I’m doing dishes in the kitchen later, alone with Sierra, when she finally leans in close to me.

“Stella filled me in while you and Dad were getting Carter ready for bed.” She gives me a sour look. “That’s
shitty
that Rowan didn’t tell you.”

I shrug, drying a plate before sticking it up in the cabinets. “Eh, it’s fine.”

It’s not fine, but I’m trying to go five minutes straight without stewing on it.

And failing.

“Look, I’m not trying to cover for him, but he was probably worried you wouldn’t come home if he mentioned it.”

I raise a single brow. “I wouldn’t have.”

“That’s fair.” Sierra leans her head on my shoulder. “I’m really glad you’re home, though.”

I grin.

“Any idea what the
fuck
he’s doing here? I mean,
just
Dad’s thing, or is there something else?”

I shrug. “Who the hell knows. He was being really vague about it.”

She makes a face. “Jesus, you guys
really
talked, huh? Not just like a passing thing?”

I nod.

“How’d
that
go?”

Horrible, like a stab to the heart. Like everything I’ve been holding back and holding inside and drowning in work and plastic veneer relationships is coming rushing out like blood. Or wonderful, because its so hard to hate the man who stole your heart eight years ago.

“It was fine,” I say as casually as I can.

“Just
fine?
”

“Just fine.” I shrug again. “It was eight years ago, I’m not still hung up on my high school boyfriend like a weirdo.”

She wags her brow. “Okay.”

“I’m
not
.”

She groans and rolls her eyes. “
Fine
. So, speaking of boyfriends, how’s Blaine these days?”

I slump my shoulders. “What if we picked a new topic entirely.”

“That good, huh?”

I turn flicking soapy water at my little sister. “Okay dork, how’s
your
love life?”

Her face goes red as she snorts. “
Hard
pass.”

“Oh
that good, huh?
” I say, mimicking her and tossing my hair exaggeratedly over my shoulder.

She gives me a mock scandalized look and starts to dip her hand threateningly into the soapy water of the sink before the clearing of a throat behind us stops her.

“Yeah, if you’re just going to flood the place, I can take over.”

I turn, grinning at my dad. “Nah, we’ve got it. We’ll try to restrain ourselves.”

“Did you bring your own organic free-trade dish soap you can use on those?”

Sierra snorts and I turn and stick my tongue out at my dad.

He chuckles. “Seriously, your mom and I have this. You two should go see Rowan, I know he’s missing that he wasn’t here tonight.”

“
Wow
, is Reverend Hammond
telling
his daughters to go to the local dive bar?”

This time Dad rolls his eyes as Sierra gasps dramatically. “Such
scandal!
”

Dad folds his arms over his thick chest and raises a brow. “
First
, it’s not a ‘dive’ bar.”

“Dad,” Sierra shakes her head, grinning, “it totally is.”

“Not since your brother took over the place,” Dad insists.

My sister and I glance at each other, smirking.

Okay, it’s
slightly
less divey than it was. But O’Donnell’s is without question a true local’s spot. No cutesy “quaint New England” crap on the walls, no lobster roll special, no fish and chips, none of that. Guinness, Bud Light, and obviously Sam Adams on draught, and Jamesons -
not
Bushmills - on the back bar. That’s basically it.

“It is
not
,” Dad mutters with a grin. “Besides, I should know.”

“Oh and how’s that?”

Sierra laughs. “Did you not know?”

I look at her questioningly, but Dad just casually shrugs. “What, I’m an investor now.”

I burst out laughing.

“The scandal deepens! Should we bring this up at the park dedication?”

Dad grins through his beard as he shakes a finger at us. “
Get
.”