Home Run King Read online

  “Where’s the table?” I loved that table. Pops made it for Granny long before I ever met her, and I’d never met him. It was a piece of her, and I wanted it back.

  Gage stared at the spot where it used to sit. “Really opens the space up without that huge thing in here, huh?” He rested his hands firmly on his hips while he admired a bare room.

  I rolled my eyes and tried to maintain my composure. “That would be because it’s now empty, Gage. Please tell me you didn’t get rid of it.”

  “Nah, I took it to have it refinished. Granny would come back to haunt me if I got rid of that thing.”

  A heavy sigh escaped my lungs and then my mouth. At some point, he’d return the table. I just had to manage until then. I acted like I never had to leave, as though this were my home. There was no telling when it would dawn on Gage that I wasn’t paying rent and hadn’t listed a forwarding address. As difficult as it might be, I had to attempt to play nice.

  “Any idea how long it might be before you bring the table back?” Trying to soften my tone took more effort than it should have. I had no idea how I ever ended up naked with this guy when the sound of his voice grated on my nerves.

  Yes, I did. Every once in a while, I would catch a glimpse of a man no one else ever saw. Not the media, not his fans, not his friends, just his Granny—that man was hot as sin; this one, not so much.

  “A couple weeks. I’m stripping the floors and refinishing them.” He glanced around the room before his gaze returned to me.

  “Stripping? Like sanding them?”

  “Yeah, getting them naked.” He glanced at my belly and then back to my face. “You know all about that.” And he wagged his brows.

  My face dropped, mortified he thought my being pregnant was the slightest bit humorous. Gage Nix had no idea just how unfunny it was. I was the last person on earth who needed to breed…well, second only to the man who’d impregnated me. I held back the tears that threatened to fall, but my eyes burned with regret. I couldn’t take care of myself—evident by the fact I still lived in a dead woman’s home months after she’d passed away and only had coffee and pickles to sustain me.

  “Hey, what’s the long face for?”

  “We need to talk about this, Gage. I don’t want to any more than you do, but it isn’t going to go away by avoiding the subject.”

  “What’s there to talk about? We’re having a baby. It will be here in like a year. He doesn’t have to be a junior. The only thing I care about is he has my last name.”

  “A year? Gage, a pregnancy lasts nine months, and we’re already seven, almost eight weeks into the forty.”

  “Wait, that thing’s going to be here in like six months?”

  I raised my eyebrows and nodded. And then said the words I dreaded. “If I keep it.”

  Clearly, Gage hadn’t spent nearly as much time thinking about the long-term consequences of parenthood, much less what it would be like to try to raise a child together. He also had no idea what the press could do with my past and his career. Regardless of how I felt about Gage, I couldn’t let anyone be brought down by that shitstorm. He didn’t have to know I had no intention of getting rid of the baby; he could just think it, and I’d figure out the rest on my own.

  “What do you mean, if you keep it? Are you thinking about adoption?” The way he squinted his eyes as though he were blinded by the sun and lowered his voice to barely a whisper sent pain through my heart.

  I shook my head and bit my lip. I wanted to be honest with him, but that wasn’t a possibility.

  Gage repositioned himself, so he stood directly in front of me. With my arms crossed in defense, I held my ground. And waited.

  Color rose up his neck and then took over his cheeks at an alarming pace. His strong jaw clenched and the muscle ticced, twice. “That’s not an option.” He ground out the words through gritted teeth, seething with anger.

  “Gage, this whole thing was a mistake.” Trying to reason with a man like Gage Nix was asinine. I knew that, yet I attempted it anyway.

  “Think again. If you don’t want him, fine. You can sign over your rights when he gets here and wash your hands of it.”

  I ignored his absentminded insistence the child would be a boy and focused on the way he spoke. I’d never heard that tone from him. Everything out of his mouth was a joke. Gage Nix never took anything seriously, much less got belligerent. My heart ached at the thought. Never in a million years would I consider abortion, but he didn’t know that. The only viable argument I had was not being able to do this alone, and that’s exactly what I was and without many options.

  Not having coffee prior to this conversation only made it more difficult. I needed to sit, and without the kitchen table, I opted for the couch. In order to reach it, I had to pass him. He’d never given me any reason to be afraid of him, but the way he currently glowered and maybe even growled, I didn’t want to be within arm’s reach. Still, I chanced it and slid by to collapse on the sofa. He didn’t follow, not physically, although his eyes never left me.

  Pulling my knees to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them. “What kind of life is our child going to have?” It hurt like hell to ask that question aloud. I’d thought it a hundred times in the last week, yet somehow, hearing the words were worse than thinking them. I had first-hand knowledge of what it was like to grow up with one parent, even though this child would never face what I had—my situation wasn’t that much different than my mother’s was.

  His face softened, and his long legs took the few steps necessary to reach the couch. He sat on the cushion next to me and took one of my hands in his. The gesture was sweet, even though it was unlike Gage. “Whatever kind of life we want to give him.”

  I’d only seen this Gage when he was with Granny and thought no one was around. This was the Gage that had coaxed me into a naked frenzy—the one who’d pulled the wool over my eyes and the clothes off my back. If I could only find a way to harness this version of him.

  “Yeah? So I get to play single mom while you’re out on the road living the high life? And when he’s old enough to understand what all the tabloids and the newspapers and the broadcasts on television are saying about his manwhore of a father, then what? Who explains your absence eight months out of the year? Who explains the half-naked women on your arm? Who makes it okay when Daddy isn’t around?” I waited for an answer, but he didn’t provide one. “Me. And I can’t do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Why would I want to?” I dropped his hand and threw both of mine in the air exasperated. “I don’t want to be a single parent. I don’t want to go through the hell my mom did to raise me.”

  “You wouldn’t be alone.”

  “I don’t have anyone, Gage! Granny was it for me. I’m already struggling as it is.” I hadn’t meant to say it. I hadn’t wanted that secret out. All I could do was pray he didn’t choose to focus on the last three sentences I’d said.

  He tilted his head to the side and searched my face just before he shook his head. “You wouldn’t be alone, Katie.”

  And for a brief moment, I held out hope that Gage Nix would promise to be involved, promise to be a partner. But all of that was a fairy tale. Even if he promised me the world and served it up on a silver platter, there wasn’t going to be a happily ever after.

  And then he opened his mouth, again. “Most of the guys on the team are married. I’m sure all their wives help each other out.” He grinned and tried to lighten the mood. “I know Ellie would love to have my baby.”

  My heart sank and took any remaining hope I had with it. “Great, sister wives with no husband. Just what a girl dreams of.” I stood and realized I wasn’t wearing anything but skimpy pajama shorts and a barely there camisole. Before I could cover myself, Gage jumped at the chance to have multiple women in the sack.

  “Sweetheart, any time you’re up for a threesome, just let me know.”

  I groaned.

  “I’m just kidding. Well—sort of. If you want a repeat,
I’m your man. And if you can talk one of your friends into joining us, the more, the merrier.”

  He didn’t get it. There were no friends. There was no family. There was no one. And if he found out how I’d landed on his grandmother’s doorstep, he wouldn’t want me to be the mother of his child. Gage knew nothing about me other than what was on my résumé—most of which was a fabricated exaggeration of the truth—and the size of my breasts.

  “Let yourself out.” I started back up the stairs like I owned the place. I lived by the mantra that if people believed I knew what I was doing, they’d never question me—for the most part it worked.

  He hopped off the couch and raced across the floor to stop me with his hand atop mine on the banister. “Please don’t do this, Katie.” He’d taken on that tone again—the one that made my heart swoon. “Tell me what you need. I’ll do it. Just don’t do anything drastic, okay?”

  “You and I both know you can’t keep a commitment like that. Even if you wanted to, your career wouldn’t let you.” I patted his hand and tried to remove my other one in the process.

  “I’ll prove it to you.”

  “Guess we’ll find out.” I didn’t have high hopes for Gage’s ability to make me see things any differently.

  It wasn’t fair that he wasn’t playing the game with a full deck, or maybe he was playing with the deck stacked against him—either way, he couldn’t win. The sooner we both accepted the inevitable, the better off we’d be.

  Six days passed without any word from Gage. Just as I assumed he’d flown the nest like I expected, the clamoring outside broke me out of my self-pity. Peering through the window of my bedroom, I could see the top of a box truck and people moving around like ants. As if he could sense my presence, Gage peered up and winked. I didn’t have a clue what he was up to; although, I assumed this crew was here to do the hardwood floors.

  When I heard the footsteps on the stairs, I expected Gage to pop in to say hello. One set of steps followed by another and another. The cadence started to worry me. Gage was a loaded gun waiting to go off, and there was never any indication of what might pull the trigger. Hesitantly, I cracked the door to see what was going on. The dresser being moved in across the hall had me worried enough to come out of hiding.

  The wind whipped by my face as I flung open the door with force. I didn’t have a clue who these men were and doubted any of them had answers, so I didn’t bother asking them questions.

  “Gage?” I hollered down the hall as I proceeded to the stairs without receiving a reply. “Gage!” Still nothing. As I rounded the front door, I collided with a wall of muscle that didn’t budge.

  “You must be Katie.” The gentle smile he offered was warm and inviting. I couldn’t imagine Gage having friends that were just good guys.

  “You’ll have to forgive me. I’m not sure who any of you are.” I leaned to my right and beyond his shoulder to see what must be six men—none of whom I recognized—unloading furniture I’d never seen.

  “Coby Kyler.” He extended his hand, and I stared at him with my mouth slightly ajar.

  “Katie Crisp. Nice to meet you.” I shook my head just slightly. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound rude. What are you guys doing here? Is Gage with you?”

  “He’s likely in the truck doing as little as possible. These are all guys from the team.” He faced the yard, checking out the scene himself. Slowly, he turned back toward me, confusion marring his face. “You didn’t know he was moving in?”

  “What?” I shrieked, unable to hide my surprise.

  Marching my happy ass past Coby, I stomped down the porch stairs, once again not taking into account my skimpy attire or that I wasn’t wearing a bra because I wasn’t expecting visitors. Hoots and hollers did nothing to deter me, although they did draw Gage out of hiding.

  “What the hell are you guys whistling at?” The lighthearted grin fell from his face when he saw the irritation brewing on mine.

  “Gage Nix, you are not moving in here.” I stomped my foot to punctuate my determination.

  “She’s feisty, Nix. You sure this is a safe place for you to be?” A guy holding a box shook his head as he laughed and walked by me.

  Every one of the men in the front yard was devastatingly good looking and quite distracting. Luckily—or not so much, depending on how I approached this—it was easier to maintain my frustration as I realized they could all see through my shirt and were taking a long, hard gander at what was underneath.

  Gage approached me and leaned down so no one else could hear his stage whisper in my ear. “You probably shouldn’t dress like that with the guys around. They might get the wrong idea.”

  It took a nanosecond for me to reach out and punch him in the arm. Not hard enough to hurt him, just to illustrate he was a jackass. “Focus. You’re not moving in.”

  “I am.”

  “You’re not.”

  “Am.”

  “Not.”

  “Technically, my name is now on the deed. And I say I am. You wanted me to prove to you that you’re not alone in this. So here I am.” He stretched his arms out to indicate the vastness of his presence. He was quite proud of himself and his proclamation.

  “This is not what I meant.”

  “I told you to tell me what you needed. You gave me nothing. So I talked it over with Kyler and Corinne. She said I should move in.”

  “I thought Coby’s wife’s name was Ellie?”

  “It is.” His brow pulled in with uncertainty.

  “Then who is Corinne?”

  His face relaxed. “His daughter, silly.”

  I shook my head. “Isn’t she like three years old?”

  “Not for another two months, but she’s smart as a whip.”

  “You took life advice from a toddler?”

  “Adults have a tendency to complicate things. I think she hit it right on the nose.”

  “And she told you to move in with me?” That had to be one exceptionally gifted child.

  “Technically, she asked me if I wanted to play house.”

  I stared at him and blinked slowly—three times. “You can’t move in.” My eyes closed, and my head turned in disagreement. “This isn’t going to work. What about your house?”

  He bent down and kissed my cheek, then turned and grabbed a box off the edge of the truck, and said, “It’ll be fine on its own. Go put on some clothes. We need to go to the store.” Shifting the weight of the box to one arm, he popped me on the ass and gave me that grin that turned most women on.

  I rolled my eyes and jumped when I felt the sting from his fingers through my skimpy shorts. “We’re not done.”

  “We are.”

  “You’re incorrigible!” I hollered to his back after he left me standing in the driveway, barefoot and exposed in more ways than I cared to be.

  Coby reappeared on the porch, making his way back to the truck. “You might as well give up. Ellie tried for years to get him out of our house.”

  “Oh yeah? How’d you guys finally get rid of him?”

  “He’s moving in here.”

  This wasn’t happening. There was no way I could live with Gage. We couldn’t stand each other—at least I couldn’t stand him. The moments of attraction were few and far between and non-existent since I’d found out I was pregnant. He drove me to the brink of insanity on a good day; I couldn’t imagine what having him around twenty-four-seven would be like.

  Another guy came from inside the house and bounced down the stairs, but he was carrying things out.

  “What are you doing? That’s Granny’s ottoman.”

  “Emptying the bottom floor to put everything in storage. Don’t worry. We’ll take care of it.”

  The flurry of activity around me was disorienting, some were taking things in, others out, and I was still standing in the spot Gage had left me. Crossing my arms over my chest to keep my boobs from bouncing, I made my way through the people inside and up to my room to get dressed.

  Standing i
n jeans and a bra, just about to put my shirt on, my door opened, and instinctively, I turned to see who it was, effectively flashing Gage.

  “Wow. Ellie’s got nothing on you.”

  “Get out!” I quickly pulled my T-shirt over my head. Although, I wasn’t sure why I bothered. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen every nook and cranny of my body.

  “No point now. Way to brighten my day.”

  “I’m putting a lock on the door.”

  “You should probably ask the landlord before making any changes to the property. Homeowners can be kind of finicky. Be ready in five, Katiebug.” He closed the door as the pillow I threw at him hit the wall.

  I couldn’t pinpoint when he’d taken to nicknames, but we weren’t that close. For the life of me, I wasn’t able to recall how we’d ever ended up having a conversation, much less sex. He was far less attractive when Granny wasn’t around. I wondered how much trouble I’d get into for changing the locks on the doors—all of them. Gage had another place to live. He didn’t need to move in here. And certainly not across the hall. The master bedroom was huge and several doors down. That was where he needed to be.

  By the time he knocked again, ready to leave, I’d worked myself up into an emotional ball of carnage…and pushed a chair in front of the door so he couldn’t barge in. His hand slipped through the crack he was able to form and then I saw his nose.

  “Katie, the door’s stuck. Are you okay? Do I need to call the fire department?”

  I sat on my bed, staring at his fingers wiggling around. “No, Gage. I’m fine.”

  “Are you crying? Have the pregnancy hormones already kicked in? I can get you a tissue if you need it…or chocolate. But please don’t make me watch a Hallmark movie.” He paused for a second. “Or anything on Oxygen.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you locked in there? How did the dresser get in front of the door? You shouldn’t be lifting heavy objects; it could hurt the baby.”