Passion, Vows & Babies_The Perfect Couple Read online

  “I’m really sorry, Chase.” I feel like I’m merely repeating a line, the only one I know how to say, over and over. I didn’t go to the funeral, though. I had a board interview in New York to get sponsors for my research project. I wrestled with cancelling it for days, but ultimately, I knew Evelyn would want me to keep my meeting.

  “Thank you,” Chase says, and I peer up to meet his gaze out of respect. His chest rises with a deep breath, in sync with mine. I can tell he’s uncomfortable by the way his throat moves with the slow swallow he takes. It’s a different chin, though, the stubble like sandpaper and his jaw sharp and strong. The eyes, though—they’re the same hazel ones I taught how to wink when we were kids.

  “It’s nice to see you.” I giggle out the words and blush under my sweater, feeling the heat crawl up my neck and along my arms. Chase doesn’t respond immediately, so I keep filling the silence with words.

  “I heard you got a radio gig. Evelyn…she told me. She was really proud of you.” I’m not sure if talking about Evelyn is the right thing to do, so I start to wring my hands together against my chest.

  Chase finally shrugs and offers a quick smile that draws my eyes back to his mouth. I mentally flash to my youth, to every moment I thought about him kissing me. Those lips are so grown up now, so strong and kissable. I’ve never been kissed by lips like that. I’m certain.

  “It’s not playing ball, but it’s a great job. I never thought the back-up plan would be put in play, but I guess I’m glad I’m good enough at it for them to give me a check every two weeks.” His eyes dazzle as a chuckle rumbles deep in his chest.

  “He’s being modest. He’s amazing on the air. I bet we’ll be seeing him on TV one day, on that sports show his father is so obsessed with,” Mrs. Pennington says, patting her hand twice on her son’s chest.

  Chase looks down and whispers “thanks.” When his gaze lifts again, it meets mine, and the awkward silence steps right back into our space. I can tell he’s wrestling with something, and I’m sure he’s trying to sort out why I’m involved with any of this. I’m trying to figure it out myself. I’m about to make a joke about it all when he ups the urgency in an instant.

  “I’d like to sell the place, Nicole. We could figure out how to split the money, but I’m sure we could both use it. I think it would sell really fast, and…”

  “I’ll buy it.” My breath stops the moment I interrupt Chase. This wasn’t the plan, not that there was a plan at all. But if there was one, this wouldn’t have been it.

  “You don’t have to, and it’s really sweet of you to offer…”

  Before he’s done offering me the out, my resolve grows with my gut instinct.

  “I’m not doing it to be sweet. I’m serious, Chase. I want this house. This place is important to me. And don’t worry about cost. I promise you’ll profit just as much as you would if selling it to a stranger.”

  I stand straighter, rolling my shoulders back, and glance to his father first, who looks from me to his son, a bit confused. I look at his mom next, and her eyes flicker as the corners of her mouth twitch, perhaps relieved by my impulsive decision to hold onto her mother’s place.

  My attention comes back to Chase, his forehead creased and his mouth unable to utter an argument against my proposal. Before he speaks again, I hold out my hand to close the deal. It’s just like I practiced a few weeks ago for my sponsorship meeting, and I feel strangely confident that my boldness will work again.

  His head shakes slightly, but his hand rises to meet mine, the rough skin of his palm sliding against mine. The sooner he leaves, the better. I’m willing to take on a mortgage to make it happen.

  Chapter Three

  Chase

  I spent the night trying to figure out what a house built by my grandfather in the 1960s is worth. Every time I drilled down through the dozens of questions, I ended up feeling like an asshole—either because I was hiking up the value to get the most money at the cost of my childhood best friend or because I was getting rid of something my grandfather built with his own two hands.

  My parents are no help. I sensed something in my mom’s eyes when I asked her opinion, a look I perceived as begging me to keep the house, but she has also always supported me being my own person and embracing new adventures. They stayed in Rider Springs so I could grow up in this environment—with creeks, and a main street lined with gas lamps, and mom and pop shops owned by our neighbors. The moment I graduated, they moved, because my mom has always craved change.

  I thought I did too. Sometimes, though, I feel like a blank face, getting up every morning to do the same thing, bumping into all of the other blank faces that drive around LA, going to bars and staying up way too late just to get up way too early the next day. I live in a place that is so big, only my small circle knows me. Maybe that would have been different if I made the majors. Maybe not. Either way, I’m no closer to knowing what the hell to do about Nicole and the price of the house, and I guess that’s all that matters at the moment.

  Nicole’s at the house when I pull in the driveway, her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them while she sits on the top step of the white and yellow porch. She’s wearing shorts today. Her legs are pale, and I remember the freckles that used to pepper her skin. I’m immediately reminded of the time I drew lines to connect the darkest ones while she was sleeping in the fort we made by my grandma’s fireplace during Christmas break. I step out of my car and wear the smirk from the memory all the way to her.

  “You look sinister,” she says, stretching her legs out along the steps and grabbing the railing to her side to help her stand.

  I let out a short laugh and shake my head.

  “No, I was just remembering our fort,” I say. Her mouth curves and her chin tilts up to the sky.

  “That was the best fort anyone has ever built.” Her head falls and our eyes meet. For just a moment, we’re both nine years old again.

  “It was the worst fort. You’re just trying to pump up my ego because I built it, but I remember how we woke up—with every chair, sheet and broom stick lying over our bodies because of poor structural integrity.”

  Her tight-lipped smile breaks into a laugh.

  “Okay, well maybe it wasn’t the best. But I thought it was pretty great. I would have lived there forever.”

  Her smile falters just a little, and my chest hammers during the brief quiet after she speaks. When she doesn’t look away, I’m forced to. Something about how she said that word…forever. It left me unsteady.

  “You wanna go inside?” I pull the keys from my front pocket and step toward the front door, but Nicole moves away from the porch.

  “Actually, can we talk out back? I wanted to do a little work on the garden today. I brought over some tools.” She pulls a pair of blue garden gloves from her back pocket and holds them up.

  “Sure…I guess.” I follow her around the side of the house to the back yard where a wheel barrel holds four or five long tools, and bags of what looks like fertilizer sits next to it on the ground.

  “How did you get all of this here? I don’t even see your car?” I twist to look around the side of the house to the street, wondering if I’d missed it.

  “I still live next door,” she says, picking up a hoe and tossing it to me as soon as I turn to face her. I catch it awkwardly, and it makes her laugh.

  “Some ballplayer you are,” she teases, but instantly blinks and clears her throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

  “It’s okay.” I shrug and push up the sleeves of my sweatshirt while I rest the handle of the hoe against my chest. “I got a shot at it, and for a few years, I got paid to play the game I love. Can’t be too upset about that.”

  She leans to the side, digging the tips of her rake into the ground, and crosses her ankles as she stares at me. Her eyes dim with skepticism at first, but after a few seconds her chest lifts with a quiet, breathy laugh.

  “Well I’ll be damned. Chase Pennington�
��s gone and grown up.” She almost looks proud, and I know she’s joking with me, but I also feel a warmth inside my chest from her praise. There’s a lot of truth behind her teasing.

  “They say boys mature later than girls,” I say, walking by her and twirling the hoe in my palm. A splinter catches my skin and I drop it to my feet fast, cutting my swagger short.

  “Damn!”

  I bend down and squeeze my finger tip to push the wood out, a small drop of blood following it. When I glance to Nicole, she’s holding her stomach and bending at the waist with gut-busting laughter.

  “Maybe I spoke too soon. You’re only twenty-eight. You’ve got a way to go for maturity,” she says, standing and rolling the rake handle over her palm like a baton. She flexes her other glove-covered palm to me as she walks by, splinter free.

  I follow her lead and we spend the next several minutes digging out a row of dirt. I chop it up and she rakes it out into a pattern. The work gives us both a sense of comfort around each other, so after a while, I ease into the conversation about the sale.

  “I’m gonna be honest. I’m having a hard time figuring out what this place is worth,” I say, my eyes focused on the dirt in front of me. I hear her raking stop, but I press on.

  “I know what you mean. In a way, it’s priceless,” she says.

  I pause at her words and soak them in. She’s right. I look up and meet her eyes.

  “I can pay two-hundred thousand. And I could get more with a mortgage but…”

  “No,” I stop her midsentence. I’m shocked at the amount she said, and that pain is back in my stomach. I recognize it as guilt. This entire conversation feels wrong. “That amount is fine. It’s…yeah. I’ll meet with the title agency and get something worked out.”

  She chews at her cheek for a moment then nods to me before running her forearm across her brow and returning to tending to the dirt. I watch her for almost a full minute, her eyes determined on the job ahead, her forearms flexing with her skilled movements. She’s gardened here before.

  “Why did she leave you the garden, you think?”

  Nicole keeps working, but she shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head side to side before finally answering.

  “Your grandma sorta let me take it over during my college thesis,” she says.

  I’m not even sure what a thesis is. I graduated with a communications degree—barely. And I passed most of those classes thanks to a phone call from my coach to the professors.

  “You got a degree in gardening?” I make a joke about it, but I know it’s something more than that. Nicole is a genius—like, literally. Her scores were always beyond what our schools could handle. I have no idea why she never skipped a grade or went to some private school that challenged her more.

  “It’s a dual PhD in agricultural and biological sciences, actually, with an emphasis on diagnostic plant-based medicine.”

  I stare at her more impressed than I thought I’d be.

  “So you’re like…a witch doctor then?” She stops working at my joke, lifting a little dirt on the spokes of her rake and tossing it at me.

  “Careful or I’ll turn you into a frog,” she says through a laugh. Every time she makes that sound, it pulls at me. I haven’t heard a sound quite like Nicole’s laugh in such a long time, even from her.

  “I’m kidding.” I take a step back out of respect to her pretend super powers. “Seriously, though. What do you do with…plant-based…shit. I can’t even remember all the damn words.”

  She tilts her head back with a laugh this time, exposing the front of her neck. Sometime during our work, she twisted her hair up in a pile on top of her head. I know it’s just to keep her body cool, but her jawline…her neck, and shoulders…were they always so tempting?

  “It’s kind of hard to explain, but basically, my focus was on developing these garden kits that could be used in harsh climates that would produce herbal remedies that could be used for both basic and advanced medical needs in third world countries.”

  Her eyes hover on mine while she sucks in her lips waiting for me to acknowledge that I understand what she just said. I do, to an extent, and that’s only making me stare at her in awe longer.

  “It’s all science nerdy stuff. Pretty boring,” she says after I don’t speak for several seconds. She starts to move her rake again, her cheeks flushed now, and I suddenly realize she’s embarrassed about being such a smart bad-ass.

  “It’s not boring at all,” I say, reaching toward her rake and holding it still until she looks up. My eyes catch her lips first. They’re trembling, and it makes it hard to look up any further, but I do, eventually settling on her wide, brown eyes.

  “Most people just kind of glaze over when I talk about it,” she says.

  “That’s because we’re all pretty much idiots.” We both burst out a short laugh, and I see her shoulders visibly relax. “We’re mere mortals in your presence, Nic. For real.”

  Her chest shakes slightly and her lips stretch into a crooked smile.

  “You called me Nic.”

  The red starts to color her cheeks again, but this time it’s sweet. Rather than calling it out or playing it down, I just smile at her and lift my hoe as a nod that I should get back to work. I feel her gaze on me for a few minutes while I work at finishing the first row of dirt, and I smile to myself that I accomplished something. I made her happy, and for some reason, that small little triumph makes me happy.

  Our conversation for the next hour is the easiest I have ever had with a girl since Nicole and I were kids. She was never someone I had to work hard at impressing. She ribbed me when I needed someone to take me less seriously, and she took me seriously when nobody wanted to. I don’t know how that bond between us disappeared, but I’m sure it’s my fault.

  I listen as she teaches me about the seeds she’s planting in preparation for the harsh cold of fall and winter, something new she wants to try out. She tries out scientific theories like I try out a new brand of socks. I tell her about the radio station, and the famous athletes I’ve gotten to interview, and a few times she tells me the station is lucky to have a famous athlete like me there all the time. Her compliment is sincere, even if it’s not true. I’m a nobody in the sports world, but I guess in Rider Springs, I’m trophy worthy.

  I help her wheel one of the heavy bags to the end of our row and tear it open to mix with the dirt. When we’re done, she hands me a bag of seeds, and I follow her along the new gutter she’s made in the dirt as she sprinkles the ground. I catch the time on my phone when we take a break, though, and realize I’m supposed to call my boss in less than twenty minutes.

  “I can come back later and help you finish these if you want,” I offer, but she waves me off.

  “You’re really slowing me down. Your puny arms and all. I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to lift that bag off the ground for a minute there.” She holds her serious expression for a few seconds, but breaks into a laugh and pushes the center of my chest with the tips of her fingers. I grab them on instinct, but am left holding her hand, my fingers weaving between hers as we touch in the space between us.

  I bite at the sides of my tongue, my lips parted as I struggle for what to say to make this feel natural, to give her an excuse to let go, but after a second, she takes a step back and lets her hand fall. Her eyes move to her feet and she pushes her hands into the back pockets of her shorts. The wind has picked up and it’s beginning to blow strands of her hair loose, so she untwists the tie, letting her hair fall wild. The view is going to stick with me, and I know it the second she sweeps the flying strands behind her ear and peers up at me with rose-colored cheeks and crooked lips.

  “I’ll let you know about the title company,” I say, walking backward and pointing over my shoulder to the side of the house.

  Nicole nods and follows as we walk out to the driveway where my car is parked. I pat down my jeans and push my sleeves up again, the ribbed cuffs starting to give as I get into my car. I roll the window dow
n to say goodbye, but the scene behind Nicole strikes me in a new way. This house is so big for one person.

  “You really don’t have to do this, you know. I could wait and sell the house later so you could finish your experiment. I don’t want you to have to borrow that much money.” I rest my elbow on the window and feel the patter of nerves creep into my stomach again. I wish this situation would go away. I wish I were just home for the holidays visiting Nicole, getting to know her again without all of the clouds hanging over us from this situation.

  “I have the money, Chase. It really isn’t a problem. And I want the house,” she says, a flash of reservation dashing behind her eyes.

  “Nicole,” I say, tilting my head sideways, once more trying to convince her. “Plant-based superheroes don’t make that much money.”

  She breathes out a short laugh from her nose, then lets her eyelids sweep shut for a moment.

  “No, they don’t,” she admits. “But I have the money anyway.”

  I hold my breath and study her for a sign that she’s bluffing, but she only lets me linger for a few seconds before knocking me out cold.

  “I plan on using my inheritance.”

  My eyes immediately slide to the house next door. She still lives there. She lives there…alone. In a big house for just one person. When I look back at her, my brow weighs heavy and my gut sinks. I feel like someone is squeezing my heart and choking the life from my body.

  “I’m so sorry…I…I had no idea.” It’s such a trite response. It’s a sad half-truth. Something so big happened in her life, and the most awful part is I have a vague memory of my grandmother telling me about it during a phone call once. I was in a hurry. Her words never made a mark.

  Nicole lifts her shoulders and shakes her head quickly, scrunching her eyes closed briefly.

  “Car accident outside of town. You weren’t around the Springs when it happened. Not big news for the West Coast.” Her joke has a sting to it, along with a heartbreaking thread of honesty. It leaves me speechless, and when I look down and draw in a long breath, Nicole pushes me to move on.