The Screw Ball (Indianapolis Lightning Book 3) Read online

  As the game goes on, my phone buzzes and I pull it out, seeing my brother is calling.

  “Hey, Zach,” I greet, a smile instantly filling my face.

  “Hey, sis, how’s it going?” he asks.

  “Oh, ya know, just hard at work at a playoff game.”

  “Shit, that’s right, the game is on right now, isn’t it?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I chuckle. I know he isn’t a huge baseball fan, add in the time difference, his demanding job, and the fact that he has a baby at home, and he can sometimes be scatterbrained. “How are things?” I ask.

  “Good, do I need to let you go? We can talk later,” he offers.

  “No, you’re good. I’m done with my duties, for now. I’m just sitting down watching the game.”

  “If you’re sure,” Zach reiterates.

  “Just spit it out, I know if you called, and not Heather, that there is a reason, brother of mine.”

  He laughs at me, but the sad thing is, he knows I’m right. “Okay, you’ve got me. I was calling to let you know that I’ve got two weeks of leave coming up and we wanted to come visit you for at least a week of it.”

  “Oh, that’s awesome, do you have the dates?” I ask, mentally going through my calendar. Depending on how deep into the playoffs we go, we could be playing baseball until late October or early November if they make the World Series.

  “I’m still waiting on the exact dates, but it might be closer to Thanksgiving.”

  “If that’s the case, then that is perfect, but no matter what the dates are, I’ll make it work.”

  “Great, I can’t wait to see you,” Zach says, and I know he misses being around family. Especially now that he’s got a son of his own.

  “I’m so excited to get some auntie time in with my little stud muffin,” I tell him, referring to my nephew Simon. “How is my little nephew?” I ask, changing the topic of conversation.

  “Good, he finally started crawling today!” Zach tells me.

  “Watch out! Now he’ll be getting into everything!”

  “Yeah, no shit. I can’t just put him down on his play mat with some toys and expect him to stay put. He’s on the move and, boy, is he curious,” he tells me.

  “I’m sure he is,” I muse. The sound of the crowd groaning pulls my attention back to the game going on and I see that we just scored two runs, finally getting us on the board. “Sweet!” I call out.

  “What’s sweet?” Zach asks.

  “Oh, sorry. We just scored two runs and have a runner on second to take the lead,” I tell him.

  “Cool, hope y’all win tonight,” he says.

  “Me too,” I tell him, a smile tugging at my lips.

  “I’ll let you know the exact dates once I have them, but know it’s on the horizon.”

  “Sounds good, Zach, give my love to Heather and Simon. Love all of you,” I tell my brother.

  “Love you, too, sis. Talk soon,” he says before we end the call.

  I’m all giddy, knowing that I’ll be seeing my brother and his family soon-ish. It’s been months since I was able to, and I know that my nephew is going to be huge compared to how little he was the last time I got to hold him.

  I turn my attention back to the game, watching as the guys pull off the impressive win for game one of the series.

  Fifteen

  Lucas

  The last few weeks have flown by in a blur. From games, to nights in with Carmen, it has all been a whirlwind. We were eliminated from the playoffs in the conference championship. It sucked, but it was an experience I’ll never forget.

  All the time that Carmen and I get to spend together just makes me crave her more. I love just laying in bed talking. Sharing about our pasts, talking about our future and things we want to do, or places we want to visit.

  I’ve finally convinced her to meet my sister, so we’re headed over to her place this afternoon and evening. I just know that Tiffany will love her and I’m sure will have fun trying to bust my balls and embarrass me with stories from our childhood.

  “Hey, babe,” I call out from Carmen’s living room. While we both have our own places, one of us usually ends up at the other’s place probably five nights of every week.

  “Yeah?” she calls back.

  “Will you be ready soon? Tiffany has texted me twice already, asking if we’re on our way,” I tell her.

  “Oh, shit. Yeah, I’ll be right out,” she says.

  I walk down the hall and into her bedroom and then the bathroom attached. I lean against the doorframe as I watch her messing with her makeup.

  “Babe, you look gorgeous and she’s going to love you, so quit worrying that everything isn’t perfect.”

  “I just want to make a good impression,” she says, looking at me through the mirror.

  “And you will,” I say, stepping up behind her and wrapping my arms around her torso. I bury my face in her neck, placing a kiss on the sensitive skin just beneath her ear. She shivers in my arms and I can feel the goosebumps appear on her skin.

  “Fine, I’m ready,” she breathlessly says. I press against her, showing her what the little sighs and moans do to me.

  “Fuck. Now I’m going to have blue balls all day,” I jokingly tell her.

  “I promise to take care of them when we get back, how’s that sound?” she asks, turning in my arms and sliding her hands up my chest and around my neck until she can clasp her hands together behind my neck. She pulls me down and into a kiss. One that I deepen. I don’t ever get enough of her. As soon as I have her, I just want her all over again. She’s my drug of choice and I’ll happily take hit after hit from her.

  “Now, I’m really going to be hard this entire time. When you look over and always see a bulge in my jeans, you’ll know it’s your fault,” I say, smacking her ass before I pull her out of the bathroom.

  “Are you sure this is her favorite?” Carmen asks, reading over the label on the wine bottle we stopped and picked up on our way.

  “Yep, I’ve had to stop and get that exact kind many a times for her,” I assure Carmen. She insisted she couldn’t show up to meet my sister for the first time empty handed, so we settled on wine.

  “Will you be this nervous when my brother comes to town next week and you get to meet him?” she asks from the passenger seat as I pull into my sister’s neighborhood.

  “Nope,” I tell her confidently. “But I’m a guy, we don’t stress over meetings like this like girls do.”

  “Must be nice. I’ve been a ball of nerves for a week,” she says.

  “I know, babe. Apparently, my attempts at relieving that stress haven’t worked like I’d wanted them to,” I tell her, referring to all the sex we’ve had.

  “You’re incorrigible.” She laughs, smacking my arm. My teasing worked, since it got her smiling and laughing.

  I pull into Tiffany’s driveway and the front door flies open. She steps out, Milo at her side. They stay on the porch while we grab our things and exit my car.

  “About time you got here,” Tiffany calls out from the porch. “You are allowed to let her out of the bedroom every once and awhile,” she teases.

  “Sorry we’re late, it was totally my fault,” Carmen says once she’s out of the car.

  We make it up the stairs and I scoop Milo into my arms. “Hey, buddy, miss me?” I ask my nephew before I blow a raspberry on his neck. I just saw him a couple days ago, but I still miss him when we’re not around.

  “Uncle Lucas.” He giggles. “Stop,” he insists, pushing against my face.

  “Tiff.” I lean in, kissing my sister on the cheek. “I’d like to finally introduce to you, Carmen. Carmen, this is my pain in the butt sister, Tiffany.”

  “I don’t know how you put up with him, but bless you,” Tiffany says as she pulls Carmen in for a hug. The way Carmen’s eyes bug out in shock has me biting back a bark of laughter.

  “It is so nice to meet you, as well. Thank you for having me.”

  “Of course, you are welcom
e here anytime. With or without this one,” Tiffany tells her, pointing at me. “If you need someone to complain to when he’s being an a-s-s,” she says, spelling out the word so that Milo doesn’t repeat it like he’s done in the past with cuss words, “I’m your girl. I can relate. Plus, who doesn’t need another girlfriend to meet up with over wine and appetizers.”

  “That does sound like a good time,” Carmen muses.

  “Can we take this party inside?” I ask, smirking at my sister.

  “Oh, yes, sorry! I was just so excited for you to get here,” Tiffany says as she opens the door and steps inside. I drop a hand to the small of Carmen’s back, escorting her inside with Milo on my hip.

  Tiffany leads us inside and to the living room that is filled with Milo’s toys. I immediately set him down and drop to the floor with him.

  “Speaking of wine, this is for you.” Carmen hands the bottle over to my sister.

  “Thank you, this is my favorite!”

  “See, I told you!” I chime in, winking at Carmen as Tiffany takes the bottle into the kitchen. “This is my special friend, Carmen, can you say hi to Miss Carmen?” I ask Milo.

  He shakes his head, trying to hide into my arm. He’s often shy around new people, but I’m sure before we leave today, he’ll be just as smitten with her as I am.

  “Milo, do you have a favorite toy?” Carmen asks him, getting down on the floor with us.

  He looks between me and Carmen, not really sure what to make of her. He eventually leaves my side and goes and gets a couple of his cars. We’ve played endless hours of cars. For Christmas last year, I found this awesome rug that has all kinds of roads on it to roll cars around on. He hands one to me and, shocking both of us, hands one to Carmen, as well.

  “Thank you, Milo. This is such an awesome car!” she exclaims, a little over exaggerated, which gets him smiling. He sits down between us and starts rolling his own car along one of the roadways on the rug. Carmen follows suit, zooming her car down one of the other roads.

  When Tiffany joins us again, she finds the three of us zooming cars all over the mat. “Well, looks like he’s already won you over,” she muses, taking a seat on the recliner.

  “You feeling okay, Tiff?” I ask, noticing that she’s looking a little pale.

  “Yeah, just a stomach bug, I think. It’s been hitting me randomly the last couple of days.”

  I’m no expert, but random bouts of nausea screams pregnant, to me, but I don’t want to be the asshole that asks her, so I keep my mouth shut. “Sorry, do you want to go take a nap while we play with Milo?” I offer.

  “Really? You don’t mind?” she asks, sitting up straight like the idea of a nap is the greatest thing she’s ever heard of.

  “Go, take a nap, or a shower, or both. You deserve it!” Carmen tells her. “I don’t know how you do it all the time. Being a stay-at-home mom sounds exhausting.”

  “It can be, but it’s also amazing to be here for all his big moments,” Tiff says as she stands to go.

  “If I’m not up in two hours, come wake me up. I don’t want to sleep too long and then not be able to sleep tonight.”

  “You got it,” I assure my sister.

  “Milo, you be good for Uncle Lucas and Miss Carmen while Mommy goes and takes a nap.”

  “Okay,” he answers her, not really giving a crap that she’s leaving the room.

  “He had a small feed about twenty minutes before you got here, so he should be good for a while. We’ve got some finger foods to try at lunch, before we do another feed, depending on how much he can get down.”

  “Sounds good, I’ll come get you before attempting to feed him if he says he’s hungry.”

  “Perfect. Thanks again,” she says before disappearing out of the room.

  Carmen and I play with cars with Milo for another ten or so minutes before he’s ready to move on to something else.

  “So, is it just me or do you think my sister is pregnant?” I ask Carmen.

  “You think so?” she asks, swiveling her head to look at me, her eyes big as she thinks it over.

  “She looked exhausted, said she’s been feeling randomly nauseous…” I trail off.

  “I mean, those can be symptoms, but they can also be symptoms of so many other things, like a stomach bug. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions, and don’t ask her about it. She might have already tested, for all you know, and it was negative, or maybe she’s worried that if she is pregnant that she could end up with another premature baby and all the stress that comes with that. I’m also not the best person to ask, seeing as how I’ve been around her a whole whopping ten minutes or so,” she reminds me.

  “Yeah, yeah. As soon as she sat down, I knew something was up,” I tell her.

  “Well, maybe she’ll talk to you about it later. I could see how she might be a little shy to talk to you about anything personal when she’s got a stranger in her house.”

  “Tiffany, shy?” I snort. “If there is one thing my sister isn’t, it is shy,” I inform Carmen.

  “You never know,” she sing-songs as Milo hands her another toy.

  I sit in amazement as I watch her playing with Milo, and how quickly he’s opened up to her. I knew he would quickly fall for her once he got past being shy, but she made it easy for him to do so. Seeing her with him makes me think of how good of a mother she’ll one day be. We’ve briefly glazed over our desire for families of our own. It is obviously way too early in our relationship for us to even be thinking like that, but it’s something I could see down the line. While Carmen is still under the impression, we’re just giving this whole relationship thing a trial run, I’m in this for real. I’ve developed real feelings for her. I hate it when we’re apart for more than a few hours and want to spend all my free time with her. I hate the nights and following mornings that we aren’t together in the same bed.

  Eventually, we’ll have to take our relationship public. We’ve kept it pretty low-key at work, not that the guys haven’t known that something was going on since that first night in Toronto. Thankfully, they weren’t dicks about it when we were still playing. Now that we’re in the off season, we don’t see each other all that often. Most of the guys leave town and head back to their hometowns. Even though I’m not from Indianapolis, I’d stay here so that I could be around Milo and Tiffany, even if Carmen wasn’t in the picture.

  “Hey,” Tiffany says, joining us again.

  “Hey, feeling better?” I ask quietly.

  “I think so, I’m going to try eating something small and see how that goes. How have things been out here?” she asks.

  “We played lots of cars, and with about every other toy he’s got in here, before I turned on a movie about thirty minutes ago. I think he only passed out within the last couple of minutes,” I tell her as I sit on the couch, my nephew passed out between Carmen and me. She’s rolled right along with everything so far today, and I couldn’t love her more for it if I tried. Seeing how she so easily slides into my family makes me believe that this could be our new normal.

  “Sounds like a fun time. Did he ever mention being hungry?” she asks.

  “Nope, I think he was too distracted by playing and then the movie,” I tell her.

  “Okay, let me go find something to settle my stomach and I’ll be back.”

  “Would you like any help or company?” Carmen asks Tiffany.

  “Sure.” My sister perks up slightly at the offer. I just roll my eyes at her, knowing she’s been waiting for a day like today to dish all my embarrassing stories from when we were kids with someone I’m dating. Little does she know, I don’t care what stories she can dig up, I want Carmen to know everything there is to know about me. I want her to see that we can make this work between us and that at the end of the day baseball might be my job and livelihood, but it is still only a portion of me.

  Carmen slips off the couch without waking Milo up. I snag her wrist before she gets away, pulling her in for a quick kiss. “Only believe half of what she t
ries to tell you about me.” I smirk before she pulls away.

  “Only half?” Carmen quips back. “I hope she’s got some naked baby pictures somewhere.” She chuckles quietly.

  “I can show you naked later.” I wink at her and she just shakes her head at me.

  I watch as she disappears into the kitchen. Unfortunately for me, they are far enough away that I can’t listen to what they’re saying, so I just have to believe that they’re talking all sorts of crap about me, but that’s okay, I’ve been expecting it.

  Sixteen

  Carmen

  “How much do you trust me?” Lucas asks me as we’re making dinner together.

  I turn to look at him, a little perplexed by his question. “Why…?” I ask, drawing the word out.

  “Because I’m curious,” he says, sliding a hand along my waist and pulling me into him. “I want to take you somewhere, but I need to know that you trust me before I’ll even consider stepping foot into the place.”

  “I’m so confused, where do you want to take me?” I question, my brows furrowed as I try and think of where it is he might want to go.

  “I can’t tell you yet. I want it to be a complete surprise. But as I said, it requires you to fully trust me,” he says yet again.

  “Okay, I trust you,” I say warily, still confused about where it is that he’s thinking about.

  “Good, after dinner, we’re going out. Wear something skimpy,” he says, running the pads of two fingers along my collarbone and down my cleavage.

  “Wait, I’m not going to a strip club with you,” I deadpan.

  “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t take you to a strip club unless you asked me to. That’s too public of a place, anyway. The place I’m taking you is a private place.” Now, I’m even more confused. Trust. Private place. Yet he wants me in a “skimpy” outfit. I rack my brain trying to figure it out while we continue to make dinner together, well, until everything is cooking and he picks me up, placing me on the counter and steps between my legs. I instantly wrap them around his hips, pulling him flush against me. His lips find mine in a bruising kiss.