Anything but Minor (11 page)

A lady with short, spiky, bright red hair made her way over to greet us.

“Hey, Bullet! Kickin’ ass this year, aren’t ya?!”

“Hey, Sue,” he said with a wink and a smile. “Trying to.”

“Ain’t no tryin’ to it. Ray, the boys, and I will be there this weekend.”

Rafe pulled out an envelope from his pocket. “I was just about to ask you if you’d been yet.”

Sue pulled the tickets out of the envelope and gave him a huge, toothy grin. “God, you’re an angel. Thank you. So who you got wicha?” Sue turned her attention to me, completely unaffected by the total mess I was.

“This is Alice. She’s new to town. We just left Dutch’s, fixing up the place a bit.”

“Nice to meet you, Alice,” she said sincerely.

“Likewise,” I said with a matching smile.

Sue looked down at Rafe with a dimmer expression. “How is Dutch?”

Rafe paused briefly. “She seems a bit better.” He gestured over to me. “Alice has been keeping her company at the games.”

“Really?” she said as she looked at Rafe with unbelieving eyes. “That is something.”

“She’s something,” Rafe said as he looked over at me. I suddenly felt uncomfortable as Sue cleared her throat.

Rafe looked around the restaurant filled with wooden picnic tables. “Peggy in tonight?”

“No, she wasn’t up to it today. She hit eighty-nine last week, but wouldn’t you know she still comes in every day or so. I’ll tell her you stopped by. She’ll be upset she missed you.”

“Tell her I’ll be back after we sweep Myrtle.”

“Will do. What you in the mood for?”

“The usual.” As an afterthought, Rafe looked at me. “Do you like flounder?”

“Never had it,” I said honestly.

“I’ve got you,” he said as he nodded at Sue. Sue looked between us, a smirk growing into a smile on her face before she made her way back behind the counter. Minutes later, Rafe and I sipped on delicious sweet tea and munched on perfectly cooked and odd shaped hush puppies. I’d eaten half the bowl without apology as Rafe stared on at me.

“Thank you again for helping.”

“Anytime, and I mean that,” I said through a mouthful of perfectly fried, breaded goodness. “I like your life,” I noted as I looked around the cabin of the small restaurant. “Your friends seem incredible and completely supportive. It must be a good feeling to have so many people in your corner.”

“I can’t complain. Most of them have watched me throw balls my whole life.”

“Surely, you can’t think it’s just baseball.” Rafe stayed silent as I continued shoving hushpuppies in my mouth. “You have this charisma, this genuine strength, patience, and tenderness when you speak to people. It’s admirable.”

I picked up a bottle of tartar sauce and squeezed it over a hushpuppy and felt the air whoosh out of the bottle as I sprayed us both in the mayonnaise/relish concoction. A large clump of it landed directly in my eye, and I stood up suddenly, forgetting the bench behind me, and fell backward, landing hard on my butt. I began choking on the bread that remained in my mouth and heaved as I tried to breathe around it.

Rafe was at my side seconds later as laughter spilled from his lips. Sue rushed to us with a tray full of freshly cooked fish and an “Oh shit, honey, you okay?” It took Rafe a solid minute between laughing and scraping me off the floor to get me seated at the table. I wiped at my eye furiously with a napkin from the dispenser, and when I could see clearly, I looked to Rafe, who resumed his seat at the table, his eyes fixed on me, his lips twisted into a half grin. His face was dotted with tartar sauce, and there was a large clump of it on his ear and embedded in his hairline. He looked over at me as I adjusted my newly sore butt in the seat and tried to shake off some of the embarrassment.

“Sorry,” I said as I looked at the table below us filled with perfectly cooked, golden fish.

Rafe lifted his shirt, revealing an edible chest, and wiped his face. “You owe me another shirt.”

“Yeah,” I said as nervous laughter spilled out of me. “Put it on my tab.”

Rafe and I ate greedily, and when the last bite of delectable fish was gone, I twisted sideways on the bench and sipped my tea.

“That was delicious, thank you.”

I knew I’d made the right call when I’d asked Alice to help me. What I didn’t expect was the amount of heart the woman had and how freely she gave it. Without so many words, and zero protest, she’d gone straight to work with me to help Dutch, and even gone above and beyond. I spent the majority of the day watching her work tirelessly, covered in sweat and sunshine. When she briefly paused in her work, her gaze always drifted to me, and her smile sucked the breath from my lungs. More than once I thought of ending the charade we played as “friends.” There was something between us. Even a field away, I could feel the need on both our parts to bridge the gap. I wanted to freeze time when she looked at me the way she did. She was doing a poor job of hiding her attraction and more than once the asshole in me had wanted to call her on it, but I didn’t want to scare her. She’d felt comfortable holding my hand, and I didn’t want to fuck that up. Just the feel of her tiny hand in mine made me feel invincible. It was addicting in the best way.

She’d given me the best compliment of my life right before she’d landed on her adorable ass, and I was still choking on the way it made me feel.

As we observed our quiet surroundings, I found myself grasping at straws to keep her with me a little longer. I suddenly understood it when she said it was criminal for good days to come to an end. She said she admired me in a roundabout way. I wondered if she even knew the power of her words, of what just a simple look from her or a smile did to me.

“Alice, let’s go take a bath.”

Her eyes widened as she looked over at me like I had two heads.

“Trust me?”

I looked over at her smudged in dirt and mayonnaise as she gave me a careful nod.

“Let’s go.”

She followed me out to old man Thompson’s pond a quarter mile away from the camp, and I saw her pause just outside her driver’s side door when I made my way toward the dock, shirtless. Without a second thought, I lost my shorts and kept my boxers on as she joined me.

“Rafe, are we trespassing?”

“Yes and no.”

“Care to elaborate?” She slid her flip flops off, and I grabbed the keys from her hand and tossed them onto her discarded flip flops. It was late, and I could see the exhaustion start to creep over her face as her headlights began to dim in the distance.

“Just a dip,” I said as I scooped her into my arms and ran toward the water. She screamed in surprise as we flew into the pond. I freed her just before we hit the surface.

When we surfaced, she looked over at me with a grin. “Cold.”

“Come here,” I ordered as she hesitated before she paddled my way. I pulled her tight to me and heard her suck in a breath. “I have to keep an eye on you; you’re a dangerous woman on your own.”

“I’ve been doing just fine.” My eyes narrowed, but I doubt she could see.

“Well, we can’t be too careful,” I whispered as her breath hit my skin. I was fully hard as she kept her small hands wrapped around my neck.

“I highly doubt this is for my safety.”

“Well, you know alligators and all.” Suddenly, she was clinging to me in a way that had my heart pounding.

“Rafe Hembrey, get me out of this water now!”

“Calm down, there are no gators in this water.”

Of that, I was not entirely sure.

“Old man Thompson? That sounds like a name you pulled from your butt. Do you even know whose land this is?”

“Use to swim here when I was a kid. He’s a friend of the family.”

“You sounded
so
southern just then,” she said with a chuckle.

I looked down, curious. “What’s your preference?”

“I like a man in a suit and tie, maybe a little more built than you, and my man would never drive a Jee—”

I held her head under water for mere seconds, and when she resurfaced, she was laughing.

“Seriously, you suck,” she choked out as I gripped her tightly to me.

“Which part do you want me to start on?” I asked as she stiffened in my arms. “I could start on those pretty pink lips of yours. I’m pretty sure I could suck on them all night. I could suck this neck,” I said as I dipped my head, and without thinking, she tilted to the side to give me access. I smirked though she couldn’t see it as I whispered along her neck. “I could start there and move down to those cherry sized nipples of yours.”

“Rafe,” she said breathlessly.

“Or I could move further down and suck on that pussy you’re trying really hard to keep from me.”

She went completely still, our mouths a breath away from touching.

“That’s so...vulgar.”

“I bet if I checked right now, I have you wet, and it wouldn’t be the water’s fault.”

“It’s late, Rafe. Thank you so much for everything.” She pulled away from me and made her way to the dock while I cursed and followed her. I’d been every type of nice I knew how to be with this woman, and nothing had worked. Undeniably hard and losing my patience, my dick cursed me as I climbed onto the dock next to her.

“Crud, we don’t have towels,” she said as she sat soaking wet and glanced over at me. I was sure she could see the bulge in my pants and chose to ignore it.

“Where’s your head at, man?” Andy asked as he took a bite of his sandwich and threw a scrap of bread crumbs away from the table. Eager seagulls snatched it up and remained waiting for their next handout. We sat out on the deck overlooking Shem Creek as Andy ate. I sat back with a beer I wasn’t drinking.

“I don’t know lately,” I answered honestly. I’d never been anything but truthful with Andy. He had taken me under his wing my rookie year, and once he realized I didn’t need the guidance and could handle myself, it became something else, though he was still quick to step up with sound advice when he felt the urge.

“They’ll call.”

“It’s not that,” I said, looking over the water as a speedboat parked at the dock and a cute girl in a bikini paddled in the distance on a surfboard. She was stacked from top to bottom, and I couldn’t help but notice the blonde hair whipping around her shoulders. She looked a lot like Alice, though everything with tits did these days. “I’m restless,” I said simply. Alice had been heavy on my mind since she showed up to the first game and purposefully ignored every fucking signal I’d given her. I’d agreed initially to keep this friendly, but every time I saw her, I became more convinced it wasn’t possible. Last night, I’d damn near lost my shit on that dock. I’d come on too strong and got my ass handed to me. No matter how I approached her, she wasn’t having it.

“You’re worried about your future, and it’s about fucking time.”

“Just because I don’t vocalize every thought in my head doesn’t mean I don’t think about it.”

“What are you thinking about now?”

I looked at him dead on. “Alice.”

Andy threw the rest of his sandwich the way of the birds, which caused an all-out war amongst them and a glare from the diners at the table beside us.

“You’ll hurt her,” Andy said with certainty.

“It’s not your business.”

“She’s not interested in you.”

“Because
you
told her not to be.”

“Girls like
that
deserve the best version we can give of ourselves. You honestly think you’re ready for that and all the damned pressure of waiting...playing?”

“Not your call,” I snapped as Andy stood and placed a few twenties on the table and started to walk away. I slammed my beer down and followed him.

“What the fuck is your problem, man? You like her, too?”

Andy paused midstride down the steps to reach the parking lot and then kept going.

“I’m not your bitch, man. Don’t take your shit out on me!”

Andy did stop this time and reared his head back with a laugh before he turned to me. “You’re still fucking clueless.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a fucking narcissist when it comes to women, Rafe. You want Alice? Go for it. Maybe she’ll give you the medicine you deserve.”

I looked down at Andy, who shoved his hands in his shorts and walked away without his usual complimentary parting bird, which to him was considered a nicety. Something was up, and it was unlike him not to share. I looked on after him, my hands over the railing of the two-story, creek-side restaurant. I saw a crowd gather as the girl I’d seen on the surfboard repeatedly screamed in the distance.