AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s no different when we get together now. We may be adults, but we still wrestle and fight like we’re teenagers. The recovery is just different now, and we can ease the ache with legal alcohol rather than sneaking it from the cabinet in the basement.
Alcohol to ease the ache. Now there’s a novel idea.
It feels like the night is coming to a close, so I refrain from ordering another whiskey as I try to push her out of my head.
I’ll have another one at home to banish her all the way out.
But I’m not sure how I’m going to get through an entire weekend with my family without Jolene Bailey coming up, and I’m really not sure how I’m going to field those questions.
CHAPTER 19: LINCOLN
Over the next two weeks, I have meeting upon meeting with Jack and Steve as well as the coaching staff members I decided to keep around.
I’m certain many of them don’t like me.
I’m not Mitch Thompson, or I got the position over them, or I take too many risks…there’s a plethora of reasons not to like me, but I didn’t come here to be liked. I came here to win.
We’ve got a plan for filling the vacancies on our roster as well as the complete itinerary for the season—most of which was already done before I got here, but together we tweaked practice schedules and smaller items to fit with my vision.
I spend the entire plane ride on a Thursday morning from Vegas to New York thinking about how to lay the groundwork to bring up a trade idea with one of my brothers.
Or, at least, I try to. In reality, I spend nearly the entire flight thinking about what I’ve learned about Jolene Bailey over the last two weeks.
I haven’t seen her since our encounter at the bar, and I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind. Just the slightest breeze of an orange blossom brings it all back again.
The way her body felt beneath mine as I pinned her to the wall in the back room of her father’s bar. The way her porcelain skin tasted. The way her breath hitched when I ran my nose along hers and teased her for a kiss. The way her fingers tightened in mine when she felt how hard I was for her.
It was illicit and forbidden, and every time I think about it, I get hard all over again.
Every time I think about her, I get hard.
I need this weekend with my family to push her out of my mind.
Maybe I just need a quick hook-up to get her out of my head. I have a list of phone numbers I can ring…but as I think them over, not a single one stands out.
The only one that comes to mind is the woman in Vegas I can’t seem to get out of my head.
I’ve learned she’s a single mother. It wasn’t easy digging up the info since her social media doesn’t have the kid anywhere, but what I’ve pieced together is that she was with the father before the kid was born and then she wasn’t any longer afterward.
I don’t know what happened, and I’m not sure how to find out without drawing attention to the fact that I’m digging around on her.
I have to let it go.
It’s not my business to know anymore.
I scroll through my contacts as I try to come up with a name I could call while I’m in New York. That must be the answer—get one woman out of my head by sticking it in another woman.
But even seeing the names rather than just trying to think of one doesn’t conjure up any desire at all to call a single one of them, never mind the fact that they’re all located nearly five hours away from where my parents live now.
I blow out a breath as the plane lands. I still have no answers, and what’s worse is that I still don’t have a plan to tell my brother we want to figure out a trade deal.
I rent a car and drive two hours out to the middle of nowhere where the farmhouse is located. Grayson and I bought it for our parents after the bar took their life savings and we had enough money to take care of them the way they took care of us.
My mom always dreamed of living on a farm with goats, and so we bought her a goat farm and built her dream house on the lot. Spencer pays the employees who run it, and I really know very little about anything to do with the farm other than the fact that my mom has gotten into making soaps out of their milk and every time I visit, I remember to bring my own soap since sometimes she adds fucking orange blossom scent to the soap.
Grayson and I paid for the house and the land. Spencer runs the farm. Asher sends my parents on vacation at least once a year. We all try to do our part.
They raised good kids, and we try to meet back here a few times a year despite our hectic schedules. At least we all have time off at the same time, so usually our get togethers are limited to the off-season.
