Last November
When Preston Fields invited me to his wedding on the island of St. John, I had no intention of showing up, but then Mike reminded me Taylor would be at the wedding as best friend of the bride, and my heart wouldn’t let me pass up the opportunity to lay eyes on her again.
So here I am, stepping through the gate of the private estate they rented in Peter Bay for the small wedding. Music blares from around the back of the two-story house, and I start walking in that direction when a flash of tan legs and blonde hair runs down the stairs. She doesn’t stop until she reaches the edge of the patio overlooking the beach below where a wedding arch is being constructed on the sand.
I stand, mesmerized by her as she takes a deep breath and holds it.
Watching her is my favorite pastime.
She’s barefoot and wearing a matching pink silk short set with her hair already perfectly styled. Half of her hair is pulled up out of her face while the rest of the curls flow down her back, longer than I remember. My palms itch to reach out and run my fingers through the locks to see if they still feel as soft as they once were.
As I watch her repeat the process of inhaling a deep breathover and over until she seems to settle, it strikes me how different she appears from the woman I knew—despite all the physical ways she’s the same— and I suddenly need to know every little change.
Why is she running? Granted, she’s been doing that for a while. Did it start when she ran away from me? Did something else happen to make her run? When did she start breathing exercises? The woman I knew was fearlessly confident and unapologetically balls to the wall. Is this maturity or anxiety? It all swirls in my head as I try reconciling the woman in front of me with the woman on a beach with me ten years ago.
Needing to regain some semblance of control over my own runaway thoughts, I clear my throat. Her spine stiffens, but she doesn’t look at me as she says, “Why are you here? This is an elopement with their closest friends and family. I’d hardly call you a close friend.” I roll my eyes and shake my head at her attempt to be a hard ass.
A smirk pulls at my lips, the small primal part of me thrilled in the knowledge that she can sense me with one single clearing of my throat. “You might not, but others do.” Not entirely true, but also not untrue. I was invited even if I hadn’t planned to attend. “I brought the plane,” I clarify.
“We have a plane; we don’t need yours.”
Fields informed me Taylor had arranged a charter flight but didn’t want to interrupt everyone’s travel plans for the honeymoon, hence why he called me.
“They wanted to head back to Long Caye for their honeymoon. An ode to where it all started.” A reminder it’s not only Preston and Ivory’s story that started on Long Caye. It was partly ours too. Or was it the beginning of the end?
It’s also a reminder of how she came back into my orbit after all these years. When she called two and a half years ago, I stupidly hoped she was done running and it would lead somewhere. But she meant it when she said it was a favor for a client and nothing more. Nothing had changed her mind about us.
But that didn’t stop me. I’ve been strategically making moves to bring her back into my orbit. If the phone call was a sign from the universe, I was merely helping it along by making sure the degrees of separation were smaller than ever before, but she must’ve been intentionally avoiding me because despite the fact that I know she visits Nashville often and I now live there, we’ve yet to come face to face.
“Grant, glad you could make it.” Preston interrupts our standoff, though Taylor appears lost in her own memories when he walks up and shakes my hand.
Taylor glares at him, clearly angry for being left out of the loop, so I hold my hands up in surrender. “I just came to drop off the plane. Not trying to intrude on your day.”
“Nonsense,” Preston says. "Part of the reason why I called and requested the plane was so you’d stay for the celebrations.”
Mike told me he anticipated that was a piece of Preston’s motivations but I didn’t pay him any mind.
Miller, his best friend and teammate, walks up next with a jovial smile on his face. “Yeah, boss man. He could have chartered his own plane.” He slaps me on the back and says, “Welcome to the inner circle.”
I wasn’t part of their inner circle, despite Preston’s and Miller’s efforts to befriend me since they were traded to my team, the Music City Troubadours, a little over two years ago. Being their team owner meant keeping a respectable distance from my second baseman and catcher, even though they were only a few years younger than I was. It was ingrained in me at an early age not to mix business and friends. Now that I think about it, it was another lesson from my father. Maybe his logic was as flawed as his leadership skills. Something to dissect later.
“Shouldn’t there be a vote before we start inviting people into the inner circle?” The venom in Taylor’s tone is lessened by the shake in her voice. “And who wants to hang out with their boss anyway?” Add in a foot stomp and her temper tantrum would be complete.
“Probably the same people who decide to hang with their coach.” Mike walks up and nods his head at me. “But this one went and fell in love with my daughter, so here we are.” Unlike the others, he knew I was enroute because I texted him earlier.
“Ugh, Daddy Mike. Not helping,” Taylor groans and looks at Mike with affection.
“Daddy Mike?” I rip my sunglasses off and stare down my friend and team manager. Jealousy hits like a tidal wave. She’s mine. If anyone’s getting calledDaddy, it’s me.
Where the fuck did that come from?
“Taylor, you have to stop calling me that.” Mike shakes his head with a wry smile, clearly amused with my reaction and the nickname. We will be talking about this later.
“I need to check on the girls,” Taylor says abruptly, skirting the perimeter of the patio as far away from me as possible on her way back to the stairs.
“Oh, Taylor!” Preston calls after her. “Don’t tell Ivory about the honeymoon. It’s a surprise.”
“My lips are sealed.” Her eyes bounce to mine and I get the impression she means she’s keeping more than Preston’s surprise a secret.
