“Blue, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left without talking to you more about everything. If I had, I would have been there when that asshole broke in and hurt you.”
“I’m okay, Jay. No lasting damage, I promise. I understand why you left and that trust is hard for you.”
“Speak up!” someone roared from the bleachers, which had everyone laughing.
“I read your message,” she said, ignoring the fact that the entire town of Lyntacky was watching what should have been a private conversation, but if this had to happen now, then so be it. “I didn’t know how to reply.”
“That makes two of us, because mine was cold and indifferent, and I’m sorry for that, Blue, but I have so much to learn about everything…. Like relationships and being a father. It terrifies me.”
“It’s no different for me. I’m scared, too, Jay, but together we can do this—be braver.”
“I left because I didn’t trust what I felt deep inside,” he said. “Nor did I trust you. When I believed you had betrayed me, fear gave me a reason to run.” He stepped closer. “I’ve never committed to a woman before. Never felt about one like I do about you, Blue.”
“Are we going to play ball or what?”
“So help me god, Beau Keller, if you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll do it for you,” Zoe said with a raised fist, which Blue caught in her periphery.
“I missed you,” Jay said. “So much.”
“I missed you too,” she admitted. “But I think right now, you need to play ball, and we’ll talk later, okay?”
“Okay, but before you go back to your seat, I need you to understand that I want to be there for you and the baby, Blue. That you are really important to me, and it took leaving to understand that.”
“I feel the same, Jay.”
Behind them, Finch cleared his throat pointedly, a sound that could’ve been heard in Denver.
Blue didn’t look back but threatened, “If you say one word, Finch McAllister, I’ll tell Sadie you tried to eat all the macho nachos at movie night.”
“Did not,” Finch muttered.
Jay’s mouth twitched, and then he grabbed her hand. Tugging her closer, he placed a soft kiss on her lips. Her brothers growled. The spectators cheered and wolf whistled.
“We’re talking after the game, Blue Jay, because we have a lot to say to each other.”
“Plan on it,” she whispered against his lips. “But right now I really need you to win the game so I can crow to Phoebe about my team being the better one.”
“We can do that for my girl,” he said.
She walked back to the bleachers smiling.
Chapter 32
The Leaders were batting first. Jay sat between Dan and Finch. Not the most comfortable place he’d ever been.
“You hurt her again, I’m destroying you.”
“That makes two of us,” Lynx added from next to his brother.
“Is that what we were like with you?” Dan asked Zoe who was warming up her shoulders.
“You were worse,” the youngest Duke said.
“So let’s shelve all the shit now and kick these assholes where it hurts,” Sawyer said in his best growly voice.
“Not sure you shelved it when it was your sister getting cozy with JD,” Lynx muttered.
“And look how well that turned out,” JD said, blowing his wife a kiss.
