Only, when I looked at Cort’s big face, his expression turned from tease to torture in the flap of a heartbeat.
“Bee,” he whispered, reaching out for my face and swiping his callused thumb underneath my eye.
I blinked, caught off guard by the sudden, yet tender, touch. The firmness of the pad of his thumb. The featherlike stroke. I realized then I’d been crying. Crying tears I hadn’t even felt which seemed stupid.
I wasn’t sad that my father was dead. Wasn’t sorry he was gone. Maybe that’s why I was crying, because I felt guilty that I wasn’t more upset, which was downright backward.
I couldn’t possibly mourn the loss of a dad, because I’d never really had one. I had Stone.
Surprising me again, Cort hoisted my tiny frame onto his lap, wrapping his arms around me like a giant bear and pressing my head to his chest. His heart thumped beneath his worn T-shirt. One that smelled a little stinky. Heat emanated through the threadbare cotton against my cheek.
He also felt like an emotion I wouldn’t recognize for a while longer.
On that day, I hadn’t known how badly I’d needed that hug until it happened. Something inside me clicked. The lightbulb tip hit the socket just right and the bulb finally illuminated to its full capacity.
A one-hundred-watt crush on Cortland Haven burst into brightness.
A crush I dreamed of acting upon, doodling our names together in my secret journal for months, before Cort and Stone had a major falling out.
Until Cortland Haven became the enemy.
Unfortunately, my heart never got the memo.
1
[Cort]
Forty-six years old
“Sylver.” The sharp call of that last name turns my head in the direction of my younger brother Clint.
Together, Clint and I run Haven Exteriors, proud roofers and house painters which is a far cry from my previous life. One where I was more athletic and much younger, full of spunk and spirit like the thirty kids currently trying out for the travel baseball team we sponsor and coach.
Haven Hitters is the result of my love of baseball and Clint’s desire to give back to our small-town community of Rogue River. Personally, I think it’s his way to live vicariously, never having athletic success on the level of our brother, Tate, or myself. Clint is organized, encouraging, and less of a hard ass than I am which is ironic considering his hair is redder than my lion’s mane once was. Currently, he’s checking in the kids tryingout for the twenty-five spots on our 12U—twelve and under—team.
The team is typically all-boys, but this year we have one girl trying out. Legally, she can play with the boys until she’s twelve years old, and we don’t believe in discriminating. If she has the skills, she’s on the team.
In some ways, I might be living vicariously as well, as I missed out on these years with my own son, Josh. When he’d been roughly this age I’d been at the peak, and subsequent valley, of my career in professional football. An injury to my leg took me out of the game completely. That was almost a dozen years ago, and at the ripe age of forty-six, my knee still flares in rainstorms like I’m some old fucker with an ache in my limbs afflicted by the weather.
I’m no stranger to bodily harm.
My latest injury is all Valentine Sylver’s fault.
If she hadn’t parked her car across the street from the Hartford house while I’d stood on top of the roof of their two-story home, I wouldn’t have fallen nearly twenty feet, like Icarus blinded by the sun.
But as I stood tall atop that pitched roof, a sunspot blinded me for a second, and I was caught off guard by the sudden sight of Vale—the sway of her supple hips, the firmness of her ass in athletic leggings, and that dried-cornstalk-blond hair I swear I’d recognize anywhere. Her beauty was at fault for the loss of my footing and me slipping from the roof I was supposed to be repairing. Thus, I fell two stories and landed in a set of overgrown junipers.
I have no idea if Vale saw my graceless tumble.
The doc said those damn bushes saved my life. He claimed the fall was from my old knee injury.
Tumbling that distance also tweaked my back, and I’ve been struggling with back pain in one form or another eversince, which is not great when you are the other half of a partnership with your youngest brother.
Clint continues assigning the potential players a number for the unbiased judges to rank the kids’ skill level. Irony in a small town is that there isn’t anyone without an opinion or a connection to someone in some manner, so it’s difficult to find impartial adults to measure the competency of our potential team members. Typically, we use our brother Tate who is the athletic director at the local high school, and another buddy from our adult softball team, Master Batters.
However, I’m stuck on that last name.Sylver. The family is one you cannot help but recognize in the Milton County community, especially as Stone Sylver is the county’s Sheriff. He’s also myformerbest friend. The Sylvers primarily reside in Sterling Falls, the sister town to our current location in Rogue River. The two communities share many things, including the local high school, the mountain peak, and Haven Hitters travel team.
Without questioning my brother, I reach for the tablet in his hand and double check the name he just read off.
