Page 29 of Curveball

Friends… with her?

That was a tough pill to swallow, but one I had to take. The sooner I could accept the fact that we would be friends and nothing more, the sooner I could move on with my life. "Okay, well, now that we’ve got that out of the way. Tell me about your daughter."

Farrah's face lit up in the way it used to when she looked at me.

I missed that.

"Hadley’s amazing. She's two and so smart, funny, and kind. She loves animals, and I just feel incredibly lucky to be her mom," she gushed. She continued to go on and on for the next fifteen minutes on all of Hadley's likes and dislikes, and I was completely enraptured by the love and joy that poured out of her when she spoke about her daughter, a small part of me wishing she were ours.

I quickly shoved that thought aside before it took hold.

"Anyway, sorry. I could talk about Hadley forever. I don't know if you heard, but Jake's getting married in a few months."

Addison had mentioned it to me when Jake proposed. "Yeah, Adds told me. How do you feel about that?" I studied her for a moment to gauge her reaction. I could see a little sadness in her jade eyes.

"I feel okay. I mean, I love Lily, and I'm happy for them. Jake and I were never meant to be together."

Ain't that the fucking truth.

She took a sip of wine before she continued, "I’m more so worried about them having more kids and Hadley feeling left out. That's all."

"I don't think that will happen. From what I've heard, he seems like a good father, and y’all seem to have a good co-parenting relationship." I placed my hand over hers where it rested on the bar top. "But if that does happen, fuck that guy," I said jokingly with a wink.

That pulled another loud laugh from her. "Leave it to you to always make me laugh to get me out of my head." She glanced down at my hand on hers, and a small blush crept up her cheeks. I tried hard to ignore the reactions we both could still pull from each other.

Just friends, Walker.

We chatted about her business, baseball, my injury, and Hadley for a little while longer before deciding to call it a night. I could have sat with her and talked all night, but I didn't want to press my luck. This friendship was new for us, and I knew there was still hurt hidden in the background for both of us. I knew at some point for this friendship to work, we would need to address those hurts, but night one was not the night.

I walked Farrah out to her SUV, the summer air thick and balmy. "Thanks for sitting down with me; it was long overdue. Sorry for taking so long."

"I'm sorry too, I'm glad we did this. I feel like a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Happy to have you back, Walk." She stepped up to me and wrapped her arms around my waist in a hug. My body melted into her embrace as I wrapped my arms around her shoulders. She wasn't very tall, so her cheek lay perfectly against my chest. I held her for a moment, probably a moment longer than appropriate, but I didn't fucking care. I didn't realize how much I’d missed her, missed holding her. She released her arms and stepped back, breaking the spell.

"I've got to go grab Hadley from my parents' house. I'll see you around." She flashed me a gorgeous smile, one that hadn't been directed at me in a very long time.

"See ya, Wildflower." I threw her a wink. The old nickname effortlessly slipped from my lips, causing her to stumble a bit getting into her car—that pretty blush crept up her cheeks again, and I couldn't stop the cocky smirk that took over my face.

It was an early Monday morning as I strode into my sister's barn. Mondays were always quiet since it was her barn manager Levi's day off, and the barn was closed to all clients… but it felt eerily quiet. I noticed Dean's work truck parked out front of the barn, so they had to be around here somewhere. I walked over to my sister's Grand Prix horse, Cash, where he had his head hanging out over his stall. He nickered softly at me as I ran my hand up his face. "Hey there, big guy, where's your mom?"

I continued my way down the aisle. I stopped at my sister's young mare Dahlia's stall to give her a little attention too, when I heard noises coming from one of the stalls at the very end of the aisle.

As I got closer, the noises began to sound an awful lot like soft moans and grunts, but I assumed I was just hearing things. Before my brain could fully register what could cause that kind of noise, I unfortunately walked past the opening of a stall to see none other than my soon-to-be brother-in-law with his pants down around his ankles, fucking my sister up against the stall wall.

"Fuck… harder, Dean. Yes! Just like that… don't stop," my sister moaned.

"Yeah, you like that. I love the way you take my cock, baby," Dean rasped out as he continued to slam into my sister.

I wasn’t sure exactly what happened in that moment; I blacked out. But I was pretty sure I screamed, before running back down the aisle with my hands over my eyes, continuing to scream, "My eyes! My ears! Ahhh!!"

Now I was standing in my sister's office with her and Dean, unable to look them directly in the eye.

"Walker. Do you want to talk about it?" Addison asked, amused.

Not sure why she thought my trauma was so funny.

I continued to stare at the ground. "Nope. No. No way. I'm good."

Dean chuckled. Yeah, he fucking laughed. "Sorry about that, man, I didn't know anyone was coming to the farm today. You know, because it is Monday."