I shrugged. “I wouldn’t have minded, and I also don’t mind some Mom time.”
She bumped her hip against mine before moving to the sink to wash her hands. She looked at me over her shoulder and gave me a cat-ate-the-canary grin. “So…Gunner sure is a looker, isn’t he?”
I shook my head and laughed. Instead of answering her question about my love life, I turned up the volume on the stereo.
It wasn’t a minute after breakfast hours had started when Colt marched through the doors clad in his police uniform and with a scowl on his face. I was standing in front of the glass window of the swinging door, watching Tuck and Gunner sitting at a table. Tuck’s teenage babysitter was also sitting at the table, with stars in her eyes, as she gazed at Gunner.
Colt spotted me through the little window, and it was too late to make a break for it. He didn’t pause to look at Gunner or say hello to Tucker. He ate up the space between us, and I knew he meant business.
He’d always been commanding and a rule follower. He’d grilled me harder about every date than my parents ever had. In fact, my father was probably so impressed by his interrogation skills he left the job completely up to him. They even had him interrogate me when he was twelve and I was ten and I’d broken my mom’s favorite vase. I’d cracked within two minutes. There was no other job for Colt than being a cop. He was born for it.
“Hey, big brother,” I said when he barged in through the door. “Still haven’t gone grocery shopping? Want an egg sandwich to go?” I smiled brightly and twirled a piece of my hair that had fallen from my ponytail, playing up the innocent act.
“Cut the bullshit. I didn’t sleep, and the only reason I wasn’t posted in front of your house all night was because I knew your new boyfriend would be watching out for you.”
I stilled and a flurry of emotions and questions warred inside me. When Gunner had held my hips in front of my family yesterday, I’d known the adults in the room would know what it meant. I thought I would care and be more cautious, not wanting to label or identify anything when we had only shared one kiss.
One kiss that was equal parts Earth-shattering, panty-melting, and life-changing. But still, one kiss.
I also hadn’t expected my brother to trust this new man in my life so quickly. He was very protective of Tuck and me. And I knew as much as Colt liked Gunner the baseball player, he wasn’t sold on Gunner the man quite yet, even though he hadn’t given him a chance.
“What changed?”
Colt didn’t need clarification of what I was asking. He knew, and I also felt Mom staring at us, waiting for his answer.
Colt looked at his polished steel-toed police boots and squeezed the back of his neck. He released a long, slow breath before looking me straight in the eye. “I talked to Tuck. I know what he did to keep him calm, and I saw for myself, when I arrived at the hospital, just how much he must care for you and Tuck. He didn’t leave that kid’s side, he didn’t forget about him. He was there and he didn’t leave. If he simply wanted in your pants, he wouldn’t have hung around.”
I swallowed back the unexpected emotion and the tears that had started to prick behind my eyes. I knew that Gunner had taken care of Tuck yesterday, but to hear that from my brother—it meant even more.
Colt made a face. “I still don’t want to see you kissing him, because that’s just gross, but I suspect I’ll still be able to watch him play ball. As long as he doesn’t hurt you, that is.”
Dad strolled into the kitchen and took in the scene. “Y’all didn’t wait for me? What happened yesterday?”
“She was just about to tell us.” Colt looked me straight in the eye, daring me to back down. It was a look I was used to, and I knew it was the same one he used in interrogation rooms and why all the cops in town brought him into their cases to question their suspects.
I pursed my lips and shook my head. The tears were back to stinging my eyes, except this time, they weren’t for overwhelming happy emotions. They were for dread. “It was Shayla. She followed us through the tree line, popped out when I was alone, and we argued. She was high.”
“On what?”
“I have no clue,” I said. “I’m not you.”
“How did you get hurt?” Dad asked and wrapped his arm around me. He kissed the tender part of my head and waited with patience for me to finish the story. I knew this was hard for Mom and Dad to hear. They loved Shayla as if she was their own. It felt as if siblings were turning on each other, one causing the other harm.
If Colt allowed himself to feel and decompartmentalize, it would hurt him too. But when she’d walked out of our lives and left Tuck as a newborn at the hospital, he’d put her in a box in his mind and she’d stayed there. Right now, to him, she was simply a threat. Once his cousin-sister.
“When we argued, she slapped me, and then I told her that she would never see Tuck unless she was sober. I said ‘over my dead body’ and she pushed me. She pushed me, but I don’t think she meant to hurt me. I landed on a rock, she couldn’t have known that would happen.”
“She fucking slapped you and pushed you, and you’re going to say she didn’t try to hurt you?” Colt seethed.
“Yes.” I stepped out of Dad’s embrace and up to Colt, looking up into his eyes. “She didn’t mean to hurt me. She was high and she is sick. I don’t want her near Tucker, believe me. But I also want her to get help.”
“So she can come and take him from you? From us?”
I flinched, and then my spine straightened and the momma bear came out to play. “Don’t you fucking dare act like that would even be a possibility. I’d chase Tuck to the ends of the Earth. I’d do anything to keep him. I’d do anything for him. And if that means helping his birth mom then so be it. You loved her too. She was our sister.”
“She lost that right when she left a baby by itself and forced you to raise him.”
“It’s been a fucking honor to raise him. Don’t act like that.”
Colt shook his head and groaned. “Fuck. I know it has. I know. He’s the best thing in my life. I’m…I’m scared to lose him.”
“Me too,” I said. “But if I keep him from her and he finds out, what will that do to him? He should have the choice to know her. If she is sober.”
Colt nodded. “Did she say where she’s been staying?”
“No,” I said. “She only wanted to see and talk to Tuck. It was very quick, and I know she didn’t mean to hurt me.”
“We can’t trust her,” Colt said.
“I don’t trust her, and if I have to choose between her and Tuck, I choose him. Every time. Every single fucking time.”
Chapter 25
Gunner
“I can’t do that. I don’t even know where I’m playing next season,” I said and shrugged. Delilah fidgeted in her chair as she listened to me talk with Earl about the possibilities for my future. I was still determined to only play for the Rattlers, but until that deal was signed, I couldn’t tell anyone that.
“Take some pity on an old man,” he said. “Give me a hint.”