Double Play (Bases Book 3) Read online

  Copyright 2019 © Hazel Grace All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, and real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the Author’s imagination and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organizations or places is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. This book is intended for the reader of this ebook ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the express written permission of the Author. All songs, song titles and lyrics contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.

  Cover design: Black Widow Designs

  Proofreading: Dom’s Proofreading

  To my Mom, Sheep, Moo Moo, Bonasha & Bae

  Contains graphic sexual content and harsh language. It is only appropriate for adult readers age 18+

  Please keep in mind, this is a series. Which means all answers to questions won’t be answered in one book. If you don’t like cliffhangers, you might want to wait until the series is over.

  xoxo,

  Hazel Grace

  Present day

  “Phone call on line one,” Bobbie announces over the intercom on my desk. I peer up over my laptop to see her staring at me, yards away at her desk.

  Seriously.

  I fight the urge to roll my eyes and give her a thumbs-up instead, asking her to transfer it to my cell. She sends the call over, and I let the phone ring twice so I can wrap up my email before picking it up.

  My head has been spinning in circles for days, I can’t form a single sentence from the abundance of emails and college papers I still have to write. The amounts of coffee I’ve drank from Joe’s is astonishing, and it's starting to lose its kick.

  I’m barely able to keep up with the spring rush of listings laced in with my classes and tutoring sessions with Jace. I’ve been fighting with myself about being able to handle everything, but Dad might be right, we need another assistant.

  “Better Living Realty, this is Sawyer.” I try to disguise the heavy sigh that mixes with my greeting, but I might as well choke on it.

  “Bases.” The singular word erupts all sorts of chaos throughout my body. Butterflies flutter in my stomach, my heartbeat quickens, and the temperature of my skin blasts up ten degrees hotter.

  “Colson,” I falter, clutching the edge of my desk from the misfires going on inside my body. “How can I help you?”

  “Well, for starters, you could answer my calls and stop directing me to your new assistant, Bobbie, who happens to be a woman.”

  I coerce a scoff. “What difference does that make?”

  “You know what kind of difference that makes in the game of bullshit we’re currently playing. Especially when you’ve never corrected me in Bobbie being a woman.”

  I wrinkle my nose. I hate how he knows my objectives like the back of his hand.

  That’s the problem with knowing someone for so damn long. He remembers every damn thing.

  “Anyways,” Colson continues. “I wanted to know if we had a closing date situated yet for both houses.”

  I lean back in Dad’s lumpy leather chair. “Not yet, I’m waiting to hear back from the listing agent on the sale of your mom’s house. Your purchase is ready to go when we get that straightened out.”

  He lets out a harsh exhale. “Let them know I want an answer by the end of the week. I want to be done with this shit.”

  “You’ll be the first to know, was there—” A female voice breaks into the background on his side of the phone and stops the rest of my words.

  My ears strain to listen on their own accord, like they’re trained to take heed of any shady clues that might be dropped so they can guide my heart.

  If this dumbass thinks he’s going to fuck half the damn town and give me shit about screwing Jake in a bathroom, he’s in for another sort of reality.

  “Bases,” Colson snaps. “Did you stroke out or something?”

  “No,” I deadpan. The female voice sounds again, but I can’t make out the words. I’m too busy strangling the phone in my hands.

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Was there anything else I could do for you?” I seethe. “Besides fucking you.” That last part accidentally slips from my special “keep them to yourself” thoughts, and I cringe when I hear myself speak them out loud but a slow smirk appears because I’m feeling petty as hell right now.

  I glance up to make sure Bobbie isn’t eavesdropping because the last thing I need her to think is that I’m some weird boss who takes personal phone calls at work about inappropriate conversations at work which includes fucking.

  Colson scoffs on the other side, not the sneer or hearty chuckle I’m already expecting. “Not at this—”

  “Colson!” whines the female voice I now know I wasn’t imagining in my head. “What are you doing?”

  I hear the phone shuffle and then Colson’s voice sounds farther away as I hear him say, “Business, I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Can it wait?” she coos in a velvety tone. There is a small silence on the other end of the phone before I hear Colson clear his throat in irritation.

  “Just let me know when you have the details,” he tells me loud and perfectly clear now on the other side.

  “Oh please,” I rebuke. “Don’t stop talking to your little side piece on my account, Hayes.”

  “Jealous, Bases?” I can practically hear his lips quirk up in a smirk. “You had your chance the other day.”

  And it was close. So damn close.

  I force a mirthless chuckle. “Not jealous, grateful. What a waste of damn time that would’ve been.”

  “Might have been a waste of time,” he retorts in a graveled tone. “But it would’ve been the best fuck of your life, sweetheart. You don’t know how many things I’ve had planned in my head over the last decade, Bases.”

  A tide of goosebumps shoot up my arms, and I cross my legs from the outburst of heat that just flooded between them.

  “File them away,” I censure, trying to keep my breathing steady. “Because those plans are going to just stay in your head and go no further. Take care, Colson.” I begin to pull the phone from my ear, but I hear him speak.

  “Hang up on me, Bases,” he warns. “And we’re going to end this night a little differently than you had planned.”

  “What do you want? I have to work.”

  “I haven’t been receiving the customer service I should be obtaining while selling and buying a house.”

  “I’d say make a complaint to corporate, but I’m corporate,” I dismiss with a smile that I wish he could see.

  “So, you would be the one at fault for me leaving a not-so-shiny review on your business page, correct?”

  “Colson,” I warn, crossing my legs and leaning into the phone as if that will make my words more intimidating. “If you screw around with my father’s business, I will make it so you wished you’d never decided to take Coach Anderson’s job.”

  “Yeah?” he taunts. “How would you do that?” I can see it now, his brown eyes lit up in the entertainment of his taunting me.

  Asshole.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” I rest back in my father’s chair and start firing off things I could do to him in my head.

  Give him laxatives before one of his baseball games.

  Fill the keyholes to his house with glue.

  Use his email address to sign up for every piece of spam I can get my hands on.

  Send warning pamphlet
s to his new neighbors that he’s a drug dealer and an arsonist.

  Colson chortles. “True, I always enjoyed the element of surprise. So, since we’re on the phone, I know how you can comply with making me a happy client again.”

  I swallow down a swear word. “How?”

  “I want to hear you come.”

  I replay his words again in my head before I reply, “I’m sorry...what?”

  “I’ll direct you on what to do,” he elaborates casually.

  “And I can fake that shit just as easily as you can transform right into a cocky asshole.” He hums into the phone, probably pleased with my insult, which he would take as a compliment.

  “How far would you go to save your daddy’s business?”

  “Are you threatening me, Hayes?” My voice is hard and cool, but I can feel all the blood drain from my face because I know.

  I know all too well how savage and harsh Colson can be when he wants to play his dirty little games of “let’s see how far we can push someone’s buttons until they snap off.”

  Especially mine.

  “Just helping,” he alludes. “Sounds like you need it.”

  “I’m in my office.”

  Who the hell cares?! Tell him no!

  “Close the door,” he murmurs, his voice turning thick and, God, turned on. “Actually, don’t, that’ll be more fun.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Make me a happy customer, Bases. I want to hear a moan leave those soft lips while I stroke my dick to them.”

  I recross my legs and straighten my back, feening off thoughts of his hands caressing his cock. Taking his bottom lip in between his teeth as he rubs and twists, voicing all the dirty things that he wants to do to my body over the phone.

  My work phone.

  The same one my dad uses when he comes into the office, which isn’t lately, but still. I should not be turned on. This man will literally be the entire reason I’m thrown into a psych ward at thirty.

  Inhaling a steady breath through my nose, I try to calm myself. The real issue here is Dad’s brokerage, not the fact that my panties are becoming wet at how much his tone dropped.

  From over the phone, it still strokes my skin and blankets over my restraint. I don’t think Colson would destroy my father’s business, but he’s done things to me in the past, so who the hell am I to say who is what? But hurting my family’s well-being?

  He’s not that cold-hearted — I think.

  Shit, I’m not sure.

  “Earth to Bases,” Colson calls out. “Us, mortals, down here want to play with the redheaded goddess who has lips of a sinner and a face of a saint.”

  I run a hand down my face and clasp it over my mouth to let out a frustrated groan.

  “You want me,” I bleat gradually. “To play with myself while you have another woman in your house?”

  “I do,” he professes. “Very badly.”

  “I’m not interested in playing your side piece.”

  “Do you want me to show you how much of a side piece I don’t think you are?” he challenges. “And the woman that you heard isn’t one. The baseball team is over here with their little groupies to make poster boards for—geezus fuck, I don’t know. We didn’t do stupid shit like that.”

  “You probably should make sure they aren’t drawing on your walls with markers so we can finish selling the house,” I rebuke, hoping to God one of them does.

  “I already laid out newspapers on the tables and received looks like I’m a fucking idiot.”

  “You should be used to that look by now.”

  He tsks. “Now, I know why Anderson looked like he wanted to kill me every five seconds. My definition of coloring was spray painting Churchill’s parking lot with an outline of cocks in their pitcher’s mouth.” I stretch my jaw to keep from chuckling.

  Looking back on it, I can see why I was so enamored by him all those years ago. He didn’t care, he just messed around and lived life in the moment, consequences be damned. He was a modern-day rebel with one cause of leaving this town and making something of himself on his own. Without the support of his only living parent at the time, who cared nothing about how he was doing in school and if he came and went. I would’ve thought she wouldn’t have wanted to see her baby boy leave the nest and move away.

  My phone vibrates in my hand, displaying a video chat from Colson coming through.

  Reaching for my headphones, I plug them in because Lord knows what the next thing out of his mouth is going to be and I don’t want Bobbie hearing his foul mouth.

  I hit the green button as my screen immediately exhibits Colson’s rugged face. Days’ worth of stubble lines the outline of his cheeks, chin, and above his upper lip. His chestnut eyes bore into me, and I’m so grateful that we’re not in the same room together. He looks subtly dangerous, a man that would rip your clothes off and smother you with his mouth.

  “There’s my beautiful fascination,” he smirks, leaning back into a white couch. “You look stunning.”

  His words make me recall what I look like today.

  Honestly, I don’t remember, I’ve been so exhausted lately that I’ve been just throwing clothes on and striding out of my apartment like the walking dead. My self-consciousness starts to poke at me, is he being sarcastic?

  I peer down at my outfit to see what God awful thing I’m wearing. A black dress that narrows down into a “V” and a gold necklace that I think I was wearing yesterday?

  “Forget what you were wearing, Bases?” Colson interjects with amusement in his voice. “You look tired.”

  “I am,” I admit. “But sleep is for the weak.”

  “Sleep is for people that want to live. You need a nap.”

  I sigh. “I need to get off this phone call with you so I can work.”

  “You need something that I can help you with,” he conveys, lowering his screen to the bulge in his pants. He rubs his cock, and I see it twitch in response. “Making you fall apart in that chair. With me.”

  My jaw relaxes into an “O,” my nipples hardening.

  With me.

  God.

  “But we’ll have to save that for next time,” he states. “And next time, you won’t remember either of our names.”

  Ten years ago

  I’ve gone off the deep end.

  Literally and figuratively.

  Taylor’s cousin, Liam, just pushed me off the rowboat we’ve been fishing on, and the cool water extinguished the heat from the day.

  I’m in Northfield, two towns over from Freemont, at Taylor’s Aunt Sherry’s house helping her with their town-wide garage sale.

  It was a hoarder’s paradise.

  Old couches, bookshelves with the dust still on them, outdated records, and overly used sports equipment cover the library parking lot and lawn. It was as though everyone took this opportunity to clean out their basements and garages, just to add more to it with loading their pickup trucks to the brim with more stuff.

  Never in my life have I seen so much junk or people’s eyes widening in excitement at the antiques that scattered across the cement. Like they’ve just found buried treasure in piles of aged and rusty troves of things.

  Edging the town’s event were food trucks and a few bouncy houses to keep the kids occupied as well as myself. I had nothing better to do today. Being here was better than sitting in my room on a weekend, dreading the next week of school and having everyone’s whispers choke me because I’ve been dubbed, yet again, the villain.

  I broke up with Gavin and broke his heart. The last part was hilarious.

  I was the one who got cheated on, and he’s the one getting pampered by every stupid, ignorant girl in school.

  They grab his lunch, someone brought him a pie at lunch, a blonde girl sat in his lap and stroked his hair like he was so distraught he didn’t know what to do with himself.

  I’ve seen him get more hugs than a teddy bear this week, and I’m the bad guy. They should be thanking me. He’s now available f
or the next naive or status-grabbing girl to nab up and date, fuck, or talk to, I don’t care. All I know, and that matters, is that I’m free. No longer will I live in a perfectly planned world where I don’t cross a line or make a list in my head about the pros or cons. I’m just going to do and ask for forgiveness later.

  However, the issue with Colson still remains.

  My phone has been blowing up with text messages from him before and during school, while we’re on the same baseball field, and at night when I just want to drown in my TV shows, trying not to think about the next day of school. I would rather him play another prank on me than the constant asking of how I’m doing and why am I ignoring him.

  The answer is a simple and obvious one — it’s because I’m done.

  I’m done with both of them. I’ve been tip-toeing around, attempting to live in peace, when in reality, one is the pending storm and the other one will hit you upside the head with lies.

  Something I’m not doing anymore or playing a pawn in anymore.

  I’ll be eighteen in a month, I’m not cowering down to a school full of country, pie-baking snobs and two boys who will be irrelevant on a huge college campus next year. With only weeks left of school, welcome to the new Sawyer Boyd and her last year of high school.

  My head pops up from the water to see Liam’s foot propped up on the edge of the boat, his elbow resting on his knee. “Oops.”

  I swing my hand back and skim the top of the water to splash him. “Liam! My clothes!”

  “It’s hot as balls out here, they’ll dry.” He doesn’t look sorry, just amused that he caught me off guard.

  “And you looked a little hot,” Taylor’s other cousin, Ethan, adds in. They’re brothers, a year apart, with light blond hair and blue eyes.

  And mischievous as hell.

  It didn’t take long for them to take me under their wing. They’ve been teasing and stuffing me with their special “fruit punch” to welcome me into their little crew of bandits. Taylor loves the crap out of them, she visits here often and spends the night just to get out of the clutches of Freemont. I’m just disappointed I never took her up on her many offers previously to come up here sooner.