Page 142 of The Score We Never Settled

“You chased it,” my father confirms. “Stepped right onto the plate and everything.”

Oh, for the love of God.

I spin my finger around the table. “No more front row seats for y’all. Except Everly.”

“Yay,” she cheers, sitting next to Layla, and that’s always how it goes unless I walk my girl there.

Everly cock blocks me all the damn time because she’s obsessed with my wife, but in different ways. She’s inspired and motivated, they talk constantly, and I couldn’t pry them apart with a crowbar if I wanted.

“What about me?” Adeline retorts. “I didn’t say anythin’.”

“You did in Game Five when I flicked off the other team’s dugout.”

She hits me with an unimpressed stare, the same one she gave me that night I did it. “Because it’s unprofessional.”

“So is purposely tripping me.”

“Better than him fighting,” Everly defends. “And he deserved it.”

“Everly,” Adeline rebukes. “We need to refine him. He needs to be like Theo and be calm.”

I cock my head to the side because I saw her making googly eyes with him the other night at the bar. “Yeah, like Theo. And, speaking of Theo, sister…no.”

She feigns shock like she doesn’t know, but she knows.

I know my sister.

“What are you talkin’ about? We’re just friends.”

“No,” I deadpan.

“I was lookin’ at him,” Everly claims, which has Adeline and me glaring at her.

“Absolutely not,” our father cuts in. “He’s too old for you.”

“And just no,” I add on.

“You just said Davis Blaine was cute,” Adeline quips, and I can feel my blood start to boil becausefuck no.

I open my mouth to cut into that fantasy when something draws me to Layla, and she’s shaking her head at me.

Then she blows a kiss.

Then I’m putty again.

“He’s an idiot,” Ben comments for me. “More rocks than brains.”

“And he needs to work on his batting average,” my father quips. “He’s like a deer lookin’ into headlights half the time.”

“Sit down, boy,” Ben complains, lightly smacking the spot next to him at the table. “If ya don’t, Adeline will never feed us.”

I do what he requests, sitting across from Layla as she continues to smile at me.

I could die a happy man if I could keep that smile on her face for the rest of her life. I could also be her personal foot cushion because she immediately props one foot in my lap to somehow touch or stay as close to me as humanly possible.

Mindlessly, I rub at her calves, sliding down to her ankles and the sexy as hell heels that she has on.

I’m fucking her later, naked, with these on.