April (Calendar Girl #4) (6 page)

Mason looked off into the distance then brought those green eyes to me. They were soft, almost beseeching, as if my own held the answers to every question he’d ever want to know in them. “Show her what type of man you can be. What type of man you are in here,” I pointed to his chest where his heart was. “Live like the man you want to be. She’ll come around.”

“You think?”

I smiled wide and hugged him into my chest. He smelled of sex and cheap perfume. “I know.”

“Thanks Mia. You’re pretty all right you know that?”

I laughed into his neck. “You’re pretty all right yourself, but you smell like a whorehouse. Do the world a favor and shower. I’ll work on Rachel. You work on you.”

He stood up and helped me up. “I’ll work on me.”

“While you’re working on you, can you work on getting these people out of our room? I can’t sleep with people fucking on the couch, pot being smoked, bodies everywhere, and music blaring.”

He opened the door from his room to the living area and took in the party. “Fucking hell. We’re never getting smashed again.”

I choked on a laugh. “Never say never.”

***

The rest of our visit in New York City went by in a flash. The team had three games in NYC, lost one, won two. So far, their rank was looking really good. Quick Runners booked Mason as their official year-long spokesperson for the new performance all-around sports shoe. It was good for running, walking, playing ball, and all other varieties of sports. We still hadn’t heard from Power Up. Apparently, their people had heard about Mason booking with Quick Runners and wanted to make sure that having the same spokesperson was a good thing for their image and the way they wanted to run their campaign. This, however, was not bad for Mason because another couple of opportunities came out of the woodwork for baseball gear and energy bars. Word got out fast. Now we just waited, Mason played hard, and stayed off the radar. Part of that was going home. Which is where we were driving to now. I was finally meeting Mason’s family.

When we got to the small home outside of Boston proper, Mason walked right in without knocking.

“Back here boy!” A loud voice yelled and was coupled with the squealing sound of a small child.

Mason held my hand and took me through the quaint home. Stuffed animals and dolls littered the floor where a child at play must have up and abandoned them for something else. The rooms were dark, lived in, and homey. You could tell by the pictures on the wall that a woman had once lived here, but by the layer of dust on them and the lack of girlie adornments, it had been a while. In the center of one wall was a wedding photo. A redheaded, pale, beautiful woman stood in a very old-fashioned wedding gown and had her arms locked around a large man with dark brown hair and kind eyes. A man who could be the spitting image of Mason. That apple did not fall far from the tree.

We made it through the home to the kitchen where I was instantly assaulted with the smell of cooked meat. My mouth watered at the smell of sage, and rosemary along with whatever was brewing on the stovetop. A large roast sat on top of the counter and a man with his back to us was carving it into slices and placing them on a platter. A small red-headed girl with giant blue eyes clocked me the second I entered. She stood up and clapped her hands. She couldn’t be more than four years old. “You’re here!” she squealed in that way only small children were capable of, with their whole bodies and full of joy.

I smiled wide and the man turned around and boy was I not wrong. He looked exactly like Mason or what Mason would look like in twenty-five years. “Hey Dad, this is Mia. She’s my uh…”

The man smiled wide and laid out a hand. “You’re the woman everyone says is my son’s girlfriend.”

I wasn’t sure how Mason wanted to play this so I stayed quiet about the girlfriend part. “It’s good to meet you Mr. Murphy.”

“Call me Mick, everyone does, ‘cept my boys because I’ll tan their hide if they disrespect their elders.”

At that I nudged Mason. “Your Dad is awesome.”

“Yeah, unfortunately when he’s around my cool factor goes down about fifty notches.”

“And don’t you forget it boy! Now set the table will ya?”

Mason proceeded to set the table while I introduced myself to Eleanor who liked to be called Ellie. She walked me through the house and showed me every single one of her toys then her room where she had everything princess and was very proud of it. I scanned the room. I never had anything like this as a child. A room devoted to the things I loved as a kid. Maddy and I always shared a room and neither one of us had a theme or anything much we could call our own. Made me sad for what I missed out on and happy that even though men we’re raising Ellie without a woman’s hand, they were still doing right by her.

My heart ached when Ellie placed a crown on my head and one on her own. “You can be the Queen, and I’ll be the Princess,” she offered. I nodded then hugged her little body. She held me tight before another look-a-like of the Murphy family interrupted us. Made me wonder if any of them looked like their mother.

“You must be Mia?” I nodded and stood up from the floor, Ellie clasped my hand tight.

“Daddy, this Queen Mia and I’m Princess Ellie. Do you want to be the King or the Prince?” she asked, her eyes serious as she stared at her father.

“I want Princess Ellie to wash her hands for dinner and let Queen Mia get back to her King,” he said playing along.

Ellie looked up at me with her huge blue eyes that she must have gotten from her mother because her Dad had the same green eyes that both the other Murphy men had. “Will you save me a spot next to you at dinner, Queen Mia?” She asked in her too cute little voice.

“Of course I will, Princess Ellie; I’d be honored.” I bowed for effect and she clapped her hands, spun on a toe, and was off running down the hall.

The big man with coppery hair and green eyes held out a hand. “Sorry about that. Ellie doesn’t get much female time. I’m Brayden.” I shook his hand and held it.

“Totally okay. I had fun. I can’t remember the last time I spent playing with a child.” And I couldn’t. There weren’t any children in my family that I knew of, none of my friends had kids, well technically, a couple of my new friends were going to have babies and Tony and Hector’s other family, the ones with children, didn’t hang around us when I was there. So this was the first time in several years that I’d spent one-on-one time with a child. It was fun. I rather enjoyed it. 

Brayden led me back to the table where I sat down and chatted up his brother and Father. When the food was completely set on the table, a whirlwind crashed through the back door, skidded to a stop, and dropped his backpack on the floor behind him. “Shit, Mace your girlfriend is fucking hot!” A gangly, tall, ginger haired boy with the same green eyes as the rest of the Murphy men shouted.

“Mouth!” Mick chastised with a fork pointing in the boy’s direction.

“Sorry Dad but dang…sweet girl you got Mace,” the boy looked me up and down. “I’m Shaun, how are you, sweetness?”

Oh no, he didn’t. He just called me sweetness. “Well, I can see who’s rubbed off on this young impressionable mind,” I glared at Mason and he actually looked chagrinned.

“Shaun, don’t call chicks sweetness. They don’t like it.”

“Sure, they do. I had my tongue in this sweet chick today.” My eyes widened and Brayden pressed his hands over Ellie’s ears.

“Boy, I swear I’m going to take two inches off your height if you don’t choose your words more wisely around my daughter. And stop disrespecting women. You’re teaching her bad shit!” His teeth were clenched and poor little Ellie’s was slapping at her father’s hands.

“Daddyyyy stop. I can’t hear when you do that!” she crunched up her little nose and looked at me. “Does Uncle Mace ever do that to you?”

The men at the table laughed. I smiled and tapped her nose giving the precious girl my full attention. “No, because I’m an adult, but your Daddy is protecting you from hearing things that are not appropriate for you. He’s a very good Daddy.”

She nodded and shoved a giant forkful of mashed potatoes into her mouth. Her cheeks pushed out like a chubby bunny. I shook my head and looked up at Shaun. “If you want to keep a woman in the future, you’ll learn to call her things that actually make her feel special and not like one of many. Remember that.”

His eyes looked me over in a way that a teenaged boy who only has sex on the brain would. Extremely skeevy. “If it secures me a hot babe like you, I’ll do whatever you say, sweetness.”

Mason’s forehead hit the table. Brayden shook his head and I bit back a seriously profane comment. The patriarch on the other hand, had no problem laying into Shaun, which he did after he pulled him by the ear into another room. When they came back, Mason and Brayden both had shit-eating grins on their faces. Ellie just happily ate more potatoes then asked for more.

“Sorry for being rude, Mia. I’ll try to be more respectful,” Shaun grumbled through a sour expression.

“Thank you, Shaun. That was kind of you. Now tell me embarrassing stories about Mason,” I changed the subject and every man besides Mason smiled and started sharing.

By the time dinner was done, my belly hurt so bad I could hardly breathe let alone put any cheesecake into it. The stories were detailed and plenty. The guys spent hours telling me about crazy Mason. In his younger years, he was a class clown, thought he was the worlds’ greatest inventor, and had absolutely no luck with the ladies. The last part I found unbelievable looking at how he’d filled out. The whole package was nice, once you got past the douchey ways, but we were working on those and he was making some serious progress. Not enough for Rachel to come around, but I had hope that I could work some magic there.

While the men cleaned up, another thing I found incredibly cool, guests of the Murphy household never did dishes, even if you were a woman. I guess they just got used to doing all the domestic duties themselves. It was enlightening but sad. So while they cleaned up, I looked at all the pictures. There were many of Eleanor the mother around the house. Pictures with each boy, with the boys all together, and happy ones with her husband, Mick. They looked really happy, a solid family. Here was a woman who fought cancer and probably would have given anything to just stay with her family, whereas my healthy mother had a happy family she left for her own selfish desires. To this day, I wasn’t even sure where she was and as much as I pretended not to care, I did. So much that it pissed me off.

Mason came up behind me, placed a hand on my shoulder, but didn’t say anything. “Your mother was really beautiful.”

“Yes, she was. She was the perfect Mom, too. Really cared about us. The cancer, when she got it, ravaged her, sweeping through so fast there was little we could do. Dad beats himself up that she didn’t get tested early. Dad’s only forty-five. Mom was gone shortly after she turned thirty-five. They had seventeen perfect years together if you ask Dad. Then she was just gone. She always said she’d get tested when she was forty like the rest of the world. That was too long for her.” His tone was sad and filled with the longing of a man who missed his mother. I understood that all too well.

I thought about the beautiful Eleanor who was lost to the world at such a young age with four boys and a husband that needed her. They carried on and had one another; they were still a family.

“We should do something for your Mom.”

Mason’s eyebrows narrowed. “What do you mean?”

As I thought more about it, the idea swirled within my mind and took flight. It would be perfect. “I mean about breast cancer. Get involved in the cause. You’re a big professional ball player. We should do a fundraiser or something; donate it to the local breast cancer awareness group in Boston. We could get pink bracelets, that you and I could wear, shirts for me and the WAGs. If the team wants to get involved, they can. Not only would it help your Mom’s memory, the women fighting now, and those with family history that should get prescreened earlier than forty, but it would look good for your image.”

Mason smiled, his tiny crooked tooth shining against his pearly whites. “We could help women like my mom,” he said in total awe, like it was the best idea since major league baseball. “I love it! You’re a frickin’ genius!” He picked me up and twirled me around. “So what do you think we do first?”

For the next hour, we sat down with Eleanor’s favorite cheesecake Mick had made in her honor, and we talked about how we could help get the word out using Mason’s celebrity status as a pushing-off point.

Chapter 5

Think Pink was the campaign name we came up with. Once back in Boston, Mason and I got to work. We ordered special Think Pink silicone bracelets to pass out at games, and special shirts for the WAGs that we rush ordered and paid an ungodly amount to ship overnight once the items were ready. My shirt I ordered personally and paid for without Mason knowing about it. The back and front had Mason’s jersey number, and on top, it said “For Eleanor”. It was super cute and I knew it would mean a lot to Mason.

While he was practicing, I stayed back at his pad and wrote out a plan for a fundraiser. Rachel was all over the idea and thought it was great and offered to help make it something that would actually raise a lot of money for the cause as well as help Mason’s image. We hadn’t talked about last week’s nightmare and she didn’t seem in the mood to. Each time she was present she was all business all the time. Somehow, I had to find a way to get back into her good graces to promote Mason as a prospective boyfriend. Though I was at a loss, at the moment, for ideas on how to best do that. The orgy Rachel witnessed definitely did some serious damage to her belief that he would be into her and probably made him seem less desirable. For me, he became more desirable, but that’s because I needed to get laid. Just thinking back to watching that woman suck on Mace and him going to town on that blonde was enough to fill a couple masturbatory sessions in the shower this past week, but I needed the real thing. Only Mason wasn’t on my mind. Unfortunately, a tanned blond from California, currently on location with the chick he was fucking, was.