The Other Game: A Dean Carter Novel (The Perfect Game #4) (13 page)

He reached for the glove box to pull out a pack of cinnamon gum and put a piece in his mouth before offering me one.

I took it begrudgingly. Who loved cinnamon-flavored gum besides my brother? I didn’t hate it, but the flavor lasted all of ten seconds before disappearing and leaving you with that weird metallic aftertaste. But for him, I chewed the damn thing anyway.

“Do you want me to call them and put in a good word?” Jack offered as he snapped his gum.

“No, I got it. Thanks, though.”

Reaching out to them was something I needed to do. If I wanted to work for them, I had to be man enough to ask.

We drove along the deserted freeway, the sound of the music from the radio and the wind the only sound for a while. That was how it was with Jack and me; we never needed to fill the silence. If it was quiet, we were content with it being so.

We could also talk to each other about anything, and there wasn’t any big decision I’d made in my life that I didn’t discuss with him, not that there had been many yet. He wasn’t just my brother; he was my best friend.

Jack reached for the volume button on the radio and turned it down a notch. “You gotta watch out for Cassie while I’m gone, okay?”

Déjà vu hit me, making me ask, “Watch out for her how?”

“Just make sure she’s okay and stuff. Check in with her. Don’t fucking let her walk anywhere alone at night,” he added, his voice turning bitter.

“Jack, I’m not her bodyguard.”

He shot me a murderous glare. “I know. She keeps telling me I’m crazy, but I’ll never fucking forget what that guy did to her. Or to you. I can’t stomach something like that happening again.”

“It won’t,” I said, trying to reassure him, but that particular topic was a lost cause.

“It can’t.”

“Don’t worry. Just because you’re gone doesn’t mean that I’m never going to talk to Cassie again. Hell, she’s the only person I do want to talk to.”

“The only person?” Jack’s anger bled out as quickly as it had come, and amusement glinted in his eyes when he cut them at me.

“Well, her and Melissa, okay? We hung out with them all semester. Why would that change?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m just saying don’t go crazy or anything, but make sure you make time for Cassie. She loves you. And I’d feel much better if I knew you were around.”

I scoffed. “Of course I’ll be around. I’ll be so around they’ll think I moved in,” I said, hoping to get a rise out of him.

“Watch it, little brother. I’ll still find someone to kick your ass if I can’t do it myself,” he shot back, but I didn’t believe him.

Not one bit.

Jack followed the GPS’s directions, and a few hours later pulled the Bronco to a stop in front of a two-story house. It looked brand-new, and a hell of a lot nicer than our house back home. Not that Gran and Gramps’s place wasn’t nice, it was, but it was just a lot older and smaller than this one.

“This the place?” I asked through my shock. I had wrongly assumed that he’d be staying in some shithole with his teammates, and this was anything but.

“Apparently,” Jack said with a shrug before cutting the engine.

I gathered the mountain of empty fast-food wrappers we’d accumulated during the drive in my arms and walked them to the trash cans on the side of the garage.

“Looks really nice,” I said as I walked back toward the truck.

Jack scratched his head. “It does.”

The front door opened and three bare-chested muscular guys in baseball caps walked out, each holding a beer.

“Hey! You must be Jack,” the tallest one shouted, and Jack dropped his duffel to the ground before walking up the pathway to meet them.

“Yep,” he said, reaching out to shake hands. “This is my brother, Dean.” He indicated me with a nod.

“I’m Tyler, and this is Nick and Spencer. We’re glad you’re here, man. We’ve heard a lot about you,” Tyler said before walking over to me and extending his hand, and I gripped it tightly. “Nice to meet you, Dean.”

“Yeah, you too.” I smiled. He seemed pretty cool. “What position do you play?”

“I catch. Nick here’s our first baseman, and Spencer’s a pitcher.”

“Nice,” I said with a nod.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Tyler said. “After you get settled in, come meet us out back by the pool.”

“You have a pool?”

I couldn’t help but be a little jealous. I’d always wanted a pool growing up, but Gran said there wasn’t enough room. As a little kid, I believed whatever she told me, not knowing any better. I knew now, though, that there was plenty of room in the backyard for a pool, but they most likely couldn’t afford the upkeep and maintenance, let alone the cost of putting one in.

Gran always hated telling us that they couldn’t afford to buy us things, so she made up creative reasons as to why we couldn’t have them. I loved her and Gramps for it, and for all the sacrifices they made in order to raise us. It had never hit me until this moment just how much they’d had to give up when Jack and I moved in. They never went away on vacations together, and the only ones who got new things in the house were me and Jack.

Jack slapped a hand on my shoulder. “You okay? You look weird all of a sudden.”

“I’m fine,” I said, ducking out of his grasp. “Just thinking, is all.”

“Come on. Grab your shit,” he said before following Tyler up the cobblestone walkway.

I pulled my duffel from the Bronco before hustling to catch up. When we walked through the front door, I was awed by the house’s features—vaulted ceilings, wide crown molding, and hardwood floors. No four guys should be living in a house this nice.

“This house is ridiculous,” I said, and Tyler laughed.

“No shit. We got super lucky. Jack, your room’s upstairs, first door on the right. I’m gonna hit the pool. Come down when you’re ready. There’s beer in the fridge.”

Jack took the stairs two at a time, and I unconsciously mimicked him the way I used to when we were little kids. He pushed open the door to a simple guest room with a pair of twin beds, a dresser, and a nightstand.

“You’re so lucky you didn’t have to furnish this.” I couldn’t imagine what a pain in the ass that would have been, moving every single thing he owned. Then I shuddered at the thought of his room at home being empty.

“I know.” He tossed his bags on the bed closest to him and unzipped one to pull out two framed photos that I recognized from his room. One was of Gran, Gramps, Jack, and me under the big oak tree, and the other was of Jack and Cassie that Gramps had taken.

He placed the two pictures on his nightstand and turned to me. “I can unpack the rest later. Want to go out back and look around?”

“Definitely.” I dropped my bag on the other bed and followed him down the stairs to the kitchen, which looked like it should have been featured in a magazine.

Jack opened the fridge, pulled out two beers, and handed me one. “After a long hot car ride, we deserve this,” he said before twisting off the top and clanking his bottle against mine.

We stepped outside into the yard and were hit with giant nonstop streams of water to our chests without warning. I looked down at my now soaked shirt as Spencer sat floating on a green alligator raft, clutching a Super Soaker while he laughed hysterically.

Jack and I glanced at each other with a silent promise that we’d get him back, and then continued our self-guided tour. The yard was ridiculous. Expensive stonework and lush vegetation lined the pool area. Everything was perfectly manicured and super nice, much like the rest of the house.

Even though it felt like a thousand degrees outside, we found Tyler sitting alone in the hot tub.

“Are you cold or something?” I asked, wondering what the hell he was doing.

He downed the rest of his beer before opening up the one sitting next to it. “My muscles are sore as hell. The heat helps.”

I nodded in understanding, remembering that Tyler was the catcher on the team. In the same way that pitching could be hard on your shoulder and arm, catching was hard on your knees and legs.

I took a swig of my ice-cold beer. Damn, it tasted good. A yell yanked my attention back toward the pool, where I assumed that I was about to get shot with the damn water gun again. Instead, Nick came flying down backward on the built-in slide that I hadn’t noticed before. This pool was freaking insane, and I was definitely jealous.

“Can I move in? Just for the summer,” I asked Jack, and he laughed. “I’m not kidding. I want to live here. In this backyard.”

“I don’t care.” Jack clapped my shoulder. “But then who will keep an eye on my girl? And who will make sure Funsize doesn’t have a summer fling if you’re not there to stop her?”

I practically growled, torn between my dream summer and my dream girl. “Fine. But can I come visit?”

He grinned. “As much as you want.”

“Are you guys coming in or what?” Spencer asked, still holding on to the water gun and his alligator raft. His head looked hilarious pressed next to the giant painted eye of the gator.

“Hell yes!” I shouted like a five-year-old before running upstairs to change.

Jack came upstairs a few seconds later, and pulled out his phone to type a quick text.

“Cassie?” I asked.

“Gran. I wanted to let her know we’re here. And Cassie, because I fucking miss her.”

“Does Gran actually text you back?” I asked with a laugh.

“Not usually. But I know she reads the ones I send her. That’s all that matters,” he said before tossing his phone on the bed and pulling off his wet shirt.

“How are we going to get Spencer back?” I asked with a sly smile, reminding Jack of our ambush as we walked outdoors earlier.

“I was just thinking about that.” Jack smiled back. “He’s already in the pool, so getting him wet seems counterproductive at the moment.”

“We could steal his alligator. Make him swim without his little floatie?” I suggested as Jack’s phone beeped from the bed and he dove to grab it.

As he read the text, his face formed a love-struck smile with those trademark dimples that all the girls loved. “Goddamn, I love that girl,” he said as he typed something quickly before dropping the phone and pushing up from the bed. “Let’s go.”

We trotted back to the yard and Jack jumped into the pool, right next to Spencer, and the giant wave he created almost knocked Spencer off his gator. Almost.

So I leaped from the side, grabbing my knees with both hands in perfect cannonball form, aiming for the same vicinity. Not only did Nick fall off his precious floatation device, the force of my wave sent it flying far enough away from him that Jack could snag it and hop on.

I spat out some of the water that had entered my mouth before I realized it was a saltwater pool and not chlorine, and laughed when Spencer whined, “Hey! My gator.”

Tyler was still in the hot tub nursing his beer, and Nick observed the chaos below from his perch at the top of the slide. “I’m coming down,” he shouted before disappearing.

When he shot around the curve, this time he was flat on his stomach with a beer in his hand. He splashed into the water hard, the hand clutching his beer shooting straight up into the air as high as it could go so the bottle wouldn’t go underwater. The sight of it reminded me that Jack and I had left our beers upstairs.

Gripping the edge of the pool, I pushed off with both hands, lifting myself out so I could go find the slide. I climbed the slight incline to the top and peered down, noticing a rock cave that the slide went through before plunging you into the deep end.

I sat down at the top of the slide, the water splashing against my back before I pushed off, racing toward the bottom. The cave was a lot bigger than I’d imagined, and longer. Cloaked by darkness for a second, I was momentarily blinded by the sunlight as I shot out and landed in the warm water.

“Awesome!” I yelled to no one in particular, and Jack laughed, now clutching the gator floatie with both hands as Spencer tried to flip him off and win it back.

“Not gonna happen for you, Spence. I’ll never let this gator go!” Jack yelled as he pushed at Spencer’s shoulders and splashed water with his feet.

“Jack’s very attached to reptiles,” I said as I swam up from behind, and Nick appeared, downing the rest of his beer before placing the empty poolside.

“Really?” Nick asked. “Reptiles?”

“No. My brother’s a dumbass.” Jack pulled the gator from between his legs and tossed it at Spencer’s overjoyed face.

“Gator!” Spencer cheered and clutched the thing like it was his girlfriend.

“I think he’s in love with inanimate objects.” I pointed at Spencer, who sat petting the top of the blow-up gator’s head like it was his favorite dog.

“I can hear you, ya know,” Spencer said with a big grin. “Gator here doesn’t talk back, doesn’t argue with me. And we never fight, do we?” He went on and on, talking nonsense to the float while we all stared at him until he started cracking up.

“You’re a sick fuck.” Nick splashed him before getting out and wrapping a towel around his middle. “I’m starving. Tyler?”

Tyler hopped out of the hot tub. “I’ll fire up the grill. Burgers and dogs okay with you?” he asked, and Jack and I nodded enthusiastically in unison.

• • •

I spent the next five days with my brother and his new teammates. Most of my afternoons were spent alone while the guys were at the field, filling out paperwork and working out, but I didn’t mind. It gave me time to work on my tan and float on the gator without having to share her with Spencer. He was very possessive.

I was fortunate enough to still be in town for Jack’s first game as a professional baseball player, and I couldn’t have been more proud. His new stadium was huge, way bigger than the one at Fullton State, and held a lot more screaming fans who already knew exactly who my brother was.

When the game ended, I’d never seen so many girls waiting for autographs before. The way girls acted at Fullton had been nothing compared to the way they were now. They flirted shamelessly with Jack, touching him and shoving their phone numbers into his pockets as we left the field one night. It was fucking insanity, but he seemed unfazed by it. His focus and heart were with only one girl.

By the time I left to fly back home, I’d not only grown attached to Jack’s new house, but his new friends as well. I had never wanted to stay in one place so badly before. But Jack reminded me that he’d be on the road half the summer, and he’d be back home before I knew it.

So I begrudgingly agreed to go home. The knowledge that I’d see Melissa and Cassie again soon was the only part that made leaving remotely bearable; Gran and Gramps too. You never realized how much you missed someone until they weren’t around on a daily basis, yelling at you about your language and the mess you left in the kitchen.

When Jack finally dropped me off at the airport, he left me with firm instructions once again to look after his girl and to finally try to pin down my own. I guess it was time to either shit or get off the pot.

He wished me luck as I walked into the terminal, heading home for the first time in my life without my brother.