More than the Game by Jenni Bara
1
@EdwardDCampbell:As we celebrate all the mothers in our lives, I want to say thanks to my wife for being the best mom to the most precious gifts you ever gave me—our girls
Someone calling Beth’s dad a liar on Twitter was nothing new. However, any of the Evans brothers doing it was the type of drama she always tried to avoid.
Her phone buzzed on the counter, the group text with her late husband’s brothers blowing up over a screenshot of a tweet her dad didn’t even personally write. Beth rolled her eyes at the second screenshot, which highlighted how many likes the tweet had. Then she fired off a message telling the Evans brothers she didn’t care if her father got a few hundred thousand likes, they still could not retweet him and call him out for being an awful father.
Beth didn’t use Twitter, but she got updates from the Evans siblings group chat. Her famous father, however, tweeted regularly. He was already tweeting about Mother’s Day, which was two days away, and her mother’s Instagram page was popping with new pictures daily. But she stayed away from all social media platforms like a person with a severe tree nut allergy would avoid a cashew.
Before she got a reply to her message, her three-year-old daughter, Mandy, pushed the jumper seat like a swing, sending the toddler she was babysitting flying back and forth in it.
“Mandy, please stop,” Beth yelled over her shoulder, grabbing the seat in one hand and stopping her nephew from spilling his cup of juice with the other. She glanced back at the dishwasher as it beeped, and saw that it was flashing ERR.
A broken dishwasher was the last thing she needed today, but life had a way of always handing her precisely what she didn’t want.
“Snake in the grass,” she mumbled under her breath—the closest she ever got to cursing—when the dishwasher refused to restart. It just sat there, silently mocking her.
As a single mother of two and currently a babysitter of five, the dirty dishes piled up fast. And she hated doing dishes.
Dishes used to be Bob’s job. The light flickered off the gold band on her right thumb, and she spun it twice. Right before her late husband had headed into surgery, he’d slipped his wedding band onto her thumb and twisted it a few times.
“Don’t worry, babe. Everything is going to work out. It always does,” Bob assured her.
It had taken a while for her to believe that statement.
It’d been four years since she buried him; four years since she had been able to hide behind the man who protected her. He’d been everything her younger self needed. It was more comfortable, more normal, being Bob’s wife—Beth Evans—than it was to be her father’s infamous daughter, Elizabeth Campbell.
But she was stronger than she had been as a teenager, and over the years, she’d figured out life without him.
Like, for example, don’t call any of Bob’s many brothers about the broken dishwasher. While not a sister by blood, they all considered her one of the Evans siblings. If any of them knew about an issue, they’d be over in a heartbeat to “help”—and although they thought they were good at everything, they’d flood her kitchen or crack her granite countertop pulling the machine out. She didn’t have time for that, and cash for a new dishwasher wasn’t in this month’s budget.
Moments like these she could almost regret giving away the share of the Campbell estate that she’d inherited when her grandparents died. One word from her father was all it took to remind her why she didn’t want the Campbell money. He had never let her forget how she’d practically ruined the family’s good name, and staying out of his way—and out of his debt—were close to the top of her list of priorities.
“Mommy, where me magic purple cup?” Mandy demanded, stomping her foot.
The answer was: in the dishwasher, which she couldn’t even get to unlock.
“My magic purple cup,” Beth corrected absently as she pulled uselessly on the dishwasher door.
Mandy glared. “No, it’s me cup, not you’s.”
“Not me cup, my cup.”
“No!” Mandy stomped away. Beth took a slow breath and prayed for patience.
Luckily for her, she had an ally at the appliance repair shop in the small, seaside South Jersey town where she grew up. The charity organization Beth worked with, Helping Hands, had an arrangement with Demoda Repairs, and she knew they would help if they could. Mr. Demoda was away from the office after a heart attack, but hopefully someone could come out.
She grabbed her phone to make the call before things got too crazy.
“Do you have a project for Helping Hands, Ms. Evans?” asked Glory, Frank Demoda’s daughter. Even over the phone, she heard the hesitation in the young woman’s voice. With her father out, the shop probably didn’t have time for the types of projects Helping Hands tended to need.
“Actually, it’s for me—my dishwasher. It stopped mid-cycle and locked. Any chance you could get someone out here this morning to look at it?”
“We’re pretty short-staffed, but maybe one-thirty?”
Beth sighed. “I can’t do this afternoon.” The thunder of two sets of feet echoed around her causing both her dogs to bark. “Go to the playroom if you’re going to act like lunatics!” She took a breath before continuing. “Sorry, this afternoon isn’t good, the kids have—Mandy, shh, I can’t hear a thing.”
Glory clucked. “Sounds like chaos over there.”
“Does that mean no?” Beth winced as she heard another crash. “Please?”
Glory sucked in a breath before saying to Beth’s relief, “I’ll see what I can do.”
Marc Demoda pulled into the gated driveway in front of an average-looking house. It was nothing flashy, as he’d expected after seeing the high security gate. The work order on the passenger seat listed an address and last name; Evans. Even though it was a small town, he knew little about the family. His sister had only said, “She’s a widowed single mom,” but the amusement in Glory’s tone had prompted him to say no, even when she promised it was a quick job. Less than a minute later, though, his dad had called, insisting that Marc help his VIP client. So, like the pitch you’d throw a batter with a full count, he planned on going in and getting out. Fast.
Standing outside the gray colonial, he heard the barking of two dogs and the racket of at least a dozen kids. This “quick” job was going to be a massive headache.
He was a baseball player, not a repairman. He needed to remember that.
Well, he had been a baseball player. He wasn’t currently. But he’d be back in the game soon—he hoped.
The heavy black wooden door opened, seemingly by itself, and a small yapping mutt shot out and grabbed onto his leg as a little girl with dark blonde curls appeared. This tiny ray of sunshine was adorable, and he couldn’t help but smile at her. Her gray-blue eyes glared at Marc, silently accusing him of not being the person she wanted to see, and then the door slammed in his face.
He laughed. That wasn’t the usual reaction Marc got when he smiled at people. When was the last time he had really laughed? He couldn’t remember.
“Amanda Evans,” a woman scolded from beyond the door, “how many times have I told you not to open the door for strangers?”
As the door reopened, a woman with the same dark blond curls appeared. But these waves weren’t cute; on her, they were striking, especially with her enormous emerald-green eyes and pink lips, which were pursed at the little girl. She wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination the leggy, big-breasted type of woman that typically caught his attention, but something about her stole his breath. She was fresh-faced, completely unmade-up, a bit frazzled, but somehow sexy.
He stopped that train of thought in its tracks. He was here to do a job.
Another dog slipped out the door, to join the first one barking at his feet. The woman gestured him inside.
“Come in,” she said—to both Marc and the dogs—before turning her attention back to the little girl and lecturing her about stranger danger.
Inside, the place vaguely reminded him of some of his childhood friends’ houses. The floor was cluttered with toys and framed photos hung on all the walls, giving it a homey, lived-in feel. He would bet she put coloring-book pictures on her fridge—and maybe report cards, too, if those still existed.
“Only grownups open the door alone, Mandy, so wait for me.”
“I’m big, and he gonna save my cup.” Out of this tiny girl’s mouth, it sounded like an accusation.
The woman sighed and tapped Mandy lightly on the nose. “You might be big, but I’m the mommy, and I say only grownups can open the front door to strangers. Sorry.”
When she bent down to speak calmly to Mandy, who was suddenly cranky, he caught an inch of skin peeking out between the woman’s orange shirt and the back of her jeans. He knew he should be professional and look away but his eyes to drifted out of pure reflex before he could stop himself.
Mandy glanced back up at him like she was asking his opinion.
“Your mom’s right.” Marc sent her a smile.
The little girl glared at them before stomping away, but the woman didn’t seem fazed. She simply said, “Thanks for coming. The dishwasher is this way,” and headed into the family room.
She stepped over piles of Mega Bloks and around the couch pillows piled in the shape of a play fort. She placed the little rat-looking dog on the floor and scooped a baby out of some contraption hanging in the doorway before grabbing a Nerf sword with her free hand, stopping a little boy from hitting another girl in the head.
“We only hit the couch and pillows, not our sister, remember?” The woman put the sword on the top of the fridge then took something out of another kid’s hands before he got it to his mouth. “No pops before lunch.”
“Aww, man,” the boy whined.
And all of this happened before Marc had taken two steps. She moved quickly through the open-concept family room and kitchen, stepping over the clutter without noticing it was a disaster zone and stopping problems as if she possessed the ability to predict the future. She seemed to see everything, everything but him. She didn’t bother to tell him her name or even seem to notice a professional baseball player was in her house and about to fix her dishwasher.
Does nothing faze this woman?
She placed the baby into a different contraption as another kid ran through the kitchen. Seeing the chaos made the need for the gated yard clear. People shouldn’t lose their children, and one person surely couldn’t keep track of this many, could they?
No one who knew him would call him a “kid person.” He’d never spent enough time around kids to have a real sense of how he felt about them. Most of the time, they just looked at him with stars in their eyes as they handed him a sticky baseball card or a ball, and he’d smile and sign it.
Clearly, his sister had purposely avoided saying anything about this circus-like chaos, although he didn’t blame her. If Glory had mentioned any of this, he probably wouldn’t have agreed to come look at the dishwasher, even if it meant further annoying his father.
No, that wasn’t true. If Marc were being honest, he would have come anyway, out of boredom or obligation. Or both the two blended. Ever since last summer’s car accident had crushed his shoulder and ended his pitching career, every day was the same mess.
For thirty-three years, baseball had been his life—his entire life. From March through October, he’d either stood on the mound pitching or worked to get back on the mound again.
Marc loved the challenge of the game, the fierce competition that came from attempting to be—and stay—the best. Every opponent was a new hill to conquer. It didn’t matter who came before or after. You could live in the moment of the contest between batter, pitcher, and catcher. The worst moment of his life had been when he’d opened his eyes after surgery the night of the crash, and the doctor had told him he’d never pitch again.
Now he spent most of his days either in a drunken haze or with a pounding hangover. The last twelve months had been a string of poor decisions, and for a while, he’d struggled to give a shit about anything.
However, as soon as he finished this favor for his dad, Marc was getting back into the game he loved. He knew he would never play, but he could still be part of it as a coach. He’d always been a teaching player, working with the young pitching talent. Marc possessed a sixth sense about who had the “stuff” and who didn’t. He wanted to do that again, which meant fixing his ruined reputation with the Major League teams.
He forced himself back to reality as the woman stood over the dishwasher playing with the buttons, talking a mile a minute. He listened until he’d heard enough, then let himself be distracted by the angle of her neck and her great skin… soft, smooth—like she could be in an ad for face lotion. He cleared his throat.
“So can you fix it?” she asked, turning her attention to him, but the baby screamed, and she moved to scoop her up.
“It’s all shut off, right?” he asked.
“I switched off the breaker, hoping it would unlock the thing, but it didn’t.”
“Then, let’s see.”
He’d been on enough calls with his dad while he’d worked his way through high school and college to know what he was doing, and it didn’t take him even two minutes to get the door open. Mandy shrieked with glee over what looked like a plastic cup. The seals were tight, and the racks looked almost new. After another ten minutes, while the woman made lunch and wrangled all the kids to the table, he determined the issue. She didn’t need a new machine, just a new motor.
The yappy little black dog perched next to him, looking up suspiciously like he didn’t trust Marc.
“You want to unscrew it?” he asked the mutt. “Be my guest.”
The kids were eating lunch at the table as he worked so the room was chaos. He tried to hide a smirk when he heard a girl yell out a knock-knock joke that wasn’t funny—the tenth joke told in the last two minutes—but the kids laughed at it anyway. Two girls, two boys, one baby. Lots of damn kids.
Since they were busy eating, Marc decided to get the motor out today for a quick install tomorrow. As he leaned into the small opening, the other damn dog jumped onto his back. He sighed.
With the “help” of his new canine friends, he loosened the bolts then turned to the hoses. At the first twist, ice-cold water shot straight up his nose, burning his eyes and filling his mouth. Both mutts yapped and clawed like cats afraid of getting wet. He jerked his head back reflexively and slammed it straight into the top of the dishwasher.
“Fuck,” Marc blurted, rubbing his head, coughing. He couldn’t move away from the spray because the hose was shooting water all over the kitchen. He reached back in and, with one great yank, tightened the valve that stopped the flow.
He met the gaze of the beautiful green eyes across the room, and glared.
Beth watched in horror. Because of her connection to the company, she’d known the former Metros all-star pitcher was filling in for his father. But Beth had been leery of him coming. Marc was the type of super-celebrity who filled the gossip pages; even the daily news often covered his tweets. None of that pointed to him being able to fix a dishwasher, and Beth’s flooded kitchen disproved Glory’s assurance that Marc knew what he was doing.
“When you said the water’s off, I guess you meant the sink?” Marc snapped at her.
Beth had meant the dishwasher power was off. How was she supposed to know the difference?
“I—no, I thought you meant the power,” she stammered.
His eyes were slits of frustration as water dripped off his face, his annoyance clear as day as he stood to his feet. Beth headed toward him with a clean dish towel, but her foot slid in the giant puddle of water and she wobbled. He reached out to stop her as the dogs shot at his legs, tripping him. He and Beth both fell, landing on the wet floor with a thud and a chorus of barking dogs.
“Fuck!” She heard him curse again as her head smacked into his solid chest. Her arms tangled with his, and one of her legs rested between two powerful thighs. His hands were in the air, clearly unsure where to touch.
“You said a bad word two times,” Mandy accused while Beth tried to apologize.
“Not now, Mandy,” Beth said, mortified. This couldn’t possibly get worse. She tried to move off the substantial male body below her, but he tensed and grabbed her, holding her in place.
“Your knee is uncomfortably close to something I deem very important,” he said tightly. She pushed up carefully to see her knee less than an inch from his crotch, but before she could move, her daughter reappeared.
“Soap to qween the potty mouf,” Mandy lisped as she dumped blue liquid all over him. Beth’s head snapped around as her hand suddenly became slick with the soap running off of Marc.
“Amanda!” she yelled. She reached for her daughter, but she slid and fell again. Teeth clenched, Beth pushed up using Marc’s chest, but he grabbed her leg as her knee brushed against him, propelling her forward. Her body pressed into him, and Beth’s stomach fluttered as she got a whiff of his cologne. She looked his way again; too good-looking for his own good came to mind as he brushed his thick brown hair off his forehead. His irritated chocolate eyes, taut lips, and even the locked jaw with the scruff of day-old stubble were sexy. When you added the warm complexion he’d inherited from his Colombian mother, it wasn’t surprising he was on some magazine cover at the grocery store being toted as “Sexiest Man Alive.”
“Jesus,” he snapped. She swallowed the sudden awareness of his proximity.
She shifted, but he jerked when her leg got too close. Before she could attempt to move again, his muscular arms pinned her against his body. He flipped them both, so she was flat on the floor, and he was glaring down at her.
“Stop wiggling around before I end up with permanent damage,” he demanded. His eyes sparked, and she blushed. She started to speak, but he cut her off.
“I know—you’re sorry. It’s fine.”
He pulled himself to his feet before helping her up. She skidded like a child learning to ice skate, and Marc reached out to steady her. Unfortunately, soap is worse than ice, and his feet slipped right out from under him. Back down in a heap, they both went.
The kids at the lunch table shrieked with laughter. That sent her dogs into another frenzy—jumping on Marc and barking like crazed animals. Marc pushed and slid across the floor, away from her and the dogs.
“Now I get why no one will look at your damn dishwasher,” he snapped.
Then Beth looked on with wide-eyed horror as her dog did the unthinkable.
“No!” she yelled, but it was too late. The dog had already lifted his leg and peed straight onto Marc. And ten minutes ago she’d thought it couldn’t get any worse.
Why is life always like this?