More than the Game by Jenni Bara

5

@SecState:Missed @EdwardDCampbell at the #countyfair? Don’t worry, there’ll be more chances to share a corn dog with the Sec of State soon! Family comes first, Ed couldn’t miss his granddaughter’s 3rd birthday. Watch for pics of Ed spending Sunday the way God intended—with family and cake!

Beth wouldn’t usually describe her kitchen as small, but the men in it currently dwarfed the room. Sometimes she felt like Snow White, but instead of seven dwarfs to take care of, she had seven giants. Her late husband’s brothers weren’t only big in size but in voice and personality as well, so their presence wasn’t something you could ignore.

She was grateful their sexual conquests over the last few weeks was taking up most of the conversation, and no one was talking about her run on the beach. Not that they had forgotten she was in the room; they’d just stopped censoring themselves around her long ago.

Clayton, the youngest, returned home from college, so there was plenty of catching up to do. The siblings sat at her table drinking beer while she stood at the counter, setting up tomorrow morning’s coffee. Missing from the gathering were the guys who didn’t live in town but if they’d been nearby, they would have been there too. Her table was where the boys met to drink, BS, and swap stories.

All the brothers were close to each other, and to Beth and her kids. When she and the boys were together, it was hard to break into their little clique. Beth had dated a few guys since Bob’s death, but her brothers always scared them off quickly. Only one person had successfully broken through the gates and become part of the family: Corey Matthews, the man currently opening her front door.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Danny said sarcastically as all six foot three inches of the New York Metros’ new starting pitcher ducked through the front door.

“Don’t start,” Corey snapped, his chiseled face sporting a scowl. He headed straight to the fridge for a beer.

Corey’d had years with the guys to get into their good graces. Beth and Corey had dated when she was in high school, bringing Corey into the Evans fold. And after all the two had gone through, they remained friends even after she married Bob at nineteen.

“Nice game,” said Will, Corey’s best friend, giving him a smirk from across the room. Will, the oldest of the local Evanses, was Beth’s age. And most of the time, she felt like he was the only other adult in the room with her. When she needed help to shut off the water or watch the kids, that was Will’s job. Giving her a hard time—Danny and Clayton covered that.

Corey flipped Will off, and his two-tone brown eyes glared at the three guys sitting at her table.

“If you say one word about how I’m trending, I will beat you,” Corey warned. He was known for his inconsistency on the pitching mound, and the harsh New York baseball fans and media regularly killed him for it on social media.

Beth rolled her eyes at his drama before clearing her throat. Corey’s gaze followed the line of her pointed finger to a pile of cell phones on the counter. Hers was missing, of course, since Danny had predictably forgotten to bring it. She invoked the ‘cell phones on the counter’ rule as soon as any of Corey’s games were heading into the toilet. This way, there was no talk about what the world was saying.

“Thanks, baby.” Corey sent her a weak smile and headed to the table, dropping into a chair next to Will.

“We don’t need our phones to know you stunk,” Danny teased cheerfully.

Corey’s teeth clenched before he blew out a breath and slumped further into the chair. Nothing he said would stop the good-natured rib-fest. “At least I know no one’s going to be waiting outside this house and hounding me for a comment in the morning.”

Corey and Beth’s friendship was something they kept from the media so no one would ever look for him here. Back in the day, they had flaunted where they were because they loved the attention their relationship garnered, but neither of them was the same person anymore.

“No joke though, you sucked ass today, bro,” Clayton said, drawing glares from all the guys for breaking the no-cursing rule. “Sorry, just got back. But nine runs in five innings? That’s garbage.”

“It’s great you’re home to add to the insults,” Corey said.

“I wasn’t insulting you; I was describing you.” A burst of laughter flew around the table. “If they’re going to pay you the big bucks and give you the top spot in the rotation, you can’t blow multiple games in a row. You’re lucky Marc Demoda’s shoulder is shot; otherwise, he’d have his top spot back.” Clayton laughed and pulled Beth onto his lap. The baby of the bunch, pushed everyone’s buttons simply because he could. “Speaking of Marc Demoda…”

Danny, his constant partner in crime, chuckled with Clayton this time.

Beth’s glare tore through Clayton. “No, we weren’t.”

“I never said you were.” Clayton’s blue eyes sparkled as he smiled evilly, which played weird on his storybook prince face.

“I ran into the frogger last night, and he’s in a real mood. Left the bar alone, and by choice.” Corey shook his head.

“Hear that? Marc went home alone last night.” Danny waggled his eyebrows, ignoring Beth’s reprimanding look. A wiser man would have shut up, but wisdom wasn’t something the twenty-four-year-old possessed.

“Why does Beth care?” Corey asked, finishing his beer before opening one from the middle of the table. “You can’t have suddenly joined the many women in the world who lick the shoes he walks in, can you?”

“She’s not licking his shoes; like his mouth,” Clayton said, earning a slap on his head.

“How is it that you know what this is all about, and I’m in the dark? I live here. You just got home,” Corey complained, looking from Clayton to Beth.

“Yeah, and she normally likes to gossip like an old lady.” Will smirked, scratching his nose with a particular finger. “I thought you told me nothing was going on between the two of you?”

Will had shut the water off after that embarrassing first day. The heat crept up her cheeks thinking about it.

“I dropped by the beach this evening and Danny was walking one Marc Demoda home after our girl tried to drown him. Marc seems to think …” Clayton and Danny both started laughing, but silence settled over the other men at the table.

“I’m not drunk enough for this,” Corey said, guzzling his beer before adding. “You can’t seriously be interested in him?”

She wasn’t. At least she didn’t want to be. But once she’d gotten home and dried off, she wasn’t so annoyed about Marc hijacking her run. In fact, she could almost say it had been—fun? But she wasn’t admitting that to anyone in this room.

“He fixed my dishwasher, and he played baseball with the boys, and he interrupted my run today. That’s it.”

Will, ever the adult, asked pointedly,

“But you tried to drown him?”

“He made some stupid bet he could race me back to his house. I let him fall in a hole so I’d win, and he tossed me in the ocean as payback. I had to lay him out after that,” Beth mumbled. The boys all hooted and hollered, and she couldn’t help but smile. Yeah, overall, it’d been fun. “My father will flip, so no mention of it tomorrow.”

“I love that you took him down.” Corey smiled.

“That’s because you can’t get out of his sexy Hispanic shadow,” Danny said, doing a little cha-cha shoulder shake. “Me, I can appreciate his talent on and off the field—right?” He wiggled an eyebrow at Beth again as she sighed.

“You know you guys are my brothers, you could act like it,” Beth said, to another round of laughter.

“Does he know who you are?” Will asked, too responsible to miss the obvious.

“Doubt it.” Beth sighed. “I keep telling him I’m not interested, but he won’t back off.”

“Maybe you’re giving him some mixed signals?” Danny raised his eyebrow at Beth. That was a fair point, but not one she would concede.

“And I told him both when he was here for dinner and when—”

“Wait, he was here for dinner too?” Corey interrupted, and Beth wished she could call the words back.

“Mandy invited him.”

“So you invited him over for dinner, played baseball with him, and let him run with you, but you don’t understand why he isn’t giving up. If I were him, I’d take that as a green light every time.” Danny raised his beer to point it at her.

“Snake in the grass! I told him multiple times I wasn’t interested. He’s not listening.”

“Beth? What’s the deal here?” Will asked, reaching over and tugging on one of her curls. “You know if you’re dating, we want to meet him. We need to give him the ‘we will castrate you’ speech.”

“I gave him a warning tonight, very brotherly,” Danny assured Will, who didn’t look convinced. Danny was Will’s opposite and much better at BS than warnings.

“One favor, Beth?” Corey looked pleadingly at her, sitting perched on Clayton’s lap.

“What?” she asked suspiciously.

“I get to be the one to tell him you were mine first.” Corey laughed.

Beth snorted. “Jerk.”

“Welcome back, Elizabeth Campbell. We missed you the last few years,” Danny chuckled.

“Life is about to get a heck of a lot more interesting boys,” Clayton added.

“You guys stink,” Beth mumbled.

“You know you love us, doll. And if you say the word, we’ll get him to back off,” Danny said, laughing with the rest of them. But they meant it. If Beth wanted them to, they would get rid of her Marc problem for her. All she needed to do was ask.

So why wasn’t she asking?