Same Time Next Year(10)

I’m not buying it, though. She’s curious. Does that mean something?

“Well, we’d have it at my parents’ house. Of course, my four sisters would be there—”

“Four sisters?”

“Yup. I’m the baby.”

“No way you have ever been a baby. You were born six foot five.”

I crack a laugh. “Nope. Not until sophomore year of high school.”

Briefly, she stares off over my shoulder. “You having four sisters explains a lot.”

“What do you mean?”

She hums in her throat. “You’re polite. You give off this sense of . . .”

“What?”

It’s like she can’t find the right word, so she flutters her fingers for a few beats. “Safety. You respect women. I can tell. You’re not just pretending to listen to me. You look at me in a thoughtful way that doesn’t make me feel like I’m rambling—and I always feel like that. Sometimes even when I’m talking to other women. You’re not just pretending to listen while ogling my chest and wondering when you’ll get to see me with my shirt off.”

Silence passes. “Confession. I just ogled.”

“Oh, honey.” She gives me the cutest pout. Like it makes me want to slam my head into a wall. “You were doing so well.”

“I’m sorry.” I drag my hands down my face. “You have incredible tits.”

“Thank you.”

“I can listen and absorb everything you’re saying and still hope your shirt accidentally rips and they come popping out of your bra.”

“I don’t think you understand the mechanics of breasts. Or clothing.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. I haven’t laid a finger on a woman since . . .”

Her eyes narrow curiously, her smile playful, but I see the way she digs her fingertips into her knee. Is she nervous about my answer? “Since when?”

I’m powerless to do anything but tell her the truth. “Since the first night I came to Sluggers and saw you.”

The flirtatious quality of her smile melts away slowly, replaced with something so vulnerable, I almost reach over and pull her into my lap. To protect her from whatever it is. “Sumner. I don’t . . . I can’t—” She remains very still for a moment, then turns to face me with her eyes squeezed shut.

“What you said before—about fear—you were right.”

Sensing she’s on the verge of opening up to me, I don’t dare move a muscle. “Was I?”

“Yes.” She wets her lips and braids her fingers together tightly. “My father was a long-haul trucker. When I was twelve, he sat my mother and I down at the kitchen table and told us he had another family.” She looks at me to get my reaction. I have no idea what’s showing on my face, but I’m totally and utterly stunned, so probably that. “He told us he was sorry, but he was going to live with them permanently.”

I’m not even sure I can form words. “Britta . . . you never should have been there for that conversation. Not like that.”

She acknowledges that with a stilted nod. “My mom’s mental health suffered for a long while after that. She couldn’t get out of bed for her shifts at Sluggers, so I tried to help. And I felt so bad, because I didn’t want to be home. It was so scary to see her so still and silent like that. And my dad was gone—”

I pick her up and put her in my lap, my arms wrapping around her like steel bands.

She’s trembling a little, and I have to trap a tortured shout by pressing my mouth to her shoulder, stroking her hair probably way too hard. The story she just told me is so much more fucked up than I was imagining. I’m livid. I’m fucking livid over her having to live through any of that. But I can’t let the anger run away with me because the focus needs to be here, on Britta, not on my reaction. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

Practice is over, but some of the guys are still down on the ice.

Bryce is among them, and he’s looking at me knowingly. And it dawns on me why.

“Bryce is your half brother. He’s . . . part of that other family. That your father left for.”

She nods into my neck. “He got in contact with me when I was a senior in high school. To say sorry. I really wanted to hate him, but I couldn’t. He’s too . . . Bryce. For years, we kept in contact, online mostly. It was just a coincidence when he got picked up by the Bandits.”

I’m desperately trying to take in all this information and keep my millions of questions at bay. There will be time for those later, but right now, there is one pressing issue that I can’t ignore. I’ve seen this unique light shining inside her since day one, and here it is. Proof that I’ve had her pegged correctly as one of a kind this whole time. “Britta.”

“Yeah?”

“The grace and character and fucking forgiveness it took to be friends with Bryce? Those are not small things. The bravery it took to cover your mother’s shifts . . . not small.” I let out a gusting exhale. “I’m sorry I mistook protecting yourself for fear.”

I hear her swallow several times, and I pull her as close as I can, wishing I could soak her into my chest where it would be easier to guard her. If anyone ever hurts this girl again, I’m going to start tearing down skyscrapers like hockey Godzilla. “Does he ever come to the games?”