4
FOR A TEMPERAMENTAL GUY, Brody really hadn’t been in many fights in his life.
He’d thrown a few punches back in Triple A when some redneck clown had threatened him with a broken beer bottle in retaliation for a flubbed play at the plate. And of course, there was the brawl seen around the world when he’d gotten into it with the Chicago Flames third basemen a few weeks ago. But other than that, he’d managed to keep his nose clean.
A feat he didn’t see lasting much longer unless he did some fast talking.
The jerk pointing in his face was clearly looking for trouble.
“Lower your voice, Ryan,” Naomi warned, peering past the newcomer toward the rec fields where a couple of young teams still ran their practices.
“So this is Ryan?” Brody clarified, understanding better why the guy was in a bad mood. “I didn’t recognize you without your bicycle helmet.”
He kept his arm around Naomi, figuring if his right hand was on her shoulder, he wouldn’t be tempted to knock the jerk’s accusatory finger into next year.
“Well, I recognize you, pretty boy, and if you don’t get your hands off Naomi now I’m gonna show you how we settle disputes around here. And it doesn’t involve a temper tantrum on home plate, I’ll tell you that much.”
Whoa. The guy wasn’t just pissed to see another man touching his ex. This man was livid to see Brody touching his ex.
Apparently his style of baseball didn’t appeal to the bicycle dude.
He was about to tell him to cool off when he realized Naomi had tensed beside him, her shoulders stiff as a board as she eased away from him.
“Ryan, we need to talk.” She moved to slide off the tailgate.
Brody held her back. “Wait a minute.” He looked at her, confused why she would take off with some angry jerk she’d already broken up with. “Do you see the vein ticking under this guy’s eye? You can’t go anywhere with someone this mad.”
His request was reasonable. Hell, his request wasn’t optional. He wasn’t letting this woman—the woman he’d probably never stopped loving—spend time with a guy who went around threatening people.
For all that Brody had a temper on the field, he’d never dream of bringing it into his personal relationships.
“Don’t you see what he’s trying to do?” Naomi spoke quietly, eyes pleading for understanding as she met his gaze. “He wants to goad you into a fight for his fifteen minutes of fame. Or maybe so he can get you kicked out of baseball when the media hears about it.”
Brody felt his eyebrows shoot up along with his skepticism.
“Give yourself more credit, Naomi.” He didn’t buy her theory for a minute. “Any guy who had you and lost you would be hurt to see you move on. I don’t need to punch this guy. He already took a right hook to the chest just seeing me touch you.”
But Naomi didn’t seem to hear him. She turned her attention to her ex. Reaching for the finger the guy still poked at Brody’s chest, she guided his hand down and away.
Just like that, the steam puffing the guy up seemed to hiss out of him. His shoulders sagged with defeat. His face fell. He sucked in a breath and Brody thought bicycle dude might cry.
If he was in Ryan’s shoes, he might.
The poor bastard had lost more than a hot girlfriend when Naomi dumped him. He’d lost a caring, warm-hearted, amazing friend.
Still, recognizing that and empathizing with the loss didn’t begin to feed the green monster that roared inside Brody when Naomi led Ryan a few feet away to talk privately. They weren’t far from him in physical distance, but watching Naomi stand so close to another man, her face etched in lines of tender concern, made Brody feel a thousand miles away from her in every way that counted.
One of the teams’ practices ended nearby and the parking lot started to fill with parents offering their kids advice or encouragement on how they’d played that day. Spikes sloshed through the muddy gravel lot, as the kids stowed their gear in trunks and shouted parting words to their friends. Brody sat apart from it all—unnoticed on the SUV tailgate with his hat pulled low. Not even the familiar sound of a bat pounding dirt out of mud-caked cleats could cheer him as he watched Naomi console her ex.
Did she want to get back together with the X-Gamer, even after that outburst? Hell, she’d stuck by Brody through enough shouting matches and had never seemed fazed.
But then, maybe Ryan felt like more of a real option for her since Brody hadn’t come out and said he’d do whatever it took to make a future work for them. He’d been waiting for the right moment. And he’d almost arrived at it, but the bicycle dude had ruined it with crappy timing and bad attitude.
Unwilling to wait anymore for his shot at happiness, Brody slid off the tailgate and approached Naomi. He needed to speak to her now, before she patched things up with a guy who wasn’t close to worthy of her.
His step slowed.
Was he worthy of her?
Brody would uproot her. Disrupt her teaching, her coaching, her whole life. And while he had a multi-million-dollar contract and a kick-ass lifestyle to offer, he knew she didn’t care about stuff like that. His car didn’t impress her any more than any of his other toys would.
Scrubbing a hand through his hair, he spun on his heel and stalked back to her vehicle. He couldn’t afford to screw up her life when she had carved out a happy niche for herself here. He had no plan of attack and no inkling how he was any better for her than X-Game dude, who at least had the benefit of never having broken up with her via cell phone.
Dropping into the passenger seat of Naomi’s SUV, he banged his head on the headrest and wondered where to go from here.
“THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME talk to him.”
Naomi finally broke the silence on their way back to her place after the embarrassing encounter with Ryan at the practice field.
She’d taken the long way home, both to clear her head and because she remembered Brody liked the view of the Atlantic from a bluff they would pass in another few minutes.
She felt a need to make it up to him after the way she’d ditched him at the field to talk Ryan off the emotional ledge. Things had ended on an ugly note with him a few weeks ago and she’d managed to avoid him until today. No doubt seeing her with Brody had hurt.
“You have a knack for calming down ticked off guys,” he observed lightly, his gaze trained out the window at the sun warming the wet fields after the downpour the night before.
“I figured he deserved to know how I felt about you since he had accused me of being hung up on you.” Her heart pounded with the admission and the scariness of laying it on the line with Brody.
But why avoid the truth?
Brody straightened in his seat, his gaze rounding on her as she approached the turnoff for a scenic lookout point over the ocean.
“So you told him how you feel, but not me?” He sounded incensed.
Slowing to a stop, she put the SUV in Park.
“Consider it payback.” She swiveled in her seat to face him, prepared to have it out with him once and for all. “According to you, you really cared about me a year ago and didn’t bother telling me. Instead you let me think I meant nothing to you.”
This man had broken her heart, and while he might have had mildly good intentions for what he’d done, his approach had sucked. If she was going to make peace with their past, she would at least call him on the behavior and—just maybe—give him a glimpse into how it had made her feel.
Apparently the glimpse had rendered him speechless because he stared at her in disbelief, his gorgeous mouth falling open so that she reached to lift his jaw for him.
“Don’t you remember?” she prodded, turning to roll down her window a little more so the fresh seaside air could blow through. “You told me last night that letting you stay could be my revenge. I could be the one to walk away.”