I scrub my hand across my jaw. “I have a brother?” I’m still trying to absorb the words. I look Shane in the eyes. “I want to meet him. Is he in town?”

He shakes his head. “No. He’s in Atlanta. I’ve been coming here on business. I’m scouting locations for somewhere to start up a new program. And anyway, I was hoping you and I could repair our relationship before introducing you. Get things off on the right foot.”

“Repair our relationship?” I look at him through damaged eyes. “I don’t care if my mother threw you out or not, you are the one who cut off all contact. I’m twenty-five fucking years old, Shane, and I’ve never received so much as a phone call or a goddamn birthday card. What you broke is beyond repair.”

“What are you talking about?” he asks, cocking his head to the side. “I sent you cards every birthday, Christmas and Easter. I sent gifts, too. Even from prison. I sent them for years, Caden. Despite the fact your mother told me to stop. She said it hurt you and your sister to get gifts from the man they despised. But I kept sending them anyway, until the one Christmas when the presents I sent you were returned along with a note from you and Alexa asking me not to contact either of you again.”

“That’s crazy,” I tell him. “We never wrote any such letter. And we never got any cards. We never got anything from you.”

He looks about as broken as a man can look when he hears my words.

“Caden, no. I did. I sent them. I promise you I did.” He closes his eyes and sighs in frustration. “She must have hidden them from you. Or thrown them away. I can’t believe she would do such a thing. I tried so hard to get you what I thought would make you happy. One year I stood in line for hours so I could get a pink scooter for Alexa—one with those tassels hanging off the handlebars. She loved pink. From the time she could dress herself, she would only wear pink. I think she must have been six or seven that year.”

“She was eight,” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “I remember because it was the best present she ever got. She flipped out when she opened it. She never let the thing out of her sight. It—it was from you?”

He nods, his eyes becoming glassy with tears. “Did you get any of the others? The pogo stick? The collection of Superman DVDs? The Game Boy?” He runs a hand through his hair. “The … the baseball glove?”

My heart lodges somewhere in my throat. So many things are going through my head right now. Not the least of which is that my mother might have lied to us. She may have passed all those gifts off as being from her. She withheld the fact that my father was trying to contact us all those years. That she was the one who kept him from us.

“When?” I ask, needing more concrete information. “How old was I when you sent the glove?”

He thinks on it a beat. “You would have been five. Same age as I was when my father gave me one.”

Oh, my God. He is the one who got me the glove? The glove that had me begging my mom to let me play T-Ball? The glove that still sits on my dresser as a reminder of where I came from and what I had to go through to get here.

The glove that made me who I am today.

“I became a baseball player because of that glove,” I say through the lump in my throat.

Tears spill over his lashes as he can no longer control his emotions. He reaches over and puts his hand on mine. I don’t pull away. I don’t pull away because I hear Murphy’s words echoing through my head. What if it turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to you?

“So,” I say, choking back my own tears. “Tell me about my little brother. Does he like baseball?”

My dad laughs. Then we spend the next two hours getting to know each other; making up for twenty-five years of lost time. He tells me about the program he runs. I tell him about my job. He shows me pictures of the step-mother I never knew. I let him scroll through pictures of my nieces—his grandkids—on my phone.

“What do you need from me, Caden?” he asks, when our conversation winds down. “I’ll do anything you ask.”

I look at the picture of Scott, once again. “I need you to go with me to see Lexi,” I say. “And then the three of us are taking the first flight we can get to Atlanta.”

Chapter Thirty-two

Murphy

I stare at the picture of Caden and his brother, amazed at how Scott is just a smaller version of Caden. Who could have imagined that his dad reaching out to him could have led to this? Their relationship is far from ideal, however, as Caden has a lot to overcome in his mind before he can fully accept his dad. But he’s trying. He’s talked about him a lot tonight. And the way he looks when he speaks of Scott—I can tell he’s already become the proud older brother.

“Thank you,” he says, putting his fork down, full of the dinner we’ve once again cooked together at his place.

“You cooked half of it,” I say, getting up to clear the dishes.

He grabs my arm, pulling me back. “Not for dinner.” He nods to the picture of him and Scott. “For that. I wasn’t ready to face my father, Murphy. You are the one who encouraged me to do it. And now my whole world has changed. I can’t thank you enough.”

I smile down at him. “You would have gotten there eventually. All I did was give you a little nudge.”

He pulls me onto his lap and I deposit the plates back on the table. My heart beats wildly in my chest. I’m sitting on him in a way girlfriends might sit on their boyfriends. He’s staring into my eyes the way one lover would stare into another’s.

We haven’t talked about it. About us. Not since our last date—or whatever. We’ve texted. We’ve had conversations at the gym. But, other than the one time he said that the only person he wanted a thing with was me, he hasn’t mentioned it.

He runs a finger lightly across my scar. “Let’s go out for a drink,” he says, eyeing my neck like he wants to devour it with his lips.

My mind barely comprehends his words because all it’s focused on is his growing erection beneath me. I don’t want to go to a bar with him. I don’t want to go anywhere but back to his bedroom where I can fulfill the fantasies that have been consuming my every waking hour.

But when my head clears and comes down from the clouds, I realize how monumentally bad that decision would be. I mean, this isn’t even a date if you ask Caden.

“A drink sounds great,” I tell him, extracting myself from his lap.

We clean up the kitchen before heading out. On the way to the front door, he reaches into a bin, pulling out a couple of Hawks hats. He puts one on his head and then puts the other one on me. He takes care to fit it perfectly to my head and then he tucks my hair behind my ears.

“Have I ever told you how good you look in my hats?”

I laugh. “Your hats?”

He shrugs confidently.

“It’s not even daylight, Caden,” I say, going to remove mine. “Why—”

“Camouflage,” he says, putting a hand on the top of my hat to keep me from taking it off.

I frown, wondering if he’s afraid to be seen out with me.

He puts a finger under my chin and raises my head up until our eyes meet. “Don’t read too much into it, Slugger. What we do together is nobody else’s business, that’s all.”

I nod, willing myself to believe his words. “But where will we go without you being recognized?”

“Someplace dark. We’ll sit in the back.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I ask, not wanting him to get mobbed by fans.

He eyes me up and down, perusing every inch of me like he’s appraising a prized possession. He grabs my hands, pulling me so close that my chest touches his. When he leans down, the bills of our hats collide. “You look amazing. You smell amazing. And all I’ve been able to think about tonight is dragging you back to my bedroom. So, yes, I’m sure we need to get the hell out of my apartment and go somewhere safe.”

Heat courses through my veins and I smile thinking that he’s been fantasizing about me as well. “I’m not safe with you?” I tease.

A hand comes up to caress my scar and his breath warms my face. “You’ll never be safer with anyone else, Murph. I swear it.”

He pulls away before his lips have a chance to touch mine, leaving me wanting more. Needing more.

“Come on, let’s go,” he says, opening the door and pulling me through.

~ ~ ~

I still can’t believe Caden has gone unnoticed. Yes, it’s dark. And yes, we’re sitting off in a corner. But even the whole way here, when we walked along the crowded streets, nobody singled him out.

I’ve often thought New York City is a good place to get lost. To blend into the crowd. Mallory told me not so long ago that it’s why her uber-famous husband, Chad, likes it here so much. The city is busy. People rarely take the time to pay attention to each other. It’s especially true on a Saturday night when everyone seems to have a place to go and is in a hurry to get there.

The waitress places our second round of drinks on the table and Caden carefully sips his while I all but guzzle mine. Anything to distract me from the soft under-the-table touches. The strong leg he has pressed against mine. The seductive glances. They all have my body humming.

Caden, on the other hand, is calm and calculated. I’ve noticed he doesn’t drink much. My guess is that he likes to be in control and if he drinks too much, he may give that up.

Suddenly, I have thoughts about getting him drunk and watching him lose control.

“I’d love to be in your head right now,” he says, studying me intently.

I look away, embarrassed that I was staring at him, having lewd thoughts about what I want to do to him. What I want him to do to me.

He laughs at my reaction. Then his face breaks into a smile and he stands up, pulling me off my chair and over to the dance floor. “I love this song,” he says, twirling me around and into his arms as ‘Sweet Caroline’ blasts through the speakers.