Chasing The BallGirl (FanGirl Series2) Read online

  I slowly sat in my chair, and I saw Carson covering his mouth in an attempt not to laugh.

  “You knew about this?”

  “I tried to tell you that you needed to talk to Sam. You could have avoided being a miserable asshole for the past week.” He smirked.

  Fuck me.

  She wasn’t leaving. And I’d just fucked everything up.

  “I need to make this right,” I said out loud.

  “Yes, you do. She’s going out next weekend with Melody and Lexi to celebrate passing her exam, just to let you know.”

  Damn it, and I missed her passing the exam. Fuck!

  “Do you have any ideas?” I asked Carson.

  “I do actually. How do you feel about making a total ass out of yourself?”

  Chapter Thirty-One: Sammie

  After an awesome dinner at Vander’s—thanks to Carson—Lexi, Melody, and I headed to the Black Keys, a piano bar in the Inner Harbor, to celebrate my new job and passing my exam. Girls’ night was exactly what I needed, and thanks to wonderful company, I wasn’t thinking about Ryan as much tonight.

  Because Carson’s friend Parker owned the Black Keys, we had a table front and center for the show. A bottle of champagne was brought to our table as soon as we sat down.

  “This bottle is a gift from Ryan Cruz. He said, ‘Congratulations on your new job,’” the waitress said as she filled our glasses.

  My heart raced at his name, and it did nothing to help me keep him from my mind.

  Lexi’s eyes widened, and Melody grinned. “It’s the least Ryan could do.”

  “I assume that the announcement was made last week,” I said.

  “Oh, it was,” Melody confirmed.

  “Did something happen?” Lexi asked.

  “Apparently, Owen announced that you were the new pharmacist, and Ryan stood up and said you were going to Kansas City, so it couldn’t be true. From what Carson said, Owen put Ryan in his place and told him that you were going for training and that he must not have gotten the full story. Carson said Ryan was pretty quiet after that.”

  “Good. He deserves to look like a douchewad,” Lexi scoffed.

  So, if he knew that I wasn’t going to Kansas, why hadn’t he called me?

  It’d been over a week since Owen told the team. Maybe he really was done … and the thought made me nauseous.

  How was I supposed to celebrate success when I was heartbroken?

  Melody put her hand over mine. “That champagne is his way of reaching out to you. He’s never done the relationship thing before, and I’m sure he’s unsure of how to make things right after acting like a douche. But, that being said, don’t think about it tonight. We’re here to celebrate you and your accomplishments. We’re so proud of you, Sammie.”

  “So damn proud,” Lexi agreed.

  “I love you girls.”

  The three of us held hands around the table.

  “Have you and Carson figured out wedding plans?” I asked Melody.

  “Actually, yes … and I need to talk to you girls about that. We’re getting married in Captiva when the season is over. It will be a small ceremony, and I wanted to know if you both would be there.”

  “Absolutely!” I exclaimed.

  “You best believe it, biotch.” Lexi grinned.

  The music started shortly after we arrived, and the bar quickly filled to capacity. We made several requests, ranging from Elton John to Metallica.

  “What? ‘Enter Sandman’ is a classic,” Lexi defended when we questioned her choice.

  I requested Justin Timberlake, of course, but my request was never played. “That’s rude. They don’t like JT!” I yelled to the girls over the music.

  “They probably are Backstreet Boys fans!” Lexi said.

  Although I was pouting about my request being left in the wind, I swayed in my seat along to Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out” and sang along about Anthony working too hard and Sergeant O’Leary being a bartender at night. I was surprised during the song when I noticed Carson sliding into the seat beside Melody.

  “Hope you girls don’t mind that I crashed your night,” he said loudly.

  “Not at all! Welcome!” I smiled.

  “Congratulations on your new job.” He winked.

  “Thanks!”

  After the song was over, Parker called Carson out from the stage. “Well, well, it looks like my favorite Blue Bird is in the crowd tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Carson Lawrence!”

  The entire bar erupted in applause and screams.

  Carson stood and waved. Then, he turned to the stage to give his friend the finger. “Thanks, Parker.”

  “Now that I’ve thoroughly embarrassed my friend, we will move on to the next song. We had someone put up the big money to perform with us, so hang tight while we get set up.”

  “What’s that mean?” Lexi asked.

  “Anyone can pay fifty dollars or more to sing with the band. I did it to embarrass Melody when we came here the first time.” Carson bumped his shoulder against hers.

  “That stage is where we had our first kiss.” Melody lovingly looked at him.

  “Technical first kiss. That alley out back is where—”

  “Okay, you two make me nauseous. Shut up,” Lexi interrupted, and I couldn’t have been more thankful.

  Seeing Carson and Melody together made me hope that Ryan would get over this misunderstanding. I really missed him and his goofy, horny self.

  A single piano started playing, and I blinked my eyes several times to ensure that I was seeing things correctly.

  “Hey, everyone, how’s it going?” Ryan—my Ryan—said into the microphone. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to give Parker and Danny a break. My name is Ryan Cruz. I am one of the pitchers for the Blue Birds.”

  If I’d thought the screams were loud for Carson, they were deafening for Ryan.

  “Why, thank you. It’s good to see you all, too.” He chuckled into the microphone. “You’ll have to excuse me. I haven’t played piano for about a year, so if I fuck up, I apologize. But, tonight, I’m playing for someone very special in this bar.”

  My entire body was shaking, and my stomach felt like a blender on high.

  “Guys, let’s admit it; we are fucking idiots when it comes to females most of the time. We like to pretend like we know what we’re doing, like we don’t give a shit about if they leave us. We act like we’re fine on our own. But I’m here to tell you, when you screw things up with the girl you’re madly in love with, you’ll do anything to bring her back home. And that’s why I’m here—doing anything to bring my girl home. I wrongly assumed something about my girl, and you know what they say about assuming something … you make an ass out of you and me. Well, I was the only ass—and a pretty big one at that. So, tonight, I’m going to play a song for her and pray that it’s enough to get her to get her home. Then, I’ll do whatever I can to make it right.”

  The girls in the bar were aahing and screaming his name. He finally looked at me. It was the first time our eyes had met in over a week, and a calmness came over me.

  “I’m sorry, Sam. I hope you’ll forgive me. This song describes perfectly how I feel about you.” He turned his attention to the piano, and the notes to the song he was playing were now more recognizable. I covered my mouth with my hands and instantly felt tears forming.

  I’d never heard Ryan sing until this moment, but as of right now, it was one of my favorite things about him. He was singing “Mirrors” by Justin Timberlake, and I was a puddle of mush on the floor. With this song, he was telling me that I was his other half. That I filled that spot in his heart that had been vacant. That he was always going to be there for me, even when I couldn’t see him. That he was willing to fight for us. That I was the love of his life.

  The song wasn’t nearly long enough, and as the entire crowd jumped to their feet when the song was over, I was begging for an encore in my head. He stood from the piano and bowed. Then, he found me in the
crowd. When he jumped off the stage, I stood and opened my arms for him, and he practically ran into them.

  He held me tighter than he ever had and whispered in my ear, “I’m so fucking sorry. I missed you so damn much. Please forgive me. I swear ,Sam, I’ll do whatever I can to make this right.”

  I leaned back and held his face in my hands. “We’re going to be okay. It might take some working on, but we’ll be okay. I love you too much for us not to be.”

  He smiled and leaned his forehead to mine. “Can I kiss you?”

  I giggled. “You’d better.”

  When his lips touched mine for the first time in almost two weeks, it was as if the world was right again.

  “Can we go home?” I asked him, hating the feeling of hundreds of eyes in the bar on us as we kissed.

  He lifted me into his arms with the biggest grin. “Let’s go home.”

  I waved over Ryan’s shoulder to Lexi, Melody, and Carson.

  Lexi yelled, “Go to his place. I don’t want to hear you two moaning all night!”

  Ryan laughed and kept walking. “We should go back to your condo just to piss her off, but I don’t feel like sharing you with anyone else.”

  The ride back to Ryan’s place took too long, but we took advantage of every red light we hit. He kicked the door shut behind him and pressed me against it when we finally got inside.

  “I need you, Sam,” he begged against my neck.

  I’d told myself on the way here to go slow, but the more he kissed my neck, the more I wanted him, too. I felt like I needed the closeness just as much as he did.

  I grabbed his face and kissed him hard. His hands couldn’t explore my body fast enough. He lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. Our lips never parted while he took us back to his room.

  He laid me on the bed and quickly stripped me of my clothes before he did the same to himself. The look in his eyes as he crawled up the bed toward my body was purely carnal, more than I had ever seen from him. His mouth trailed wet kisses up my leg to my thigh, goose bumps rising over my body in anticipation for where he was heading.

  He stopped before kissing me where I needed him most and started over on the other leg. I let out a whine, and I felt his lips form into a smile against my leg.

  “Don’t rush. I want to make you feel good, Samantha. Let me make love to you.”

  For the first time in my life, I hated that I had long legs. When he finally made it back to my center, he kept his eyes connected with mine as he took a long, leisurely lick up to my clit. I moaned loudly and arched my back, my hands fisting the sheets.

  “I missed the way you taste, Sam. So damn sweet,” he whispered before putting his mouth back on me.

  His tongue teased the hardened bud, and I rocked my hips against his face, wanting the monstrous orgasm that was growing deep. I sat up and pulled him off me; he had a confused look on his face.

  “Are you okay?” He looked over my body.

  “I want you.” I wrapped my hand around his cock and pumped it a few times while I kissed him.

  He groaned into my mouth and leaned me onto my back. He reached into his nightstand for a condom, but I stopped him.

  “No condom. Nothing between us. I need to feel you.”

  His brows pinched together. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. I need to be close to you,” I confirmed.

  “I swear, Samantha, I love you so damn much.”

  He slowly pushed into me, both of us feeling a new sensation of skin on skin … but more than anything, we were closer than ever before. While he slowly thrust deep, the words he spoke were perfect.

  “You’re my forever.”

  “I can’t wait to marry you.”

  “You’re perfect.”

  “I’ll forever be in debt to God for you.”

  “I hope our children have your smile.”

  “I love you more than anything.”

  I wish I could live in this moment forever, just him and me in our little bubble of pure bliss. I felt how perfectly we fit together, how he had our hands tightly locked together above my head, how his kisses switched between deep and light, soft and hard. Above all, I could feel us becoming one. Not just our bodies, but also our souls were entangling, and I knew without a doubt that this man was who I was supposed to be with.

  Our kisses were becoming needier, the more he tried to take his time, but the both of us were ready to fall.

  “I feel you. You’re close,” he said.

  I nodded, unable to form any coherent sentence.

  “I’m there with you, sweetheart. I want to feel you explode around me. Don’t hold back.”

  I met him thrust for thrust, and just moments later, I detonated, my walls pulsating around him.

  “Sam!”

  I felt him jerk and then come with me. His mouth slanted over mine, and we kissed as the waves subsided.

  “Never … in my life … has something been that good.” He rolled onto his side and put his head on my chest.

  We lay there for several minutes in silence.

  “I was so scared that you were leaving me. I couldn’t handle the idea of not having you, and it freaked me out. I’m so sorry I didn’t give you the opportunity to talk,” he finally said.

  “I would never take a job that far away without talking to you about it first. When I told you I loved you, that meant I was going to consider you in everything I did. You might not always agree with my decisions, but I’m going to always think about how it will affect us. Because we are an us now. We’re a team. You and me. I hope you will give the same courtesy to me.”

  “Of course I will,” he answered. “I don’t deserve you, Samantha. You’re so fucking loyal and forgiving.”

  “And there will be times when I will need you to be loyal and forgiving because I’m not perfect either. I’m not going to give up on us because we had an argument or there was a misunderstanding. Just talk to me, Ryan. If this is going to go the distance, we need to communicate. If we love each other enough, we’ll make anything work.”

  “Baby, I love you so fucking much that I’ll do anything. Including singing JT in front of a sold-out bar.”

  “I think you need to do that at least one or two more times before we’re good.” I winked.

  As we laughed, I knew he was right. I couldn’t picture my life without him now that he was in it.

  Epilogue

  Sammie

  Wedding day.

  Not mine, no. Although I was sure as the sun that I would be with Ryan for the rest of my life, I was okay with waiting for the big milestones in the relationship. I would only ever be engaged and married once, and I didn’t want to rush it away.

  Today was Carson and Melody’s big day, and although it’d been raining since this morning, Mel was still calm and collected about her outdoor wedding that was to begin in ten minutes.

  “I think it’s time that we consider moving the wedding inside or postponing it,” Lexi told Melody in the nicest tone I’d ever heard pass her lips.

  I thought she was afraid Mel was going to snap and go bridezilla on us all at the last minute. I wouldn’t lie; the thought had crossed my mind as well.

  Melody just smiled at Lexi. “Everything will be fine. It’s going to stop raining. I’m going to marry Carson today on that beach. It’s going to happen.”

  I glanced out the window and wished I had Melody’s faith because this angry Florida sky was showing no mercy.

  “It’s good luck to have rain on your wedding day,” I thought out loud.

  Melody turned to me and gasped. “It is! Thank you for being positive, Sam. It’s appreciated.”

  Lexi rolled her eyes at me and grunted. “Fuck you and your positivity. Mel, I’m gonna give it to you straight up; it’s been raining like a mofo since yesterday, and this island is under a giant black cloud. You’re going to get that gorgeous dress soaked and ruin your hair and makeup if you walk outside. Guys can pull off the wet look—it’s hot as f
uck—but girls can’t. Mascara running down your face makes you look like a psycho bitch. Is that how you want to be remembered on your wedding day?”

  Melody stood, and just when I thought she might haul off and punch Lex in the nose, she hugged her instead. “Calm down. You’re stressed. I won’t look like a psycho bitch, and although he won’t be wet, Carson will still be hot as fuck.”

  Lexi held her at a distance and examined her. “How many Xanax pills have you taken today?”