Hard to Love You

Mason rests his forehead against mine. “I will Hailey, I promise. I will tell you everything, just give me a few days to get to the bottom of it first.”

“A few days Mase, that’s it. A few.” Mason lets out a long, minty breath.

“I will tell you everything and I will never do this to us again. I’m tired of all this, Hailey.” Mason tells me before he lifts me so that he can stand up. He brushes the sand off his ass and then helps me up. While I wipe the sand off the back of my legs and Mason grabs my shoes. He grabs my hand with his and then we walk back up to the reception.

Mason stops me before I take a step up to the deck, “Tell your band boy I’m coming after my girl.” He says with a smirk on his face.

I smile the first real smile all day long. “You make it so hard to love you, Mason Cahill.” I tell him as I shake my head.

“I know, but I don’t mean it too.” He says.

I let go of his hand and start walking away so I can find Cole and my mom.

“Hailey!” Mason yells.

I look back and raise my eyebrows, surprised by his sudden outburst.

Mason looks around, noticing the attention that he caused by yelling my name. When his eyes land back on me, he mouths, “I love you.”

It takes me a second to figure out how to respond so I do what he does to me when he is up on the mound when he’s pitching. I wink twice at him.

He seems happy with that response. I turn around and Cole and Mom are standing there, waiting for me at the table.

“Ready to get out of here?” I ask them.

“Yeah I’m exhausted.” Mom says.

“Let me go say goodbye to MacKenzie and Hunter and we can go.”

“Um, that’s going to be a little hard. They already left.” Cole tells me.

I laugh and shake my head, of course they would cut out of their wedding early.

“Well I guess I’ll see them at breakfast tomorrow then.”

13

Cooper and I had to get up at the crack of dawn this morning because we have a game this afternoon. Luckily I don’t have to pitch again until Wednesday so I have it pretty easy today. I’m a little hung over since I drank more than I should have at the wedding last night. We pulled up to the Lakewood Stadium with about ten minutes to spare, which is a lot better than I had been doing lately. I’m trying to turn my shit around and stop pissing coach off. I’m done throwing myself a pity party.

Warm-ups are finishing up. Cooper is excited for today’s game against Greensboro. Zack O’Neil is pitching today. Zack has one hell of an arm on him. He threw a slider at Chris, our catcher, and it was f**king perfect.

I have plans for tonight after the game so I am impatiently waiting for it to be over. It feels like the innings are never going to end. I’m kind of glad I’m not pitching today; my head isn’t quite in the game. All I can think about is the way Hailey felt in arms last night. I try to pay attention to the guys and the game but my mind keeps wandering back to when I first got my street bike and took Hailey for a ride on it.

MacKenzie was throwing a sweet sixteenth birthday party for Hailey, the same weekend I was buying my Suzuki GSXR. I had saved all my hard earned money that I got from working with my uncle over the summers and on the weekends. I, along with Hunter and Cooper, took our road test for our motorcycle licenses a few weeks ago so everything was set. MacKenzie made me promise before I left that I would be back before the party started. She was growing used to the idea of Hailey and I being really good friends. Hailey liked that I protected her, just as I always did with MacKenzie. I just wished I could also protect her from her screwed up family.

Cooper, Hunter and I all headed out to the Suzuki dealership early that afternoon so we would be back in time for the party. Once I laid my eyes on my bike I knew I had to have it. I fell in love. It was a Suzuki GSXR 750, all black and chrome, fast and loud, just the way I wanted it. I test drove it and everything felt perfect, I was sold. Only then did I realize my problem; there was no way we were making it back to the party in time. Once we were at the dealership, Hunter and Cooper had to get bikes too. That wasn’t part of the plan so technically it wasn’t my fault we were late.

Finally, after we got all had our finance paperwork done Hunter decided to leave his truck there so he could ride his bike to the party with us. We would just come back to pick up the truck later that night. Cooper decided he wanted to take the long way home and that was a huge mistake. Route 295 was jammed bumper to bumper with traffic, all lanes stopped. We were between exits so it wasn’t like we could turn off and loop back around to go home. When they finally opened the highway, after they’d cleaned up a vehicle fire, we were two hours late to the party. We all parked the bikes up on the sidewalk since the driveway was full. I was unsnapping my helmet when I caught the front door fling open. MacKenzie stood there with her hand on her hip.

“Really?” She asked when the three of us walked up.

“Sorry Kenz, we got held up with the paperwork and then hit traffic.” I said as I slipped past her into the house.

The house was packed with all MacKenzie and Hailey’s friends. I scanned around for Hailey but didn’t see her anywhere. I knew she had to be somewhere since this was her party after all.

“You get clean up duty, jerks.” MacKenzie said as she stomped past us into the sitting room.

Hunter, Cooper and I went into the kitchen to grab a few slices of pizza. Dad and Mom were there and started grilling us about why we were so late. Mom was worried sick that something happened because none of us were answering our cell phones. Mom had begged me not to get a bike before we left and now that Cooper and I both had one I saw the panic flash in her eyes. I assured her we would be careful. Dad wrapped his arms around her and told her that we were nineteen now and old enough to start making our own decisions. She knew he was right but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t worry about it.

I left Cooper and Hunter in the kitchen talking to Mom and Dad and went in search of Hailey. I knew she would be pissed but I’d just have to make it up to her. Maybe a ride on the bike would do the trick. I walked into the sitting room and found her sitting on Tyler Walter’s lap. That guy was a piece of shit and only after one thing, a piece of ass. I’ve heard about how he treats the girls he’s with and he deserved an ass beating for that. The only reason he didn’t get one was because he was under age and I didn’t need to be put in jail for hitting a minor. I’ve warned both MacKenzie and Hailey to steer clear from him, obviously they didn’t listen now that Cooper and I aren’t around as much.