“That’s a great idea,” Mandy agrees. “Why don’t you let Jake take you out of the house for a bit?”

I nod again, and a second later Jake is leading me out the door. He purposefully, and aggressively, bumps shoulders with Dickface as we pass him.

The family room door closes behind him and Jake leads me out the front door, but not before I hear Mandy screech, “How dare you!”

Jake places me into the passengers seat of his truck and puts my seatbelt on like I’m a child. We’ve only said those two words to each other since he’s come back.

“Wait here, okay? I’m just gonna run in quickly and change.” He’s still in his baseball gear.

He comes out a minute later wearing dark jeans, light grey henley with the sleeves pushed up and the same cap on his head.

“Feel like hitting some shit?” he asks, getting settled in the drivers seat.

“You know a way to a girls heart.” I mock swoon and bat my eyelashes at him.

He reverses out of the driveway, changes gears, then holds my hand the rest of the way.

We end up at the batting cages.

Of course we do.

***

Jake’s standing at the pitching machine adjusting some dials while I stand in the cage, bat in hand.

He comes over to me and adjust my body to how I should be holding the bat, and tells me when the right time to swing is. I take in everything he says.

He goes back to the pitching machine and presses a couple buttons. The balls start shooting out. I hit the first six ‘out of the park’.

His eyes bug out of his head. “Okay, smartass,” he yells, but it comes out ‘smuuhtuhhs’. Australian’s don’t use ‘R’s apparently.

He plays with some more buttons.

The next few pitches come out faster, but I still manage to hit every one. He’s chuckling and shaking his head in disbelief.

He turns it up faster again.

These next lot get me, and I’m probably on 50/50 of hits to misses. After no less than 30 swings I shout out, “I’m done!”

He turns the machine off and strolls over to me.

“Wanna tell me what the fuck that was?” he asks, chuckling in amusement.

I ignore his question and hand him back the bat and helmet. “Thanks, Jake. I really needed that.” And I did, I really did.

“Seriously though, where did you learn to hit? I would not have expected that.”

Just as I’m about to answer, someone yells out his name.

We turn to see about five guys walking over to us, they reach us and each do that weird bro code hand shake fist bump shoulder slap half hug greeting.

The guys shoot the shit for a few minutes, then I see one of them staring at me, eye’s roaming my body up and down. He creeps me out.

“Who’s your friend here?” Creeper says loudly, interrupting their conversation.

Jake throws a possessive arm around my shoulders, I lean into him. “Guys, this is Mikayla, Mikayla, these are-"

“She your girl?” Creeper asks interrupting him again, his eyes trained on my tits. ugh.

“For now,” some girl coos from behind them. She makes her way to the front of the group.

Casey.

Where the fuck did she come from?

Jake tenses.

Luckily for us, my phone sounds with a text. Aunt Lisa lets us know that the cops are on the way to Jake's. I show him the text and he excuses us. We walk back to his truck with his hand on the small of my back.

We ride back in silence, but half way there I look over at him. His cap pulled down low on his forehead, almost past his eyebrows. He senses me looking at him and turns to me. He smiles that panty dropping smile, then turns back to face the road, smile still in place.

“So Casey, huh?”

His face falls instantly and we don’t talk for the rest of the ride.

***

*Jake*

When we pull up to the house the police cruiser is already there. We make our way into the living room to find them seated, waiting.

Dad’s here too.

The officers stand to shake Kayla’s hand and then wait for her to be seated before sitting back down.

Kayla sits on the recliner and I sit on the arm, she takes my hand in hers before getting comfortable.

“This is just a courtesy visit Miss Jones-" officer one starts.

“Micky… call me Micky… please.”

“Micky.” The officer nods at her.

Officer two says, “We just wanted to keep you updated on the case. There hasn’t been many changes, we still haven’t found him, but we’re doing everything we can.”

“Thank you,” Kayla says quietly.

“We’re still under the impression it was random. There is nothing to indicate otherwise, unless you have any information that might change that.”

Kayla shakes her head.

Officer one continues, “It looks like whoever was in there, was there for a simple burglary, we suspect that your family came home in the middle of it, and… well… you can guess what happened.” His voice breaks. “We’re also under the impression that they tried to burn the evidence, they started a fire in the garage, it got to all three cars housed in there, and to most of the kitchen. Luckily the fire department were there before it could get any further. We’ve swept the place clean of any evidence we might need, so you’re okay to go back there whenever you want and collect any personal belongings. Unfortunately, the fire department has deemed it a health risk to actually live there, the whole dwelling will need to be knocked down. We’re so sorry, Micky.”

Kayla’s eyes are brimming with unshed tears and Lisa moves to the other side of the recliner to comfort her.

The officers share a look and then officer two eyes Kayla. “Miss Jo-, uh, Micky,” he corrects. “There’s one other thing. We don’t want to go into too much detail about the crime, but we thought you should know, the gun shot wounds…” he takes a deep breath. Kayla is gripping my hand so tight the blood has drained from it. She’s leaning forward in the chair and has stopped breathing. She waits… “Each victim had a single gun shot wound to the head, they died instantly. They weren’t in any pain, Micky.” A single tear falls from the officers eye before he can wipe it with his shoulder.

Kayla’s entire body convulses and she falls to the floor in front of us. I pick her up and sit us back on the recliner, cradling and rocking her, I move the hair from her face as she cries into my chest.

The officers stand up and one of them speaks, “We’ll see ourselves out, thank you for your time. We’ll leave you with your loved ones, Mikayla.”

Dad shakes their hands as they leave.

Loved ones.

I think I do, love her, I mean.

I think I’m in love with this beautifully broken girl.

I carry her upstairs to my bed and that’s how we spend the night, her silently crying in my arms.

Chapter 14

*Jake*

I miss my morning workout again. Kayla spent the entire night crying quietly in my arms. She finally fell asleep around five. I didn’t.

I carefully remove myself from her and get out of bed. She needs to sleep. She has a meeting with their lawyer today, I guess about the will and house, I’m not sure. Dad will be there. I won’t.

I have to be at school, for the morning at least. Some of the trainers and players from UNC are meeting me at the field for ‘pre-orientation’, whatever that means. I’d much rather be here with Kayla.