She swung a pointed look toward Peyton and the entire room took a collective breath.
Beside me, Sunshine clenched my hand.
I was no expert on women. Sure, I knew how to get their attention, how to make them blush, and how to turn them on. But I didn’t pretend to understand what made them tick. Peyton, though, I was starting to know her.
She hated being the center of attention, especially because of her illness. She hated looking weak. Maybe it was because I hadn’t known her before she got sick, or when she was in the hospital, but the girl I saw was far from fragile. The Peyton I knew was strong. She was beautiful, smart, and carried herself with grace, even with her occasional limp. When she cared about someone, she did it with her whole heart.
Even when they didn’t deserve it.
Trapping her hand on my thigh, I linked our fingers and gave them a squeeze. Her eyes met mine from beneath her lashes, her long strawberry blonde hair masking a grateful smile. It was like a jolt of Red Bull to the heart.
“Who’s ready for volleyball?” Sandra asked suddenly, and Peyton glanced away.
I frowned at Jesse’s wife as a dozen folding chairs screeched across the wooden floor. “Volleyball?”
“Yep. Another fun Williams’ tradition,” she answered with a grin. “We sure do have a lot of them, huh?”
“That’s an understatement.” I tossed my napkin on an empty plate and turned to Peyton. “Did I miss a volleyball court somewhere on the ranch?”
“Nah, only sissies play on a real court,” she teased, her pink lips curving in a smile. “We don’t even use a regulation ball. We play with a blown up Dora the Explorer beach ball and the only rule is to keep it airborne for as long as possible. We don’t even use a real net or keep score.”
“How do you know who wins?”
Peyton laughed and poked me in the ribs. “It’s not always about winning, you know. Besides, it’s hard to worry about that when everyone’s playing, including my toddler nephew and ninety-year-old great-grandfather. It’s just fun, Justin. You do remember fun, right?”
What was the point of a game with no winner… and why would anyone want to play it?
Coach’s belly laugh trailed behind him and I shook my head in wonder. The man was even more competitive than I was, and he actually agreed to this? Sure enough, when we walked outside, there he was, standing out on the pseudo court wearing a big happy smile and holding a fluorescent pink beach ball in his calloused hands.
If the guys could only see this.
The makeshift net was a tree branch, and the family broke into roughly equal numbers on either side. I ended up with Peyton, her dad, her brother Jesse, her nieces Eva and Jennifer, and her seventy-two-year-old grandmother, Velma, who I quickly learned was a feisty old woman with a wicked serve.
I tried my best to stay in the moment. I truly did. I volleyed. I served. I even laughed at the complete ridiculousness of the game. When the huge ball came toward Eva, I hoisted her up and helped her nail it right in her dad’s face. He wasn’t real impressed, but she giggled like a banshee.
But, after about twenty minutes, it got to be too much.
Fourteen years of lonely Easters rushed over me. Christmases and birthdays with a card, a few hundred dollar bills, and one year even a new Jeep, one that I couldn’t even drive for another two years—but no hugs, no laughter. No love. Nights spent lying awake cursing Hollywood for the happy family crap they sold each year. Knowing it was a scam just to make a buck.
How was I to know that it wasn’t? That the whole time, Peyton and her family had been here, living that reality.
I couldn’t wrap my brain around the unfairness of it all. Every kid should have this. Families who spent time together. Who had traditions and memories and laughed at inside jokes. Families who celebrated holidays and didn’t leave for vacation without one of its members… or if they did, they at least missed that person while they were gone.
Everything hit me at once. My chest squeezed so tight, my ribs ached. I couldn’t breathe. My pulse began a painful tattoo inside my head, my temples felt like they were caving in, and I realized… I was about to cry.
Like a bitch, I was about to totally lose my shit in front of Peyton’s entire family.
Without a word, I took off.
“Justin!”
I couldn’t look back. No way could I face her like this. A pitiful excuse for a guy sobbing over stupid shit. It was embarrassing, it was painful, and it wasn’t her fault—but right now, I needed to take it out on someone, and I’d die before I let that be her.
I waved a hand at the question in Peyton’s voice and screamed, “I’ll be back.”
That’s all my thick throat allowed before it closed on a sob… a fucking sob… and I bit my lip until it bled. With my shoes slapping the earth, I fled as far away from the perfect, happy family as I could get.
God, I was pathetic.
PEYTON
SWEET SERENITY RANCH 5:45 P.M.