April (Calendar Girl #4) Page 5

  We made it through the home to the kitchen where I was instantly assaulted with the smell of cooked meat. My mouth watered at the smell of sage, and rosemary along with whatever was brewing on the stovetop. A large roast sat on top of the counter and a man with his back to us was carving it into slices and placing them on a platter. A small red-headed girl with giant blue eyes clocked me the second I entered. She stood up and clapped her hands. She couldn’t be more than four years old. “You’re here!” she squealed in that way only small children were capable of, with their whole bodies and full of joy.

  I smiled wide and the man turned around and boy was I not wrong. He looked exactly like Mason or what Mason would look like in twenty-five years. “Hey Dad, this is Mia. She’s my uh…”

  The man smiled wide and laid out a hand. “You’re the woman everyone says is my son’s girlfriend.”

  I wasn’t sure how Mason wanted to play this so I stayed quiet about the girlfriend part. “It’s good to meet you Mr. Murphy.”

  “Call me Mick, everyone does, ‘cept my boys because I’ll tan their hide if they disrespect their elders.”

  At that I nudged Mason. “Your Dad is awesome.”

  “Yeah, unfortunately when he’s around my cool factor goes down about fifty notches.”

  “And don’t you forget it boy! Now set the table will ya?”

  Mason proceeded to set the table while I introduced myself to Eleanor who liked to be called Ellie. She walked me through the house and showed me every single one of her toys then her room where she had everything princess and was very proud of it. I scanned the room. I never had anything like this as a child. A room devoted to the things I loved as a kid. Maddy and I always shared a room and neither one of us had a theme or anything much we could call our own. Made me sad for what I missed out on and happy that even though men we’re raising Ellie without a woman’s hand, they were still doing right by her.

  My heart ached when Ellie placed a crown on my head and one on her own. “You can be the Queen, and I’ll be the Princess,” she offered. I nodded then hugged her little body. She held me tight before another look-a-like of the Murphy family interrupted us. Made me wonder if any of them looked like their mother.

  “You must be Mia?” I nodded and stood up from the floor, Ellie clasped my hand tight.

  “Daddy, this Queen Mia and I’m Princess Ellie. Do you want to be the King or the Prince?” she asked, her eyes serious as she stared at her father.

  “I want Princess Ellie to wash her hands for dinner and let Queen Mia get back to her King,” he said playing along.

  Ellie looked up at me with her huge blue eyes that she must have gotten from her mother because her Dad had the same green eyes that both the other Murphy men had. “Will you save me a spot next to you at dinner, Queen Mia?” She asked in her too cute little voice.

  “Of course I will, Princess Ellie; I’d be honored.” I bowed for effect and she clapped her hands, spun on a toe, and was off running down the hall.

  The big man with coppery hair and green eyes held out a hand. “Sorry about that. Ellie doesn’t get much female time. I’m Brayden.” I shook his hand and held it.

  “Totally okay. I had fun. I can’t remember the last time I spent playing with a child.” And I couldn’t. There weren’t any children in my family that I knew of, none of my friends had kids, well technically, a couple of my new friends were going to have babies and Tony and Hector’s other family, the ones with children, didn’t hang around us when I was there. So this was the first time in several years that I’d spent one-on-one time with a child. It was fun. I rather enjoyed it.

  Brayden led me back to the table where I sat down and chatted up his brother and Father. When the food was completely set on the table, a whirlwind crashed through the back door, skidded to a stop, and dropped his backpack on the floor behind him. “Shit, Mace your girlfriend is fucking hot!” A gangly, tall, ginger haired boy with the same green eyes as the rest of the Murphy men shouted.

  “Mouth!” Mick chastised with a fork pointing in the boy’s direction.

  “Sorry Dad but dang…sweet girl you got Mace,” the boy looked me up and down. “I’m Shaun, how are you, sweetness?”

  Oh no, he didn’t. He just called me sweetness. “Well, I can see who’s rubbed off on this young impressionable mind,” I glared at Mason and he actually looked chagrinned.

  “Shaun, don’t call chicks sweetness. They don’t like it.”

  “Sure, they do. I had my tongue in this sweet chick today.” My eyes widened and Brayden pressed his hands over Ellie’s ears.

  “Boy, I swear I’m going to take two inches off your height if you don’t choose your words more wisely around my daughter. And stop disrespecting women. You’re teaching her bad shit!” His teeth were clenched and poor little Ellie’s was slapping at her father’s hands.

  “Daddyyyy stop. I can’t hear when you do that!” she crunched up her little nose and looked at me. “Does Uncle Mace ever do that to you?”

  The men at the table laughed. I smiled and tapped her nose giving the precious girl my full attention. “No, because I’m an adult, but your Daddy is protecting you from hearing things that are not appropriate for you. He’s a very good Daddy.”

  She nodded and shoved a giant forkful of mashed potatoes into her mouth. Her cheeks pushed out like a chubby bunny. I shook my head and looked up at Shaun. “If you want to keep a woman in the future, you’ll learn to call her things that actually make her feel special and not like one of many. Remember that.”

  His eyes looked me over in a way that a teenaged boy who only has sex on the brain would. Extremely skeevy. “If it secures me a hot babe like you, I’ll do whatever you say, sweetness.”

  Mason’s forehead hit the table. Brayden shook his head and I bit back a seriously profane comment. The patriarch on the other hand, had no problem laying into Shaun, which he did after he pulled him by the ear into another room. When they came back, Mason and Brayden both had shit-eating grins on their faces. Ellie just happily ate more potatoes then asked for more.

  “Sorry for being rude, Mia. I’ll try to be more respectful,” Shaun grumbled through a sour expression.

  “Thank you, Shaun. That was kind of you. Now tell me embarrassing stories about Mason,” I changed the subject and every man besides Mason smiled and started sharing.

  By the time dinner was done, my belly hurt so bad I could hardly breathe let alone put any cheesecake into it. The stories were detailed and plenty. The guys spent hours telling me about crazy Mason. In his younger years, he was a class clown, thought he was the worlds’ greatest inventor, and had absolutely no luck with the ladies. The last part I found unbelievable looking at how he’d filled out. The whole package was nice, once you got past the douchey ways, but we were working on those and he was making some serious progress. Not enough for Rachel to come around, but I had hope that I could work some magic there.

  While the men cleaned up, another thing I found incredibly cool, guests of the Murphy household never did dishes, even if you were a woman. I guess they just got used to doing all the domestic duties themselves. It was enlightening but sad. So while they cleaned up, I looked at all the pictures. There were many of Eleanor the mother around the house. Pictures with each boy, with the boys all together, and happy ones with her husband, Mick. They looked really happy, a solid family. Here was a woman who fought cancer and probably would have given anything to just stay with her family, whereas my healthy mother had a happy family she left for her own selfish desires. To this day, I wasn’t even sure where she was and as much as I pretended not to care, I did. So much that it pissed me off.

  Mason came up behind me, placed a hand on my shoulder, but didn’t say anything. “Your mother was really beautiful.”

  “Yes, she was. She was the perfect Mom, too. Really cared about us. The cancer, when she got it, ravaged her, sweeping through so fast there was little we could do. Dad beats himself up that she didn’t get tested early. D
ad’s only forty-five. Mom was gone shortly after she turned thirty-five. They had seventeen perfect years together if you ask Dad. Then she was just gone. She always said she’d get tested when she was forty like the rest of the world. That was too long for her.” His tone was sad and filled with the longing of a man who missed his mother. I understood that all too well.

  I thought about the beautiful Eleanor who was lost to the world at such a young age with four boys and a husband that needed her. They carried on and had one another; they were still a family.

  “We should do something for your Mom.”

  Mason’s eyebrows narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  As I thought more about it, the idea swirled within my mind and took flight. It would be perfect. “I mean about breast cancer. Get involved in the cause. You’re a big professional ball player. We should do a fundraiser or something; donate it to the local breast cancer awareness group in Boston. We could get pink bracelets, that you and I could wear, shirts for me and the WAGs. If the team wants to get involved, they can. Not only would it help your Mom’s memory, the women fighting now, and those with family history that should get prescreened earlier than forty, but it would look good for your image.”

  Mason smiled, his tiny crooked tooth shining against his pearly whites. “We could help women like my mom,” he said in total awe, like it was the best idea since major league baseball. “I love it! You’re a frickin’ genius!” He picked me up and twirled me around. “So what do you think we do first?”

  For the next hour, we sat down with Eleanor’s favorite cheesecake Mick had made in her honor, and we talked about how we could help get the word out using Mason’s celebrity status as a pushing-off point.

  Chapter 5

  Think Pink was the campaign name we came up with. Once back in Boston, Mason and I got to work. We ordered special Think Pink silicone bracelets to pass out at games, and special shirts for the WAGs that we rush ordered and paid an ungodly amount to ship overnight once the items were ready. My shirt I ordered personally and paid for without Mason knowing about it. The back and front had Mason’s jersey number, and on top, it said “For Eleanor”. It was super cute and I knew it would mean a lot to Mason.

  While he was practicing, I stayed back at his pad and wrote out a plan for a fundraiser. Rachel was all over the idea and thought it was great and offered to help make it something that would actually raise a lot of money for the cause as well as help Mason’s image. We hadn’t talked about last week’s nightmare and she didn’t seem in the mood to. Each time she was present she was all business all the time. Somehow, I had to find a way to get back into her good graces to promote Mason as a prospective boyfriend. Though I was at a loss, at the moment, for ideas on how to best do that. The orgy Rachel witnessed definitely did some serious damage to her belief that he would be into her and probably made him seem less desirable. For me, he became more desirable, but that’s because I needed to get laid. Just thinking back to watching that woman suck on Mace and him going to town on that blonde was enough to fill a couple masturbatory sessions in the shower this past week, but I needed the real thing. Only Mason wasn’t on my mind. Unfortunately, a tanned blond from California, currently on location with the chick he was fucking, was.

  I sighed and continued typing out my plan then figured I needed reinforcements. I pulled out my phone and dialed.

  “What up, skank?” Ginelle’s voice rang through the line. Just hearing her familiar voice made me happy. It also had the downside of making me homesick.

  “Planning a fundraiser.”

  Gum-smacking and a full-bellied Gin laugh broke through my concentration on the list I was typing. “Uh, isn’t the idea to raise the money you need to save Pops already happening? You know, lying on your back!” She laughed manically at her own joke.

  “Not for me!” I sighed. “For Mason.”

  A strangled noise slipped through the line. “The rich baseball player needs money? Why?”

  I groaned. “Just listen, bitch. We’re improving his image by supporting the local breast cancer awareness group here in Boston. His Mom died young from the disease and he wants to do something to give back. Since he’s playing ball and practicing, I’m working on an event where we could raise some money and help his image. Make sense?”

  More gum smacking. Truth be told, I liked hearing the sound of that way more than the sound of her inhaling one of her cancer sticks.

  “So what are you thinking?” she asked. My best friend, Gin was nothing if not creative. She’d come up with some good ideas. I ran through the gist of the event. We were going to hold it at some posh hotel downtown. Most of the starting team agreed to participate. Several friends of Mason’s would be there, a famous DJ agreed to play the event free, another restaurateur friend of his PR firm agreed to offer their services and food free of charge.

  “Oh, and we’re going to have a silent auction filled with baseball paraphernalia, and other donated items from friends of the players. But I don’t know, I need something that will really draw some high dollars. Got anything in mind?” Ginelle paused so long I wasn’t sure she was still there. “Well?”

  “I’m thinking, don’t get your panties in a twist…if you’re even wearing any that is,” she accused and she’d be right. I wasn’t wearing any because I had on tight leggings that would show lines and no one needed to see that.

  “Shut up!” I warned.

  Gin laughed and it sounded like home. My heart filled with love and joy as I waited patiently and did random Google searches for other charity events to see what they did.

  “Okay, so you’ve got a bunch of really hot baseball players going to this thing right? Like at least twenty?”

  “Yeah,” I said, not knowing where she was going with this.

  “So instead of just doing a silent auction, why don’t you auction them? Get an auctioneer guy, you know the ones that talk really really fast, make sure the guys wear really hot outfits like tuxes, or maybe have them strip off their shirts. Rich women love that shit!” She was not wrong. I could see women plied with champagne falling all over themselves to get at a shirtless baseball player.

  “Gin, that is fucking brilliant.”

  She huffed and I could imagine her twirling a lock of hair and gloating prettily. “I know. I’m good like that.”

  “Yes, you are. Have I told you lately that I got nuthin’ but love for you baby?”

  “Whatcha got?” She sang back bringing us both back to the old school jam we liked to listen to on the radio back home. It played all kinds of throwback songs from the 90’s. We were too young to know the songs then, but in our twenties we both appreciated the silly rap/pop songs from that era.

  I thought about how this would work. I’d get the guys to agree to a date with the woman that buys them. She has to pay but they have to do what the woman wants for a four-hour period. Even the married ones would do it for the cause. “Gin, honestly I think this could raise a lot of money.”

  “Well duh. The men are hot. What rich bitch wouldn’t want a piece of that eye candy on her arm for a night?”

  Again, not wrong. “I’m going to draw up the plan. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “Eh, you can pay me back with pictures of hot dudes stripped to the waist. And I’m not kidding. You have this event and you do not send me pictures of half-naked men I will find really evil ways to embarrass you in the future. And don’t think I don’t have pictures to prove some of the shit you did in the past.”

  “Whore!” I shot back, remembering she did in fact have an entire box full of trouble we’d gotten into over the years to pull from and use against me. “You wouldn’t!”

  She clucked her tongue. “I so would! Half-naked men pictures, sent to my phone, individually…and do not forget Mason. I want one of that sexy bastard.”

  I laughed hard as Rachel entered the kitchen where I was set up. I waved and she went to the coffee pot and pulled down a mug and filled it.

  “All
right you black mailing dirty slutbgag,” Rachel’s eyes were wide and she almost dropped her coffee cup. I didn’t have a chance to explain, but tried to shake my head and wave in a gesture that meant everything was okay. “You’ll get your pictures. But you drive a hard bargain.”

  “Always do, and hey, Mads is doing great. That boy she’s seeing is totally nice. I double-checked…still a virgin, but girl, I’m not thinking for long. He’s really cute, likes her a lot, and she falls all over herself to please him. It’s actually really sweet. So far though, he seems like a good guy. She could do a lot worse for her first time.”

  I groaned and put my head in my hand. “You think she’s going to give up her v-card to him? For real?”

  “Yeah, she can’t stay pure forever, Mia. She’s a grown woman. She’s nineteen for crying out loud. Shit, I’m not even sure I can remember how old I was when I gave up the card; it’s been so long. I honestly can’t remember a time where I wasn’t getting hot cock.”

  This time I moaned. “Gin, don’t talk about cock and my sister in the same sentence. You’re going to make me break out in hives. And you better not be encouraging her to give it up to him either or I’ll hunt you down, pin you to a wall and cut off all your hair, put honey on your nipples and leave you for the ants!”

  “Jesus Christ on a cross. That’s fucked up. You’d do that to your best friend? I need to make new friends. Mine’s a goddamned psycho!” she roared then laughed hard. I followed suit imagining her stuck to a wall with honey on her tits and her hair cut in chunks all over the place.

  Controlling the laugher, I took a deep breath. “You’re right. I wouldn’t do that, but please, next time you see her, have her call me okay?”