“I remember that,” I tell him. “Of course, in the back of my mind I always knew you existed. I just didn’t know you.”
He laughs and tucks my hair behind my ear. “You hurt my ego.”
“Good.” I laugh right along with him, but his eyes turn from happy to sad. “What’s wrong?”
“Tonight, I let my temper get the best of me. I did exactly what he tried to do years ago and punched him. I’m pretty sure I broke his nose, which means he’s probably going to press charges.”
“Oh, shit, Hawk. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, he deserved it.”
“But still.”
“Thing is, I don’t even care if he sues me. I had to call my manager and the boss tonight to tell them before Brett goes to the media or cops.”
“Are you in trouble?”
He nods. “If he presses charges, I’ll be suspended.”
“But you’re already missing so much time.”
He sighs, leans forward and kisses the tip of my nose before moving to my lips. “I never believed in love at first sight until I met you, Bellamy Patrick.”
I lay there, stunned, as a million thoughts go through my mind. Until this moment, I would’ve never thought that love would find me again. “Hawk . . .”
“It’s okay if you’re not there yet. I’ll show you that I’m worth it.”
I cup his cheek. “I’m there and I know you are.”
He smiles and kisses me deeply. I’m about to climb on top of him, to show him just how much he means to me when he stops me.
“I have something else to tell you. A few weeks ago, Annie asked me to meet her out by her grandparent’s farm. Do you know it?”
I nod and swallow hard. If he says he slept with her . . . I don’t know what I’ll do. “I’ll never forget it. My mom called me while I was in college to tell me everything. It was so sad what happened to the Millers. What did she want?” My voice squeaks.
“She asked me to leave town and to never come back.”
“Why?”
He inhales and exhales slowly. “At first, I thought it was because of Brett and this deep seated jealously. I know he blames me for ruining his career and now he thinks I’m trying to take over this Little League stuff, but there’s something else. Annie was adamant that I go and now I think I know why.”
“Are you going to keep me in suspense?”
He shakes his head. “I think Matty is my daughter.”
Twenty-Three
Hawk
Bellamy stands at the stove, fixing the three of us breakfast, while Chase and I sit at their dining room table waiting. It’s a small table compared to the one my mother has, but again, Bellamy is feeding two to three people at a time where my mother could have a whole platoon come through for any of the meals she offers. Still, for as small as it feels here, Bellamy has been a trooper when it’s come to getting the Mini Renegades off the ground. She’s hosted every meeting, pasta party and gathering we’ve had and hasn’t batted an eyelash about it.
I had every intention of being gone before Chase woke up, not because I’m trying to keep my feelings for his mom a secret, but mostly because the dude is ten years old and doesn’t need to see some guy coming out of his mom’s room. Except, that’s exactly what happened. At five a.m. I opened the door to do the proverbial walk of shame and he was standing in the hallway. Seems he had to go to the bathroom, heard a noise in his mother’s room and was about to knock on the door. Surprise! Thankfully, Bellamy knew what to do and ushered Chase back to his bedroom while I stood there, completely dumbfounded. Afterward, Bellamy and I talked about it and decided I would stay for breakfast. I think she wanted this, so she wasn’t the only one answering all of Chase’s questions. Now, almost two hours later, I’m being securitized and stared down by a fifth grader.
Every time I pick up my mug, he eyes me. Prior to now, I considered us friends, but I may end up leaving the Patrick house an enemy today. The awkward silence is killing me. I don’t know what to say to Chase. It’s not like I planned for this to happen, nor have I ever been in this situation before. Yet, here I am with all these fumbling thoughts running through my head. Avoidance is easy though. I take my phone out and click the icon to bring up yesterday’s sports scores. I purposely avoid the Renegades. I know I shouldn’t, but seeing their highlights really plays with my psyche. They brought in two more pitchers, as they should’ve, but after last night I can’t help but feel replaced. Even after I return, I still have a mountain to climb until I’m back to throwing one hundred pitches consecutively.
A video pops up of one of the league’s mascots doing something funny. I laugh through the whole thing and by the end, I feel the chair next to me slide away from the table and the small body of Chase pushing against my arm. I know better than to make this a big deal, so I turn slightly and show him my phone.
“Do you have a favorite mascot?” I ask him.
“The one for the Astros is pretty funny.” Of course, he would like a Renegade rival. Not that I can blame him, they’re a hot, young team, and they’re doing very well. Many have picked them to be the American League Champions. If I hadn’t liked our prospects going into the year, I’d say the BoRe’s would definitely give them a run for their money. Their starting lineup, both defensively and offensively is hard to compete with.
“Yeah, Orbit is fun. He likes to tease my friend, Travis.”
“Why?”
Because Travis deserves it. “I think because Travis is easy to pick on. He’s a funny guy so the mascots like to play jokes on him.”
“Do they ever tease you?” he asks.
“Sometimes, once I’m out of the game, but pitchers aren’t normally the target.”
“We need a mascot,” he says and all I can imagine is a tiny piglet running around the field. The thought makes me laugh.
“That would be fun, but not sure where I’d find a piglet.”
“He could wear a baseball jersey.” Chase laughs.
“Who could wear what?” Bellamy carries over three plates and sets them down on the table. “What are you boys talking about?”
I like the way she lumps Chase and I together. I lean back in my chair and look at the kid, who for a long while this morning, I thought hated me. “Eh, we’re discussing business.”
“Well,” she says with her hands on her hips. “If it’s baseball business, you might as well tell me since everything ends up in my house anyway.” She motions toward her living room where boxes of equipment, clothing and uniforms are stacked. Ideally, the boxes should be at my parents’ place or the youth center, but due to current circumstances the center is off limits and the delivery driver couldn’t make it up my parents’ driveway, which left me no choice but to beg Bellamy to store them. The boxes should’ve gone to the garage, but the driver started carrying them inside and I haven’t had a moment to move them.
“I’ll take care of them today,” I tell her as I right myself. She nods and slides two plates in my direction with one being for Chase.
“Be right back, I need the ketchup,” he says as he excuses himself. I reach my hand across the table to hold Bellamy’s for a second.
“Thank you for breakfast and not freaking out about this morning.”
“I think you did enough of that for the both of us.”
“I don’t want to pretend I understand what Chase is going through. I know he’s angry with his father, but that doesn’t mean he wants to see me with his mother either.”
Bellamy smiles softly. “Chase adores you, Hawk. We’ll be fine, I promise.”
Chase walks back in with the bottle of ketchup and container of orange juice. “Good call on the OJ, bud,” Bellamy says to Chase. Secretly. I’m happy he went and snagged the ketchup because that’s a staple for me and my breakfast. After he uses it, I pick up the bottle and squirt it over my eggs and hash browns, and then mix them together. Before I take my first bite, I look up and find mother and son staring at me.
�
��What?” I ask, suspecting they’re going to find my food habits rather odd.
“Nothing,” she says, giving a wink. I don’t know if it’s directed toward me or Chase, but my mouth drops open when she picks up the bottle and does the same thing. In fact, Chase mixes his food together too. I hold up my hand, waiting for each of them to give me a high-five.
After Bellamy and I drop Chase off at school, we decide to take a drive. This wasn’t planned, but after last night, between everything that happened and the bombshell I dropped, I need to get away, and she is eager to do the same.
We’re on a back road, nestled in the mountains, when I decide to pull over at one of the scenic spots. We get out the truck and reach for each other’s hands as we walk toward the rock wall. Below, the deep valley is a death trap, waiting for its next victim. Between the trees, where the pointy sharp rocks are ready to maim you, live the bears. The hungry, ready to eat any time, black and grizzly bears are biding their time. A bear attack is rare, but they happen.
Growing up, we were always on high alert. My dad and his buddies had a network of people who would share information. The last thing my father wanted was to lose cattle or horses to a bear attack. If that happened, and the bear got a way, they were likely to bring their friends back the next day for more.
Standing at the rock wall, I look over the majestic beauty of this state. The lush green of the trees standing out over the snow-covered ground is a sight to behold. I love it here, but I also love Boston and many of the other cities I’ve visited over the years.
Bellamy’s next to me with her camera poised. She’s taking photo after photo and I tell her to send them to me. When she sits, I take the spot next to her and sigh. Her hand rubs down my leg as she gives me a sweet smile. I know she’s trying to calm my nerves, but they’re frayed.
“What do you want to do?” she asks. I know exactly what she’s talking about but am tempted to feign stupidity.
“What if I’m wrong?”
“What if you’re right?” she fires back.
“I don’t know. I’m torn.”
“The way I see it, you have a few choices.”
“And each one has consequences?” I look at her for confirmation even though I know the answer.
“If you don’t say something now and this comes to light years from now, Matty may have some animosity toward you. Or maybe want nothing to do with you at all . . . ”
“And if I say something and I’m wrong, I start World War five.”
“What happened to three and four?” she asks.
I chuckle even though this situation is nothing to laugh about. “Three happened in high school and four is currently going on.”
“Eh, mere conflicts,” she says. We both laugh and fall into a comfortable silence, although the voices in my head are screaming. I pull Bellamy into my arms and press my cheek to the top of her head. I’m comfortable like this, with her, showing affection, and want to figure out a way to make things last, even though everything is so new with us. One night together shouldn’t have me jumping into the puddle with both feet.
“I think he hits Annie.”
Bellamy pulls herself away and looks at me. “If he does, that means Matty isn’t safe.”
I nod. “She wants to play ball for me, and I keep asking why. Is it because Brett’s mean to her? Is he hitting her too? It can’t be about who I am because right now I’m a broken pitcher who spends three days a week in rehab and the rest of my free time courting the local real estate agent. Other than a team, I really have nothing to offer her.”
“You have you.” She places her hand on my heart. “People see the goodness you’re doing.”
“They also see me as an enemy.”
“Only Brett’s cronies. They’re used to kissing his ass and being told their kid is the best — or at least thinking it — when in actuality, their child is mediocre but because of their friendship with him, they’re treated differently. It’s the same mentality my ex has. He thought if I were more accommodating to Brett, Chase would be on his team.”
“I want to go back and punch him again for what he said to you.” He needs his ass kicked for being a slime ball. “I still have to contend with that situation too.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know if I’m coming or going right now.”
She clasps her hand with mine. “Well no matter which way you’re going, Chase and I will be by your side.”
“Promise?”
“Of course.” Bellamy grins. “Whatever you decide, I’ll support you. If you want to talk to Annie, you can invite her over to my house if you’re not comfortable taking her to your parents’. My door is always open, and if you want to have Matty there, so be it. Whatever you want, Hawk. It’s yours.”
The woman next to me is amazing. For almost a month I fought my attraction to her because I didn’t think it would be fair to put her through the heartache of saying goodbye. Of course, that was all dependent on her actually liking me, which she does. Still, what we have going on here is going to be worth it. I’ll find a way to make things work, even if that means flying her back and forth to Boston and spending my off-season in Montana.
“Would you like to meet my parents?”
Her eyes go wide at my question.
“I know it’s early in this . . .” I motion back and forth between us. “But I’d really like to introduce you to my mom and dad before tomorrow at the game. They’ll be there to cheer on the team.”
“I’d love to, Hawk.”
“Perfect.”
We leave the mountain turn-off and head back to town and toward my parents’ house. I still don’t know what I’m going to do about Matty. Ignoring my feelings on the matter seems like the right thing to do, but for who? Matty? Me? I don’t know. If I’m her father, I want to know. I want to give her the opportunity to have a relationship with me, if that’s what she wants. I’d leave it all up to her. Even if she only wants to be friends, I’d do it. Still, the thought lingering in the back of my mind is that if I say something, am I opening pandora’s box? What if she’s not mine and I cause a ripple in their family infrastructure?
I don’t know what to do.
Twenty-Four
Bellamy
When I met Greg’s parents, I wasn’t nervous, not like I am now. It was after about two or maybe three months of dating when he forced me to talk to his mom on the phone. She called every Sunday at seven p.m. like clockwork. If we were studying, we had to be back in his dorm and near the phone so he wouldn’t miss her call. One time, we went to Canada to go skiing. He insisted on driving his own car because there was no way he could miss the weekly call from mom. When parents’ weekend finally came in the spring, it was like I already knew Greg’s mother. Meeting her officially was easy.
I try to imagine what Hawk’s family is like as we drive to the ranch. I went to school with his sister, Elizabeth, but we weren’t in the same friend group, which is odd for such a small town. She was part of 4H and those kids normally stuck together, often spending weekends traveling to different shows. I don’t know what group I was part of in school. All I know is I was trying to survive, get good grades, and get the hell out of dodge . . . only to return with my own child years later.
Hawk turns onto the long, somewhat windy driveway. On either side, we’re surrounded by fields blocked off by white rail fencing and on my side, there are also a half dozen horses or so. “How many horses does the ranch have?”
“Normally a dozen, but those are wild ones my sister picked up the other day in Wyoming.”
“What does she do with them?”
“Well,” he says, as he reaches the top of the driveway and puts his truck into park. Minus the two-story home sitting in front of me, the view of the vast land abutting the mountains is breathtaking. “This is it.”
“You grew up here?”
“I did. The mountains seem closer than they appear, but yeah, this is the Sinclair Ranch.” He gets out of the truck and
walks over to the passenger side and opens it. “The land extends for many miles in all directions.”
“And you’d buy Longwoods for what?” I ask as he helps me out of the truck.
“I don’t know. Mostly to protect my father’s land from Larsen and his company. Maybe to build a new recreation center with a place for my sister to train her students. She does it here, that’s her paying job. The horse wrangling she does because she thinks it’s fun. Come on, let’s go see who’s home.”
Wait, he didn’t call first to make sure? “What if no one’s home or they’re busy?”
Hawk laughs and pulls me along behind him, up the wide plank stairs, onto the porch and down the side of the house. When we get to the backside, huge barns block some of the view, but it’s all the people I see that has me in awe. They’re everywhere. Cowboys and cowgirls on horses, pulling horses by their reins, some are moving cattle into trailers, others are riding horses around barrels.
“Whoa.”
“Yeah, you would’ve never guessed this is going on from the front of the house.”
“Not in a million years.”
“My great-grandma set it up this way. Said she wanted peace and tranquility in the front and chaos could exist out back.”
“Sort of like a mullet,” I blurt out before catching myself. Hawk laughs so hard he has to bend over to catch his breath. I know my joke wasn’t that funny, but I’m laughing right along with him. When he finally stands tall, he pulls me into his arms and kisses me deeply.
“Ahem.” The clearing of a voice breaks us apart.
“Hey, Dad,” Hawk says to the man coming up the steps. Instantly, my cheeks heat up and as subtly as possible, I try to wipe my lips clean.
Hawk: The Boys of Summer #4 Page 16