The next hour flew by with us running commentary on Josh’s practice and how much he was improving since he’d started getting help from additional coaches a year ago. I’d gotten off work and headed straight to the facility, despite knowing the Larsens were going to keep the boys tonight and take them to school the next morning. When Trip and Dallas called the boys into a circle to dismiss them, we all got up and headed toward the gap in the fence by the field to wait.
Josh kind of grinned when he spotted us afterward but didn’t run screaming or anything. I liked to tell myself he was excited to see us, but he was just growing up. The days of him screaming “Diana!” at the top of his lungs every time he saw me were over. He let us pat him on the back before immediately saying, “I’m hungry.”
I had already waved at Trip earlier when he’d tipped his chin up at me through the other side of the fence, our conversation still fresh in my mind. It had bothered me a little when he had made the comment about Dallas feeling off around women who flirted with him. Was it just because he was technically still married or whatever the hell the situation was? That didn’t offend me at all—honestly, it was probably the exact opposite now that I knew the truth—we were going to see each other pretty often. I didn’t like drama and awkwardness, and definitely didn’t want to face it a minimum of twice a week for who knows how long all because he’d gotten the wrong impression of me.
So I found him a little attractive—he had a great body, anyone with eyes could see that—but I found a lot of men attractive, and I hadn’t flirted with him to begin with.
It wasn’t like I had a way of knowing he would be inside of his house when I helped his brother. After that, I had left cookies with most of the neighbors who lived close to me, not just him. But the second time we’d met, he had come over. I hadn’t gone to him.
Everything after that… I could see why he might think I’d been flirting. Maybe if he was an idiot. Coming up to him at a bar, calling him and walking up to his house, even though it had all been baseball-related and only baseball-related…. I could cut him a little bit of slack. Just a little.
But I still wanted to kick this white elephant out of the neighborhood.
So as I hung around the parking lot as the Larsens and the boys took off in their minivan, I kept an eye out on the adults still hanging around the perimeter of the facility, trying to find the specific person I was looking for so that I didn’t have to show up unexpectedly at his house and make him more uncomfortable. I had just decided that he might have left without me noticing when I spotted him standing by the bed of a black truck with Trip right next to him.
“Diana,” Trip called out to me over his cousin’s shoulder when he noticed me walking toward them.
“Long time no see.” I slid my gaze over to Dallas, pasting a funky, tight smile on my face. “Hi, Dallas.”
Before my neighbor said a greeting in return, Trip threw his hands in the air. “I’m gonna get goin’. Dean’s waitin’ in the truck. Dallas Texas, I’ll see you tomorrow. Honey, I hope I’ll see you tomorrow.” Trip winked as he walked away. He was something else, and that something else had my not-so-smile turning into a real one.
It was just as awkward as I figured it would be as Trip got into his truck, making us back away from the bed as he pulled out of the lot. I spotted a head in the back cab. There weren’t a lot of parents left hanging around, but there were enough, and I couldn’t help but feel the weight of their stares on us. I wasn’t a fan of being gawked at, but it was inevitable, wasn’t it?
Just as Dallas opened his mouth to say whatever was on his mind, I beat him to it. “Hey, I just want to clear the air between us. If I’ve done something to make you feel uncomfortable”—coming up to you at a bar or being really aggressive about getting the schedule changed were both options I accepted freely—“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. Sometimes I try to be helpful, but maybe I should mind my own business instead, but really, I don’t mean anything by it that isn’t professional or friendly.”
The stare he gave me wasn’t discouraging at all. Not.
“Just so you know, yes, I think you’re a good-looking guy, but you’re not my type. I swear I’m not trying to get in your pants or anything. I can see your wedding ring, and I don’t do that kind of thing.”
He still hadn’t said a word, and just to make sure he understood, I kept going. “You and Trip scouted Josh out. It wasn’t like I was trying to get him on the team to seduce you or something.” I’d gone with “seduced.” All right. I’d never used that word out loud, but there was a first for everything. There was another awkward, brief pause before my big mouth kept rambling. “I’d like us to be friends since we live across the street from each other, but if that’s not something you’re willing to do, it’s okay. I’m not going to cry about it.”
There was a huge chance that last part was unnecessary, but I didn’t know what else to say. What were you supposed to do when someone didn’t want to be your friend or at least be friendly, and you’d tried your best? I thought I’d been a pretty good person. A pretty good neighbor. I hadn’t done anything to make him feel uncomfortable. At least, I genuinely didn’t think I had.
I rubbed my hand against my upper thigh and let out a deep breath at the weight that seemed to have lifted off my shoulders. I met his gaze head-on, wanting to make sure he could see there weren’t hearts and stars in my eyes. My mom had always told me I was about as subtle as an elephant. “So? Should I fuck off or not?”
My neighbor’s eyelids swung low over the brown-green-gold color of his irises. “Anyone ever told you you have a staring problem?”
I made sure not to close my eyes for a second, even though the urge was strong. “Has anyone ever told you that you have an active imagination?”
Neither one of us blinked. I wasn’t going to lose this shit. He was obviously trying not to lose either. I could respect that.
The small smile that crawled over his mouth was not the first, second, third, or fourth thing I would have expected coming from him. I would swear on my life for years to come that his eyes sparkled—but it was probably just the streetlight giving them that impression. Then he blinked.
Thank God, I blinked too.
Dallas I-Wasn’t-Sure-If-That-Was-His-Real-Name-Or-Not made a noise straight from his nostrils. His eyelids went back to their normal position as his arching eyebrows took center stage. “I don’t get ‘uncomfortable,’” he started. His mouth stayed in that same partial-smiling position it had been in a moment ago. It was a sad cousin to the smile he’d given the boys and his friend at the bar, but I’d take it. I didn’t need more. “You haven’t made me ‘uncomfortable.’”
Uh-huh. Sure. That was why he was complaining about eye contact and trying to win our staring competition.
And using his fingers as quotation marks. Sure.
What had to be his tongue poked at the inside of his cheek as he watched me carefully. “You were coming on to me—”
I exploded. “What?” The chances that my face was scrunched up was high. Very high. “When?” From the sound of the words coming out of my mouth, I hadn’t realized that me assuming he’d thought I’d been flirting with him was completely different from him admitting he thought I had. I hadn’t.
“You brought cookies over—”
“That my mom made for the eight houses closest to me. Go ask the neighbors.” Hadn’t I told him this already? He was good-looking, but he wasn’t that good-looking. I had better things to do with my precious time than bake him cookies. The fuck was he thinking? Was he one of these idiots in the world who thought every female was interested in him? Sure, he had an amazing body, but all you needed to do was go on social media and search for a fitness model to find one just as nice.
Trying to tell myself that I didn’t need to get all riled up for no reason, I let out a breath through my nose and tried to let out the most controlled exhale I was capable of. Basically, I still sounded like a dragon. “No offense, p
al. I’m nice and I have manners, and I pretty much saved your brother’s life. I was not trying to get in your pants after only seeing you one time.” Maybe that was harsher than it needed to be, but I was insulted.
Those gold-green-brown eyes narrowed as he seemed to process what I was saying. Even the mostly-grin on his lips melted off.
Feeling more indignant than I probably had any right to be, I figured I should go ahead and bring up anything else he might try and use as examples before they pissed me off. I held up one finger. “I went to the bar, Mayhem, with my friend and boss, Ginny, who is Trip’s cousin, who is your cousin, too. I work down the street from there. Please ask anyone who knows Ginny.”
I raised another finger. “The only reason why I told you hi was because you were the only person there that I knew, and I didn’t want to be rude.”
A third finger rose. “And before I called you about the team’s schedule, I called Trip first each time. The only reason I didn’t go over to his house to complain was because I don’t know where he lives.”
In my head, I added “fucker” to the end of that. In reality, I did not. Sometimes I even amazed myself.
The silence between us was thick. And he finally said, with his gaze sharp and his mouth back to a firm line, “I’m married.”
I lost it. “Good for you. Did I say you weren’t?” Jesus Christ. I’d already mentioned I knew he was married and didn’t want to have anything to do with that. “I have married guy friends, and by some miracle, I’ve managed to keep my hands to myself every single time I’ve spent time with them, if you can believe that.”
We stared at each other for so long, eye to eye, one smart-ass expression to another that it didn’t immediately hit me that both of our facial features eased gradually. He had been wrong and I… hadn’t. Dumbass.
It was almost as if he could read my mind because he raised his eyebrow.
I raised mine right back, repeating the word in my head. Dumbass.
His eyebrow stayed where it was and so did mine.
Once you bowed down to someone, you were their bitch. And if there was one thing I’d learned about myself over the course of the last few years and last few dozen mistakes, that wasn’t exactly a title that sat well with me, and it wasn’t one I would willingly take ever again. Especially not from this man who didn’t put food on my table and clothes on my back. I was usually a lot nicer than this, but this was basically how I treated people after they’d known me for a while. It was his fault he brought this out of me so soon.
I repeated the word to myself, hoping he could read my thoughts: dumbass.
Dallas’s mouth twitched, highlighting the fact his bottom lip was fuller than the top one; the lines across his forehead eased, and eventually he extended his hand in my direction, those hazel eyes still on mine. He thought I had a staring problem? He had one too. “We’re good,” he announced to the world, steadily.
Like I wanted to be friends with him by that point.
Trip, I liked. Dallas on the other hand, I didn’t know what the hell to think. Maybe I could have reasoned that the woman in the red car had pushed him over the edge, but I wasn’t going to go there. His brother seemed like he might be a jackass. Jackass Jackson. But…
I was going to be an adult and accept that we all made mistakes. Didn’t I know that by now?
Fuck it. He wasn’t spitting into his hand and I wasn’t spitting into mine to form some kind of undying friendship, like I’d done with Vanessa so many years ago. We might as well make the best out of this situation. Life was a lot easier spent next to a pine tree than a cactus. Plus, this was for Josh. For him, there wasn’t anything I couldn’t or wouldn’t do.
And Dallas and I were going to be stuck with each other for a long time. Literally.
I snuck my hand into his. The callused, much larger body part that consisted of a palm and fingers swallowed mine whole. At least he had the grip of a man. “All right. We’re good.” We shook, and before he’d let go of me, I asked with my face straight, “So has the schedule been changed?”
Chapter Nine
Josh’s words had me freeze-framing in place. I had to glance over my shoulder with a long, marinara-covered spoon in hand so I could read his lips and make sure I hadn’t imagined his words. “What did you say?”
The almost eleven-year-old with his head in the fridge peeked out, a gallon of orange juice clutched in his hand. He faced me as he said the words I’d been hoping to have misheard: “Can my friends spend the night?”
My initial thought was no, please, Jesus Christ, no.
I didn’t even have to try and pull the memories of the last time his “friends” had slept over. Friends? More like demons from the ninth circle of hell.
My soul had been scarred; it hadn’t forgotten for one single second about the broken bunk beds, cracked dishes, clogged toilet, or, God help me, the yelling and the running through our apartment. I’d thought boy sleepovers would be like the sleepovers Van and I had damn near every weekend: we’d hang out in my room, look through magazines, watch movies, paint our nails, talk about boys, and eat all my mom’s snacks. Boy sleepovers were fucking hell, at least at Josh’s age. I took for granted how well behaved Josh and Louie were on their own. I really did. For all the shit they lost, things they forgot, toilet seats they peed on, food products they shoved into the cushions of the car, and the dirty socks they left everywhere, they were pretty damn great.
It wasn’t until I was around other people’s kids that I remembered why—before Josh and Louie—I hadn’t planned on having kids for a long, long time. If ever.
And somehow I’d gotten away with not having more than Josh and Louie at the same time for almost a year. It had taken me a year to recuperate from the beasts Josh had invited to stay over. Hell, I still hadn’t gotten over everything. I’d gotten lucky he hadn’t brought it up before.
Unfortunately, my time had run out.
How could I tell him he couldn’t have friends over so close to his birthday? He had already told me he didn’t want to have a party, but in the words of my mom, how could he not have a party? I’d always thought get-togethers were more for the adults than for the kids, but now I knew for sure that was the truth. Josh really could have been perfectly happy getting twenty bucks and going to the movies or the batting cage.
“Please?” the boy asked with so much hope in his voice it crushed my soul.
Please don’t do this to me, I thought, but what really came out of my mouth was more like “Sureeee…. But no more than three, okay?”
Was it too much to hope that he would say he really only wanted one friend over?
It was.
Because his response went: “Three’s good.”
God help me. I was paying for everything I’d ever put my parents through with interest.
* * *
“See you tomorrow morning!” I called out to the mom getting into her car, waving a hand with a little too much enthusiasm.
I’d bet she was excited. She’d just admitted her only child was spending the night at my house. Of course she was going to be ready to get the hell on with her Friday night. She hadn’t even bothered coming inside the house to make sure I didn’t have cages or a torture chamber. The boy on the Tornado team had been kicked to the curb: my curb.
Two out of three boys were over, and I could already hear them stomping around inside my house.
Oh my God. What had I done? Why had I agreed to this?
I wasn’t built for sleepovers.
If I could have hunched over and cried silently, rocking back and forth, I would have. Something was going to get broken before the end of the night, and I had no way of knowing what it would be. My sanity maybe. God, help me. I’d already eaten two packets of Pop-Tarts from how stressed I was and I had another foil-wrapped package tucked into my back pocket in case of an emergency.
When the sound of a truck engine idling had me opening my eyes again, I let out a deep breath and watched as the pas
senger door to a black Dodge pickup truck opened and out hopped a blond boy with a backpack in his hand. I’d forgotten Josh had mentioned that he was one of the kids spending the night. I smiled as he bounded up the pathway, not even turning around to pay attention to Trip who had parked the truck and was making his way around the front grill.
“Hi, Miss Diana.” The little blond smiled in a way that would have been shy on any other boy except him. On him it looked like… I don’t know what it looked liked. Trouble, more than likely. He’d come right up to me at the last practice and introduced himself. If I thought Josh had confidence, he had nothing on this kid. It reminded me of someone I knew: his dad.
“Hey, Dean. How are you?”
“Good.” He was still smiling.
So was I. He was cute. “Josh and the other boys are inside. Want me to show you where?” I asked him, glancing up to see Trip coming behind him, a knowing smirk on his playful, handsome face. From the looks of it, he had the ability to smell his own kind too, except his was trouble.
“I can figure it out.” Dean blinked those blue eyes just like Ginny’s. “Thank you for letting me spend the night.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, stepping aside to let him in the house.
Trip watched his son as the boy went in without a second glance behind him, calling out, “Bye, Dean!” in a sarcastic tone. To which he got a shouted reply of “Bye!”
Just “bye.” Not “bye, Dad,” no nothing. Even that hurt me.
Trip and I both shook our heads. I grimaced and he just looked resigned. “It’s the beginning of the end, isn’t it?” I asked the blond man still coming up the pathway.
Dressed in jeans, his usual motorcycle boots, and signature white T-shirt minus his motorcycle club vest, he looked freshly showered and too good-looking with his dark yellow scruff covering the lower half of his face. “It’s been the beginning of the end since he started talkin’. I’m gonna be payin’ for all the stupid-ass shit I did with that boy.”
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