“No. I’m not going to make her cry. I swear. You know me better than that,” he explained. “Please. I don’t want you to quit. I’d like for you to play the first game at least, for your friends out there, and if you still want to quit afterward, you can. I wouldn’t blame you. We’re a team, and you don’t treat people on your team like that.”
Josh didn’t say a word.
I just stared at the sink behind Dallas. I had maxed out the amount of times I wanted to cry in front of this man.
“Diana, can I talk to you?” came the nearly gentle question that only made me angry.
Had he told her to talk to me about my shorts so he wouldn’t have to?
It only took me a second to decide he wasn’t that kind of person. I don’t know why I’d been thinking the worst of him so much lately. He didn’t deserve it.
Still insisting on looking at the sink, I let out a breath that made me sound like I had lung cancer. “I don’t want to talk to anyone right now,” I pretty much whispered.
“Josh? Please?” was Dallas’s reply.
“Don’t make her cry again,” my eleven-going-on-twenty-year-old nephew demanded. “She never cries.”
That was a lie, but I appreciated why he’d gone with it.
Maybe my feelings were hurt and a part of me felt like it had been split open, but I didn’t want Josh to think I couldn’t handle my own battles, even as I bled my feelings all over the place. Slipping my hands over his shoulders, I tightened my grip on him. “Thank you, J, but I’ll be okay. Go finish warming up. We aren’t quitters.”
And my poor, beloved nephew who knew me too well, turned to look at me over his shoulder. Those brown eyes were guarded and worried. “I’ll go if you want me to.”
Fuck. I touched his shoulder. “It’s okay. Play your game. I can handle this. You don’t have to quit. I’ve got this.”
He didn’t budge.
“Go, Josh. It’ll be fine. I’ll be—” Where? I didn’t want to go back by the bleachers just yet. I wished I could be the bigger person and not let a bunch of words hurt me. “Here. I’ll be on the bleachers watching.”
He nodded.
Stooping down, I gave him another hug because I couldn’t help it, and he hugged me back. I kissed the top of his head quickly and released him, watching as he shot Dallas a look that I knew would eventually become trouble when he got older, and then disappeared through the winding hallway of the door-less bathroom… leaving me alone with his coach. It was a place I didn’t want to be.
I’d learned years ago that I didn’t have to do things I didn’t want. It was a gift of being an adult, getting to choose what you wanted and didn’t want in life. You just had to see how many choices you had, and if you didn’t have any, then you made some.
And without thinking twice about it, the second Josh was around the corner, I made my decision. I was going to sit and watch the fucking game even if it killed me. In the words of my abuela, que todos se vayan a la chingada. Everyone could go to hell.
Except as I walked past the second to last man I wanted to talk to in the near future, fingers reached out and snatched at my wrist. “Diana,” my name came out comforting and smooth like warm milk.
I stopped, my gaze going down to the fingers wrapped around my bones. “I just want to watch the game. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”
“I know.” At least he wasn’t arguing with me. “But I wanna tell you I’m sorry. I know she’s been gunning for you, and I didn’t put a stop to it.”
I swallowed, my throat muscles bobbing hard, making me feel like I was trying to pass an egg, but really it was just my pride.
“She doesn’t have any idea what she’s talking about,” he said softly, with so much kindness and compassion, it unzipped me from the throat down.
Tears filled my eyes and I tried to blink them away, but they just stayed there, making my vision hazy and distorted. “I’ve never even done anything to her. So we argued. I argue with everyone. I know I’m a pain in the ass sometimes, but I would never go out of my way to be mean to someone who had never really done anything to me.”
“I know you wouldn’t, and you’re not a pain in the ass. We get along just fine, don’t we?” he assured me, making me sniffle.
“Yeah.” Was I still tearing up? “She doesn’t know me. She tried to tell me I wasn’t a good parent figure to Josh, that I—I’m not a real one. I am—”
“I know you are,” came his low reply, all mellow and tender. “They know you are.” I could see him getting closer to me out of the corner of my eye. “They couldn’t have anyone better raising them. It doesn’t matter what she says. You’re great. You know you are.”
I sniffled, angry and hurt. “Yeah, well, no one else seems to think I am except you… and them… and the Larsens.” My voice cracked. My own mom didn’t seem to believe that half the time. But I couldn’t say that out loud.
Instead, I started weeping again, silently.
I swore I could feel pressure at the back of my head like maybe he was cupping it. I didn’t move. I would swear on my life he made this “shh, shh, shh” sound, like he was trying to soothe me. “This is my fault.” When I didn’t say anything, he leaned in even closer to me. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry.”
There was an earnestness in his tone—hell, in his entire body—that seemed to reach into me more than his actual words. I’d been apologized to hundreds of times in my life, but there was something about Dallas doing it that didn’t seem false or contrived. Maybe I was being dumb, but I didn’t think I was imagining hearing or sensing something that didn’t actually exist.
I looked up at him, hating him seeing me with what I was sure were puffy, red eyes with disaster written in the pupils. Dallas’s expression was a mournful one. There was a softness to his features that didn’t normally exist. And when he blew out a breath that hit the cheek closest to him, I could confirm his guilt.
“I try not to play favorites, and it came back to kick me in the ass. I’m sorry. I should have told her to go sit down when she started going off instead of telling her I didn’t have time to deal with her,” he said, so close to my face. “You’re my friend. I’m sorry for letting you down. I seem to do that a lot.”
“You didn’t let me down,” I muttered to him, feeling embarrassed all over again. “Look, I’m going to go sit in the car until the game starts. I want to be alone for a minute to get my shit together.”
He sighed, the fingers around my wrist retreating for a brief moment before they slid up my bare forearm, the calluses grazing my upper arm and shoulder over the sleeves of my T-shirt as they made the trek upward, and then he was palming my shoulders with both of those rough-worked hands. He breathed, rough and choppy. The tips of his tennis shoes inched closer to me, his hands squeezing my shoulders as he said in a whisper, “I’m gonna hug you as long as you promise not to grab my ass, okay?”
I almost laughed, but it sounded more like a broken croak.
I came from a hugging family. I was descended from a long line of huggers before me. We hugged for good things and we hugged for bad things. We hugged when there was a reason and we definitely hugged for no other reason than because we could. We hugged when we were mad at each other and when we weren’t. And I’d always loved it; it became a part of me. A hug was an easy way of showing someone you cared about them, of offering comfort, of saying, “I’m so happy to see you” without words.
So when Dallas wrapped his arms around the middle of my back, he swallowed me in something that had always been freely given in my life. And he said words that hadn’t always been so easily shared, “I’m sorry, Di.”
I smiled into his chest sadly, letting the nickname go in and out of my ears. “It’s not your fault, Professor.”
His body tightened along mine. “Professor?” he asked, slowly, quietly.
He knew. “Professor X. You know, Professor Xavier.”
My neighbor—my friend—made the same choking sound he’d made ba
ck at my house when I’d called him Mr. Clean.
“Dallas?” a voice called from outside the bathroom.
Said man didn’t loosen his hold on me even as his upper body started shaking a little. “Yeah?”
“Game’s about to start,” someone who wasn’t Trip told him.
“All right. I’ll be out in a sec,” the man hugging me answered, his palm making a flat trek up my back to land between my shoulder blades before he slowly pulled back just enough to look down at me. “I need to go.” There was a pause. “And I’m not bald. I’m just used to having short hair.”
I didn’t say anything; I just sniffled.
Dallas reached up and touched my forehead with one of his thumbs briefly before snatching the cap off his head and settling it over my hair. The tips of his fingers brushed high over my cheekbones for tears that had disappeared by that point. “Go watch your boy.”
When I didn’t say anything, he tipped his head to the side and lowered his face until it was inches from mine, his expression so tight I swore he looked furious. “Where’s that person who gave me a stare down and asked me if I wanted to be friends with her or if she should fuck off, hmm?”
The corners of my mouth tilted up just a little, and it made his lips do the same.
He blinked and told me in that bossy, military voice, “Don’t leave.”
I swallowed and couldn’t help but duck my head for a moment.
“Don’t leave,” he repeated. One of those hands I’d admired a time or two came up and gently brushed my neck before dropping away. “I’ll talk to Josh after the game, but if you guys wanna quit, I can’t stop you. I’ll talk to Christy. We don’t treat each other like that here.” His thumb moved up to touch right beneath my chin. “I don’t want you to go anywhere if that means anything, Peach.”
This smooth motherfucker was killing me. How? How was he single? How could his wife be such a dumbass? What could he have done to ruin a marriage? I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t.
The thought came to me as forcefully as the one the last time we’d seen each other had, scary and unwelcome: I liked him. I liked him a lot, and I had no business feeling that way. None.
That was why I trusted him. Because some part of me really liked this man. Shit.
So I told him something I would probably live to regret. Something that I wasn’t supposed to say now or ever. But if I’d learned anything over the last few years, it was that you didn’t always have the right time for anything even if, in a perfect world, you were supposed to. “Look, I don’t know what happened with your wife—where she is, why you guys aren’t together… it’s not my business—but all I know is that she’s an idiot,” I told him.
He blinked those brown-gold-green marble eyes.
But I wasn’t done. “You deserve the best, Dallas. I hope you find someone who appreciates you someday, if that’s what you want. I’m so lucky to have you as my friend. Anyone who has you as more than that is a lucky bitch.” I smiled at him, feeling a rush of heat on my face. “I’m not trying to stick my hand down your pants either, all right?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, he took a step back, eyeing me with that jutted jaw of his. “Don’t leave, okay?”
I’d barely nodded by the time he had disappeared.
The sound of cheering from outside a moment later brought me back to reality. Josh was out there. My pride wasn’t worth missing out on Josh playing, that was for sure. Reaching up to touch the brim of the cap that had just been placed on my head, I shoved it down a little further on my head and told myself it didn’t matter what these people I barely knew thought about me.
But I still walked with my head down to the bleachers, and I’m sure my face was pink as I did it. Luckily, the spot by where I’d left the cooler was still open and I took it, my hands going to my knees. The boys’ team was starting on the field and Josh was right behind home base, in position.
I felt overly self-conscious throughout the game, and I cheered a little more quietly than I normally did when someone on the team did well, and I was definitely a lot more restrained than usual when Josh nailed a ball that hit the back fence. He was more subdued too because he didn’t run as fast as he usually did. All in all, the game went well and the Tornado won their pool game—a game that didn’t matter in terms of progressing in the tournament. At the end of it, the team huddled together away from the parents while Dallas talked to the boys about whatever it was they talked about, and soon afterward, most of the players went back to the dugout to collect their things and move out of the way so that the next two teams could come on to the field.
At no point did I look around for Christy.
But Dallas and Josh stayed off to the side, talking. From the looks on both of their faces—so, so serious—it was some deep shit. Some deep shit that involved me.
I could tell from Josh’s initial body language that he was angry, but I could also tell from Dallas’s that the man had the patience of a saint. As the minutes went by with me standing there staring, Josh relaxed a little; his hands dropped from his sides and he seemed more easy, less cagey. At one point, the older man put his hand over his heart and nodded at whatever he was telling his player. And what could have been ten minutes or twenty minutes later, the man held his fist out and Josh bumped it.
I guess that meant we weren’t going anywhere, and that was okay. Who was I to make someone change their dream just because I wasn’t exactly happy? I couldn’t and wouldn’t be that person. This was about Josh, not me.
And at that point, I wasn’t ruling out tripping Christy if the opportunity ever presented itself.
So as they walked toward me from where they’d been far out in the field, I let out a deep breath and purposely ignored the looks I could feel burning through my skin. My nephew came to me first grabbing the water bottle I’d taken out of the cooler while he’d made his way over. And he smiled this tight, one-sided grin.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “You okay?”
The fact this eleven-year-old was asking me that made my heart feel funny. “Yeah.”
Josh twisted his mouth. “Can I keep playing here if I promise never to be friends with Jonathan?”
I steeled myself and smiled. “Whatever you want, J. You can be friends with him if you want. His mom just can’t drop him off at our house, is all. Water might end up in her gas tank and she’ll never leave.”
“You can do that?”
Shit. I waved him off, realizing maybe I shouldn’t teach him things like that. Yet. Maybe if a girl ever broke his heart, I’d help him do that before I ripped all of her hair out. “I don’t know. I’m just making stuff up. But really, you can be friends with Jonathan if you want. I don’t care.”
“I don’t really like him anyway,” he whispered.
I was not going to smirk, and I managed not to. “It’s up to you, but I’d be okay with it.”
“You sure?” he asked.
“I’m positive. I want you to be happy.” I could come, mind my own business, not talk to anyone, and go home. For him, I could.
He gave me that narrow side-eye I knew damn well he’d inherited from me. “I want you to be happy too.”
That had me sighing. “Your happiness makes me happy. I’ll figure it out. Plus, I’m leaving in two weeks, remember? I don’t have to see any of their ugly faces for a while.” I reached up to pull at a strand of hair sticking out from under his cap. “I want you to kick some ass so you can go into the major leagues and then take care of me for the rest of my life. You’re not putting me in an old folks’ home, you know.”
Josh groaned and rolled his eyes. “You always say that.”
“Because it’s the truth. Now go play or whatever it is you do with your friends.”
He puffed his cheeks out and nodded, taking a step back before stopping and shooting me another of those looks that was too old for such a young kid. “You’ll tell me if you’re not happy?”
“You of all people can tell when I’m not happy, J.”
“Yeah,” he answered easily as if there was no other answer he could have possibly given.
I puckered my mouth just a little and earned one of his dimpled smiles. “I’ll be fine. Go get a snack or something and hang out with your friends.”
Pulling out a five from my pocket, I held it out and he grabbed it with a “thank you” before he went off to meet up with the other kids on the team who were in line at the concession stand buying God knows what. With the cooler handle in one hand and my big bag over my shoulder, I rolled over to the middle section of the three neighboring fields, taking an empty picnic table that was about ten feet away from the nearest parents on the team. I’d already looked at the schedule the night before. The next game wasn’t for another hour.
My phone ringing had me reaching into my pocket, and when the number flashing across the screen was an unknown California number, I hesitated for a second. California? I didn’t know anyone except Vanessa—
Oh shit.
I didn’t think I’d ever answered another call faster.
“Hello?”
“Diana,” the incredibly deep male voice on the other line replied.
I hadn’t heard it that many times in person, but I could put two and two together and guess who was calling me. “Aiden?” I wanted to make sure it was my best friend’s husband.
He skipped over my question but still confirmed it was him almost immediately. “Vanessa is going into labor. I’ll buy you the first ticket out.”
He didn’t ask if I could come, and he didn’t say she wanted me there. It was both those things that touched me the most.
Without thinking twice, I rattled off my e-mail address to him and said, “Get it. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” There were plenty of people in the world that I wouldn’t take a handout from; Vanessa’s husband was not one of those people. He could afford to buy the plane if he wanted.
My best friend was having her baby.
I needed to find Josh and call the Larsens.
Chapter Sixteen
Wait for It Page 28