Joey had just turned the car off when he grumbled. “Oh, fuck.”
“What’s wrong?”
He fiddled with the keys, then handed them to me, holding one in particular. “Our condo is the bottom one on the corner. Could you please take Maddie in and feed her?”
“Sure…,” I said, wanting to know what the problem was, choosing not to ask.
“The food is in the first cabinet on the left as you walk into the kitchen. I’ll be just a minute behind you.”
“Okay. Let’s go, Maddie.” As she climbed into the front seat and out my door, the reason Joey got upset came barreling toward the truck. “Joey…?”
“Don’t worry about her. It’s fine,” he sighed, exiting the SUV.
“I’ve been calling you for two days! Where have you been?!” Shannon yelled. When I rounded the front end of Joey’s truck, she screamed louder. “Is this why?” Anger filled her face, turning it red. “Have you been fucking your ex-girlfriend this whole time?” My body tensed.
“Keep your voice down!” Joey demanded in a tone I’d only heard him use when defending me. “I do not need your permission to hang out with my friends, just like you don’t need mine. Have I ever questioned where you’ve been?” Hearing him refer to me as merely a friend struck a chord, even though I had no right to feel that way. Technically, he was absolutely right.
“I never ignore your calls.” I didn’t appreciate her lecturing him the way she was. The top of her dress hung low, exposing her chest more than necessary. I was slightly jealous over the fact that she didn’t need a bra to keep her boobs in position.
“I don’t ever call you!” he retaliated. Joey would feel terrible about me witnessing their argument, so I ignored the glare Shannon gave me and continued up the sidewalk, coaxing Maddie to come along. She wouldn’t move until I mentioned food.
While listening to Maddie crunch on her dinner, I filled her water bowl at the sink, wondering why Joey didn’t talk on the phone with the girl he was dating. He used to keep me on the phone for hours at a time. Once we hung up, we’d continue texting until one of us fell asleep or had to focus on something else. When I was at college, there were always messages waiting whenever a class ended.
Taking in the space around me, I felt more comfortable than I imagined. The home Joey and Jack created seemed to be pretty consistent with what guys would consider adequate. The kitchen boasted clean counters, standard appliances, and a sink with a dirty dish and a half-full glass of milk. Jack probably ate, then ran out of the house to get to work. They had a small dining area with a table and four chairs. The living room held a coffee table and couch with a matching recliner, all of which were situated in front of a large television. There was one picture hanging on the wall. Something told me their mom bought it, and may have even hung it herself.
In the corner sat a bin of dog toys and a cushioned bed big enough to hold three Labs. It seemed brand new. The thought made me laugh. No way would Maddie lay on that thing when she could curl up on the couch next to Joey. It wouldn’t surprise me if she claimed the recliner as her own and had gotten away with it.
The glass door opened onto a square cement patio. From where I stood, I saw a covered grill. It made me smile. Joey didn’t care if it rained or snowed. To him, nothing beat steak or chicken with grill marks. One winter, he and his dad stood outside clutching an umbrella in almost blizzard-like conditions making wings because they didn’t taste as good baked in the oven. The umbrella went in the trash afterwards because the wind ruined it. It failed to keep them dry anyway. We ate in front of the fireplace in his parents’ living room so the two of them could thaw. From then on, Pete refused to help when Joey got a craving for barbecued food in the colder months.
A loud bang startled me and I jumped. “Sorry,” Joey apologized, wishing he hadn’t slammed the door.
“Is everything okay?” It was none of my business, but the words fell out of my mouth anyway.
“Yeah. Give me five minutes. I’m going to take a quick shower and change.”
“Should I take Maddie out?”
“She’ll be fine for a few. Make yourself at home.” He pointed to the couch.
Maddie joined me, confirming my suspicion as to why her bed looked as new as it did. I grabbed the remote control for the TV and flipped through the channels. Nothing except the news was on the main stations, so I kept scanning, eventually settling on a repeat of an old sitcom. When Joey returned, I was chuckling.
“This was a good episode,” he commented. We saw it together when it had originally aired. Watching certain shows was something we did fairly often. Everyone teased us about being an old married couple long before our time.
“It was,” I concurred.
“Ready?”
“Sure.” He switched off the power from a button on the side of the TV, then called to Maddie. Once I stood, she made her way off the couch.
“You need to stop spoiling her,” Joey said. “She’s not going to be the same when you leave.” It took a second after that remark for me to move. Was he only referring to Maddie, or did he mean something else?
Driving through the neighborhood, we played the radio game. Only newly-released songs were on, so I was able to name all of them. Since the players arrived well before the start of the game, we had to park in the back of the parking lot. Joey tucked Maddie’s leash into the back pocket of his jeans, and we took our time getting to the field. Nothing much had changed in my absence. The snack stand looked the same. The fence and backstop hadn’t been replaced, not that they needed to be. One difference was the new scoreboard out in center field. Usually, only fields for the older kids had them. Along the bottom was the name of the local organization that had donated it.
Prior to walking over to the stands, Joey made a detour to the snack stand and bought me a bag of candy. My favorite kind, of course. The closer we got to the crowd, the more kids came over to Maddie. They knew her and Joey by name. It was so cute seeing him interact with them, but it also hurt that I once thought I’d be able to give him the family he always wanted. He spoke with everyone as we made our way to the fence just beyond the dugout.
“Joe,” a man greeted him. “So good to see you. Peyton told me she asked you to stop by.”
“She did. How could I tell her no?”
He laughed. “One of these days, you’ll see past the cuteness and learn how easy it really is.”
Joey smiled. “I doubt it. I’d like you to meet someone. This is my friend, Brielle. BC, this is Dennis Anderson, Peyton’s dad.”
“Nice to meet you, Brielle,” he said.
“Same here.”
“What did I miss?” Joey asked. Mr. Anderson gave him a play-by-play on how the top of the first inning went. The gist of it was three up, three down. Peyton recorded out number three with a perfect toss from third to first. “That’s my girl!” Joey gloated. When I shot him a look, he smirked. “We’ve worked hard on that throw.”
“She definitely doesn’t get it from me,” her father mumbled, resting his forearms on the fence. Peyton was due up fourth.
“B, do you mind keeping an eye on Maddie for a second? Peyton’s coach works at the station and I wanted to talk to him really quick about something that happened this morning.”
“No problem.” Joey went through the gate and along the fence until he reached the dugout. He shook hands with the coach as Peyton walked over, giving him a high five. The gesture was sweet, making me smile.
“So, how do you and Joe know each other?” Mr. Anderson interrupted my thoughts.
“We went to high school together.”
“It must’ve been serious,” he confidently said. I tore my attention from Joey and turned toward Mr. Anderson. “We’ve only ever met friends of Joe’s who are cops. Except his brother every once in a while, he doesn’t bring anyone else around. Did you two date long?”
“We did,” I admitted, hoping he didn’t catch the sadness in my tone.
He stayed quiet
for a moment, then continued. “My wife and I met Joe under the worst possible circumstances. He was knocking on our front door when we came home from a funeral for a colleague of mine. Because he wasn’t in uniform, his presence wasn’t too worrisome at first. I insisted my wife stay in the car until I figured out what was going on. It wasn’t until he told me he was a police officer that I realized the babysitter’s car wasn’t in the driveway where it should’ve been.” He paused, rubbing his jaw. “Because my wife would give very specific instructions to anyone who cared for our daughter, we paid the person well. It took us a long time to conceive Peyton, and her first few months of life were touch and go. She was born prematurely with some complicated medical issues. The babysitter knew she had to stay at the house because we didn’t want Peyton in the car with an inexperienced teenage driver.” I nodded. “Anyway, the babysitter had an argument with her boyfriend on the telephone. When he hung up on her, she couldn’t wait until we got home to go find him. She put Peyton into the car without her car seat. Joe was off-duty at the time, but he noticed her driving erratically and called it in. At that point, he could have wiped his hands of the situation, but he didn’t. His plan was to follow at a safe distance until someone else arrived to pull the car over. Suddenly, she hit the accelerator, lost control, and ended up wrapping her car around a tree.” Tears filled his eyes at the memory. “If Joe hadn’t witnessed the accident, Peyton wouldn’t have made it to the hospital alive. We would’ve lost our only daughter.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. There was nothing I understood more than the desire to protect a child.
“Days passed before we even knew Joe had been the one to save her. As he drove us to the hospital, he explained what happened. Little did we know that he had just come from there himself. He wasn’t looking for recognition or a pat on the back. When Peyton finally woke up, she asked for him by name. We were confused until she told us all he had done. She had been conscious when he got there and remembered everything he said to her. He promised to make sure she was safe and he kept it. After that, my wife quit her job to stay home with Peyton. For a long time, the only person outside our immediate family Peyton felt comfortable with was Joe. Thankfully, he’s an understanding and amazing man.”
“That’s my Joey.” The words had a tough time getting past my throat. If I told Joey about the baby or what Donnie had done, he wouldn’t have become a cop and been able to be there for Peyton. That had to count for something, right?
“We’ll never be able to repay him for everything he’s done for us.”
I smirked. “Joey wouldn’t accept anything even if you tried.”
He laughed. “You’re right about that.”
“Right about what?” a woman asked from behind me.
“How amazing Joe Sullivan is,” he answered, stretching out an arm.
“I can’t argue with that.” She smiled, tucking herself against his chest.
“Brielle, this is my wife, Jane. Jane, this is Brielle, a friend of Joe’s.”
We exchanged a quick hello as Joe walked back up. “You weren’t telling him how to manage his team, were you?” I asked.
Mrs. Anderson laughed. “This girl knows you better than most, Joe.”
“Don’t listen to anything bad she has to say. It’s all a lie,” he joked, putting his arm over my shoulder.
The four of us found a spot on the bleachers and watched the game while taking turns playing with Maddie. Joey controlled himself fairly well when it came to bad umpire calls or things he would have done differently if he ran the team. Normally, he’d be very vocal with his opinions. I supposed it was only natural when you knew the game as well as he did.
Once the game ended, Peyton’s team winning, Joey and I waited for her to come off the field. She instantly became my best friend when the first thing she did was compliment Maddie’s new collar. Joey swore I paid her to say it. He treated the five of us to ice cream from a place a block over from the field. We sat at one of the outdoor tables for another half-hour, talking and sneaking Maddie ice cream behind Joey’s back.
I had a great night, feeling a little sad when it came to an end. “Mr. Anderson told me what you did for Peyton,” I mentioned as he pulled up behind my car in my parents’ driveway.
“He’s an old man, BC. He makes shit up sometimes.”
“Nice try.” He grinned. “I’m so proud of you, Joey. You truly are a hero.” It annoyed me that I started getting choked up, but I wanted him to know.
His happiness seemed to fade. “I’m not a doctor who cures people. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m just an ordinary guy.”
“You were never just an ordinary guy, Joey Sullivan. You don’t have it in you.” I bit my tongue to disguise my true emotion. “And, just for the record, you could never disappoint me.” I gave Maddie a quick pat on her head and exited his truck before either of us said anything else.
She could deny it all she wanted, but BC knew she made the biggest mistake of her life when she broke up with me. The things she said, the way her eyes filled, and her body language spoke volumes of regret. Why the hell couldn’t she just admit it so we could move on? I’d even let her keep the reasoning behind everything a secret. Naturally, not knowing why resulted in many lost hours of sleep over the years, but having her back would be worth every second spent venting, pacing, staring into space, drinking, wondering how something as special as what we had fell apart so easily. The simplest solution was to tell her how it should be, demanding she quit believing whatever nonsense she fed herself. Unfortunately, shit didn’t always work that way, especially with BC. I had to wait until she was ready.
I didn’t even get a mile from her house before “Sunday Morning” came on the radio. Ever since she left, I usually changed the station the second it began, but I couldn’t turn it off this time. More than anything, I wished she were in the truck. Was it still her favorite Maroon 5 song? Did she still listen to it? If so, did it remind her of the same night I thought of whenever I heard it? It had to. Whether good or bad, everybody remembered their first time.
We had been dating for a while, longer than anyone we knew. It wasn’t like the topic never came up. We were surrounded by a bunch of horny bastards on a daily basis, none of whom had any type of filter when the girls were with us. The disrespect they showed irritated me. Don’t get me wrong. I never claimed to be an angel, but there was a time and place. If BC was around and they acted like that, I let them know it wasn’t acceptable. They quickly learned to tone it down when my girl was present. Besides, it was no one’s business what she and I did when we were alone.
Over a few months, we briefly discussed it here and there. I knew she was the one, and she said the same about me. Neither one of us was innocent, but BC’s one and only request was how she didn’t want to plan anything. It was important to her that it happen on its own. Too often, couples would split and become bitter if something didn’t go well. Expectations on one side were different than on the other. I’d heard multiple complaints of one person assuming more. Arguments became battles that would spread into their circle of friends, forcing people to choose. Once sex entered the picture, things changed. However, with everything exactly how we liked it, we weren’t looking for any alterations to our relationship.
One Friday night, BC and I left a party before Jack came to get us. It sort of sucked since we were having such a good time, but a certain crew showed up. Not only would I not hang around them myself, I didn’t want her anywhere near those guys. Wherever they went, trouble followed. Since it was my job to protect her, we took off.
Hand-in-hand, we strolled through my neighborhood. The house where we were was only a couple blocks from mine. By the time we made it to my driveway, stars lit up the entire night sky.
“Jack won’t be off work for another two hours,” I told her after checking the time on my cell. He was taking us to the shore. My parents had gone earlier in the day, but we didn’t want to miss the party, so Jack volunteered to driv
e us down. “What do you want to do? Are you hungry? I’m sure my mom left something in the kitchen in case we changed our minds about going.”
“Not really,” she sighed. “It’s nice out tonight. Can we just sit in the backyard?” If there was ever a night we didn’t have anything going on, BC and I would take a blanket out back and gaze at the stars. With our busy athletic schedules, we didn’t get to do it that often.
Leading her along the side of the house and into the yard, I teased, “Hope you aren’t afraid of the dark.”
She bumped me with her arm. “Only when a scary movie is involved.” BC hated horror flicks. In spite of how much I begged, she wouldn’t watch one. I chuckled, kissed her on the side of the head, and released her hand to walk up onto the deck. My mom kept beach towels and picnic blankets in a storage bin by the walkway to the pool. Jack and I were notorious for not remembering to grab towels before running outside and jumping in, then we’d trail water through the house. Mom would be so pissed. Eventually, she wised up and made it more convenient for us, not to mention less stressful for her.
The particular blanket we liked was all the way at the bottom of the storage bin. I practically climbed into the damn thing to find it. With my temper flaring, and after banging my head, I slammed the lid. She tried to hide it, but her giggle resonated to me. “It’s not funny.”
“You getting frustrated over something so ridiculous usually is comical,” she mumbled, not intending for me to hear her.
I threw the blanket over the railing. She effortlessly caught it. “That wasn’t ridiculous. It hurt.”
“The thing is plastic, so I’m sure you’ll live. It only fell because you didn’t push the lid all the way up until the latch locked.” She was right, but she wasn’t going to hear that from me. Instead, I raced down the steps and hurdled Mom’s vegetable garden. BC never even flinched as I scooped her up and flung her over my shoulder. She knew nothing bad would happen, so my antics didn’t bother her. Now, if I walked toward the pool, she’d freak. She had taken the time to get dressed up, spending entirely too long doing her hair and makeup, none of which was necessary. As a matter of fact, we left her house well after the time we were supposed to because certain strands of hair weren’t doing what she wanted them to do. BC could pull that shit up into a messy ponytail and still be hot as hell. The girl had no idea what she did to us guys. Maybe it was better that way.
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