by Sierra Dean
“Hi.” She leaned against the wall. “How long has he been here?”
“Who, Captain Baseball? I dunno, an hour I guess.”
“You didn’t think to invite him in?”
Kevin snorted and took a swig from the bottle, elongating the pause before he answered. “You wouldn’t have maimed me too terribly for that. Nah, I asked, but he said he didn’t want to interrupt if you weren’t here. Liv had already gone to bed when he showed up. No biggie.”
Alice gnawed on her lower lip, not sure how impressed she ought to be with Alex for his timing and consideration. He was doing everything right, and all she could do was yell at him for it.
“How was she?”
“Liv?”
“No, my other daughter. Yes, of course Liv.”
“Good, I guess. She’s on this kick right now of asking about everything. Like…everything. She wants to know why people on shows do stuff, why characters in books say things, why, why, why, you know?”
“Oh yes. I know.” It had started out really cute, a flashback to Olivia’s toddler days when why had been a constant question. Only now the questions were harder and often revolved around Liv’s father. Alice wondered what the questions would become when, or if, she threw Alex into the picture.
“Is he still here?” Kevin’s gaze drifted to the big front window. From his lowered angle on the couch it would have been difficult to see the porch or the driveway.
“Yeah, he’s still here.”
“Want me to tell him to fuck off?”
“Nah.” No sense in pointing out she’d already tried and it had only managed to make her feel like an asshole. She traipsed into the kitchen and collected two wineglasses and a corkscrew, then headed back to the porch where Alex was sitting patiently, the wine bottle in hand. Alice took the chair next to him and handed him the glasses while reclaiming the bottle.
Once they both had a full goblet of cabernet, she sank back in her chair and let out a sigh, relieved to be off her feet for the first time all day.
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling the need to be the first to break their companionable silence. “I get… I can get a bit bitchy, but I guess you’ve figured that out.”
“No idea what you’re talking about.” He smirked and sipped his wine. “I think your personality is, to borrow your phrasing, sunshine and rainbows.”
“Oh. You’re a deluded maniac. No wonder you like me.”
“Sorry, you were saying something about what a bitch you can be?”
“Touché. I think what I was trying to do is apologize. For last night. For today. All of it. I have my own…issues, and I think you’re getting the brunt of the fallout.”
“So what you’re saying is I bring out the worst in you.”
“No, that’s not it. Well…maybe. Just a bit.” She grinned at him, resting her head on the back of the chair so she could get a better look at his face. “But hey, you’ve seen me at my worst and apparently still think I’m okay. That’s got to be something.”
“I am not a smart man.” He imitated Forrest Gump with a spot-on Southern drawl.
“Let me ask you something.”
“Sure.”
“If I say yes to this family date you have planned, and it all goes terribly wrong, will you stop following me around?”
“Do you want me to stop following you around?”
Alice sipped her wine, swirling it around in her mouth before she swallowed. “I’ll have to get back to you.”
“Does that mean you’re saying yes to the date?”
“I suppose it does.”
“I guess I’d better plan something then.”
Chapter Twelve
How the hell do you entertain a child while trying to woo her mother? What did nine-year-old girls like? Alex didn’t have a lot of experience with kids. Two of his five sisters had children now, but the oldest was only four. The other was still a baby, and his sisters watched him with a mix of concern and delight whenever he held one of them. A girl Olivia’s age was a different story. She had opinions and an attitude, and Alex didn’t have the first clue in hell how to impress her.
He knew Olivia was a key to this. He had to get the kid on his side.
All he really knew about Olivia was that she liked baseball, and she had the bad sense to be a Mets fan. At least she’d picked them instead of the Yankees. He didn’t think he could date anyone who raised a Yankees fan.
His master plan for the date wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret. He’d asked Alice to meet him at the ballpark after sunset. The Felons had played an afternoon game that day, and all other drills were long since finished. He had needed to pay quite handsomely to keep a few willing souls on-site to run the outfield lighting and provide mandatory security.
He’d bribed the equipment manager to give him a basket of balls and a couple of bats for the night, then spent a good hour searching for a kid-friendly aluminum bat and some softballs for Olivia. He remembered enough about being a kid himself to know it wasn’t a good idea to start a child out with the big-boy equipment. Wooden bats were heavy, and a league ball was both too small and too hard to lob at the poor kid. If there was a hope in hell of her having any fun with them tonight, she’d need her own stuff.
The big add-on was a real leather glove, none of the cheap pink kiddie crap. He’d only met Olivia once, but she hadn’t struck him as the girlie-girl type. A nice sturdy Rawlings was what she needed. He had to guess on the size, but figured even if it was too big, she’d be able to grow into it.
If they’d been back at the Felons stadium in San Fran, he would have queued up a movie on the jumbotron and had attendants around for the rides. There would be plenty of snack vendors to choose from. Sure, it would have cost way more, but the options would have been endless. Here all he had was the outfield berm, a huge span of open lawn where fans frequently set up blankets while waiting for a well-placed home run.
A local delivery place would show up about an hour into the evening with food. Alex wasn’t sure about getting too fancy and scaring off Alice or Olivia, plus he was a man of simple tastes himself. Instead of soufflé or lobster, he opted to order trays of spaghetti—what kid didn’t like spaghetti?—and heaping servings of garlic toast. Éclairs were the easy pick for dessert because they were kid-friendly, a bit messy, and if they sat around in the muggy warmth of the evening, they wouldn’t totally be ruined.
So that was his plan. Private baseball, an outfield picnic, and that was it. Olivia was only nine, after all. Asking to meet after sunset put a time limitation on the evening to begin with, as Alice had informed him of a strict nine o’clock bedtime on school nights. With those constraints in mind, he hoped he’d be able to win over both ladies with the time he’d been given.
He had a strong feeling this was his one shot to prove to Alice he wasn’t what she believed him to be. It still stung, the way she’d said there were no white knights among baseball players. Okay, maybe he didn’t know how to ride a horse, but that didn’t make him a bad guy. Did Alice have unrealistic expectations of men—something he thought most women outgrew in their mid-twenties—or did she have a more personal reason for hating ballplayers specifically?
If it was the former, he hoped to prove he was a good catch. The latter might be harder to deal with. Could he erase her preconceived notions about his entire profession? How much had some dude fucked her over in the past to make her believe baseball players were such a scummy lot?
And why, why were women so goddamn complicated?
It made him happy he spent six months out of the year surrounded almost completely by other men. He could read annoyance from a grunt, and most dudes would just let stuff roll off their backs. Not women, though. They held grudges over the smallest perceived slight. And trying to use logic to make them see reason? Well, he’d have better luck giving a cat a bath.
His sisters had taught him patience, but they hadn’t given him any cheat codes. That was probably because dealing with women was n
o game. And even if it was, they could change the rules on you at the drop of a hat.
Alex paced nervously in front of the entrance doors to the ballpark. The girls would be arriving in about ten minutes, which gave him enough time to seriously regret what he was wearing. Because he knew they’d be running around in the field, he’d opted for a pair of battered jeans and a comfortable, long-sleeved sweatshirt. It wasn’t the most dazzling first-date attire, and he worried Alice would think he was a slob. The jeans were worn through in one knee and had faded from a deep indigo to a light, light blue. They were so soft and thin they basically felt like sweatpants.
Sweatpants had been a consideration earlier in the evening—after all, that’s what he wore if he was working out—but he smartened up and decided if he was going to go casual, he should at least wear real pants.
After adjusting the Felons cap on his head, he took it off briefly to run a hand through his sweaty hair. Why had he been cursed with such thick, wiry hair? His head got so hot. Three of his sisters had dense, dark curls, while two had been blessed with thin, light hair. Yet he’d gotten a mass of black hair so thick it didn’t even curl, it just sort of…sat there.
Normally he’d last about halfway through the season before he got so fed up with it he’d shave his head.
March was too early to be heading to the barber though, meaning it would be hats and misery for another month or so. His sisters would beat him soundly if they knew how he was dressed. As proper Southern belles, they would be repulsed by the notion of a man wearing a ball cap on a date.
Thankfully his sisters weren’t here.
But it didn’t keep their nattering out of his mind as he paced the concrete pad between the entrance and the parking lot. Jane would be the worst. The eldest of the clan, she thought that automatically gave her second-mother status. She wasn’t wrong, but her insistence on being the family know-it-all was sometimes exhausting. She would literally have smacked Alex upside the head if she could see him right now.
“A real man dresses his best to woo a lady,” Jane’s voice scolded.
Well, a real man wouldn’t have fucked the girl in the backseat of a car before their first date. So really, he had already failed the gentleman test. Now he had to fight his way back to decent dude status in Alice’s eyes.
Her car was impossible to miss in the near-empty lot. Only his car and two employee cars were parked there, so her little Acura was easy to spot. Alex half-expected her brother Kevin to pop out, in spite of Alice’s assurances he wouldn’t want to tag along. The invitation had been issued out of politeness on Alex’s part. He wasn’t sure he could handle a full night of Kevin’s scrutinizing glares.
Olivia’s would be hard enough.
The ladies walked towards him, Alice in a pair of light jeans and a loose-fitting white top that was so airy it might as well have been made out of gauze. Her long blonde hair was held back with a headband, but was otherwise free, hanging down her back.
She smiled at him, a wary gesture that almost reached her eyes. He’d defrost her eventually. Alice placed a hand on Olivia’s back, urging her daughter along. Olivia wore a serious expression, her mouth set into a firm line and her scrawny arms crossed tightly. It was a pose reminiscent of Alice, which couldn’t help but make Alex smile.
“Ladies.”
“Hi, Alex.” Alice tugged Olivia’s curly ponytail. “What do you say?”
“Hey.” Olivia jerked her chin up, which was as close as she was evidently going to get to a wave.
The kid was all awkward height and sharp angles. He could see a lot of Alice in her, in spite of Olivia’s darker features, which made him think she might grow up pretty once she stopped looking like a tiny crane.
“Good day?” he asked.
“Called a Yankees game.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“So were they.” She smiled again, and this time her whole face softened. Her cheeks got pink, and a gleam appeared in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
The place on her cheek where Teddy’s elbow had smacked her had healed better than he’d expected it to. There was a faint redness, and he imagined in the light there would be a tinge of purple to it, but she certainly didn’t seem like she’d taken a serious beating. His knuckles, on the other hand, were those of a man who had tried to break a concrete wall with his fist.
“How about you, Olivia?”
“Liv,” she corrected, her tone managing to convey more annoyance than he thought her tiny frame was capable of holding.
“Sorry. Liv. What’d you do today?”
“School.”
Ah, okay, so it was to be a one-word-answer kind of interaction. He could work with that. Better than if she repeated back everything he said, which had been a popular way to annoy adults when he’d been a kid, and probably remained a standard for today’s youth.
“What classes are you taking?”
“We don’t have classes.”
Well, he sounded like an idiot, but it had earned him a four-word reply. He’d accept it. “Sorry, it’s been awhile since an old guy like me has been there. What did you learn today?”
Olivia chewed on her lip, a gesture he suspected she’d learned from Alice. “Multiplication.”
“Oh, man. I was the worst at math. I bet you’re good at it though.”
She looked him up and down once and turned to Alice. Her mother nodded and smiled, giving her whatever approval she needed to go ahead with the discussion. “I can do my worksheets faster than everyone else in class. Ms. Fisher says I’m pretty smart.” Catching herself bragging, Olivia blushed and added, “I guess.”
“Yeah, I figured you for being smart. Your mom is.”
Olivia’s face lightened a little when Alex complimented her mother. Some kids could go either way. He knew a few guys with the Felons who had kids, and he would rag on their dads to win them over. Your old man is so slow we’d need to get him rollerblades to get to first base and things like that. But a lot of kids had a blind sense of worship for their parents, and he liked those kids a lot. Olivia was apparently a big fan of her mother because much of the hostility faded out of her.
“Mom’s really smart. She taught me all the state capitals before I was even three,” Olivia bragged.
“Do you still remember them?”
“Yeah.” Her crossed arms dropped, and she bounced on her feet excitedly, suddenly much more like a young girl than a surly teen. “Ask me anything.”
“Sure. California.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Easy. Sacramento.”
“Okay, let’s try another one. Ummm, okay, my home state. Georgia.”
“Atlanta.”
“Home of the Braves,” Alex said.
“Ugh.” She stuck her tongue out, and Alex couldn’t help but laugh. Tact wasn’t one of Olivia’s strengths, but she definitely wasn’t afraid to be honest.
“Oh, I’ve got a good one. Delaware.”
Olivia opened her mouth to reply, then stopped, her features drawn uncertainly. She closed her mouth, her lips pinched in a serious expression while she tried to come up with the answer. She finally looked to her mother with wide, imploring eyes. Alice leaned over and stage whispered, “It rhymes with Grover.”
“Oh. Oh. Dover.”
Alex held his hand out. “Good job.”
Olivia smacked his palm for the cutest high-five he’d ever gotten. Her barriers had been easy to break down. Easier than he’d dared hope. Now he had to hope her mother would learn to like him with such little effort.
“Well, come on. Best not leave you girls standing out here all night. Follow me.” He turned his back on them, sad to do it because of how good Alice looked, but not prepared to accidentally walk into a door, either.
They walked through the interior of the park complex and down a flight of stairs to the lower level, where a security guard was waiting to give them access to the field. Seeing a uniform, Olivia immediately grew quiet, watching the older man
with wide eyes. Alex wished his own uniform commanded that much awe from her.
Out on the field, though, her mouth fell slack, and he knew he’d dazzled her a little. It was one thing to see a baseball stadium from the seats, quite another to be out on the grass. The field looked huge from the ground level, even in a minor-league park. The seats seemed to rise up like the arena seating of a Roman theatre, and it was easy to feel very, very small from the ground level.
“Wow,” Olivia said, her head tilted so far back he thought she might fall backwards.
“Pretty cool, isn’t it?” He stood next to her, gazing up and trying to see it the way he might have at her age. “You should see the big parks. Like mine in San Francisco. It makes this look like a little league field.”
“For real?”
“Yeah, they’re a lot bigger.”
“Cool.” She wasn’t yet at an age where it was necessary to hate everything adults liked. She still thought her mom hung the moon, and apparently was enough of a tomboy that a baseball diamond could impress her. Alex was relieved, because his only other idea had been taking them to Disney. Not only did he not want to make that drive, he also wasn’t sure he could stand waiting in so many lines in one day.
“Want to play?”
“Play?” Olivia appeared both nervous and excited, as though she wasn’t quite sure what he meant.
“Yeah. Play ball with me and your mom.”
Olivia’s head turned to Alice so quickly it was a wonder the torque didn’t knock her over. “Can we?”
Alice laughed, tugging the girl in against her side for a hug. “Of course we can. Did you think I’d drag you all the way out here to sit around?”
“I dunno.”
“No, silly goose.”
“I didn’t bring my glove, though.” She aimed her huge doe eyes at Alex, and in that one small gesture he was powerless to her. How young did women learn the ability to wrap a man around their finger? He thought he’d be nice to Olivia to prove her mother should date him, but now looking at the girl he realized he’d do just about anything to make her like him. Maybe it was a gift specific to the Darling women, because he’d certainly never wanted to impress his sisters this much.