Wait for It

My good mood lasted until the next morning. When your first thought after waking up includes the word “bullshit” in it, it shouldn’t be a surprise when you’re grumpy the rest of the day. But the fact was even though I was well aware that I had thrown verbal lighter fluid into my talk with the baseball mom at practice yesterday, what resulted from it was still a whole load of horseshit. The more I thought about it, the angrier it made me. What was I supposed to do? Stand there and get blamed for something that wasn’t my fault? I was dreading having to call Mr. Larsen and tell him that I wasn’t going to be able to take Josh to practice, and then have to explain why. It made me feel like a kid who had gotten caught cheating on her test.

Josh was too sleepy to notice that I was grumpy, and Louie, well, who the hell knew what was going through that kid’s head. The last time I asked him what he was thinking about, he’d said “buttholes.” Since then, I kept that question to myself. But Ginny, who happened to open the salon with me that morning, immediately picked up on my mood.

“What’s wrong?” she’d asked, already smirking.

“How can you tell something’s wrong?” I asked, shoving the last piece of smores flavored Pop-Tart into my mouth.

“Because you eat Pop-Tarts when you’re mad or aggravated.” Her smirk grew. “And I know you. I can sense it.”

She was right. Pop-Tarts were my comfort food in time of need. The boys already knew that when they caught me eating a package, something was wrong. I slid her a look as I unpacked my lunch and put it into the refrigerator, chewing and swallowing the last bit of my makeshift breakfast. To balance it out, I’d scarfed down a banana first. “You get into one little argument with another parent at baseball and you get suspended from a practice.”

I didn’t have to look at my boss to know she’d hunched over when she started laughing. I could hear her, and I knew her. And it was the sound of her laugh that made me smile so hard my face hurt from trying not to do the same. It did sound ridiculous.

“Trip did that?” she asked, wiping at her eyes.

“No, your other cousin did. Trip just stood by and let it happen.” We weren’t friends, I’d accepted that while I sulked on the way to work that morning, but I still couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

That had her cracking up all over again. “What happened?”

So I told her in detail, and when she nodded at me in response, I knew I hadn’t done some crazy, unheard of thing. Plus, Ginny really had been nineteen when she’d had her first child. Of course she was going to get at least a little offended. Luckily for both of us, she didn’t offer to call Trip and put in a good word for me. I would never ask her to do that and she knew I could handle my own battles… unless I specifically asked for help. When she patted me on the back and shared half an orange with me, I told myself again it wasn’t a big deal, that I shouldn’t get so bent out of shape.

I had acted wrongly, but I still wouldn’t change what I’d said. I could be a grown-up and accept responsibility for my actions. Somehow my mood spiked after I accepted that reality, and the next few hours went better.

Until I went to the deli for two soft drinks during a small break between customers right around lunch.

It wasn’t a surprise that the line to order and pay was long. They kept the sodas behind the counter. With two people ahead of me, the door chimed open, but I didn’t turn around. I was too busy looking down at my phone, browsing through flight times to visit my best friend.

“How’s it going?” a male voice asked behind me.

I didn’t realize they were talking to me, so I kept looking at my screen.

There was a short laugh. “Diana, you gonna ignore me?”

Wondering who the hell would be talking to me, I glanced over my shoulder and immediately went from being confused to not amused. It was Trip, my not-friend. “Hi. I didn’t know you were talking to me.”

That signature bright smile of his went up a notch, indifferent to my tone and mood. “Who else would I be talkin’ to?” he asked, still grinning.

I shrugged, that slight taste of resentment on my tongue. “I don’t know.”

Unaffected, he asked, “Gettin’ some lunch?”

“No, just two drinks.” I paused, fighting the urge between being rude and polite. The champion winning as it always did. “You?”

“Lunch.” If he knew he wasn’t exactly my favorite person in that moment, he didn’t let it get to him. “How’s your day goin’?”

“Good.” I kept my mouth flat. “You?”

“No complaints.” That pretty pink mouth of his twitched and he raised his eyebrows, his impressive smile growing by the second. “You mad at me too?”

My mood felt like a balloon that had been pricked by a needle. I sighed and took a step closer as the line behind me shifted. “Maybe.”

He straight up smirked. “Aww, honey, don’t be like that. We gotta be fair. The boys can’t see y’all goin’ at it and think there’s no consequences if they get into fights.”

I started to open my mouth about how we hadn’t gotten into a fight, but closed it just as quickly. The thing with being an adult sometimes, was that it sucked. I hated admitting I was wrong to other people, even though last night while I’d been talking to Josh I had admitted having a part in what happened. But Trip was right.

“If it matters any, I would’ve been rootin’ for you and not Christy.”

How could I stay mad after that, especially with that beaming grin he had aimed in my direction? “At least you would have. I don’t know what I did to your head coach. He makes me feel like I have cooties. Every time I talk to him, it’s like I’m a burden on his soul. If he didn’t want Josh or me on the team, he could have said something before, or just not put him on the team to begin with.”

“What?” Trip chuckled, his forehead scrunched up in confusion as he did it. I was starting to see this man laughed more than he did anything else. It was so cute. “Dallas?”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t about to tell him about the first day we met. It wasn’t any of his business what had happened to Dallas’s brother, family or not. I didn’t know what Dallas could or would have told others about that night. Maybe he had told them everything. Maybe he had told them nothing. But it wasn’t my news to share with other people. I would hate for him to spread my business around.

The blond’s forehead became lined even more, and he shook his head just slightly in disbelief. “He was the one who pointed out your boy in the first place.” He paused and shook his head again. “He’s being like that?”

I nodded.

“Nah. That doesn’t make any sense. I’ve known him my whole life and I’ve never seen him get mad at anybody. He’s pretty fuckin’ chill.”

Were we talking about the same person? I had seen him get mad at two people in the handful of times I’d been around him.

He seemed to think about it for a moment before making a noise deep in the back of his throat. One of his eyes went a little squinty. “You hit on him?”

The snort that burst out of me was so insulted, there was no way he could have taken it a different way. No fucking way. “No.” I didn’t even have to think about it. I hadn’t. Not even a little. Maybe I’d checked him out a tiny bit, I wasn’t a saint, but I hadn’t told him to come out of his room in only his boxers. But I’d cut myself off from looking at him below the neck the instant I learned he was married.

Trip looked more than a little amused. “I’m just askin’. He gets a little sensitive about that shit.” Because he was married or separated or whatever the hell he was? “He hasn’t said nothin’ to me about you.”

Not knowing what to think or say, I rubbed my hands across the front of my pants nervously. “I just don’t want things to be awkward if we have to see each other all the time. I swear I didn’t do anything to make him dislike me. He was pretty nice at first—” At that moment, I realized I was complaining to a grown man about his cousin. I needed to stop. There were plenty of pointless things you could do in your life and whining to a man about another man seemed like it would be at the top of the list. “I just don’t know what I did, and I don’t want things to be awkward.”

“I’d ask him. I don’t always get what climbs up his ass and what doesn’t,” Trip explained casually, so openly it caught me off guard since we didn’t really know each other well. “You’re easy on the eyes, honey. I know I wouldn’t mind you flirtin’ with me.”

“I didn’t flirt with him,” I practically ground out, replaying every conversation I’d had with the man. Nothing. I couldn’t see any flirting in there.

Trip raised his shoulders in this casual gesture, still grinning; that could have meant “I believe you” or “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Great. I scoffed, taking into consideration his words for later, and then focusing again on the man in front of me, grinning. “Stop smiling at me like that,” I said, watching him.

That only made his smile wider. “Like what?”

He knew exactly what he was doing. I wasn’t a fool. He definitely wasn’t one either. “Like that. I’m a lost cause. Don’t waste all that—” I waved my hand in a circle. “—on me.”

His laugh reminded me so much of Ginny, in that moment, it seemed like I’d known Trip half my life. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about.”

“You’re a damn liar.” I snorted at him, smiling seriously.

The more he laughed, the more the edges of us not knowing each other chiseled away and made me feel like we were friends already. “Gin already told me to pretend you were married and had warts all over your face.” His hands went up to pat the stained white T-shirt he had on. Something told me she wasn’t the first person in his life to make that distinction clear to him. “She said her scissors would slip or some shit like that if I tried anything.”

Oh, Ginny. I wasn’t sure how I got so lucky to not just have one great friend, but to have two just seemed like a blessing not many people got in their lives. “You don’t mess with a girl and her shears.” I raised my hand and made snipping motions with my index and middle finger, eyebrows raised.

“I know how to behave.”

I eyed him. “I don’t believe you.”

The smirk on his handsome face, all five o’clock shadow and yellow-gray hair, confirmed just how full of shit he was. At least he wasn’t going to bother continuing. And now that the ground rules between us had been set into place, it made me feel even more at ease with him.

“How’s Josh likin’ the team?” he asked, as if sensing that our lines had been drawn.

I told him the truth. “Good. He’s ready to start competing.” I had already started mentally preparing myself for sitting through game after game, hour after hour, for the next chunk of my life. Competitive baseball was probably one of the hardest things I’d had to adapt to when I first got Josh.

“How long has he been playing?”

“Since… tee-ball when he was three.” That was almost eight years ago. I’d been almost twenty-two when he’d started. If that didn’t have the ability to make me feel like life had flown by, I didn’t know what could.

“Your boy’s got that look in his eye. I kinda feel like a dumbass now that I never paid much attention to Gin when she’d bring up her coworker’s boy that played.”

I shrugged. At least he knew he should feel dumb. “She said your son is on the team too. Which one is he?” I’d been trying to figure out which of the boys on the team was his son, but I hadn’t put it together yet. Both coaches were always surrounded by at least two boys, and maybe I hadn’t paid enough attention, but I hadn’t caught him singling one out more than the others.

“Dean. Yellow hair. Hyper. Never stops talking.”

There was a dark blond boy on the team who had been a giant goofball even during tryouts. At practice the day before, he’d been singing theme songs each time a different boy went up to bat during practice. “And you have another one, don’t you?”

Trip made a sound in his throat. “He’s two. I don’t get to see him much,” he admitted so easily I wasn’t sure how to take it. His tone hadn’t changed, but… well, I didn’t know him well enough to be sure if there was something else hidden under there, but there easily could have been. Trip didn’t know I knew he had kids with different people, and I wasn’t positive how much he would like Ginny telling me things like that, even if it hadn’t been with bad intentions or a lack of affection on her part. She was just watching out for me.

The line behind me moved until I was next.

“You only got your two boys?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered. “They’re actually my—”

His phone started ringing, and he winked at me as he reached into his pocket. “Gimme a sec,” he said, bringing it up to his face and answering.

I turned around to give him some privacy, promising myself I’d tell him about the boys some other time.

* * *

“Who is it that we don’t like?”

I almost snorted out the water I’d been in the middle of drinking.

“Cat got your tongue, Di?” the older man chuckled, slapping me on the back as I coughed for breath after his question.

Louie, who was sitting on the other side of his grandpa on the same bleachers as us leaned over, his face all worried and soft. “Tia, you okay?”

I coughed and then coughed some more, the hand I’d slapped over my mouth to keep from spitting on the people in front of us, coming off more than a little wet from what I hadn’t been able to catch. I looked at Mr. Larsen out of the corner of my eye, trying so hard not to laugh, and nodded at Lou. “I think a bug flew into my mouth, Goo. I’m all right.”

He winced. “I hate it when they do that. They don’t taste like chicken.”

What the hell?

Before I could ask him why he would assume bugs tasted like chicken, Mr. Larsen shot me a horrified expression that we shared for a moment. He raised his shoulders and I raised them right back. I was going to blame his side of the family for that. Then I whispered to the older man, “She isn’t here. They aren’t letting her come to two practices. It was only me that got suspended from one.”

He had “oohed” and “ahhed,” a total sport after I’d had to admit to him why I couldn’t take Josh to practice. Without missing a beat, he asked afterward, “What time does he need to be there?” My love for the Larsens didn’t know an end or a beginning. I had a big family, but sometimes you met people who fit so perfectly into your life, you couldn’t imagine them ever not being a part of it. And these two people went above and beyond. Their ability to love knew no bounds.

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, pal. 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?”