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“Mallory—”
She holds up her hand. “I watched you with those kids at the fundraiser tonight, and it was so obvious you were in your element. You’re going to make one hell of a father.” I open my mouth to object, but she cuts me off with a quick, “I’m not offering my uterus. I’m trying to tell you that we’re both headed to the same place in life, but not together. I’m moving upstate for a job with the NFL team, the?—”
“Knights,” I finish for her.
She nods, then smiles. “My biological clock is ticking, and you might not hear yours, but you will one day soon.” She shimmies her tights on. “Promise me something?”
Completely relieved, I nod. “Sure, Mal.”
“Find a woman you see as more than a sexual equal and allow her to love you.”
“Not happening anytime soon.” I chuckle.
“Make sure she can also be your best friend and then marry her.”
“Again, not happening anytime soon.”
She slides her heels on, and I can’t help but laugh at the fact that she went from evening attire to my jersey, the same tights and heels, and she still looks very well put together.
Maybe too put together.
She points to my jersey that she’s wearing. “I’m keeping this to add to my collection.”
“A player can’t hate a player.” I wink as I walk over and kiss her cheek.
I toy with the idea of inviting her back if she’s still around for the next event, but think again. She ended it and pulled the Band-Aid off quickly too. Although that’s not how these things normally work for me, I’m good with it. In fact, I’m elated that it’s not messy.
“So, this might be the last time we will be …” Mallory struggles to find the word for what we have going, but in truth, there is really no term for it. We were just Mallory and Pope, hooking up.
“Yeah.” I nod as she grabs her bag from the floor where she tossed it earlier. “I wish you the best upstate.”
“Oh, sweetheart, you don’t have to,” Mallory drawls as she sashays to the bedroom door, her hips swaying in that inviting way. “I am the best out there.”
As I watch Mallory walk out the door, I decide to follow her down the hall. I stop at the landing, grab the railing, and watch her as she walks down the stairs.
“Thanks for tonight,” she calls up. “I’m gonna miss that big dick of yours.”
There is no respectful way to reply to that, so I go with, “Give them hell.”
She blows me a kiss, opens the door, walks out, and closes it behind her.
With Mallory’s unsolicited advice—specifically the make sure she can also be your best friend and then marry her part—now living rent-free in my head, I’m lying in bed, logged in to my original Instagram account, the account I had when Mom transferred my dad’s phone number to a used phone she’d bought me.
I followed the wrong people, wanting to be liked and accepted, like all kids do when trying to fit in. It didn’t take long before I was getting DMs, trash-talking my shitty clothes and shoes, our home, and then my mom being a waitress. It was a hit to my already-bruised confidence, but then I got pissed.
After my father’s death, we moved to Walton when our time expired to live on base. Mom had chosen Walton because my dad’s sister, Amy, lived about an hour away, and together, they found probably the only house in Texas that Mom could buy with the life insurance money she’d received.
I unfollowed everyone. Most of the DMs didn’t stop until I was pulled up to varsity in eighth grade. When I hit a growth spurt in tenth grade and broke every high school baseball record in our entire county they all stopped.
There’s a huge part of me that takes satisfaction in the fact that I have close to five thousand followers on that account. I only follow five people. Three of those people were friends before puberty hit and my name was on the front page of all the local papers and regional papers. The fourth is our team captain and our coach’s son—who graduated a year before me and pitches for the Sox—Leland Locke, and the fifth is Coach.
I only posted pictures of the scoreboard after every game. Pictures that my best friend had taken.
Whitley Mae Belington—or as she insisted on being called, Whit—was the only girl in my tight-knit group of friends, and she hasn’t updated her IG in years, but her old posts are up. Her softball team pictures and a few of her and her cousins.
Last time I saw her, or any of them for that matter, was at my mother’s funeral. I don’t remember much from that week, but thinking back, I do remember how different she looked—stunning. Just as beautiful as the women I’ve been with over the past few years. You wouldn’t have known it when we were younger. Whit covered it all up under baggy clothes. Except that last night, the night before graduation—which I missed because I had to leave for training camp with the Triple-A team, the Syracuse Mets, in upstate New York.
There was a bonfire to celebrate graduation, and both the baseball and softball teams taking state championships at our friend Danny’s hunting cabin. I remember how her brown eyes sparkled under the evening sky. She pulled off the baseball cap and let all those jet-black curls spill over her shoulders, hanging down to her waist. She was wearing cutoff denim shorts, which I’d never seen her wear before. I later found out she’d borrowed them from one of her cousins. She and the girls were dancing to whatever was playing on Danny’s speaker system—country, of course—and she was swaying to the rhythm of the music. Not gonna lie, it was shocking to see her that way.
