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She looks up at her mom, hope shining in her big brown eyes. “Can we, Mommy?”
Larissa nods. “For a few minutes,” she adds, but I don’t think Paisley hears her or cares. She got the answer she was hoping for and rushes off to join her friends.
“I’m sorry,” she tells me.
“Sorry for what?”
“She seems to have taken to you. I know you have more important things to do. We’ll just stay a few minutes,” she assures me.
Standing, I step in front of her, so close I can feel her hot breath against my chin. “I met this girl,” I tell her. “She’s beautiful but closed off. I was hoping to drop by her work and catch a glimpse of her since she refuses to go out with me.”
“Her life is complicated.”
“Life is complicated,” I counter. “She’s all I think about, and you know what else?” I wait for her reaction. She studies me several long minutes, her breathing labored before she finally answers.
“What?” she asks in a hushed whisper.
“I found out today that she has this amazing little girl, cute as a button, loves baseball.” I wink. “I wish she would give me a chance to get to know her, to know both of them.”
“She worries,” she says, biting her bottom lip.
“About what?” Reaching out, I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“Everything.”
“Who worries about you?”
Her breath hitches. She opens then closes her mouth, no words coming out.
“Yo, Monroe, you ready?” Drew yells to me.
I hold my hand up in the air, my index finger raised, asking him for one more minute. “Thank you for staying after. We can talk then.” I give her hand a gentle squeeze then turn, and walk away, a smile plastered on my face. Not because I’m here in Blaze stadium, my home away from home, but because for the first time I feel like I might be getting somewhere with her.
Drew and I have the group form two lines. There are twelve girls in total on the team, so we each have six. Paisley is in my group; she made sure of it screaming, “I want to be in Easton’s group.” That little girl is something else. We pitch to them one at a time for about half an hour before they’re tuckered out. We sign a few autographs, and they’re on their way.
“All right, Miss Paisley, you ready for some one-on-one?” I ask her.
“What’s that?”
She acts like she’s so much older, talks like it too. I forget she’s only four. “That means you and I toss the ball.”
“Just us?” she asks, her eyes wide.
“A promise is a promise.”
She pulls on the bag that’s resting over Larissa’s arm. “Mommy, I need my glove,” she says excitedly.
Larissa laughs at her daughter; it’s a beautiful sound that fills the now quiet stadium. There are still a few players standing around, and the staff, but the rest of the kids and their families are gone. It’s just the three of us still messing around out here in the outfield. “Hold your horses,” she tells her.
“Mommy, I don’t have horses,” Paisley says, exasperated, making Larissa and me laugh. Digging in the bag, Larissa reaches her glove and hands it to her daughter. “Ready, East?” she asks me, putting the glove that’s a little too big on her tiny hand and reaching for me with the other.
We take a few steps away from Larissa and spread out a little. I’m maybe five feet from her. “Okay, the first thing you want to remember is always have your glove up and ready.” I show her what I mean, holding up my glove. “Bend your knees like me,” I instruct her. She bends down, legs spread apart, mimicking my stance. “Good job. Now hold your glove up like this,” I tell her again. She does as instructed, and I toss her the ball. It hits her glove, and she uses her other hand to keep it inside the glove.
“I did it!” she cheers, jumping up and down, letting the ball fall from her glove.
“You did. You’re a natural,” I tell her.
“Did your dad teach you how to catch?” she asks innocently.
A smile tilts my lips when I think of my father, Jeff Monroe, and baseball. “He did. Playing baseball was his job.” She’s a smart little girl, but I’m not sure she would understand if I said he played professionally. “My uncle’s played with me as well.”
“You have an uncle?” she asks, her eyes wide.
“I do.”
“I don’t have one of those,” she says, looking over at her mom for clarification.
“No, sweetie,” Larissa says gently. “Mommy and Daddy were both only children, so you have no aunts or uncles.”
“But I want them. Can we get some?” she asks, her innocence grabbing hold of my heart.
“It’s not that easy, P. Maybe one day.”
