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“Watch whose kids?” Dominic asked.
“Not you,” I told him. Assholes. Do some parenting. “Dom, Sean is…a friend. Okay? He’s my friend. He’s the cook at Whitecaps, and he very kindly offered to pick you up and bring you to me so I don’t have to leave Eli’s practice.”
I began chewing on my cuticle like a maniac, hoping this was all the convincing I would need to do. I didn’t know what else to say.
“He’s your friend?” Dominic asked incredulously.
“Yes.”
“Just your friend?”
Oh, my God. “Who are you, Oprah? Just let him give you a ride. And don’t act like you haven’t been checking out his bike. I know you’re into that.”
There was a short pause, then Dominic admitted, “It is pretty sweet. Looks like Dad’s, but I wasn’t really digging the blue on Dad’s Harley. I like that black-and-chrome look. Or all black. That’s badass.”
“You into bikes?” That question came from Sean, and I knew we were all good then.
Smiling, I said into the phone, “Okay, Dom. Go with Sean. I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Yeah, okay. See ya.”
Expecting the call to disconnect, I was pulling the phone away from my ear when I heard a gruff, “Hey.”
My stomach clenched. Actually, my entire body clenched. Especially everything near my waist. That was clenching the most.
Not only because this was the first hey I’d ever received from Sean—his typical greetings to me consisting of head jerks or other nonverbal cues—but also because of the gruffness in his voice.
Gruff coming from men with deep voices was nice.
Sean’s gruff, coming from Sean and his voice, was good.
Real good.
“Hey!” I chirped, pressing the phone back to my ear.
“He seems convinced I’m not here to do some weird Hannibal Lecter shit to him,” Sean said. “We’ll be outta here shortly.”
“Okay!”
There was a pause, then, “You all right?”
“Yep! Just happy.”
Another pause, then, “Right. Gotta go.”
“Cool. See ya!”
“Later.”
I ended the call, smiling, happy, really happy now thanks to that hey, set the phone on the bleacher seat beside me, and looked between the parents, asking “Anybody want to do the wave? I’ll start it.”
Silence and strange glances were all I received.
“Sheesh. Tough crowd.” I looked out onto the diamond and watched Eli bend down and brush dirt off the base. “Woo! Lookin’ good, number four!” I yelled.
Eli raised his head and gave me a lopsided smile, which turned into a full-blown grin when I stood, launching into a one-person wave.
I’d do waves by myself for the rest of the practice if it got me grins like that. Not only because I was here to support Eli and cheering him on was how I’d planned on doing that, take note, parents, but also because I was determined to make up for that missed field trip.
And I’d make up for it good, too.
“I didn’t embarrass you too bad, did I?” I asked Eli as we walked across the grass toward the parking lot after practice.
“Nah. M-Mom does that,” he said. “Sh-She’s always the only one yelling and s-stuff.”
I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a side-to-side hug. “So, did you think about what super special thing you wanted to do tonight?” I asked.
When I picked Eli up from school, he didn’t seem to be upset anymore, telling me he knew it wasn’t my fault we got stuck in traffic (it was, and I’d argued that point), and also sharing how stupid his classmates said the botanical gardens turned out to be (apparently, flowers were boring), but I wasn’t going back on my promise. I’d told him we’d do something special, and I meant it.
Walking pressed together, we both stepped over the curb and onto the graveled lot.
“I’m s-still thinking.”
“It can be whatever you want,” I reminded him. “Just nothing illegal. I don’t care how special it is. No dancing girls for you. You’re too young.”
He giggled.
When we reached my car, I popped the trunk and dumped his baseball equipment inside while Eli took off his cleats, exchanging them for his sneakers he wore to school. Then after setting those in the trunk, along with his hat, which was covered in a thin dusting of dirt, I slammed the trunk closed and turned at the sound of Harley pipes in the distance.
“W-We g-going to get D-Dom now?” Eli asked.
“Nope.” I grinned at him, then tipped my head at the bike as it pulled into the lot and made its way down the row of cars, slowing to a stop in front of us.
Eli stepped closer to me as Sean cut the engine and toed the kickstand down. “Sh-Shay, w-who’s that?” he asked.
“That’s my friend,” I told him, no hesitation this time, since I was going with the flow of things.
Dominic swung off the bike and took off the helmet he was wearing, handing it over to Sean.
“How was it?” I asked my brother.
