“No, the big deal are the guys who put their lives on the line every day. Firefighters, cops, the military.”
I walked into the kitchen and grabbed eggs out of the refrigerator. I’d already decided to make an omelet. If he didn’t eat it, then I would. Housework always made me hungry. Pops thumbed off his tablet and glared at me.
“You can’t keep risking your life like that. You didn’t have the right equipment. You could have been killed.”
There were a thousand responses I could have made. Another day, I might have. But I was in pain and had just spent hours doing someone else’s housework. That made me completely intolerant of my father’s usual bullshit. Or maybe it was because I saw the bottle of naltrexone in the garbage.
So this time, I cut straight to the chase.
“And you can’t keep using my life as an excuse for your drinking. I win a game, you celebrate at the bar. I lose a game, you commiserate at the bar. I save my girlfriend and a kid from a burning building, you go drink because it scared you. Or you were proud. I don’t know what bullshit goes through your head, but I’m done.”
I put the eggs back in the refrigerator. I wasn’t sticking around long enough to cook them. I was just too fucking tired.
He said things back at me. Angry words. Excuse words.I’ll-do-betterwords. I didn’t care to listen. I’d heard it all before, so now it was just noise that I worked damned hard to block. I grabbed my phone and called for an Uber. Then I headed for the door.
He was there before me, his expression unexpectedly terrified. I was just going to step around him, but he said two words that made me pause.
“Thank you.”
I froze, mentally wondering how my predictions had gotten so bad lately. I’d given it a 1 percent chance that my father would ever say those words. And in my pause, he gestured around the house.
“I see what you done.”
I nodded, unsure what to say. Unsure what to think.
“I liked that girl last night. Seemed like a real nice one.”
She was. She is. My mind stuttered. I didn’t like the idea that Ellie had even met my father. The contrast between her father and mine was stark enough to be painful. I wanted to be Ellie’s hero. Instead, I’d shown her last night just how pathetic my life was compared with hers. Sure, I could play baseball. Or I would, as soon as my ribs healed. But she had the loving family, the sister who teased and cared for her, and even a cousin who threatened to beat up anyone who hurt her. What did I have? A drunk father, a mother who’d bailed on me and taken my sister with her, and an angry, jealous brother.
Meanwhile, Pops was warming to his theme. “She reminds me of your mother. When I first met your mom—”
Memory lane, here we come.Except I didn’t have the patience for it. “I know this story. And I’ve got to get to practice.” It was a lie. I’d already told Coach that I was going to take the day off to rest. I didn’t have to be anywhere…except away from here.
“Um, okay.” His gaze roved around the room as he searched for a way to keep me close. And for some incomprehensible reason, I still stood there. I should have just walked out, but he’d already surprised me once this morning. Maybe I was hoping for something else.
Eventually he found a topic. He pointed at the calendar, at the words written in big red letters: “All-Star Game.” “You still got those great tickets for us?” He looked back at me. “I know you aren’t playing this year, but next year, you will for sure. Especially if Nunez keeps hitting for shit.”
There were a hell of a lot more factors than Nunez as to whether or not I’d ever make it to the All-Star Game as a player. But as fans, Pops, Larry, and I had been going since I started hitting home runs in Little League. It was the one vacation we did every year and gave me my best memories. And also some of the worst. Because Pops never failed to get shit-faced at some point. Which left my brother and me taking care of him in a cheap hotel room.
A few years ago, Larry had declared he was done with that, but Pops and I had continued. Until right now. Because I just couldn’t do it again. Certainly not with the extra media attention on me since I’d joined the Bobcats. And especially since team owner Joe Deluce had made a big deal about cleaning up the team’s image. Having a drunken parent at the league’s biggest event would not endear me to him.
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
Pops frowned, his bloodshot eyes confused. “They got you doing something else this year? Some Bobcat—”
“No,” I interrupted. “I’m taking Ellie.”
Then, knowing that I’d see him reach for a beer in response, I turned around and walked straight out of the house.
Chapter Eighteen
Ellie
We didn’t see each other for a week, but Jake called every day. Since I was working nights, it was hard for us to get together, but we managed to arrange dinner out on my off day. And since he was feeling better, he went back to attending practices…and our time together became even shorter.
Tonight, we had a rare evening free. He’d brought over pizza (Hawaiian for me), I picked the DVD (a sports story for him), and we sat on my beat-up old couch to watch on it on my tiny TV. I had to work in a few hours, and my place was closer to the hospital. As it turned out, though, we never did settle down to watch the movie.
“Can you believe it?” I told him, still outraged by the day’s events. “She gave my patient’s TPN to hers. Then she had the nerve to tell me that they were all the same.”
