I consider my next words carefully. “How many times have you given him money?”
“Too many.”
“Can I ask why?” I say softly, stroking his hair.
“Because he’s the closest thing I have to a brother, just like Colin. Because we were older than him, so we got out first, and we left him there. Which means he believes it’s our fault he turned to drugs, and we weren’t around to keep him away fromit.” As he blurts all of this out, his voice is full of despair, and anger, and grief. And my heart breaks for him.
“But that’s over. I’m not going to give him anything. He doesn’t get to come here, scare you, put you in danger.” He lifts his head now and looks at me with anger written all over his face. “It’ll never happen again. I’m so sorry, Specs. You should never have to be around him.”
“Maverick, no.” I cup his face in my hands. “He didn’t threaten me or hurt me or even scare me. I’ve worked with people who use drugs before, I know the signs of escalation to watch for and how to keep myself safe. He surprised me, that’s all.”
“Still. I’m done with him, I swear.”
“You can’t push him away, not like this. He needs help and based on how he reacted to you kicking him out, he came to you hoping you’d give him that support.”
“He came to me for money to buy drugs, that’s all,” Maverick growls, shifting me off his lap. “And I’m done with that.”
“You don’t have to give him money to help him,” I urge, trying to get him to understand. “But abandoning him isn’t necessarily the right answer, either.”
Maverick moves abruptly, standing and walking over to the kitchen. I get up to follow him but freeze when I see him standing with his hands on the counter, his head hanging low. Making my way over to him slowly, I reach out a hand and place it on his back.
“I can’t… Can we talk about this later?” he says in a low voice.
“Yeah, sure,” I reply softly. “Whenever you want. I’m here.”
He pushes off the counter, turns, and takes me in his arms, his head coming to rest on top of mine. I can feel his heart racing under my cheek as he holds me tightly to him, and I hug him back just as close.
And I hope that someday, he’ll let me in. All the way. And show me every part of himself that he still keeps hidden. If I didn’t know about Eli, what else don’t I know?
Chapter twenty-nine
Maverick
Finally.
The end of the national anthem dies off and the crowd roars. I’m back. After almost ten weeks, I’m finally jogging out onto the field, taking my position at third base, ready to fucking play ball.
For the next three hours, nothing else matters except the game. Coach said I’ll only be in for three innings, and as much as I wanted to complain about that, I bit my tongue. I know it’s so I don’t overdo it, and in light of what happened last week during practice, it makes sense.
That just means I’m going fucking hard while I’m out here.
Our opponents, the Boston Revs, are solid competition, and the first batter gets a single off Kai’s pitch. Tension vibrates through me as I watch the play. And when the ball flies my way, muscle memory kicks in, sending me back to catch the pop, then whipping it to second for the double play.
The home crowd erupts, and my teammates swarm me with back slaps and shouts.
I’m fucking back.
The next half, I’m not up to bat. I let Lark check my arm, my attention only half on her questions. Because Ronan’s up to bat.
The crack of wood contacting with the ball has me leaping forward to join the other guys at the rail. “Fuck yeah, Sin!” I shout as he rounds the base for an easy double.
From there, everything moves quickly. Two more hits make for two runs in, and we’re in the lead. When I jog back out to the field, my blood is pumping. This is what I live for. This game, this is everything to me.
Even though we end up taking the loss against the Revs, it’s a good game. And my shoulder’s fine, which I keep having to tell everyone, from Coach, to Lark, to the fucking press that Colin made me promise I’d talk to if they approached me postgame. Which, of course, they did.
“Yeah, it felt great to get back out there.”Of course it fucking did, what a stupid question.
“I’m grateful to be here, all healed.”I wouldn’t be playing if I wasn’t healed enough, dumbass.
