"None of what you just said describes me. It describes my accomplishments, but it's all surface level. Below that, I'm only human." He grits his teeth and sighs, taking the bat from me. "Right now, I don't know life without baseball. I knew my career would be over eventually, but I never gave it much thought past that. I was so focused on what I did for a living that I think I forgotwho I was. And now I'm fucking forty-one and don't know what I want to be when I grow up."
He opens the trunk and we sit on the bumper.
"And it's fucking lonely. My mom convinced me to get surgery here and spend time at home, and yet I'm the only one fucking home. But it's my fault. If I were married or in a relationship, I would've had someone in Baltimore. I just…" He pauses and drags his hand over his face. "I don't want to settle. I spent my whole life watching my grandparents love endlessly and then my own parents. And yet that kind of love doesn't seem to exist for me. Maybe I should've settled. Maybe I should've tried harder, but I was so focused on my career, I forgot about life after it."
His confession rocks me. A man who seemingly has it all, went from baseball, to an exploded apple.
"Maybe that's why you're here," I say. "Maybe that kind of love is right here, in sleepy old Wilmont and you just need to stick around to find out."
He wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls me into his side.
"Yeah, maybe you're right."
An alarm rings on my phone, and I watch as Mateo pulls his own beeping phone out of his pocket. The one that's always on vibrate.
It's time to pick up Coop from school.
Chapter twenty-one
Mateo
"Ican't believe we haven't made pizza with you two yet," Mom says to Jade and Coop. "But I guess it's never been a Sunday thing, we always made it on Fridays when these two were young." She gestures to me and Addie.
"Mateo was never young," Addie says, earning a laugh from Jade and Coop.
"Fuck off," I say with a smile.
"Friday night pizza on a Sunday," Coop says, elbowing me.
The little shit came through on our deal. Mom and I spent the morning mixing up pizza dough. It's my favorite, but I let Mom think it's tacos. I don't know why, but I can't seem to tell her that as much as I love tacos, they've never been my favorite. It's always been pizza, and not just any pizza, Friday night pizza.
When I was a kid, we never ordered it. To be honest, we rarely ordered takeout in general. Abuelo was an amazing cook, and he taught Mom. Between the two of them, they always madeeverything from scratch, including Friday night pizza. But it was never so much about the pizza for me as it was about the feeling in the kitchen.
"Prod don't poke," I tell Jade, demonstrating with my own piece of dough.
Mom coughs, and when I look up at her, she and Dad are sharing a look I can't read.
Dad helps Jade stretch her dough, and Addie helps Coop. Flour covers the counter, the floor, and our clothes. Jade has a streak across her forehead, and Mom is laughing at something Addie said that I missed.
Something I missed because I'm too caught up in the feeling of home. The cacophony of different voices, the rhythm of laughter. This is what Friday night pizza is about. I didn't realize how much I missed it, or how healing it could be.
Until now.
Healing no one else would understand. How couldtheMateo Hayes possibly need healing? That's the thing about mental health and loneliness, it doesn't discriminate. It doesn't care if you're healthy, or rich, or famous. It doesn't care if you have a loving family, and absolutely zero worries in the world, it's still gonna fuck you up. For no reason, except that it can.
A cloud of flour puffs in front of Dad's face, and Jade's head tips back in laughter. She catches me staring and sticks out her tongue.
She's been so relaxed tonight, and seeing her like this only confirms the no feelings thing is fucking bullshit.
We finish making pizzas, and Dad volunteers Addie, Jade, and I to clean up what could be labeled a crime scene so Cooper can show him and Mom the secret booby trap he's been working on.
He won't even tell me what it is, and we're supposed to be best friends. Punk.
Addie washes dishes as I wipe down the counter, and Jade scrubs at a spot of dried dough on a cabinet door.
"I'm gonna do it," Addie says out of nowhere, turning the faucet off and spinning to face us.
Jade and I stop what we're doing to look at her.
