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“I will do my best.” I gave her a little salute, even though she couldn’t see me. We hung up and I wiped the last of my tears. Talking with Cam had cheered me up after the awful day. The disaster could have been a lot worse, I kept telling myself. I’d had entire stunt groups go down before, broken noses, concussions, broken arms.
“Everything good?” Dom said, coming back over from his office.
“As good as it can be, where were you?”
His face lit up and I saw that he’d been crying.
“Heath and I might be getting a baby.”
“Shut up!” I screamed, and the sound echoed through the whole gym. The music had been turned off, so probably everyone heard me. I didn’t give a fuck.
I threw myself on him.
“Details, details!”
“Well, it’s not final yet, but we’ve been selected by a woman who’s pregnant and due in a month. We’re going to fly there right around the due date and be there for the birth. I asked our adoption agent if she wants to meet us to be sure, but she said that the woman wants us.”
“Oh, Dom.”
I hugged him again and we both cried together.
“Go home to Heath, what are you still doing here?”
“I have to lock up?” He said it like a question.
“Oh, give me those keys, I’ll do it.” That would mean I’d have to babysit the Bulldogs, but whatever. Dom’s news was more important.
He ran out of the gym, and I’d never seen him so happy. It warmed my cold, dead heart.
The other squad seemed to finally be wrapping up, which was good since I had a shit ton of work to get home to, and three angry cats. I sat on the bleachers with my phone, making a list of what I needed to get done for work tonight. It was a lot. I always got behind this time of year, so I tried to schedule myself so I wasn’t working literally all the time, but I’d said yes to a few things I shouldn’t have, and now I was dealing with the consequences of my own actions.
A pair of feet insinuated themselves in my view. I knew who owned those feet and I didn’t want to look up, but fighting the urge was like fighting gravity.
“Thanks for staying,” she said, and it was another weird moment where I thought she was being genuine.
“Whatever,” I said like a petulant teenager. I was feeling pretty petulant these days.
“I’m trying to be nice here.”
I looked down at my phone. “That must be a real challenge for you. My condolences.”
My head snapped up again at an unexpected sound: a soft laugh that slid down my spine and made me think of darkness and damp sheets and the giddy feeling of getting away with something.
Echo’s squad walked past all together, and they did look a little worse for wear. The ponytails drooped, and some of them had exchanged their matching outfits for other clothes, so they didn’t look as intimidating as they had this morning.
“We’ll see you tomorrow, Coach Kiri,” she finally said and walked out.
I sat on the bleachers and caught my breath for a few moments before I checked the gym, shut off the lights, and locked up. I had to drop Dom’s keys off and stop at the grocery store for provisions. The former took way too long, and the store was almost closing by the time I got there and threw a few things into my cart, along with tampons, which I really needed.
I was in the potato chip aisle, trying to choose between salt and vinegar, ranch, and barbecue, when someone bumped their cart into mine. I ignored it, stuck on my chip dilemma. I should probably just get all three.
The cart bumped mine again, and I turned around to cuss the person out to find Echo Rosenthal smirking at me.
“Hi Kiri.”
My mouth dropped open. “What are you doing here? Don’t they have grocery stores where you live?” They definitely did, so why was she here? Why wasn’t she on the bus? Seeing her so out of context was breaking my brain.
“I decided to get some snacks for my squad for tomorrow, but there aren’t a lot of options in this town.” Her cart was full of protein powder and various nut milks and bags of beef jerky and carrot sticks and a bunch of other things.
