It only makes him laugh harder.
Ava blows a lock of hair out of her eyes and holds the boy against her legs. “This is Charlie. My nephew.”
Drake’s kid.This is Drake’s kid. I didn’t know he had a son.
“I got your picture.” The kid beams at me, shifting on his feet.
“He means he has your baseball card.” A gruff voice draws my attention down the hall.
The hallway goes silent. Maybe I imagine it, maybe people are still chattering, I don’t know, all my focus is on the man in a black Kings hoodie and ballcap.
My jaw pulses. My heart stutters. All at once I’m an eighteen-year-old kid confessing how badly I screwed up in the small, cluttered office of the hardware store. I’m the boy who cried in front of a grown man while he popped the top off two lemonades, one normal, one hard, and told me life would work out.
I brace for the sneer, a snarl, anything, but the same soft expression is on Jack Williams’s face when he looks at me now.
“Ryder.” He holds out his hand.
I’m pathetic, but I hope he can’t see how mine trembles when I shake his. “Sir.”
“Charlie has your baseball card,” Jack says. “He’s a big Kings fan.”
I force myself into my learned meet-and-greet mode and crouch in front of Charlie. “A Kings’ fan, huh? Who’s your favorite player?”
The little boy’s eyes drift down the hall, a look of awe on his face as he whispers with a bit of a lisp, “The fastball thrower.”
I peek over my shoulder when Parker shoots his arms in the air and whoops.
My smile grows when I look at Charlie again. “Kid, we need to work on your life choices. Did anyone sign your glove?”
Charlie glances at Jack, then Ava. She points at his green glove. “Do you want the baseball players to sign it for you?”
“Yeah,” he says in a breathy whisper.
Together, Griffin, Dax, Parker, and I sign the glove. Parker pauses for a picture with him and hands him a small jersey and hat Dallas snuck in from the storage room.
I drift off to the side, but after a few minutes, Charlie tugs on my hand. My chest cramps when I look at him. There is a bit of Ava in his face, and it makes me wonder what it would have been like if we’d never lost . . .
No. I’m not going there, and swallow the thought away.
“I’mma tell my daddy about today,” Charlie says. “He watches you on the teebee!”
The bottom of my gut falls out, like the final brick in a tumbling tower, and is promptly replaced with bitterness.
I give Charlie a stiff nod and back away.
“Ryder,” Dallas says, lowering his cell from his ear. When he is concerned or distressed, his lips tighten into a bloodless line. They’re bloodless now. “He’s here again.”
I stiffen. Dallas doesn’t need to tell me who showed up. He’s been showing up after events, too cheap to buy a ticket, and expects to simply be allowed entrance. Last season I added his name to the security list of people Ididn’twant to see.
Like a cruel twist of fate, I’ve collided with the people I thought I’d love forever, and now another man who played a role in me believing I’d never be worthy of them.
“Tell him I’m still not available.”
Dallas gives me a sympathetic look. The guys always stare when this happens, like they want to ask, but know I’ll give them nothing.
“Tell Mr. Huntington to leave the premises,” Dallas mutters. He tries to be discreet and say it as he moves away from others, but the name echoes.
“Huntington?” Ava cocks a brow. “Josh?”
