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Oh shit.
I give Carla a concerned look before watching as Alex makes her way to the stairs, where Vic helps her down to the front row, and she plops into a seat next to Penny. I lean forward next to her ear.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing,” she says sweetly, but it comes out as a little bit of a gurgle. I humph, leaning back in my chair and taking a long sip of Dr. Pepper as Fitz comes up next to me.
“This seat taken?” he asks, but it’s half-hearted. His jacket is on the back of the chair he points to, next to me, and sits down before I can answer.
“Maybe I was saving it for someone,” I joke, and he gives me a sideways glance before leaning close.
“Someone tall, dark, and handsome?” I can’t help the unladylike snort, but before I can reply, we’re interrupted.
“Dylan Anton,” I hear from behind me. I turn to see Dylan reaching his hand out to Fitz, who looks at me, confused, before shaking it. “My brother is that asshole, next to her asshole.” He points to Greyson and Nolan, then Alex in front of him. On cue, Greyson is first to bat and headed toward home plate, swinging his bat and dancing to his 80’s walk-on song. Deep in conversation at the pitcher’s mound with the catcher behind his glove, the pitcher turns to watch Greyson walk up, and the catcher returns to his spot.
“Asshole is an understatement right now,” Alex growls under her breath, sinking further into her seat. “Bastard can’t even pick up his own dirty socks.” Literally anything anyone does is likely to tick her off at this point. She’s perpetually in the overly-hormonal stage of pregnancy that left us all on edge.
“Nice to meet you, man,” says Fitz. “What do you do?” A curt question that got straight to the point - typical Fitz. Dylan chuckles.
“I’m at Southern Star Mutual,” he answers, taking a swig of the Corona in his hand. “Mostly underwriting, a little reviewing.” He looks at me, and then over my head to see his brother at the mound, and the first pitch thrown. “Well, shit,” he adds. Ball 1.
“Dylan is the youngest supervisor in his division,” Carla says next to me, and I look at her, then back up to Dylan.
“When did that happen?” He had been angling for a promotion for the better part of a year, but it had been a while since I’d checked in with him - a while since we’d spent any time together, really.
Second pitch. Ball 2. The pitcher and the catcher converse again, and Greyson kicks dirt off the base, apparently waiting for them to get their shit together.
“A few months ago,” Dylan answers, taking another drink. “They finally-"
But I don’t hear the end of his sentence. The catcher resumes his place behind Greyson. The pitcher winds up. The third ball of the game makes contact with Greyson’s bat, and with a bang it flies off as Greyson heads for first.
What I don’t see is that the ball is coming directly at me. Before I know what’s happening, it collides with the side of my head.
I hear a sickening crack as my eyes fade to red, then black, and I’m pretty sure I hear Dylan say “Oh fuck, P,” before I lose consciousness.
Chapter 11
Piper
Five Years Ago
“Shit,”Alexmurmured,andI heard her chair whine as she pushed it back. The alarm on the oxygen monitor was going off again, and there were a couple of beeps before it quieted again, returning to the slowing beep of the heart monitor next to it.
I couldn’t see anything. I had my face pressed into the blankets on the bed, my quiet sobs muffled as I held Mickey’s hand, which was growing steadily colder in my own. Melissa, his mother, sniffled quietly from her spot on the opposite side of the bed.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Every minute, the time between the rhythm became longer and longer. The music from Melissa’s phone hummed softly - some country song that she’d been playing on repeat since Mickey had pushed away his oxygen mask for a final time. He was done. He was done with all of it.
It was just the four of us, now, Oscar, Melissa, Alex, and me - the rest of Mickey’s family went back to their hotel after a particularly bad day with his oxygen levels. And when they’d dropped again, and I had rushed to find a respiratory tech, Mickey shook his head - he didn’t want to be strapped to machines to stay alive, whether conscious or not. It was a discussion we had long, long before this day.
Back before I knew about Kelsie and Kayla. Back before we’d tied the knot in that tiny hospital chapel. Back before we’d sat in a quiet room and heard a doctor tell us that the cancer had spread to his brain stem - which was causing all of these problems now.
“Are you sure?” Melissa had asked, and he nodded - still coherent enough to make his own decisions, but even if he wasn’t, I would never force him into something he didn’t want. A life, or lack thereof, that he didn’t want.
The alarm sounded again, blaring against the otherwise quiet of the room, and again, Alex silenced it.
I thought of Mickey’s sister, back at their hotel with her kids and husband. The youngest of which is, I believed, one of the reasons Mickey had made it as long as he did. Determined to meet his new nephew, who would likely be as stubborn as his namesake.
