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“Bet,” he says.
“Awesome.” I push down hard like dynamite on the pedal and peel off as fast as I can. “See you!”
“Not fair!” He hollers, thundering up the embankment after me.
I laugh and pedal faster.
We sit in the bleachers at Northwestern Medicine Field on the third base line watching the Kane County Cougars play the Wisconsin Timber Raccoons. I’m wearing my new jeans and a T-shirt. The ballcap Dylan bought me entitled us to a free bag of chips and two bucks off a ticket. We nosh on hot dogs and drink cold beers. The sun sets late, the stadium lights popping on, the air damp and hanging heavy around us. “When’s the last time you went to a ball game?” I ask.
“Long time,” he says, his long legs stretched out on the empty bench in front of him one hand resting on my knee. “Maybe six years?”
Thunder rumbles low in the skies above us, lightning strikes a few miles away.
“Who’d you go with?”
“Family. My ex-wife, Dixie.”
“What happened?” I ask. “Wait. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to talk about it.”
“Family or Dixie?” He asks.
“Both,” I say.
“The pretty version or the shitty version?” He asks.
“Whatever one you want to share.”
He sighs. “I looked great on paper to Dixie. A pastor’s son. A wealthy congregation. A built-in life of security and hero worship. There was one tiny problem.”
“What?” I ask taking a sip of my ballpark beer. A crack of a bat as a batter hits a double, the crowd’s up on its feet cheering.
“Marriage is more than paper.”
“And?”
There’s a swing and a ball flies out to deep left field.
“She thought she married the preacher’s son.” He shrugs. “Not the preacher’s prodigal son. It wasn’t what she signed up for. In her eyes, she got a raw deal. I was sadly regrettable.”
The runner on third takes off and slides into home and the fans shout in excitement, throwing fist punches in the air. We jump to our feet and cheer with them. “Dylan,” I say, rubbing his shoulder. “Never in a thousand years could you be regrettable.”
Fat raindrops plop down from the skies above. Umps and coaches glance up, questioning looks on their faces.
“I was to Dixie. She re-married a Baptist minister and is now queen bee in a smaller congregation. She’s got a new kid, a husband who comes home at decent hours and she leases a new SUV every two years. It’s the life she signed up for.”
“Do you have regrets?” I ask.
“No.”
“What about your family?”
“That’s a whole ’nother conversation,” he says. “Tell me about you. Besides the bad sex former boyfriend. In a strange way, I feel like I owe him.”
The heavens open up and a soft warm rain pelts us.
“How so?” I ask.
“Not every day a guy gets to give one of the sweetest girls he’s ever met her first orgasm.”
