Hardball by CD Reiss (27)

forty-three

Vivian

To say Dash Wallace played brilliantly on opening day would have been a gross understatement. To say he owned the field and commanded the game would have been closer but not quite descriptive of the way his confidence turned into action.

After they’d won with the starting shortstop coming up to bat four times and getting a BB, two line drives no one could touch, a stolen base, and a two-run homer over the left field fence, the announcers Dad played on his phone asked each other if he’d been joking around during spring training. They wondered how the guy who’d swung at everything but what he was supposed to managed to keep up the act for two months.

I knew it.

VIP parking was worthless. I couldn’t leave in the eighth inning of the blowout. I had to stay until the end since, you know, I was sleeping with the shortstop. Dad and I were stuck in the traffic out of Elysian Park, which was always ten times better than the traffic onto the freeway.

Dad let me drive his car. His knees were aching after the long day of getting the house back in shape.

My phone buzzed in the center console again.

“What’s happening with this thing?” Dad grabbed it.

“Dad, really?” I didn’t want him to see the texts between Dash and me. Awkward.

“He says he knew it.”

The traffic opened up, and I went right on Sunset. “Please don’t scroll.”

“Knew what?”

“I have no idea, and I’m driving. So forget it for now.”

“I’ll ask him.”

“Dad, really?” I snapped the phone away.

Ding ding.

I couldn’t look. I was going thirty on Sunset, and the lights were synchronized for a westward trip, so there would be no stopping at a red.

“Let me see,” Dad said, hand out.

All I needed was for my father to see something about Dash’s tongue on my pussy or the way I sounded when I came. So I pulled over.

“I’m looking,” I said. “But back off.”

“I’m a curious man, and that was some game he played back there.”

“It was.” I put my back to the driver’s side door and tilted the phone just a little so I could see his response.

You’re my lucky charm

I didn’t answer it. I pulled away from the curb and thought about it.

His lucky charm. That was a nice thing to say. Everything about it was right and good, and I should have been happy. It was nice to be needed. It was nice to be the good thing in a man’s life. Baseball was very important to him, and if I was the charm that made him play better, no matter how ridiculous that was, it should have made me happy.

But it didn’t.

I must have looked pensive or something, and I was so in my own head about the responsibility he’d laid on me that I didn’t think about my father’s reaction.

“That guy’s a putz. That’s it with him. You’re done.”

“What?”

“I’m not letting him in the house. Do you hear me?”

“Why?” I asked.

“What do you mean why? You got that look on your face. The one you had when he was a putz last time. I don’t have the stomach for it. I’ll kill him first.”

“Dad—”

“I know I’m getting old—”

“It’s not—”

“I’ve had it.”

I tossed the phone in his lap. “Don’t scroll up. Just look at the last two, or you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”

He looked at the screen. “I’m strong as a horse,” he mumbled, putting on his reading glasses. He looked at the screen again.

“Don’t scroll,” I said.

“He’s lucky.” He replaced the phone in the console and folded his hands in his lap. “I’ll let him live.”

I worked really hard not to laugh at the idea of my semi-mobile father murdering Dash Wallace—trained athlete—with anything less than a firearm. He loved me.

I dropped my hand over his and squeezed it. “It’s going to be all right.”

“Why do you have that look then?”

The most obvious answer was “what look?” but I didn’t want to lie. I knew what he meant. I changed the subject instead. “Do you want to eat at Café Sid?”

“No. I have a stomachache from that thing they called a frankfurter. It tasted like salted Styrofoam. Why are you the lucky charm? And why did you get a long face when he called you that?”

I made a left off Sunset so we could go home. “It’s a lot of responsibility. And I’m afraid if he has a losing streak or something, it’s going to be my fault.”

“Your fault?”

“Well… that he’s going to blame me.”

“Oy. I’ve never seen two people make up so many problems.”

We shot west on Beverly, but I couldn’t take it. I wasn’t making up a problem. If I was going to be in his life, I was going to be more than a rabbit’s foot on his keychain. I pulled over in a red zone and snapped up my phone.

I was a hundred percent sure he was still at the stadium, talking to the off-camera press. I tossed the phone in the back. I didn’t even want to be tempted by it.

“Oh, no,” I said, pulling around the corner of our block right around three in the afternoon.

A Volvo was parked in our driveway. Parking in someone else’s driveway was a big no-no in our neighborhood and usually the result of a sense of entitlement or an honest mistake. I could see someone leaning against the driver’s door, and once I got around the car, I could see who it was.

“Crimeney.”

“He’s fast, that guy,” Dad said.

I pulled up behind the Volvo. The car’s color was a deep, molten gold, and Dash Wallace was tapping on his phone. He put it in his pocket when we got out of the car. He ran to help Dad but was brushed off.

“I’m fine, Mr. Four RBIs.”

“I had a good game.” He looked at me with half a smirk.

“That’s a flashy car.” Dad swung his cane at it.

“It’s a Volvo.”

“It’s gold,” I interjected.

“It’s insoluble.” He fell into step next to me. “And it’s yours.”

He put his hand over mine, clasping it. I felt the hard box of the key in his palm. When I pulled my hand up, the key was in it.

I stopped. “Dash.”

“Let’s take it for a spin.”

I stopped, looked at it then Dad, who was at the door, jingling his keys. My mouth was open. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to accept it. My car was worth four hundred dollars, and it needed a three-hundred-dollar tune-up.

“Go!” Dad dismissed me with a wave. “Go with your khaver. Buys you a car.” He shook his head, mumbling, “Couple of mensches here.”

“What does that mean?”

“A minute ago you were a putz. Mensch is a big improvement,” I said.

Dad opened the door, waved, and shut it without even asking if I wanted to come in. I faced Dash, my khaver—boyfriend. Out of my league yet somehow in my life.

“I want to talk about my batting average,” he said.

“Me too. And I’m driving.”