Chapter 18

It’s not parenting until you’ve ruined your child’s life simply by serving them dinner.

-Fact of Life

Wolf

“Where’d you leave your baseball shoes?” Raven yelled loudly into the phone.

I pulled the phone away from my ear, checked the connection, and placed it back against my ear.

“The last time I saw his cleats they were in a box beside his bed,” I pursed my lips. “Try the toy box. I saw him move everything into it the other day when he cleaned.”

A sigh of frustration filled the line, and I had to hide my smile.

“Why is Casten here and not you?” she asked me as she rushed around the house.

I could only guess what she was doing, but I did have experience trying to find Nathan’s shit. We had two shirts, two pairs of socks, and two pairs of pants for this very reason.

What we did not have two of were his shoes, his bat, or his glove.

Which happened to be the only things he lost.

“I gotta go or this kid of yours isn’t going to make it to the game on time,” she murmured. “Are you on your way?”

I looked at the empty booth in front of me.

“No,” I said. “I’ll likely be late.”

She sighed.

“Casten’s taking me to the game, then?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “He’s not.”

There was a momentary pause, then a hesitant question that made my heart stutter. “Who’s taking me, then?”

It’d been a week and a half since I’d picked her up at the Texas/Oklahoma border.

Eight days since I’d told her about her brother, and not a single one of those had she said a word about him.

In fact, she studiously ignored anything and everything that had to do with Raphael.

Which, at this juncture in time, wasn’t such a bad thing since Raphael had so much shit on his plate.

That shouldn’t have stopped him from at least making contact.

He didn’t, though, and Raven had refused to say a single word about the man.

I knew for a fact that the two of them knew each other well enough to have an inkling at who the other was.

But, in all my time with Raven, I hadn’t once heard about Raphael, and Raphael refused to share just why exactly she refused to talk about anything that had to do with her brother.

A brother that was, in fact, her brother.

I had the DNA test done to prove it.

For not only my peace of mind, but Raven’s as well, should she choose to question anything.

Yet she hadn’t.

And that was why Raphael was coming over tonight.

He didn’t know that Raven was going to be there. All he knew was that Raven was going out with a few friends with a couple of men to watch her.

And I guess, technically, she was.

She was going to a wedding shower with Ridley’s soon to be wife, Freya.

All of the men’s wives would be there. Lenore, Annie, Tasha, Kitt and Alison.

And all of the kids would be watched by the men—all the men but two, who would be watching the ladies like a hawk.

Although, Raphael was supposed to be late coming in. He had some news he was going to share with us (us being the Uncertain Saints, not Raven) and wouldn’t be there until after his normal work day ended.

Apparently, Agent Fry kept them all busy doing bogus work to make his paperwork nice and pretty when, in reality, all they were doing was just enough work on the computer to make things nice and air tight—while after hours they were busy doing their illegal side business.

“Core’s taking you,” I said. “And he’s bringing you back, so make sure you stick tight to him tonight. Don’t leave with anyone else, okay?”

Raven let out a relieved breath, and then started moving through the room again.

“I found it!” Nathan shrieked, causing a smile to burst out over my face.

“Fuck me!” Goody, my informant who was currently making me late, gasped as he yanked the door to my office open and started around the corner of the filing cabinets. “I’m about to die!”

“I gotta go, baby,” I said, well used to the tactics that Goody used to gain attention. “I’ll be a little late for his game, but hopefully not much.”

“Okay,” she hesitated. “I love you.”

Joy surged through me, and I started to say something more when Goody started to reach for me.

“I love you too, baby girl.”

I hung up and shoved my phone into my pocket, glaring at the man that’d practically crawled over the top of my desk to get to my hand.

“What the fuck do you want?” I asked. “Get off me and stop touching me with those disgusting fingers.”

Goody bared his teeth, and I had to stifle the urge to grimace.

Goody had disgusting teeth.

I doubted he’d seen the inside of a dentist’s office in ten years, if not more.

“You have to help me,” he said. “Why weren’t you at our usual meeting spot?”

I growled in frustration.

“Because you decided to fuck me over and be late yourself,” I said. “And it’s not that much of a difference. You walked through my backdoor instead of meeting me at the backdoor. There’s little difference in those two distances.”

Goody’s face started to twitch, and I wondered when his last hit was.

I’d met him when he was trying to get clean off of meth, and had tried to get him on the straight and narrow by offering him some money to become an informant.

Turns out, he liked the money, and still informed, but he had no qualms about spending the money he got informing on his next fix.

“What’s that look on your face for?” he asked. “And did you see that man with the creepy eyes?”

I looked at him, then looked out the front window which wasn’t nearly as visible now with the filing cabinets moved from that space.

“What guy with the creepy eyes?” I asked him.

“He followed me,” he said.

“Followed you from where?” I persisted.

“From the river.” He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Why are you being so dense?”

I refrained from beating him upside the head, but only because I knew if I touched his hair I wasn’t sure what would come out of it.

I suspected he had lice, and that would be one of the better things I might find in that mat of stuff he called hair.

“Goody,” I started. “How about you stay on topic here.”

“Fine,” he said. “I was at the diner parking lot where I was meeting a deal…umm, friend. And we were around the back of the diner next to where the dumpsters used to be when I heard a boat pull into the dock in front of us.”

The diner he was talking about was completely surrounded by water. The people that owned it hadn’t been able to get to it except by boat for over two weeks now, and it wasn’t looking good any time in the future, either, seeing as we were supposed to be hit with another six inches this weekend.

The diner used to be a pretty popular spot to meet and greet friends when it was open, but now that it was closed, it wasn’t useful.

The road leading to the diner wasn’t open either, for about a mile in fact.

“And?” I asked, eager to hurry this along.

“And I was curious, so I got a little bit closer and listened to what they were saying,” he continued.

I wanted to pull my hair out.

“And what were they saying, Goody?” I asked patiently.

“They were talking about some deal and shipment that was supposed to come through in the next couple of days. The only one there was the crazy eyed man and a Hispanic man I couldn’t see,” he explained.

“Then how do you know he’s Hispanic?”

“Because I could hear his accent, dude. He was clearly talking in Spanish,” Goody rolled his eyes.

I snorted.

“And they were talking about meeting there in two nights, trading something for something, and then parting ways,” Goody grinned, and my stomach did that churning shit again. “I got his license plate number.”

“His license plate number.”

I waited for him to change his story, but he stuck with it.

“Yes!”

“On a boat?” I asked with incredulity. “Goody, boats don’t have fuckin’ license plates!”

“Yes,” he said. “He had it in his wallet.”

I wanted to strangle him.

I’d seriously be doing the world a favor by doing it, too.

“License,” I explained to him, even if it was futile. “You saw his license.”

“Yes!” he cried. “And he followed me here.”

“How do you know he followed you here?” I questioned, standing up and stuffing my phone into my pocket.

“Because he pulled his boat out at the same time I did, and then drove in this direction,” he responded, his voice laced with impatience that I wasn’t understanding his words.

“Gotcha,” I nodded. “What did his license say?”

“It said that he was an FBI.”

***

I pulled my bike up next to Core’s truck and threw the kickstand down.

A loud roar from the field that Nathan was playing on raised through the night, and I swung my leg up and off my bike.

My feet squished in the wet mud, and I dropped the helmet onto the seat before taking off across the parking lot.

“Yo!” I yelled the moment I was close enough. “Core, what’s the score?”

Core, aka Apple, looked up and smiled.

“Winning three to nothing,” he called, returning his eyes to the game.

I noticed that he didn’t face the game completely, though, and he’d parked his charge along with his wife at the bleachers directly beside him.

Raven looked up when she heard me call out, and a smile brightened her face.

“You made it!” she cried. “Come sit down, Nathan’s on deck.”

I finished my jog to her side, and then bent over to drop a kiss on her lips.

“Awwww,” I heard a familiar voice say. “That’s too cute!”

I looked up and grinned at Hannah.

“Shut your face,” I said. “We playing Reggie?”

Hannah nodded and pointed. “She’s the catcher right now.”

I followed her pointing and a smile broke out over my face.

“That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” I admitted. “Love the curls in the back, too.”

Hannah grinned. “She wanted to play baseball, and you were the one to tell me that girls were allowed in this league.”

I nodded. I sure had said that, and I liked that Hannah listened to what I had to say.

Taking my seat on the right of Raven so I could still speak to Hannah, I turned forward and watched as the little boy at bat swung at the coach’s pitch and connected with the ball.

It went about six inches past his feet, and stopped.

“Run!” I yelled at the kid.

The kid, startled by my outburst, looked at me, and I pointed at first base.

“Run, boy!”

The boy jumped and then started running, his fat little legs carrying him as fast as he could possibly move his bulk to first base.

The coach at first base was smiling huge and holding his hand out for a high five.

However, the little kid kept running, and the coach was left hanging.

“Oh, shit,” I said. “Run!”

Reggie had the ball, and she was barreling after the kid like the hounds of hell were at her feet, snapping and snarling along to keep pushing her forward.

“Get ‘em, baby!” Hannah yelled. “Tag him!”

The entire team was now on their feet, screaming and yelling, jumping and pointing.

“Run, Bagger!” the kids were yelling. “Get home!”

The coach on second base held his hands up as the kid arrived on second, but instead of stopping, he continued to run.

“Mother of God,” I breathed. “Jesus Christ, she’s gonna get him.”

The kid was slow, and it was terrible of me to say, but he was overweight and didn’t run all that fast.

The kid had heart, though, I’d give him that.

Reggie tossed the ball expertly to the kid on third, but the kid was too busy bending down to pick dandelions to catch the ball.

Bagger, which must’ve been the kid’s name since I could now hear his mother yelling it at my side, rounded third.

The dandelion kid finally realized that the ball was at his feet, and blew the dandelion as he picked the ball up and chucked it in the direction of Reggie, who was now once again on home.

“Jesus,” Hannah said. “Move out of the way, baby. He’s not going to stop.”

Reggie moved over just in time for the kid to tumble into home, rolling on his side all the way across the plate.

“Oh, sweet baby Jesus,” the mother of the kid sat down next to my feet. “That kid is going to be the death of me.”

I laughed and patted her back.

“He did good, Ma’am,” I said to her, my eyes going back to the game as I watched Reggie put her hands on her hips and glare at the little kid that was barely up to his feet.

“Thank you,” the mom said, a wide smile on her face.

“Good job, Buddy,” the coach said, drawing my attention.

I nodded my head at the guy and looked down to see Raven rest her head against my knee.

“He did good,” Raven said. “That kid was like a freight train, though.”

I snorted and dropped my hand to her head.

“The best players are,” I agreed. “Alright, Nathan! Get ‘er done, boy!”

Nathan nodded his head, something that hit me straight in the heart.

Seeing him doing that was nearly breathtaking as I recalled a vision of his father doing much the same thing.

Nathan took a couple of practice swings.

“Swing for the fence, Nate!” Raven yelled.

I didn’t have any doubt in my mind that the kid would—he was his father’s son, after all.

My head tilted back as I let my eyes drift up to the painted white sign on the fence.

There were names of each and every kid that ever hit a homerun, and on the very top was Nathan’s biological father, Darren Cox.

“What are you looking at?” Raven asked curiously.

I pointed up.

“That’s Darren, Nathan’s dad,” I told her. “He was the first kid to hit an out-of-the park, over-the-fence home run.”

“Seriously?” she asked. “That’s pretty awesome.”

It was. I’d worked my ass off endlessly to try to get my name up there, and never accomplished it, not even when I was older.

Darren, though, had his name on each and every field from little league all the way up to his high school baseball team.

“Catcher, you ready?” the umpire asked Reggie.

“Yes, Sir,” Reggie answered cutely.

Hannah snickered at my back.

“What?” I asked her.

“Your manners are coming out in her,” she answered. “Raven, has he gotten on to you yet about eating?”

Raven leaned forward, practically laying across my lap, so she could see Hannah.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered as if I couldn’t hear her. “He’s terrible. Elbows, Raven. Don’t you know how to use a fork, Raven? Close your mouth, Raven, nobody wants to see your food.”

So, poor table manners were a pet peeve of mine, sue me.

Hannah and Raven took turns trading lines that I apparently said but couldn’t remember saying, so I placed my hand on the hem of Raven’s shorts and started to slide them upwards.

She instantly stopped what she was doing and sat back down again.

Hannah, none the wiser, pointed.

“Ball!” the umpire yelled.

Nathan looked back at me, and I nodded my head at him before I glared at the coach.

This was becoming an every game occurrence between the coach and my kid.

The coach, Jobert Clay, graduated with me.

He hated my guts, and apparently, that hate not only still burned all these years later, it apparently crossed over generations and translated to my kid.

The coach caught my glare and returned it full force before tossing the ball once more at my kid, narrowly missing his body with the ball.

The ball wasn’t one of the soft ones like last year. No, this one was a fucking hard ball, and that mother fucker was throwing it at my kid’s body.

I stood up, dislodging my hands from Raven’s body, and started down the bleachers until my hands curled around the chain link fence.

Jobert, the stupid fucker, sneered at me before rearing back to throw it, and I knew he was about to hit my kid.

“Back up, Kid,” I said to Nathan.

He obeyed immediately and stepped out of the batter box just as the ball sailed by his head.

“You fucker,” I said, shaking the chain link fence in front of me. “I’m going to kill you.”

With just one look on Jobert’s part, I started walking around the fence and turned into the Rocker’s dugout.

Once I made it out onto the field, Jobert stood up from his knee and glared.

“You can’t be on the field,” he informed me haughtily.

I looked over at the umpire. “You have any problem with me pitching to my kid?”

The umpire’s face went to the tattoo on my forearm, then raised his arm to show me his Marine Corps. “None at all.”

I grinned and held my hand out for the ball that the umpire picked up.

“Excuse me,” I shouldered Jobert to the side.

He moved, but just barely and was still crowding me on the mound.

“You’ll have to move out of the way, Coach. Can’t have two pitchers on the field,” the umpire urged Jobert to move with a sweep of his hand.

Jobert, the loser, growled under his breath and jogged to the dugout where he took a seat with a harrumph.

I grinned and turned back to my kid.

“You ready, boy?” I asked him.

He nodded enthusiastically and squared his shoulders before stepping back into the batter’s box.

“Ready, Dad.”

Pride filled my throat as I tossed the ball to him like I did any other time we practiced.

It wasn’t a bitch throw, either.

It was a real one.

Sure, I didn’t put as much heat on it as I could have, but it wasn’t a pitch any other kid could hit.

Nathan swung and missed, and little Miss Reggie caught the ball like a pro and threw it back.

Uncle Wolf didn’t raise no slackers.

Nathan looked at me, grinned as he took his place once again, and then nodded his head.

I threw the next one, and knew instantly that he’d hit it.

What I didn’t expect was for my nearly six-year-old son to hit a home fucking run.

It sailed just barely over the back fence, but it went, and it counted.

Mother fucker, but did it count.