“I should warn you that sometimes when I show up, she’s . . .” he starts as he slides out of the driver’s side of the truck, pulling my curiosity from the gravel lot and mobile homes around us.
“No need to,” I say quietly as I meet his eyes, noting he hasn’t moved. His hand’s still on the driver’s side door as if he can’t decide whether he wants to shut it or climb back in and drive away. He’s uncomfortable. Uncertain. Now that we’re here, he’s not sure if it was a good idea to introduce me to this side of his life. It’s in the way he chews the inside of his cheek and the hesitancy in his actions when he is usually so sure of himself.
So I do it for him.
Instead of waiting for him to open the door for me as he typically does, I open it, climb out, and meet him where he’s moved to the front of the truck.
He glances to the front door and then back to me. “I just need to see her before I leave,” he says, resignation in his tone, and I can’t tell if it’s because he doesn’t want me here or doesn’t know what he’s going to walk into.
“I’m looking forward to meeting her.” I reach out and link my fingers with his in silent reassurance. He’s already prepared me for his mom and her illness and this connection is my reminder to him that I’m not here to judge her or how he handles her.
Besides, I want to soak up every minute I have left with him. He’s crazy if he thought he was going to leave me behind.
He presses a kiss to my temple, his lips lingering a few moments longer than normal before sighing and walking down the path to the front of the house. Hanging plants adorn the front area by the railing with colorful garden knickknacks adding character that makes me smile.
And even funnier as we climb the three steps to one of the better-kept homes in the park, is that I’m suddenly a tad nervous. I’m meeting his mom. And I actually want her to like me because I know how much she means to him.
Easton knocks on the door and squeezes my hand as a woman’s voice calls out, “Coming.” When the door opens, the woman on the other side emits the sweetest gasp. “Easton!” She’s over the threshold and in his arms in seconds, clinging tightly to him and him to her. “You came to see me.” Her voice is muffled from being pressed against his chest, but the love overflowing from it is undeniable.
“Hi, Momma.” The affection in his is just as endearing.
“Look at you.” She leans back and looks up at him, her smile wide, her hands reaching up to touch the sides of his cheeks, and her eyes only for him. “So handsome. Are you okay? I was so angry when I saw the press conference this morning. I was down at the bar and—”
“At eight thirty in the morning?”
“Don’t give me that. I was only stopping in to have a Bloody Mary or two and say hi to everyone is all.” She pats his cheek as I quietly watch him grit his teeth and hold back his chastisement. “But what if I need you when you’re gone? What if—”
“I brought someone I want you to meet.”
She startles back, her hands immediately going to pat at her hair in true feminine fashion. “But I’m not made up . . . ” Her voice fades off when she notices me standing there, no doubt looking worse for wear with eyes rimmed red from my crying jag.
She turns my way and for the first time I get a full view of Easton’s mother. The resemblance between the two is uncanny: dark eyes in the same almond shape, same cheekbone structure, same smile with the little bit of crooked to it. Her eyes look tired, the lines etched in her face tell a story all of their own, but her smile is kind and welcoming.
“Hello, Mrs. Wylder. It’s so nice to meet you.” I hold out my hand and she grabs it immediately to shake it warmly.
“It’s so nice to meet you too.” Her smile widens as she glances to Easton, my hand still in hers. “She’s so pretty.”
I blush immediately as Easton chuckles. “Yes, she is. Momma, this is Scout Dalton. Scout, this is my mom, Meg.” He looks toward me and for the first time I can see the apprehension fade.
Meg stares at me a beat longer than normal, eyes narrowing as she gives me a quick and unabashed study. “Oh, I’m so sorry, where are my manners? Please, come in.”
In an instant she becomes a ball of energy with nervous hands as she turns to go inside, hitting her hip against the doorjamb, apologizing, and then doing it again as she enters. Easton’s hand is back in mine again and for the briefest of seconds he pulls me against him, presses the softest of kisses to my temple and murmurs, “Thank you,” before ushering me through the door.
The inside is clean but definitely lived in. The couch cushions have been worn bare in some spots, the far room is stacked with boxes of products and gadgets that seem to never have been opened, and the television is on, a baseball game playing on its screen.
It’s an Aces game, that much is obvious, but I’m a little startled when I see Easton, his number 44 visible when he turns and walks back to the plate from the pitcher’s mound. I meet Easton’s gaze briefly, and he just shakes his head as if this is normal. That she lives in the past and watches replays of his old games.
“Easton’s never brought home a girl before,” she murmurs as she straightens magazines. “Do you want a drink? Let’s have a drink,” she says despite my polite refusal.
I hear Easton sigh softly as his gaze follows Meg when she flits to the kitchen. The sound of bottles clinking fills the small space followed by her muttered self-chastisement. There’s more clinking. Easton clenches his jaw and shakes his head before looking back to me. “Excuse me for a sec, okay?”
“Of course.” I try to catch his eye to tell him it’s okay, that she’s just nervous, but I’m sure he’s made the same excuses for her illness more times than he can count. Besides, he’s already three strides to the kitchen, his voice a soothing murmur before the glass bottles clink once again. Letting them have their privacy, I gravitate to the farthest part of the room to study the picture frames that clutter every inch of the wall.
And every single one of them is of Easton.
Much like Easton’s jerseys in his private field, these pictures tell the story of his life and in much more detail. A toddler sitting on his mother’s lap as she looks adoringly at her husband. A little boy standing beside his father with a fishing pole in hand and a bass flopping on its hook. A slightly older Easton, in a cowboy hat way too big for his head, standing between his mom and dad—both stunning in their own rights. Snapshots of a childhood he doesn’t talk much about.
And then the photos begin to change. Cal becomes absent while many of them are of Easton in various baseball uniforms. The transition from boy to man is visible in each one. There are a few others, and I assume they’re from his prom, graduation, and family functions.
I could stare at them forever, but the quiet murmuring across the room pulls my attention. Easton is hunched down so he’s eye level with his mom, their profiles mirror images, and he’s talking softly to her, trying to calm her. He takes a glass off the counter that’s full of amber liquid and hands it to her, his hands cupping hers before she lifts it to her lips and takes a sip.
Both of their eyes close as she drinks—hers as she gets the fix she needs from the drug that provides it and his from knowing his love for her is not enough to break the cycle. And when he looks my way, the defeat is in his eyes but so is the love for her. He hates her addiction—that much is obvious—so, he does the only thing he can: love her. It’s heartbreaking to know how hard this is for him and to see it firsthand.
“What are you thinking about?” His fingers twirl a lock of my hair as the fireflies flit all around us and the crickets and frogs add to the night’s soundtrack.
“A lot of things,” I murmur against the heat of his bare chest.
“Like?”
“Like why we both have perfectly nice beds and yet we always find ourselves having sex elsewhere.”
His laugh rumbles through his chest. “Are you saying you don’t like the atmosphere?”
I lift my head to where the moon’s light reflects off the lake water, hear the trees rustle in the breeze around us, and know there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than right here, right now.
“It’s no fuss, no frills.”
“Exactly. You’re a no-fuss, no-frills girl.” He plants a kiss on the top of my head. “And this is romantic. You can say it’s not, but I know you’re a secret romantic at heart.”
“Looks to me like someone might have listened to a romance book or two.”
“Oh, please.” He pats my bare bottom with his free hand. “I knew there would be no distractions out here and I needed that. With you.”
“Agreed. Besides, who could say no to a sudden stop on the way home for some skinny-dipping and a little lovemaking in the moonlight?” I return the kiss to the middle of his chest and love the way his fingers tighten on my hair momentarily. A subtle acknowledgement that I affect him.
“Not this guy.” He falls silent for a bit more and then says, “You said you were thinking about a lot of things. What else?”
“Let’s see,” I say as I rest my chin on his chest and look up to him. “I was thinking how cool it must be to have two parents who love you so much they’d do anything for you. I’ve never had that.”
“I’m lucky.” His sigh fills the night around us. “Even with everything with my mom and how demanding my dad is, I know I’m lucky.”
“You’re good with her, you know.”
The laugh he emits is self-deprecating. “I feel like I’m just feeding her addiction sometimes, but at the same time, I know I’ve done everything I can to help her, so what else am I supposed to do? Push her away? Keep her under lock and key? She won’t leave the damn trailer park. I’ve tried to buy her a house, move her closer . . . she won’t do it. As you could see with the recorded baseball game, she’s stuck in the past. She says the love of her life will come back for her someday and God only knows who that is. Sometimes I think it’s no one at all, just a figment of her imagination the alcohol encourages most days. Other times I think it’s a real person.”
“Maybe it’s your dad.” The words are out without thought and he shrugs at them.
“Now you’re appealing to the ten-year-old boy in me who used to pray for my parents to get back together so I could have a normal life. I gave up that hope a long time ago.”
“It must have been hard.”
“No harder than what you had to deal with,” he says. I love he can say it so casually and I don’t get my defenses up. After letting the comment settle, I turn the topic back to him.
“You’re good with her. You’re sweet and loving and most of all patient. A lot of people would have pushed her away, but not you. You’re her whole world and it shows.”
“Yeah, well, let’s hope she’s okay over the next few months while I’m gone. Then in off-season I can figure a long-term plan on how to take care of her.”
“She seemed good with it. Like knowing you were going to be gone was a temporary thing.”
“She hid it well, but I could tell she was freaking out.”
“Like I told you, when we left, if she needs help, I could come out here when I’m in town.”
“I can’t ask that of you, Scout. It’s always a crapshoot with her. I never know what I’m going to walk into when I show up. Today was good. She knew I was coming, so she wasn’t occupying her resident booth at the bar. Other days, I’m left to clean up what the alcohol has left me with.”
“You’re a good son, Easton. And the offer still stands.”
“Thanks.” His finger traces a line up and down the length of my spine and chills me despite the warm night air. “Do you want to talk about what you were so upset about when I showed up earlier? I can think it was over me, but I’m not that much of an arrogant jerk to make that assumption.”
“I had a one-sided argument with my dad,” I finally admit and then fall silent, not wanting to ruin this time I have left with him.
“You didn’t get the contract then?”
The harsh words I said to my dad come flooding back. “That’s the problem, I did get one. Cory granted me a probationary agreement until the end of the season. At that time, he’ll decide if they want to sign me for next season.”
“You don’t sound happy.”
“Why are you surprised by that? I feel like I’m betraying you by taking it. Having to work for Cory, for the team, just to fulfill my dad’s wishes . . . it makes my skin crawl.”
“We all do things for our parents sometimes that don’t always feel good,” he muses with a tone that tells me he’s talking about himself as well. His mom. His dad.
“I told my dad as much. I said some things I probably shouldn’t have but . . . I couldn’t help it. Between what you said to me last night and then having to deal with Cory and feel like I was compromising my morals, I couldn’t hold it back anymore.”
He pulls me tighter against him and holds me there for a moment. I appreciate him not trying to give advice or fix anything and just let me get it out.
“I understand why it’s important to him—the contract—but is it really that important? Shouldn’t spending the time he has left with those he loves be more important?”
“And I assume that’s what you told him?”
I chuckle. “In terms a lot less polite.”
“Yeah, well,” he says, “there’s always that time when you have to stand up to them. It’s not easy, but you always regret the things left unsaid more.”
“Let’s hope I don’t regret the things I did say.” Let alone what I didn’t say.
Our conversation falls quiet to the sounds of crickets and frogs and the occasional jake brake on the highway a few miles east. And the longer we lie here and enjoy each other, the more I think about the past twenty-four hours. The things I said to Easton. The things I didn’t say. The fact that I told him I loved him and he didn’t accept it. That he thought it was a desperate plea to ask for forgiveness when it was probably the truest thing I said in that whole argument.
I need to say it again.
“Easton, there’s something I want to clarify about last night. There was something I said that—”
“No,” he says as he shifts on his elbow, my body moving until we’re face to face. He puts a finger under my chin and tilts my chin up. “I don’t want to talk about last night. Or our argument. Or baseball at all.” He leans forward, brushing his lips to mine, his tongue a teasing touch. “I want to lie here in the long grass with you.” Another brush of his lips. “Hear your laugh.” This time the kiss lasts a little longer. “Taste your skin.” An open-mouthed kiss on the underside of my jaw. “And make love to you until we watch the sun rise.” If he’ll accept a sigh as an answer then he just got it, and when he leans back to look in my eyes, I can see he already knows it. “I want to drown in you tonight, Scout. I want to forget the world, forget what’s going to happen tomorrow, and drown in everything about you, starting now.”
With my heart in his hands, his lips on mine, Easton lays me down and does just what he promises.
There is no further conversation needed. There is no need to mention the obvious about what will happen tomorrow morning. There is no scramble to reassure each other that we can survive this . . . because for some reason, we just will.
I know it.
And that’s the weirdest feeling of all.