"You going to tell me where we're going?"
"Little league game."
Emily blinked. "Little league."
"My buddy's kid." He pulled out of her parking lot, heading north. "I told him I'd be there."
"And you're bringing me."
"I'm bringing you."
There was significance in that. Emily heard it, filed it away. He wasn't showing her his contacts or his network or his professional life. He was showing her the parts that mattered most.
"Who's the buddy?" she asked.
Jake’s hands shifted on the wheel, and Emily recognized the movement. Not tension. Preparation. The way a person arranges themselves before saying words that costs them.
"His name was Matt Wheeler. We served together. Delta." A pause that held an entire life in it. "He didn't make it home."
The past tense. The way he said it. Emily felt the words land and kept still, giving them room.
"I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago." Jake's voice was level, but she could hear what it cost him to keep it that way. "He had a wife, Erika. She was five months pregnant when it happened. Matt never got to meet his son."
"And you stayed."
"I was already there. Godfather. The kid's named after me." He glanced at her. "Matt was the best of us. Funny, smart, the kind of guy who made everyone around him better. When he didn't come back, there was no question. I'd be there for Erika, for Jacob. Whatever they needed."
Emily studied his profile. The way his hands sat on the wheel now that the hard part was said.
"You've been showing up for eight years."
"Every birthday. Every school thing. Whatever he needed, wherever I was." Simple. Like it was obvious. Like there was no other option.
Jake Walsh showed up. For his friends, for their families, for the people who needed him. It wasn't performance. It wasn't obligation. It was who he was.
"Jacob's eight now," Jake continued. "Started playing baseball a couple years ago." The steadiness in his voice gave way to warmth. "He's terrible. Absolute worst kid on the team. But he loves it."
"And you come to every game."
"Every one I could make while I was still in. Every single one since I've been home."
They drove in comfortable silence. The city gave way to suburbs, strip malls and palm trees and the sprawl she'd grown accustomed to since moving to Tampa. She thought about Matt Wheeler, a man she'd never meet, and the family he'd left behind. She thought about Jake, filling a space that could never really be filled, showing up anyway.
"Erika knows about me?" she asked.
"I told her I was bringing someone." Jake glanced at her again. "She's been waiting for me to bring someone for eight years. She's going to be thrilled."
"No pressure."
"No pressure." But he was smiling. "She's going to love you."
The baseball fieldwas chaos in the best way.
Kids in oversized uniforms that swallowed their bodies, warming up on a diamond that looked scaled for dolls. Parents clustered on metal bleachers with coffee cups and lawn chairs and the energy of a Saturday morning in suburban Florida. Emily followed Jake through the crowd, noting heads turn as he passed. People knew him here. Waved. Called out his name.
"Jake!" A small voice cut through everything else.
