My eyes dart to his just in time to catch them flicker. I don’t think he meant to say that out loud. And if he did, he probably shouldn’t. I don’t even know his story, at least not completely. Neither of us should be flirting.
I clear my throat and take a half step back while he kneels to tuck Holly into the carrier.
“So, seven tomorrow? You report at eight, am I right?” You don’t grow up in Sweetwater without having the Mavericks practice schedule memorized.
“Yeah, seven is good,” he says as he stands, lifting the carrier to his side.
When our gazes meet again, I struggle to maintain eye contact, and I know my flustered behavior is obvious to everyone in this room except the people under four. Thankfully, I manage to keep my mouth shut and don’t drag this exchange out any longer, simply smiling tightly and nodding as Brooks heads out the door.
I close it behind him, but not before taking in the full view of his broad shoulders and the flex of his bare shoulder blades as he jogs down the porch steps and brick path. Thankfully, my dad is invested in the seventh inning of the Rangers game, so I’m spared the teasing I normally expect from him. But Mom is another story.
“Just remember, you’re a single woman now. That?” She nods toward the closed door. “You’re allowed.”
I lift my brows, as if to brush her off, but her words sink in. She has a point. But just because I’m allowed doesn’t mean I should.
THREE
BROOKS
The late-night hours that bleed into mornings are rough. Yet there’s something about them that I like.
It’s so quiet. That’s partly the Sweetwater way—quiet and still. Those are two selling points for life in a country-minded small town in Oklahoma. The stench of pig farms is definitely a drawback, but the cattle ranch down the road has a certain touch of something I don’t totally hate.
Maybe it all reminds me of Iowa, the place that saved me. Perhaps that’s why Sweetwater feels like home. I mean, myrealhometown never felt that way. I shared a one-bedroom apartment with my drug-dealing, addict mother. I slept on a pull-out sofa I paid for myself and dragged home from a thrift store. No wonder my spine is all fucked up. I spent my formative years sleeping on a weave of rusty springs and layers of sleeping bags.
The full ride to play ball in Iowa wasn’t my dream the way playing for San Diego State was the pinnacle for my friend Hunter. That ticket to Iowa was my ticket out of hell. And I soaked up every drop of that gift to make sure I never had to drag my ass back to Inglewood. And I didn’t, except for one singleflight to sign some paperwork at the coroner’s office and pick up the Suburban.
I’ve been thinking about Inglewood and my mother a lot more lately. Andthatis most certainly the quiet’s fault. It’s due to nights like this one. My mind wanders to the past as I pace in a circle in my living room while rocking Holly back to sleep. She woke up just after midnight, hungry. She’s gotten good at falling asleep right after a feeding, which is the only reason I’ve been able to function at morning workouts.
Tonight feels different, though. I’m not sure I’ll be able to fall back after this round. My mind is racing too much. My thoughts keep coming back to my mom and our shitty life. She used to tell me that things weren’t always so bad, that before my father left, we had a house, a porch, and a yard with rose bushes. The only reason I know she wasn’t lying is the photo of me sitting in a hard plastic baby pool in the middle of a lush lawn, a man I don’t recognize splashing water at me with his cupped palms. I pick up the photo from the open shoebox I pulled out earlier tonight and try to see myself in the tall, slender man's profile, in jeans and a buttoned-up plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled above his elbows. I’ve tried growing a mustache like his, but even that doesn’t make our similarities stand out.
Perhaps it’s because I don’t want to see the likeness. I don’t want to be anything like that coward. He left me with a woman addicted to opioids so he could run from the law. And when the law caught up with him, he refused to be held accountable to anyone, spitting in the face of justice as well as every request I made to visit him while he was serving time.
I quit trying by the time I was a sophomore in high school. I no longer had time for his problems; I had plenty of my own—mostly finding a place to live every few months when my mom managed to get us evicted again and again. I don’t know what I would have done in high school without Hunter. I didn’t have acar and shit, so I bused my ass to Woodbridge High every day until he turned sixteen and got a car. The dude never missed a day, once picking me up and taking me to school when he was staying home sick with the flu.
I wish he and I could have played together in college, but his talent is on another level. I’m good, mostly because I work my ass off like my life depends on it. It does. It always has. I’m not even sure I ever really loved this game. It’s simply the one thing I am good at that took me away from the chaos, and let me survive. Even now, I find myself pushing the limits so I can be great, not because I want the dream, but because I want to give Holly a life a million times better than mine was.
And that . . .thatis why I will wake up in the middle of the night to be here for her. Why I took her in that night and never thought of contesting paternity. I still have legal hoops to jump through with my lawyer, and eventually, I’ll need to satisfy the state that Holly is in fact mine to formally add my name to her birth certificate. But in my gut, I already know the truth. My heart tells me all I need to know. Holly is mine. Her mom was—is—not equipped for the job, so I will be. I’ll be her person, her parent, dad, hero, protector. I’ll show up for it all, no matter how fucking tired I am. Because my God, that shit’s everything to a child. I wish someone had shown up for me.
Holly is fast asleep against my chest, so I ease myself onto the sofa, angling enough to make sure she’s comfortable and that if I luck out and doze off, I’ll be semi-comfortable as well. I drop the photo of me in the baby pool to the cushion beside me and pull the letter that arrived in Holly’s carrier from the box. No matter how many times I read this thing, it never says enough.
Dear Brooks.
I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you sooner. I tried to, but I couldn’t. And I knew Holly deserved to have a shot. We both know that can’t be with me. But you can be her universe. You have it in you. Please take care of our baby girl. I’ll try to find the courage to fix myself, and maybe then, I can come back to you both.
With love,
Pen
Pen. I don’t even know her last name. We knew each other for less than twelve hours, though we knewofeach other for most of our college years. Pen worked at the pub about two blocks from the university campus. I saw her there after games when I went out with the team to celebrate. She went to school part-time, on and off, because she was a lot like my mom. She has demons, and she turned to anything to quiet them.
One night, when I was feeling pretty low about myself, she turned to me, and we distracted one another. It wasn’t supposed to mean more than what it was. The rules were clear. We weren’t each other’s types at all. But sex is a powerful drug. Fucking life-altering, it seems.
I got drafted. Pen disappeared from the pub. And that was it. Until Holly showed up at my door with the note.
Pen was right about one thing: I can be Holly’s universe. Whether or not I have it in me to keep this hamster wheel moving is another story. But I sure as hell am going to try.
It takes my mind several seconds to sort through the cacophony of sound attacking my ears. It’s the loud knock at my door, the third round of knocking,I think,that finally pries my eyes open.
