"I wish I could say the same about you."
"Oh." I held my hand out to her. "Clarke Myers. Social Media Coordinator for the Roasters."
She took her time shaking my hand, and with it came a full body once-over. From the top of my Roasters baseball hat to the tips of my tennis shoes. Her eyes widened then shot up to mine when she spotted Soren's jersey number drawn in Sharpie on the sides—his handiwork, not mine.
Wearing his jersey would send the wrong message, but wearing his number on my shoes seemed innocent enough. Until faced with his family, that was.
"Great to meet you, Clarke."
"Your name is Clarke?" A teenager with multi-colored hair sidled up to Shelby. "That's a cool name."
"Thank you."
This had to be Monty, Shelby's kid and Soren's "nibling." Soren talked a lot about his sisters' children, but I could tell he had a soft spot for Monty. I could see why. They were cute as a button.
"Mom, they were out of pretzels so I got popcorn instead."
"Thanks, baby," Shelby said, wrapping an arm around them. "This is my kiddo, Monty."
"Good to meet you, Monty. Your uncle talks about you all the time."
Their face lit up. It was hard to believe that any day now, Viv and Ellie would welcome a kiddo of their own into the world. I was looking forward to being an aunt—and spoiling the heck out of that kid—but not so long ago, children had been a sore spot inmy and Walden's relationship. I had wanted to wait a few years after we got married before trying to have kids. If he had had it his way, I would've been pregnant before the honeymoon was over.
And even though it had bothered me at the time, I'd done exactly as Mama suggested:"Don't think too much on it, honey. Y'all can figure it out after the wedding."
Looking back, what she meant was, "You'll change your mind later."
Well, turns out Mama was right about one thing. I had changed my mind. Just not in the way either of us expected.
"I really like your hair," I told Monty. Despite my newfound obsession with color, I didn't think colorful hair was for me. Much like tattoos, vivid hair color was something I could appreciate on other people. Monty pulled off the neon blue and pink balayage—with eye makeup to match—like a cotton candy unicorn.
"Thanks," they said around another crunch of popcorn. "I really love your lipstick. Is it Cherry Tart?"
"Drop Dead Red actually."
The teen really knew their lipstick shades.
"Monty has a YouTube channel reviewing makeup and hair trends." Ah, that explained it. "They just hit two thousand subscribers this week."
Shelby said it like a proud parent. I envied the way she didn't minimize Monty's accomplishments or treat them like a silly hobby. Monty was lucky they had a mom like Shelby, even if they didn't realize it yet.
"Sounds like we've got more than one star in the Sinclair family."
"Well, I could've told you that," a deep voice said from behind us.
I guess they called the game after all.
Monty bent over the short fence separating us from the field, throwing their arms around Soren's neck. I was sure he was sweaty. I was sure he was dirty and rubbed raw from that double play in the third inning. But you would have never known it by the way he embraced his nibling, by the way they loved him back.
"Why didn't you tell me you guys were coming?" he asked his sister.
"We wanted to surprise you. It's this one's spring break, and I had some vacation days to use. Besides, you might not have played as well if you knew."
He laughed. "You little shit."
Shelby stuck her tongue out in response. Yup, they were definitely siblings.
"Okay, well, I'm going to leave y'all to catch up." I spun toward Soren. "I'll see you . . . later."
