We’re here for the ump.
“Go, Fischer!” Coop yells.
“He means ‘go home, Fischer!’” I amend, and everyone laughs from where we’re seated a few rows behind home plate, close enough to see Dad’s strike zone and every small head shake he gives a hitter who thinks he’s wrong.
Most importantly, we’re close enough to heckle him.
“You’re statistically the most accurate umpire in baseball!” Liesel shouts, her hands cupped around her mouth. “But that call sucked!”
We laugh again.
He ignores us. Bruce is too much of a pro to get flustered by his turd kids. And when the team challenges the call and the automated ball-strike system flashes on the Jumbotron, we all groan.
He was right.
“Terrible call, Robot Ump!” Liesel boos.
Scottie, Liesel, and Kayla—who’s close with both my sister and Scottie—are sitting in the row in front of us, laughing hysterically.
It’s early March, and the Mudflaps will report to Spring Training next week. The Flaps staff is all starting to trickle in, but Kayla’s only here on vacation with her husband. Scottie convinced her to trust her GM and the rest of the front office so she can spend the next few months traveling to Sean’s NHL games before their baby comes.
Kayla’s insistent that this baby isn’t coming until Sean’s team wins the Stanley Cup Finals.
And because she’s Kayla Carville-O’Shannan, something tells me she’ll will it so.
After a flawless inning, Dad pulls off his mask, grabs a water bottle from the umpire attendant, and chats with the catcher like they won’t be mortal enemies again the second the pitch clock starts ticking.
“Stop yapping and hydrate, old man!” Logan yells.
“And stretch your hamstrings, Bruce!” Coop adds. “You’re not twenty-five!”
Dad looks up into the stands, expression flat. Then he lifts the water bottle in our direction like he’s toasting a group of idiots.
Scottie doesn’t heckle, but the way she fits in warms me more than the Arizona sun.
When she peeks over her shoulder at me, smiling, the urge to kiss her fills me. I lean down and she leans up, but Liesel flopssideways against Scottie, laughing too hard at some dumb joke to realize she just body-blocked me.
Liesel and Scottie hit it off immediately, which will definitely change the family dynamic. I was nervous because they can both be prickly, but they’re already bracing against each other and laughing like old friends. These two different parts of my life are merging, but somehow everything feels bigger and better because of it.
Scottie leans her head against my knee, smiling.
I lean down to kiss her head, and then feel the bag of cotton candy in my hands dip?—
“You took the whole blue chunk?” I say, watching her squeeze it down before she shoves a piece in her mouth. The sugar crystallizes around her lips, leaving sticky blue crumbs that I kiss off. “Mm. You taste good, though.”
“The blue’s the best flavor,” she says, squishing another fluff ball.
“No, pink is, then blue.”
“Agree to disagree, as long as you admit purple’s the worst.”
“Yuck. Purple’s trash,” I say, reaching my hand into the bag and grabbing a handful of yellow.
“Purple’s fine,” Logan says from my other side, grabbing the whole section.
“Ew,” Scottie says.
“Ew,” Liesel says.
