Drake stood up slowly, rising to his feet, and met Toby’s obnoxious look with pure ice. “My girl, as you put it, will never wear your name across her shoulders or your number on her chest. She’s mine – and you can sit your butt down and go back to chewing your cud,” he drew out in a menacing, no-nonsense voice, leaning into the other player and forcing him downwarduntil he plopped ungainly onto the bench, making several guys laugh around them. “She wants a man in her life – not a boy who rocks that jaw like Elsie-the-Cow, bruh…”
“Ohhhh burn! Got you there, Jenkins!”
“Stoosche – Big-Talker-Walker done’tole’ya, bro!”
Drake chuckled at Larry’s thick New York accent as everyone started making comments playfully, making Drake puff up his chest to take some of the heat out of the room. He didn’t want to fight his teammate, but there were lines you didn’t cross – and anything relating to Steffi was a big one.
“We both know my girl loves me for my pretty face,” Drake tossed glibly. “I tell her to go get me a Gatorade every time Jenkins is up to bat…” – and tossed a wink to the other guy playfully, holding out his hand. “No hard feelings, but I cannot compete with that awesome pouty lip you rock with that tobacco-turd in your cheek.”
“Man, shut up…” Jenkins laughed, taking Drake’s hand jovially. “Just hang onto your girl while you can – and I’m buying stock in Gatorade.”
“You should,” he said straight-faced. “It’s getting really expensive for me, but then again, if I made the big money like you do, Jenkins...”
“Pshaw – whatever…”
The locker room erupted in laughter, and even as Drake joined in with the guys, cutting up playfully, a part of his mind was working – because it suddenly dawned on him that he really wanted Steffi to come to the games, to cheer for him. Yeah, he’d tossed that out between them before just to test the waters – but now, it was visceral.
He wanted her wearing his jersey, watching him play, and he really wanted her to go crazy over the ring instead of texting him one photo two days ago followed by silence. She hadn’ttexted, hadn’t made a snide remark, nothing. No comments on his Camry… zilch.
The feelings were festering in him – first it started as something small, an itch at the back of his mind, a peevish annoyance. Now, it was viable – something real, a tangent, an irritation under the skin that demanded scratching or medication. Maybe that was what it was, he needed to self-medicate to get her out of his head… but how?
His mother thought he was madly in love with Steffi. His brother Tommy had a big freakin’ mouth and would blab to everyone – including his mother – if he called asking for advice on how to talk to a girl. Pete was the only one in the family that could keep his yap shut – and that’s cause he was a stiff-upper-lipped dork, a do-gooder, a chest-beating, Yankee-doodle dandy… and Drake couldn’t be more proud of the twerp.
When he got to the car and had a little privacy, he’d call Pete, get this off his chest, or talk himself through whatever was going on in his brain, and settle things. It was decided because Pete was usually busy enough with his wife, his buddies, or that sweet girl who had all of them wrapped around her tiny pinky fingers.
“Yep,” he muttered to himself, yanking a T-shirt from his locker. “Pete will know what to do, or I’ll talk with Sunny.”
Twenty minutes later,Drake regretted even dialing Pete’s phone number.
“SHUT UP AND QUIT LAUGHING!”
“Oh my gosh,” Pete wheezed on the phone, chortling wildly – which was so out of character for him, and you could hear Sunny in the background asking what was going on. “Is it my birthday?Holy cow, Drake – that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life…”
“What?” Sunny yelped in the background – and Drake rolled his eyes. Obviously, his brother decided that this was so freakin-hysterical that he put the very private phone call on speaker.
“Hi, Sunny,” Drake said glumly. “Can you tell my brother he’s a stuck-up-twerp and I called for genuine help, not to be laughed at.”
“Hi-ya, W-2…” Sunny began cheerfully, her voice louder now, and Drake frowned.
“I’m the oldest Walker – not second…”
“Not in my book, W-2. My Petey-the-Sweetie isnumero unoin my book, which bumps your older-and-crankier-butt tonumero dos. Besides, I thought it was clever to call you W-2 because you used to tax my sweet hubby – get it? Things are good now, and we’re one big happy family right – and about to grow again!”
“You’re pregnant?”
“Good gravy noooo – bite your tongue! And unless you’re about to poop a watermelon into the potty to see what it feels like, you are not allowed to speak on the matter.”
Drake rolled his eyes as Pete started laughing again in the background. “Ask him why he called us, Sunny-Bunny…”
“You distinctly do not ‘poop’ a child in the toilet,” Drake frowned, ignoring his brother and steering the conversation before it exploded in his face – again.
“Says a man…” Sunny scoffed.
“Says any man… because you delivered via C-section in the hospital, Sunny – remember? Or were the drugs too strong?”
“But I went into labor,” she argues. “And if someone is finally asking my opinion on the drugs, they were not strong enough. Sheesh. I felt like my insides were about to take a walk through what felt like a Ziploc baggie. Walk with a pillow to hold pressureon your tummy… puh-lease! Have you ever wobbled with a pillow on your belly and tried to hold a baby – it’s not easy.”
“Wait, if you’re not pregnant, then what are you… Ohhhh…” Drake cringed – she was referring to the family growing because of Steffi.
