“Oh . . . he actually came.” My dad moves his food aside so he can crawl to his knees and slowly stand. He’s not as nimble as he once was. He was a catcher in college, and he spent many years afterward catching for his young athletes or sitting on one kneeto toss balls to me or Jayden while we hit. His joints are toast, yet he presses on.
Jayden stops about halfway between our pickup and me, his handful of flowers lowering to his side. His travel bag is slung over his opposite shoulder, and for some reason, the sight of it sends a flutter of tingles through my chest.He’s staying with me until we get home.
“Come on over,” I say, nudging my head toward my father.
“Want some dinner?” My dad offers.
“I ate at the hospital with my mom, but thanks,” Jayden says as he takes slow steps closer to us. His gaze drifts to our makeshift picnic—and likely my mom’s tombstone—before his attention comes back to me.
“Is it all right that I showed up?” He hands me a cluster of wildflowers, dirt still caked to some of the roots. I take them from him, and my fingers graze along his during our exchange. His pinky finger lingers behind, as if clinging to the brief touch. Or maybe I was the one who lingered, leaving my hand near him for a tiny, extra moment.
“Of course it is. She would love that you are here,” I say, and I mean it. My mom loved Jayden so much. She always worried about him following his brother’s bad habits. Everyone did. We still do.
“Thank you for these,” I say, handing the flowers to my dad. He places them next to my mom’s stone.
“I wouldn’t smell them. I had to pick them from the highway shoulder. I’m pretty sure they’re weeds,” Jayden says through a sheepish grin.
“She’d like that even more,” I say. Mom didn’t like us making a fuss or spending more than necessary on things, even on her.
“Have a seat,” my dad says, working his way back to a seated position, holding his ankles to keep his legs folded up. He should probably consider a knee replacement, but he won’t do it. Muchlike my mom, he doesn’t like to spend money on things he deems unnecessary. I’d argue that walking is sort of a must-have, but he’d tell me he can crawl.
“Meg sure would have dug your game today, Jayden. She believed in you,” my dad says. “Almost as much as I do. Remember that, when you sign for the big bucks, would ya?”
My dad coughs out a raspy laugh, and Jayden smiles as he and I sit down on the blanket with my father.
“How could I ever forget the man who made me run forties for an hour straight because I missed a fly ball in center that cost us a playoff run? When I was twelve!” Jayden’s eyes bulge out, but he laughs through the retelling, and my dad waves him off.
“Eh, building character. And you should have caught that ball. You took a bad route.”
“Pfft!” Jayden spits out a harder laugh, then turns his gaze to me. I raise both palms.
“I’m Switzerland,” I profess. I take a nibble of my bread, biting my tongue for a moment. “But also, I would have caught it.”
Jayden pushes his travel bag into my hip.
“You’re a brat,” he mumbles.
My lips tingle as my smile crawls up into my cheeks. I’ve missed our comfortable banter. I missedhim.
My dad takes a few more bites of his pasta, and I pick at mine for a while as the three of us swap stories about when Jayden and I were kids. We weren’t really troublemakers, but we did like a good mess. My dad reminisces about the time Jayden and I tried to bake surprises for our parents, and the time we brought Adriel over to my house to help us clean up, and he ended up ripping open the bottom of the flour bag.
“It took me hours to get that shit off the floor,” my dad grumbles.
“Yeah, but it didn’t go to waste!” Jayden interjects, raising his hand as if he’s still one of my dad’s players. “Remember? I added it to the chalk at the little league field, and we used it for the foul lines!”
“Hmm, that’s right,” my dad says, his gaze dropping as the corners of his mouth curl up. “You were always resourceful. You ended up getting straight A’s too, didn’t you?”
“I mean, I wasn’t an honors student, but yeah. I was probably the best student on the team senior year.” Jayden blows on his fingernails and rubs them against his chest, a slight brag.
I don’t mention that a quarter of our senior class ended up dropping out or having to take summer school just to get their diploma. He can have this flex.
“Huh, yeah. You were a real smarty pants,” my dad says as he pushes his last bite of toast into his mouth. He claps the crumbs from his hands, then settles back on his palms, chewing and eyeing the two of us with an amused look on his face. Eventually, he points at Jayden, then waggles his finger at me.
“Maybe I should have let you two date back in the day after all,” he says, punctuating his statement with a single laugh before unraveling the plastic D’Angelo’s bag to scoop up our trash.
I blink slowly, replaying his words in my mind, all the while feeling the heat of Jayden’s stare in my periphery. I won’t look at him. I’m too afraid of what I might feel if our eyes lock right now. My dad thought we were trying to date? Did he know about my crush?Oh God, did he see us kiss?
I’m a grown woman. None of this should embarrass me. Yet, in this scenario, I’m still daddy’s little girl. I feel fifteen and innocent, and my cheeks burn at the mere thought of my father coming across Jayden and me in a lip lock. But was it really a lip lock? Was it even as good as I remember it? I mean, in my mind, I’ve built it into this epic moment that was our chance tobe something. But in reality, that kiss maybe lasted five seconds. I’m no longer sure there was even tongue involved.
