Thatcher’s pacing the dugout like a man who thinks this is Game Seven of the World Series.
“Relax, coach,” Greyson mutters beside me.
Thatcher shoots him a look that could peel paint.
Greyson just grins and pops another piece of popcorn into his mouth.
On the other side of him sits Clara, looking happy and calm in that quiet way newly married women sometimes do.
Willow is next to her—and I swear to God that woman looks like she might give birth right here on the bleachers.
She’s so pregnant she’s practically glowing.
Still insisted on coming, though.
“Wouldn’t miss my nephew’s big game,” she said earlier when Thatcher tried to convince her to stay home.
Right now she’s fanning herself with the scorecard and hollering louder than anyone.
“That’s it, Evan!Watch the ball!”
Behind us, Maddox is leaning against the fence, yelling like a lunatic.
“LET’S GO, EVAN!SHOW ‘EM HOW IT’S DONE!”
A couple of parents glance over.
I just chuckle.
“Tone it down, kid,” I tell him over my shoulder.
He grins.
“No way.That’s my little brother out there.”
Little brother.
That word still hits me somewhere deep in the chest every time he says it.
It’s been a couple of weeks since Kelly and I got married.
Couple weeks of real life settling in.
Couple weeks of waking up next to that woman and wondering how the hell I got so lucky.
And no sign of Mike Stevens.
Not after the packet my investigators and I delivered personally to him in a shithole over in Newark, New Jersey.
A thick little bundle of paperwork outlining every charge waiting for him if he so much as sets foot in Woodhaven again.
Plus, a fist to the stomach for being a fucking prick.I owed him that one.
Fraud.
Theft.
Statutory rape.
