Chapter 25 Brooks
Brooks
All-Star Break
When Soren had told me the team was meeting up at the stadium during the break, I’d figured it was for batting practice or maybe to get ahead on conditioning. What I hadn’t expected was an ambush.
“Welcome to your dadchelor party,” Tucker bellowed, nearly knocking me over with a clap on the back. “It’s like a baby shower, but with more beer.”
“Way more beer,” Roman added, fisting a bottle in each hand.
“I can see that,” I muttered, unable to fight the grin tugging at my mouth.
The infield had been transformed into some kind of outlandish carnival—cornhole boards painted with pacifiers, a stack of oversized baby blocks was stacked up at home plate, and a suspiciously small kiddie pool had been laid out at second base, filled with ice and what I assumed were at least a dozen cases of beers.
A highchair—one that looked suspiciously like the overpriced monster from Dani’s registry—sat parked at the pitcher’s mound like a throne, and beyond the outfield, deep in the bleachers behind left-center, balloons in the shapes of rattles and rubber duckies bobbed in the wind.
And looming above everything, the scoreboard was lit up in big, block letters. CONGRATS, COACH DADDY—complete with a cartoon stork hauling a screaming baby with my face slapped on it.
It looked like a county fair and a frat party had both lost a bet, and the stadium was where they’d come to settle it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, looking around.
“Nope.” Soren grinned, tossing me a burp cloth like it was a towel. “You’ve got a whole afternoon of festivities, coach.”
“Starting with baby bottle chugging,” Pink announced, stepping out from behind the dugout, his six-pack abs on full display, warpaint streaked across his cheeks, and a red bandana tied Rambo-style around his forehead.
He held a baby bottle filled with beer in each hand like they were weapons.
“Rules are simple—the first one to finish their bottle and run the bases wins.”
A chorus of cheers went up. The guys raced to claim their bottles, eager to show each other up.
My attention caught on the diaper station at third base, which had life-sized baby dolls laid out side by side, some already leaking suspiciously yellow liquid.
“Diaper changing relay,” Wes explained proudly. “After that is the baby toss, diaper pong, and finally ‘ice ice baby.’ But that one is really just who can stay in an ice bath the longest.”
“While solving a puzzle about nursery rhymes,” Matty added.
I shook my head, but damn if my chest didn’t ache a little at the sight. These grown men—loud, messy, impossible—had built me a baby shower in the middle of a ballpark.
Scratch that, a dadchelor party.
By the time the first game kicked off, half of the guys were already well beyond buzzed.
Roman cheated immediately, unscrewing the top of his baby bottle and pouring it straight down his throat before taking off around the bases.
Pink was the next to finish, chasing after him while shouting something about violating the sacred “dadchelor code.”
I laughed so hard, I nearly spit out my beer.
When I slipped into the dugout to catch my breath, still chuckling, Brock was already there, leaning over the fence with a bottle of cider in hand, watching the chaos unfold.
“Your man’s out there committing war crimes,” I said, jerking my chin toward the mess.
Tucker was hauling himself out of the kiddie pool after Diaz had tackled him straight into it, both of them shrieking like kids at summer camp. He still clutched his beer bottle triumphantly, water and foam streaming off him as he climbed out like some kind of half-drunk Poseidon.
Brock snorted. “Yeah, well. I knew what I was signing up for. He doesn’t exactly do things halfway.”
His eyes lit up as he tracked the water sluicing down Tucker’s burly arms and chest.
Yup, my friend was head over heels.
We stood there for a moment, the noise of the guys echoing through the empty stadium, laughter bouncing off steel and concrete.
Finally, Brock said, softer, “The crazy thing is, I used to think my life was already full. Good job, great friends, a steady routine. And then Tucker came barreling in, and suddenly everything felt . . . more. Like someone turned on the lights.”
I felt something pull in my chest because I totally got it. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
Before Dani, I’d thought my life was set.
Coaching, raising Carolina, keeping my head down—that had been enough.
At least, that was what I’d told myself.
But then she’d crashed into my world, all sharp wit, softer edges, and fucking socks, and suddenly everything looked different.
Lighter, brighter. Like I’d been living in black and white and she’d handed me a box of crayons.
She made home feel like more than just four walls.
“I didn’t even realize some of the shit I had been carrying around until Dani came along,” I told him. “She just . . . makes me better.”
Brock smiled into his beer, eyes still on the field where Tucker was now flexing like a WWE star. “Guess we’re both lucky bastards.”
“The luckiest,” I agreed, tipping my beer toward him.
We clinked our bottles together, a quiet moment between two men surrounded by pandemonium, bonded by the people who’d cracked our hearts open and let light in.
And love. Because there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I loved Dani Bernal.
Even if I hadn’t told her yet.
Out on the field, the guys were already moving into the next phase of chaos—the diaper changing relay, which looked more like a demolition derby.
Pink and Roman, the designated captains of the relay teams, shouted instructions like drill sergeants, pacing the foul line with all the seriousness of a playoff game.
“Tabs first, then wipe!” Pink barked, pointing at Wes, who looked like he was trying to hogtie the baby doll instead of diaper it.
Roman was no better. “Tuck and fold, fuckers!” he shouted like he’d been studying swaddling tutorials all week.
For all I knew, he might have.
The dolls littered the infield like casualties, diapers dangling, wipes fluttering in the breeze.
At least a few of them were already missing limbs, and one had lost its head completely.
Tucker managed to get his doll into a diaper—backwards, but still.
He hoisted it into the air like Simba on Pride Rock, making Bennett double over with a laugh so powerful, his implants might’ve shorted out from the noise.
“Time,” Wes yelled, blowing a whistle he’d stolen from the bullpen.
The guys collapsed in a heap of laughter, no one entirely sure who had won—they were all too drunk to care. I shook my head, biting back a laugh of my own.
“Lord help us all if any of these idiots ever have real children.”
“Coach,” Pink called out, pointing a dripping finger in my direction. “You’re up next. No excuses.”
I shook my head immediately. “I’m good. Somebody’s got to supervise before one of you breaks an ankle.”
“Bullshit,” Roman scoffed.
“Yeah, that’s what Hell is for,” Tuck added, pointing toward his boyfriend. He traced the outline of a heart across his chest like something out of a cheesy music video. “Besides, this is your dadchelor party. We put this together for you.”
“Yeah,” Soren added, grinning like a wolf. “Can’t be a dadchelor if the dad won’t play.”
Pink stepped forward, separating himself from the herd. “Besides, Dani told us we have to get photos of you.”
I arched my brow.
Of course she had. I should’ve known the guys couldn’t have pulled this whole circus off without some help. Giant, inflatable babies, bottles full of beer, diaper races in the infield—this had Dani’s fingerprints all over it.
The woman didn’t want a baby shower for herself, but she was more than happy to throw me a dadchelor party. She was always thinking of me, of us. Always finding ways to make sure I didn’t just shoulder the weight, but felt the joy, too.
Hell, she knew me better than I knew myself.
Left to my own devices, I’d have spent the break in my office, reviewing tape. But Dani? She wanted me out here laughing my ass off, drunk and ridiculous, surrounded by the people who had, much to my reluctance, become something like family.
And damn if I didn’t love her more for it.
I huffed, shaking my head, but the truth was . . . I kinda wanted to. Just this once. “Fuck it,” I said, twisting the cap off another beer. “Let’s do it.” A chorus of cheers went up from the team, their voices echoing through the stadium.
I held up my hand. “But if any pictures end up on social media, it’s one-thousand burpees for all of you.”
Within minutes, I was lined up with the rest of them for Roman’s cursed invention—baby food beer pong. Red Solo cups lined the dugout bench, half filled with pale ale, half with suspicious jars of various pureed vegetables.
Way to ruin carrots for me.
Somewhere around my third round of bottle chugging, the stadium started to spin.
The guys were a blur of laughter, shouts, and smeared eye black, and for once, I wasn’t the steady one in the center of it.
I was just Brooks, drunk off my ass in an empty stadium, letting the men I trusted most take care of me for a change.
And god, it felt good.
“Coach, you’re fuckin’ wasted,” Matty howled, doubling over as I tried to Velcro a diaper onto the baby doll in my hands.
“Am not,” I slurred, jabbing a finger in his direction. “I am perfectly capable of diapering a baby.”
“Headfirst?” Bennett teased.
Fuck. Maybe I am wasted.
I turned, squinting until my eyes landed on Pink. He wasn’t chanting—just sitting on the third base line, a small smile tugging at his mouth.
I staggered over, dropped down beside him, and grabbed his shoulder with all the solemnity in the world.
“Listen to me, kid,” I slurred. “I love her. She might be your friend, but she’s my whole damn life.
I wake up thinking about her. I fall asleep thinking about her. That woman is it for me. Forever.”
Pink blinked at me, caught between laughing and rolling his eyes, but his grin softened. “Yeah, coach. I know. She loves you, too.”
I thumped my chest with the heel of my hand. “No, but you don’t understand. I would do anything for her. And our baby. Anything.”
Pink’s grin shifted, something sparking behind his eyes—mischief, sure, but also that protective streak he carried for Dani. He leaned in, voice low. “Anything?”
The next few hours blurred together—being half-carried up the tunnel to somebody’s SUV, a few of the guys bribing a tattoo artist with seats behind home plate, the delicious burn of a needle scraping across my chest. It wasn’t until I got out of bed the next morning, head pounding like drums at a Killers concert, that the full weight of it hit me.
I stumbled into the bathroom, blinking against the sunlight streaming through the window, and froze.
There it was.
A kitten.
Holy shit.
Inked in clean black-and-gray lines, small but sure, sitting right above my heart. My skin was still raw around the edges, the red tenderness only making it look more permanent.
I braced my hands on the sink, staring at it while its inspiration slept not six feet away, and despite the hangover trying to split my skull, a grin crept across my mouth.
I could still hear the guys chanting, their playful gibes, Dani’s laugh when I rolled into bed around two in the morning. And now? I had a kitten over my heart, her nickname etched into me forever, exactly where it belonged.