Chapter 23 #2
Mia stretches her hand out and Patrick shakes it. Dustin raises his hand and Mia gives him a high five.
“I’m going to throw pies at Coach G now,” Mia announces.
“Go for it!” Dustin says.
Hallie fills the tins extra full. I glare at her playfully, but I’m pretty sure she can’t even tell I’m glaring through all the cream covering my face.
Mia steps back behind the adult throw line.
“Honey, you can throw from here,” Hallie says, pointing to the closer line.
“I don’t need to, Mommy,” Mia says. “I don’t want to hurt Coach G.”
“Okay, then. Go ahead,” Hallie tells her daughter.
Mia aims, squints and lets the first pie fly. It hits me hard and smacks my face, whipped cream flying everywhere. And then she does the same with the next pie tin. She’s laughing with all her teammates and everyone’s fist-bumping and high-fiving like we just won the championship.
Mia approaches Hallie and crooks her finger. Hallie bends down and Mia whispers into her ear. Then Hallie hands the towel to Mia.
Mia hands me the towel. “Here, Coach G. I think my mommy needs a turn. You’re done.”
I smile at Mia. She’s got a heart like Hallie’s—that same ease with people and an eye to see when someone could use a little care. I’m not supposed to have favorites. And I don’t when it comes to my players on the field.
I know this much: Mia’s dad is certifiably crazy not to want a life with her.
Dustin’s wife, Emberleigh, approaches our booth with her group of friends, including Patrick’s wife, Daisy, and Cody’s fiancée, Carli.
“Hey!” Emberleigh stops short, looking me over. “Wow. You got it good. I don’t think we’ve used that much whipped cream in a month’s worth of cream puffs.”
Dustin cracks up, wrapping his arm around Emberleigh.
“Dustin!” she shouts, shoving him playfully. “You’re a mess.”
“Gimme a kiss, hun,” he says, puckering up and moving in her direction. His face is mostly clean, but he’s still got patches of white on him.
Emberleigh leans in and kisses him anyway. Then she turns to Hallie who is pulling a poncho over her head.
“We actually came over here to see you,” Emberleigh tells Hallie.
Dustin puffs his bottom lip out in a pout. “You didn’t come here to see me?”
Emberleigh smacks him in the chest. “Let me talk to Hallie, would you?”
He smiles at Emberleigh. “Yeah. Yeah.”
“Anyway, what I was trying to say was that we keep meaning to pop by the station to invite you to our monthly book club. February was slammed at the bakery with Valentine’s but that’s no excuse. So …”
“What she’s trying to say,” Daisy says, “is that we want you to join us for book club. It’s just once a month.”
“Or whenever we decide,” Carli adds.
“Yeah,” Emberleigh nods. “It’s casual, but really fun.”
“They want to pick your brains about living with us,” Dustin says. “Don’t be swayed to the dark side!” He puts his hand to his throat and starts faking as if he’s being choked by an invisible force.
“We want to save her from thinking everyone in town is like the four of you,” Daisy says with a smile.
“And what would be wrong with that?” Dustin asks, dropping the theatrics as quickly as he put them on.
I glance at Hallie. A shy smile fills her face. “I’d love to join you. Do any of you have my number?”
The girls all whip out their cells and start trading contact info. And just like that, Hallie’s in the friend group with the women who are all romantically attached to my co-workers and friends.
What would it be like to actually date Hallie—in public? To be known as her boyfriend?
We’d go to Cody’s barbecues at the ranch with Mia in tow. She’d run around with the other kids. And I’d stand in the group, my arm around Hallie, while she held conversations with whomever she liked. Dustin would tease us. But underneath that, he’d be glad I finally found the one.
Hallie smiles over at me. Then one of the residents from Sycamore Assisted Living, Loretta, approaches the booth. She’s followed by a group of elderly people who also live at the center.
“We’re here to throw some pies!” Harold announces. “And my first target is the new girl. Sit yourself down and get ready to eat pie.”
Hallie takes a seat on the stool while senior after senior throws pies at her.
They insist they get a handicap of standing at the closer line.
When it comes time for Wilma to throw, she doesn’t even lift the pie tin.
Instead, she crosses the line, walks right up to Hallie and smooshes the tin into her face and rubs it around.
She steps back, beaming. “That’s for interruptin’ our card game. No hard feelings now that I got that off my chest.”
Hallie just laughs. “No hard feelings.”
Wilma smiles up at Hallie. “You really should come by and play cards with us sometime. Cody comes over on occasion. Don’tcha Cody?”
Hallie’s eyes go momentarily wide.
“Oh, goodness!” Wilma says. “We don’t play in the buff with him! And we’ll keep our knickers on for you. My gracious. I’ll just never live that down, will I?”
Hallie laughs. “Well, in that case, I’d love to.”
“And bring that little girl of yours.”
“We’ll come by,” Hallie says, reaching for a towel. “I promise.”
We spend the day getting pelted with tins of whipped cream. By late afternoon, we’ve gone through one hundred and twenty-three tins and raised six hundred and fifteen dollars for the Firefighters’ Relief Fund.
We clean up and drive back to the station to finish out our scheduled shift. After dinner, I pull Hallie aside.
She stands closer than usual. I take a step backward, maintaining the professional distance we usually keep between us at work. We’ve fallen into such a rhythm over our days off, it’s hard not to touch her or hold her gaze too long.
“What are you doing tomorrow on our day off?” I ask her, keeping my voice intentionally subdued.
“I’m taking Mia to school and then running some errands. Practice after school. Why?”
I glance around and then I run my hand down her forearm. “Want to come over while Mia’s at school?”
Hallie shivers at my touch, placing her hand over the spot and smiling up at me.
“I’d like that, Greyson. Very much.”