Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Decker
I spotted her first.
That’s always how it goes. I’ve accepted it as a condition of my life at this point.
Just like a thunderstorm will roll in right when you’re inching ahead in a tough game.
If Penelope Ripley is in the room, I will find her before I find anyone else.
I used to think I could fight it. I don’t bother lying to myself anymore.
Lincoln and I fall into an easy back and forth of catch, but for the first five throws, I’m only thinking about the scent of her hair and the feel of her body pressed to mine.
I try to get my head back where it belongs.
Focusing on Foster peeling away from Callie and jogging over to join us.
On Easton crawling out of the bouncy house with a face so red you’d think he’d sprinted from first to home on what was on a shallow drop in right field.
On Lincoln’s arm—which is honestly impressive for a kid his age.
I do not think about the way Penelope felt with my arms around her.
Okay, I think about it after every throw, but at least I control myself enough not to divert my gaze to her.
Hazel and Monroe tumble out of the bouncy house.
“Decker!” Monroe shouts.
I catch the ball from Foster, throw it to Easton, and pivot toward the voice. Monroe and Hazel are cutting across the grass toward us. Monroe’s at full speed, Hazel half a step behind her with a look I’ve come to recognize. The one that says Monroe has a plan, and Hazel isn’t so sure about it.
I crouch down when they reach me. Monroe throws her arms around my neck, and I pat her back. Hazel hangs back, so I hold out my fist, and she bumps it, which makes her smile. She’s shy, and I feel a kinship with her because I’m a quiet and reserved guy too.
“What trouble are you two causing?” I ask.
Monroe pulls back. “Trouble? We’re never trouble.”
I raise my eyebrows, and she laughs. Monroe definitely keeps Leighton and Hayes on their toes, but I doubt they’d ever want her to change.
“Yeah, okay.”
She glances over her shoulder at Hazel, who gives a small shrug that must mean something to Monroe because she swings back to face me with an expression that says they’re about to ask me something big.
“So, there’s this talent show at school,” Monroe says, reaching behind her to take Hazel’s hand and pulling her closer to me.
I drop to sit on the grass, and they follow my lead. “Yeah? You guys gonna do some juggling or something?”
“Juggling?” Monroe looks at me as if I just suggested her talent was competitive nose-picking. “No.”
“Okay, what are you doing?” I direct the question at Hazel, but she glances at her feet.
She looks so much like Penelope—only a few years younger than when I first met her mom.
“I’m doing a dance, but Hazel is doing…” Monroe glances at her friend, who plucks a blade of grass from the ground and winds it around her finger.
“Hula hoop,” Hazel says quietly. Her gaze lifts to mine for a second before the grass pulls her attention away once more.
I keep my expression neutral. She struggled with the hula hoop at field day, so I’m surprised she picked it—but good for her for wanting to conquer something she wasn’t good at. “Nice. When is it?”
“Near the end of the school year,” Monroe answers.
She usually speaks for the both of them. I wonder what Hazel is like when it’s just her and Monroe, or just her and Penelope. I’d like to know that side of Hazel.
Monroe’s eyes widen in a way that makes it clear there’s more. “But there’s a problem.”
“Oh?” I play dumb, still confused about why they’re bringing this to me.
“Monroe,” Hazel mumbles, frowning.
“He needs to know.” Monroe scoots closer to her friend so their knees touch, like a show of solidarity or something. “She’s getting better,” Monroe says in the tone of someone who does not actually think that.
“No, I’m not.” Hazel’s gaze meets mine and holds for at least two seconds, which feels like a win.
“She just needs help from someone who knows what they’re doing, and we saw you at field day, and you were the best one there, so you’ll do it, right?” Monroe jumbles the words together in one breath and stares blankly at me as if she’s already promised Hazel I would.
I keep my eyes on Hazel. “What about your mom?”
“She’s worse than Hazel!” Monroe shouts.
I catch Penelope’s eye, then Hazel sighs. I spot Lincoln walking over behind Hazel’s shoulder and notice that my teammates have been sequestered to sign items and schmooze with the guests.
I’m in no rush to do that.
“Trying to get him to help?” Lincoln asks, tossing the football in the air and catching it himself.
“You in on this too?” I raise my hands, and he tosses me the ball.
It’s strange how at ease all the kids are with me. I didn’t grow up around any small children, but they’re much easier to be around than adults most of the time. Less complicated.
When Leighton’s cousin died, and she took over as guardian, I went along with Hayes to help—but now I’m attached, and it feels like they’re all my nieces and nephews.
Not so much Hazel because I haven’t gotten to know her yet.
And because she’s Penelope’s, which… well…
when the daughter of the woman you’ve always loved gets her own special category.
“Nah,” Lincoln says. Monroe glares at him, and he shrugs. “We were talking during recess.” He points at Hazel and mouths, “You gotta help her.”
Hazel plucks another blade of grass.
My gaze lifts across the field. Penelope is already watching, and I hold her gaze because I have no self-control and also because I’ve missed being looked at by her more than I’ve let myself admit.
There’s no question whether I’m going to help. The biggest question is whether Penelope will allow me.
“How do you do it so good?” Hazel asks.
The fact that she’s the one asking opens that spot in my heart for her a little wider.
“Honestly, it’s hard to explain. I remember doing it as a kid, and I guess it became muscle memory somewhere along the way. Like riding a bike.”
“I can ride a bike,” Hazel says with a note of hope to her voice.
“Then I’m sure you’ll be able to get the hang of a hula hoop.”
“Mom made me watch some videos, but I can’t get it to go around my waist properly. No way I can do any tricks.”
It’s probably a bad sign how happy I am that Hazel feels comfortable enough to talk to me like this.
Lincoln nods as though he thinks she might be a lost cause.
“I wish we had one here.” I purse my lips.
“There are some over by the bouncy house.” Monroe gets up and runs away.
Lincoln spots Lake with a funnel cake and ventures over to pester her into sharing, leaving Hazel and me by ourselves.
Hazel watches Monroe run off, then her attention comes back to me. “You don’t have to help me. They just think—”
“I want to help,” I interject and stand. “Are you scared to be up on stage?”
She thinks about it for a moment, the way she seems to do for everything. Maybe that’s why I feel such a kinship with her. “A little. I’m more scared of not being good and everyone laughing.”
“Yeah.” I want to hug her because she looks so distraught, but I know that’s not my place. “I get it.”
And I mean it in a way I can’t fully explain to a seven-year-old—that the fear of failing in public doesn’t diminish as you get older. The stadium just gets bigger.
She seems surprised, as if she expected me to tell her it would all work out, and she doesn’t need to worry. It’s clear that this is important to her.
Penelope stops Monroe, and they talk for a moment before Monroe runs back to us with a hula hoop in her hands.
I take the hula hoop from Monroe and hand it to Hazel. “Okay, show me what you’ve got.”
She steps into the hula hoop, and I try to concentrate on her and not on Penelope crossing the distance toward us in my peripheral vision.
Hazel sets the hoop at her waist with the focused expression of a kid who’s been at this for a while with disappointing results.
She starts the spin, sways her hips, and the hoop wobbles and drops to her feet.
Her shoulders fall.
Monroe’s lips press together, and she stares at me with an expression that says, you gotta fix this.
“That’s a start.” I squat down.
Penelope stops short of us, and something catches in my chest that I wasn’t prepared for, because she’s standing back and letting me do this. It might be nothing to her, but it feels like everything to me.
Hazel sighs and doesn’t reach for the hula hoop on the ground.
“I mean it. Your timing is there. You just need to keep your weight further back and move from your hips instead of your whole body.” I take hold of the hoop, and she steps out of it. “Watch.”
I run through it slowly, exaggerating the movement so she can see the mechanics. Then I do it at normal speed and keep it going.
“I told you he was the one!” Monroe jumps and claps.
I hand back the hoop.
“From your hips,” I tell Hazel. “Not your waist. Start it at the back.”
She tries again. The hoop makes it four full seconds this time before it drops. She raises her eyes to meet mine, and her expression nearly wrecks me. She’s starting to believe it might be possible.
“Better,” I say. “A lot better.”
Penelope remains a few feet away, her fingers over her mouth as though she’s trying not to show how much she needed that.
“Keep practicing, and it’ll come.” I start to walk away, not wanting to push things too far, but Monroe steps into my path.
“Wait! She has to do a whole routine. You have to help her with it.”
Hazel nods, picking up the hula hoop from the ground.
“Let me talk to your mom,” I say to Hazel, patting Monroe on the head. “The two of you go have fun. There’ll be time to master the hula hoop.”
Hazel drops the hula hoop, and before they run off, Hazel stops in front of Penelope. “Did you see?”
Penelope smooths a hand over Hazel’s hair with a big smile on her face. “I did. Great job, honey.”
Both of the girls cheer and run off.
I stuff my hands in my pockets and close the small distance to Penelope.
“I’ve tried everything.” Her voice is quiet.
“Videos, practice. I bought a second hoop thinking if she watched me struggle enough, she’d feel better about her own attempts.
” Our eyes lock for a beat. “It’s incredibly unnerving.
She’s going to be up on that stage in front of her whole school, and I can’t fix this for her. ”
Throughout my life, I’ve known many versions of this woman. The twelve-year-old fielding balls and telling me to widen my stance. The girl who saw when I was stuck in my own head—whether it was about baseball, my family, or school.
But this version I haven’t yet had the pleasure of knowing—Penelope as a mom, her expression carrying the same nervous energy she had for me when I stepped into the box with college coaches watching from the bleachers.
“Would you let me try to help her?”
What I’m asking is huge. Not only are we already thrown together for the Dugout Social Club but helping Hazel will inevitably mean time alone with not just Hazel, but Penelope.
“Decker, you have enough going on. You do not need to worry about a kid’s talent show.”
She crosses her arms, and I hate myself for the quick glance I take at her chest. She’s wearing shorts and a V-neck Colts T-shirt I really wish had my name and number on the back.
“I want to help.”
She inhales and exhales roughly. “Why?”
I shrug. “Because she reminds me a little of myself at that age. Because she’s yours. Because I want to see both of you happy.”
“Decker.” She says my name as though my words pain her, and I brace myself for her to push back. She has an expression that says she’s weighing whatever this will cost her against what Hazel needs. “Fine, okay.”
“Really?” I can’t hide my surprise.
“Yes. Thank you for doing this for her. But I can’t let you do it without doing something in exchange—I’m going to cook for you.”
“I can cook for myself.”
“Would you rather I give you pointers on your fielding?”
She would too. Being a coach’s daughter, she probably has more baseball knowledge than some people in the league.
“Based on how it’s going lately, I should take you up on that over cooking.”
She waves off my comment. “It’s just a little blip in your career. You’ll get past it.”
I run a hand through my hair. “I’m not so sure, but it’s nice that you have faith in me.”
“I always did.”
I nod, emotion clogging my throat. When I can speak again, I say, “We have a day game tomorrow. Mind if I come over after?”
“Oh, so soon…”
“I don’t have to—”
“No. The sooner the better. Hazel was doing better just now, and I don’t want her to lose any momentum. Come by after. I’ll text you my address.”
“Perfect.”
Lincoln runs over and tells us we’re needed at the picture area, and we both fall into step together, walking side by side.
My fingers brush hers. It’s barely a graze, but I feel it from my hand to the center of my body.
Every rule I’ve ever made for myself says don’t do this.
But I’ve been breaking it since I was eleven years old, and I’ve never once managed to make it stick.