Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Lucas
“How can you still bring that woman coffee?” my identical twin asks as I stand in line at Meant to Bean, the local coffee shop with an outside to-go window I stopped by every morning I was in town last season.
It’s the most popular spot in downtown Mullet Ridge, South Carolina. Population, like, twelve.
(It’s probably closer to twenty or thirty thousand, but I’m from Chicago. Twenty or thirty thousand is, like, twelve.)
“Don’t talk about her like that,” I say, shoving my hands into the pocket of my team-issued performance hoodie.
The morning is brisk for the locals, who are bundled up in puffer coats like they’re staving off frostbite, but Logan and I could probably both peel off our hoodies without batting an eye.
“How did I talk about her?” Logan asks, stamping his feet next to mine.
Fine, maybe it’s a little cold.
“You called her that woman. Like she put a curse on our great-grandparents, or something. You know Scottie.”
“Yeah, I know her the same way I know Mildred in accounting—she’s employed by the same organization that pays my salary, so I’m polite. But if Mildred had led me on for nine months and then started dating the biggest tool in MLB history, I wouldn’t keep bringing her coffee.”
“I knew you had a crush on Mildred,” I say. “And Scottie didn’t lead me on.”
“You saw her with a lost kid one time and decided she was it for you.”
I open my mouth. Close it.
He’s not wrong about the kid. Last April, during the postgame rush, a girl—maybe seven or eight—had followed the wrong crowd through a propped staff door and ended up in the service corridor beneath the stands.
Logan and I were cutting through on our way to the parking lot when I heard it: not crying, which somehow made it worse.
Just this small, effortful breathing, like she was working very hard not to fall apart.
She was pressed against the concrete wall outside the equipment room with her arms locked around her knees, her face tipped up at the fluorescent lights like she was trying to memorize the ceiling.
Her cheeks were wet. In her hand was a bag of cotton candy, blue and pink, squished almost flat where she’d been gripping it.
We were about to stop when we saw Scottie was already there.
She didn’t crouch down in that performative way adults do with kids.
She didn’t say it’s okay or don’t cry or any of the things that make kids go numb so adults can feel more comfortable.
She just sat cross-legged on the concrete floor in fancy slacks, close enough to be a presence but not so close as to crowd the girl.
She sat there like it was the only place she wanted to be.
Like hanging out in that corridor with that scared kid wringing her cotton candy was her only plan for the evening.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Becca.”
“Okay, Becca. I’m Scottie. Do you know your dad’s phone number or just his name?”
The girl knew his name. Scottie nodded, pulled out her radio, and rattled off a description to someone on the other end with the same tone she’d use to request a facilities update. No drama. No poor baby. Just: here’s the situation, here’s what we need, here’s how we’re going to solve it.
Her competence was more comforting than any gushing ever could be.
And Logan and I were just standing there, ten feet away, watching.
When Scottie put the radio away, she looked at the cotton candy.
“That’s pretty squished.”
Becca looked down at it. “I like it squished.”
Scottie clicked her tongue. “Ooh, that’s a shame. Cotton candy’s best when it’s still fluffy.”
“No, it isn’t,” Becca said, matching Scottie’s confident tone like she didn’t have red slushy drips on her shorts. “When it’s squished it gets sweeter. The sugar all sticks together.”
Scottie’s eyes went flat behind her glasses. “I’m going to need to verify that claim.”
Becca held the bag out.
Scottie pinched off a piece of the flattened section, put it in her mouth, and chewed once. Then she went quiet.
“Huh,” she said.
“See?” Becca said.
“I’m not ready to concede entirely,” Scottie said, taking one more pinch and setting it on her tongue. “Shoot. You’re right.”
Becca smirked. “Told you.”
Logan and I looked at each other. Then we sat down on the floor on Becca’s other side, our long legs folded up like we were in kindergarten, because neither of us was going to leave Scottie sitting alone in a concrete corridor with a scared kid if we could help it.
“Can we get in on this?” I asked, and a grin broke over Becca’s face as she held open the bag.
Scottie glanced at us, but whatever she was thinking, she kept it to herself. One thing I knew, though: she didn’t expect us to get down on the ground with her. She didn’t expect us to stay.
It took forty-five minutes to locate the dad.
Scottie spent every one of them on that floor, and so Logan and I did, too.
But Scottie ran the show. She let Becca give her a full recap of the game.
She argued with Becca about calls. When her phone buzzed, she muted it without even looking down, only answering her radio when there were updates.
Not once did Scottie give any indication that she had a life happening somewhere outside of that corridor.
When the dad finally came barreling around the corner, face blotchy, voice cracking as he cried his daughter’s name, Scottie stood up, smoothed her slacks, and handed Becca off like a relay runner passing a baton.
Becca gave her a huge hug. Scottie gave her a smile.
Then while Becca and her dad were talking to Logan and me, Scottie slipped away to go solve the next crisis.
She didn’t wait for a thank-you.
I don’t think it occurred to her to.
“She was great with that kid,” I say.
Logan’s quiet for a second. “Okay. She was great with the kid,” Logan says. “I’m not saying she’s a bad person. I’m saying you shouldn’t still be buying her coffee.”
He says it like Scottie’s the kind of person a guy could forget. Like what she did for Becca was a one-off.
He doesn’t know that I could tell him a hundred stories like it.
That sometime last season I started noticing the way she quietly anticipated other people’s problems, absorbing the impact before it could reach anyone else.
I watched how she made sure Kayla never had to walk into a room that wasn’t already handled and the way she stood in the doorway of Kayla’s office the day the league came to question her, so Kayla didn’t have to face it alone.
I didn’t mean to keep track.
But once I started watching, I couldn’t stop.
That’s the thing Logan doesn’t understand. Scottie doesn’t do it for credit or to be seen.
She does it because she’s decided the people she loves deserve a soft landing, and she’s going to be the one to make sure they get it.
I just want to make the list.
The person in front of us pays, and we step forward, a blast of heat greeting us through the open window.
The barista smiles when she sees us.
“If it isn’t my favorite customers,” Alma says. She’s a sturdy woman in her late sixties, with white streaks in her otherwise long dark hair. She treats us like we’re her wayward grandsons. “What can I get for you?”
“Two protein-boosted vanilla cozies,” Logan says, ordering our favorite steamed milk drink.
Alma looks at me. “And what are we getting for your lady friend today?”
“They shouldn’t be friends at all anymore,” Logan tells Alma, leaning closer. I think it’s for the warmth rather than him being a traitor, but I elbow him, anyway. He smacks my arm. “She’s dating someone else.”
Alma tuts. “No, no, no. This won’t do.”
“Sorry, Alma,” I say. She was pretty invested in my drink orders once she figured out what was going on. I swallow a lump of regret. “Logan’s right. I probably shouldn’t get her anything.”
Alma keeps tutting and shaking her head, and she walks away from the counter. The line behind us is getting longer, but Alma doesn’t care. She strides around the kitchen—a woman on a mission—and when she comes back, she sets our vanilla cozies down firmly.
“I’ll be back,” she says, like she learned English in the ’80s watching The Terminator.
The people behind us in line are getting antsy, and one of them starts grumbling. “What’s going on in there?” he asks, tapping his leather dress shoe.
“They must be short-staffed,” I say.
The man curses. His trench coat and business scream “Ask me about my crypto portfolio.”
Alma returns a minute later with another drink. “Here,” she says. “This is the one. Bittersweet dark chocolate mocha with sea salt and a splash of caramel.”
“To Bean or Not to Bean?” I ask. The splash of caramel was my idea last year, so Alma let me name it. “We tried this one already.”
“You’ve tried everything,” Alma says, handing her card reader to Logan, who taps his phone screen against it. “But I feel good about it. So good, I changed the name.”
“What’s it called, then?” Logan asks as he takes his receipt.
She says a few words in rapid Spanish and then smiles sadly. “Should’ve Bean,” she says. But then her dark eyes flash. “If I find out you two cheat, I never serve you again. ?Sí?”
That “?Sí?” is the most threatening word I’ve ever heard.
“Sí,” I say, holding her eye in a promise. I would never cheat. Pine, sure. Whimper and lick my wounds, obviously. But cheat? Never.
“Excuse me,” Banker Bro says loudly toward the window, like he’s trying to get Alma’s attention. “You know there’s a line, right? Some of us have real jobs to get to.”
Anger flashes over Logan’s face, and he slowly pans toward the man. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I hand Logan his drink, trying to bump him out of his head. He’s not the kind to get physical, but I hate when he gets upset. It takes him a lot longer to cool off than it does me. I’m faster to get annoyed, but I’m like a big dumb dog. I get wet; I shake it off.