Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
J osh had just walked up to the mound to pitch when my mom decided to lean into me. “He’s hitting better?” she asked like he hadn’t already been hitting awesome before.
I nodded, keeping my eyes on the eleven-year-old on base.
Almost two weeks had passed since I’d gotten home from visiting Vanessa in California.
I’d been busier than hell. This was supposed to be my weekend off with the boys, but I’d needed to catch up on appointments I’d had to cancel while I was gone, and the Larsens had offered to pick up Josh and Louie that morning so they could take him to his tournament, leaving me to work.
When my last client of the day called and cancelled at the last minute, Sean and I made the executive decision to close the salon an hour early.
The tournament Josh’s team was playing that weekend was luckily only a half hour drive, and I’d gotten back fast enough so that they had only played—and won—against two teams after their pool games.
This was the first time since I’d gotten back that I’d been able to make it to anything baseball related; I’d been having to stay late to catch up with all the clients I’d had to reschedule.
The Larsens had stayed through the first four games before heading out when I’d shown up, with my parents showing up immediately afterward.
This was also the first time I’d gotten to spend more than ten minutes with my parents in over a month, too.
Things were still weird between my mom and I.
She would never admit she had taken something too far, and I wasn’t going to back down from my feelings.
I didn’t regret or feel bad about going to visit my best friend and her baby, no matter what she said or thought.
“Yeah. His batting coach is great and the coaches have been working with him a lot during practice, too.”
The coaches. I couldn’t help but kind of glance over at a specific coach standing by third base with his arms over his chest. I hadn’t seen much of him since that night he’d come over when I got back.
He’d come inside with me and drank the last beer in the fridge while I’d told him about visiting my best friend.
He hadn’t been able to believe whom she was married to.
While I checked on Josh first, Louie had come out of his room and invited Dallas to sit with him while I told him his daily Rodrigo story.
“Who are the coaches again?” my mom asked, dragging me back to the present and away from the mental image of my neighbor sitting on one side of Louie’s bed while I’d been on the other as I told him about the time my brother had thought he’d lost his phone but had left it inside the refrigerator on accident.
I side-eyed her and somehow managed not to shake my head.
My parents didn’t come to as many of Josh’s games like the Larsens and I did, but they had gone to enough so that she should know more.
The thing was, when Josh had first started talking about playing sports, both my parents had complained.
Why not soccer? So I’d said, “Because he doesn’t want to play soccer.
” After so many years, you would figure they’d get over it and accept that he was a natural at baseball, but these stubborn-asses I’d been born to hadn’t.
I pointed at Trip first, who was standing by first base and then slowly, more than a little resigned, at the big man standing closest to us.
“Why does he look familiar?”
I eyed her again, not fooled by her question. “You met him at the party.” This woman had the memory of an elephant; she didn’t forget shit. She still brought up things I’d done when I was a kid that, for some reason or another, still made her mad from time to time.
“Oh.”
I didn’t like the way she said “oh.” So I waited.
“The one with all the tattoos?” she asked in Spanish.
All the tattoos? They only went to his elbow. “ Si. ”
She said it again, “Oh.”
If I didn’t know my mom the way I knew her, I’d assume she was indifferent about Dallas. But I did know her. And for some reason, her “oh” while referring to him didn’t sit well with me.
In front of us, Josh got into position on the base and hit the ball straight between third and second, jetting way into the outfield so far I jumped up to my feet to cheer him on.
Vaguely, I noticed my mom raise her hands in the air and start clapping.
But it wasn’t until I sat down as Josh’s feet hit the third base that she finally said what I should have known she would say.
“I don’t think all those tattoos are good to have around kids, no?”
I groaned. “Tattoos don’t jump out and attack people, Mamá .”
“ Sí pero… ve lo .” She huffed, the tip of her chin pointing at Dallas who had his hands on his knees as he talked to Josh. “He looks like a gangbanger.”
I hated when my mom did that stereotypical crap, especially while she talked about a man who had been pretty damn kind to me and the boys.
It was unfair of him to get judged by his buzz-cut hair and a face he’d been born with.
I had to grit down on my teeth to keep from saying something I’d regret.
“Ma, he’s not in a gang. He’s great with the kids. He’s great with everyone.”
“ Ay. Maybe, but why does he have to have all those tattoos?”
“Because he wants them,” I said in a snappier tone than normal.
Her upper body turned to face me, those black, black eyes narrowing. “Why are you getting mad?”
“I’m not getting mad. I think you’re being mean judging him. You don’t know him.”
She huffed. “? Y tú si?”
“Yeah, I do. He was in the navy for twenty years and he owns his own business. He coaches little boys because he likes to be there for them. He’s—” I just about said almost but managed to keep it inside “—always been nice to Josh and Louie and me.” Before I could stop myself.
Before I could think about the people sitting around and consider that they might be listening in, I said, “I think he’s great. I like him a lot.”
The long and drawn-out inhale that she sucked in seemed to suck up all the air within ten feet of us. “? Qué qué ?” What?
“I like him.” Was I egging her on? Maybe a little, but I hated, hated when she got like this on me.
“Why?”
“Why not?” We seemed to have this argument every time I liked someone who wasn’t Mexican.
“Diana, no me digas eso .”
“ Te estoy diciendo eso. Me gusta . He’s a good person.
He’s handsome—” She scoffed. “And he treats everyone well, Mamá . You know the day after the party? He came over and helped me and the boys clean for hours.” I really hadn’t believed him when he’d left my house that night, assuring me that I should leave the mess alone because we could all tackle it the next day.
But he had. Time and time again, he’d done things he didn’t have to. We were nothing to him, but he’d done what other people hadn’t.
If that wasn’t friendship, I didn’t know what was.
“Not him, Diana. Not again.”
God help me, sometimes I wanted to strangle my mom. “Oh my God, Ma . Calm down. I’m not telling you to love him. I’m just telling you I like him. We’re not getting married. He doesn’t even like me like that. He’s just… nice.”
The woman who had given birth to me faced forward again. I could see her hands clenching the material of the long skirt she had on. “For now!” she basically whisper-hissed.
Oh hell no.
“You don’t know how to pick them,” she said, her gaze still forward.
I couldn’t look at her either, so I shifted to watch the next batter get a strike. “Mom, I love you, but don’t go there right now,” I whispered.
“I love you too,” she said softly, “but someone has to tell you when you make stupid decisions. Last time I kept my mouth shut and you know what happened.”
Of course I knew what happened. I had been there. I had lived through what I lived through. I didn’t need a reminder of how dumb I’d been. I would never let myself forget it.
Yet here we were again with her telling me what to do with my life and what to do differently.
Sometimes I thought, if she hadn’t been so strict with me as a kid, I would take her “suggestions” more seriously, but she had been strict.
Too strict. And I wasn’t in the mood for it anymore, no matter how much I loved her.
“Mom, Rodrigo had tattoos. Don’t be a hypocrite. ”
She acted like I shot her. Her hands went to her chest and her back when ramrod straight. My mom gulped, and I’m pretty sure her hands started shaking.
Jesus. I hated it when she acted like that.
“Don’t talk about your brother.” I barely heard her.
I sighed and rubbed my eyebrow with the back of my hand. Every single time with her. God. We could never talk about Rodrigo. Ever.
With a sigh, I tried to keep my attention on the game, only paying about half my attention to it while the other half bounced back and forth between thinking about Rodrigo and Dallas. I thought my brother would have liked him. I really did.
The game nearly ended before my mom finally spoke again. “You can be friends, but nothing else.” She made this delicate sound in her throat that I don’t think I’d ever be able to imitate.
Why could she never let things go? Why could I never let things go and tell her what she needed to hear?
Rolling my eyes, I snuck my hand under the cap I’d put on, Dallas’s, and scratched at this spot that had been itching for a day or two now at the back of my head near the crown.
I hadn’t washed my hair in a few days, it was probably time.
“Did you hear me?” she asked quietly.
I slid her a look before focusing on the game again. “Yes. I’m just not going to tell you what you want to hear, Ma. Sorry. I love you, but don’t be like that. ”