Chapter 6
Chapter Six
JOSH
My fists balled up. Damn it.
She’d gotten in the last word. Of course she had.
Ninety-nine percent of our arguments ended with her walking away victorious and me replaying everything I should’ve said.
The only time I’d ever beaten her to it was right before that baseball tournament, and even then, I’d basically just shouted like a human fire alarm and bailed.
Her Pathfinder with the dented rear bumper wove around divots in the asphalt on its way to the main road. I wondered what she’d backed into to get the dent.
People staring at my ass never bothered me before.
I got over being self-conscious in baseball pants in middle school.
Although I liked that she’d noticed how hard I worked to keep in shape during my almost nonexistent free time, perhaps the pants were a smidge tight.
I had enough trouble dodging the single moms on the team without inadvertently giving off the wrong vibes.
“Damn her,” I muttered on my way back to the dugout. Only Erika could lob a compliment at me and then karate-chop my ego back to its awkward, pimply teenage version. Nothing made me want to scream-cuss at the universe faster than one of her perfectly timed burns.
Why was she even here tonight?
No one expected Vinny to show up to practice today.
I’d given him a pass to miss this week after the tragedy.
When I tried to talk to him today on the field, he brushed me off.
The kid was never as angry as he’d been today.
Vinny was the most polite kid on the team, but today he’d been belligerent and surly.
His hate for Erika had been as palpable as it had been shocking.
She must be filling in until someone else in their family could come to take over his care.
I loaded equipment in the back of my truck.
“Hey, hon,” Cindy called out. She leaned against the driver’s door of my truck.
Internally, I groaned.
Somehow her coat had fallen open, and her double-Ds were making a committed escape attempt from a tight, low-cut black sweater. She popped a hip like she was posing for a roadside calendar. “You got dinner plans?”
I had never—never—given Cindy so much as a whiff of encouragement.
Apparently, my pants had done it behind my back.
She’d been coming on strong since the season started three weeks ago.
The woman was hot off divorce number two and far too desperate for me to consider dating her or even a one-time hookup, not to mention she was a parent of one of the kids.
“Whatcha say?” she pressed. “Milly might think you two are a thing, but I know you ain’t serious.” She dropped her voice like she was sharing classified intel. “I’ll bet you a pound of beef she’s still sneaking around with John Wilson on Sundays after church.”
I blinked. Milly? Sneaking off with the Baptist pianist?
We’d gone out a few times—nothing serious, at least not in my mind.
Hell, it had taken me an embarrassing amount of mental gymnastics just to figure out how to go in for a kiss with her.
And when I finally did, it was exactly as awkward as I’d feared.
“I know you’re not lookin’ to get tied down.” Cindy flashed a grin like she’d closed the deal. “So. Dinner?”
“Sorry. Can’t.”
“Maybe you wanna skip dinner?” She gave me a slow body scan that landed squarely at my crotch, like she expected fireworks.
Nothing sparked. Not even a pop.
“Colton is headed to his dad’s tonight,” she added, like that sealed the deal.
“I’m on call,” I said. “And I’ve got paperwork. Charts. You know. Thrilling stuff. Maybe some other time?”
“Oh, sure.” She watched me grab my bat bag and toss it into the truck. “When are you not on call?”
Never. Especially not now.
I cleared my throat, which was the universal sign for please let me escape with dignity. When it became clear I was not climbing into the truck with her standing there like a human roadblock, she finally stepped aside.
I gave a quick wave, mumbled something about next week’s practice, and peeled out before she could suggest dessert.
My phone rang on the drive out to the highway. “Hi, Mom.”
“How was your day, sweetie?” I heard water in the background. She must be doing dishes.
“Long. I just finished practice.”
“That’s so nice of you to continue to coach those kids, even after Roland passed.”
“I made a commitment. What did the doctor say today?”
“My blood pressure is better. I have to avoid coleslaw. Really just mayonnaise. You know your father loves his mayo.” She did too, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
“That doesn’t mean you have to eat it.”
“It sucks getting old. Though God knows food won’t be what takes your father.
That man doesn’t get high blood pressure or clogged arteries.
I’m determined to keep it that way.” Her tone shifted into that light, casual voice she used when she was digging for information. “So, anything exciting happen today?”
She knew perfectly well Erika was back.
“Not much,” I said.
“Mm-hmm. Right.” I could picture her eyebrow arched. “I left some lasagna in your fridge. Pop it in the microwave for a few minutes.”
A smile tugged at my mouth. I could already imagine the Tupperware mountain with enough lasagna meals to last a week. She always seemed to know when my day was too long to cook. “Thanks.”
“Do you mind helping me with a little emergency house repair in the garage?” That was a trap. If she had me there, in person, she could grill me for whatever information she was trying to get.
“Tonight? Is it something that needs me there in an hour or can I stop by tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow sounds good. Text me when you’re on the way. I’ll see you then. Love you.” She hung up.
The radio belted out: “She’s the kind of woman songs are written about.”
Damn you, Roy Hurd. I smacked the button to turn off the song that reminded me of Erika.
I’d never met anyone as fearless as Erika.
In addition to saying whatever crazy thing popped into her head—case in point: diarrhea stains—she was all-in on whatever she committed to doing.
Like kissing. She’d never expected me to lead the way.
She was motivated from the first second to the last in a way that had challenged me to step up my game many times before we broke up.
I often wondered if she’d be the same in bed, not that we’d made it to that level. Heavy petting, sure, but…
Stop it, I thought. She was leaving Vision. And she still hated me.
I pushed the truck to sixty on the highway, which wasn’t an interstate but a divided four lane with a grassy median.
As I rounded the big curve a few miles out of town, I slowed down, pulling to the shoulder in front of the sheriff’s Tahoe.
The flashing lights lit the side of the road in blue bursts.
My sneakers crushed glass as I walked to the back of my truck.
I refused to think too hard about the glass’s origin.
With a heavy heart I pulled two wooden crosses out of my truck bed.
“Give me one.” Dante pushed back the brown hat with the star in the center and held out a hand.
The golden name tag with “Rivera” on his shirt made me proud.
He’d worked hard since we graduated to make the force, although he swore they only let a half-Mexican join because they needed a token Spanish speaker. Total bullshit.
I handed him one of the crosses. “I can’t thank you enough for helping me with this. It’s…”
“I gotcha. Hope was like a second mom to me, just like Roland was a second dad to you.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Did Knox make these?”
“Barely had to ask and he put them together last night. He dropped them off at work this morning. He might be a lawyer now, but he never lost his touch for woodworking.”
“Did you bring the mallet? That’s not something I have in the work car.”
I pulled it out of the back seat of the truck. In silence we wedged the two crosses into the ground.
“Should we say a few words?” I took off my black cap and stared at the crosses, which were an inadequate reminder of the accident that took Hope and Roland.
Dante removed his hat too. “It’s not what you take with you when you leave this world behind. It’s what you leave behind when you go.”
“Aren’t those the lyrics of a Randy Travis song?” I tried not to smile.
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Seems appropriate.”
I gave a half-hearted chuckle, but it didn’t supersede my sense of emptiness.
“I can’t believe they’re both gone. So stupid for a semi-truck to have merged into them.
” I covered my face to covertly wipe my watering eyes.
“I keep expecting Roland to walk into the clinic and crack one of his awful dad jokes.”
“He hit me with a gem the other day. Want to hear it?” Dante rubbed his hands together. I knew he’d tell it even if I said no. “I made a pencil with two erasers. It was pointless.”
I groaned.
Dante said, “I guess you’ll have to take up the gauntlet and be the bad jokes doctor.”
“Roland left me with the business in a mess.” I toed dirt off my shoes. “He may have been well liked, but he sucked with finances. He’d never accept my help and was too cheap to hire an accountant.” We stared at the blue lights flashing across the wooden crosses.
“You want her to stay, don’t you?”
“It’ll be tough either way.”
“How did she look?” Dante shot me a side-eye, the kind that said don’t lie, I’ll know.
I blew out a breath hard enough that it pooched out my cheeks.
“That good, huh?” Dante chuckled. “Drew said you were a jerk to her on the farm today.”
“It wasn’t intentional.” I swiped the mallet off the ground and headed back to the truck. “Did Drew also tell you he announced he was making a play for her? He wants her to stay.”