Chapter 3 #4
Evan didn’t make some comment about how he guessed these people knew how babies were made, because the simple fact was Max knew how babies were made too, and he managed to fuck that up. “I hope I’ll get to meet her too.”
Sam’s lips twisted, and Evan found himself staring for half a second. “We’ll have a cookout after the rodeo. I’m sure she’ll come; she’s covering the event. My boss will be here—he’s coming to stay at the house.”
“Uncle Kacey’s coming?” Hillary smiled at Sam, the expression a bit watery. “Did you tell him?”
“I did.”
“Is he gonna be mad at me?”
Jesus, these kids were so fucking young.
“No one’s mad at you, mi’ja. To quote somebody that I know very well, ‘it’s a baby, not a mistake’.”
“Abue Betty is mad.”
“Sí, por supuesto. At any rate.” Sam met his gaze. “You can meet the whole family.” Sam Marrón didn’t seem at all worried about that fact either.
Max, on the other hand, seemed terrified.
Evan was made of tougher shit than Max. “Sure. Sounds like a plan. I like knowing what’s what.” He held that challenging, brown-eyed stare, not threatening or anything. Simply meeting Sam’s energy with his own. That was how a guy won the long game. Meeting an opponent where he was.
Sam had fascinating eyes. Dark as midnight, almost, and burning with all the stuff he didn’t allow his face to show.
Evan could only imagine how challenging this whole thing had to be. It was hard enough for Evan, and Max wasn’t even his kid. Much less not his little girl, who was going to have to go through all the bodily changes that would last forever.
Damn it, why couldn’t the kid have kept it in his pants?
“So you’re going to be at a rodeo this weekend and then what? Come back here for a barbecue?”
Sam shook his head. “No, Rodeo de Santa Fe is this weekend. I’ll get you tickets, you and the boy, and then we’ll have a cookout at the house. Maybe Sunday since the short go will be early.”
The what? “How many days is the rodeo?”
“Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,” Hillary explained, “We’ve got you tickets for all three days if you want them.
We get family tickets, and Papa upgrades them to box seats.
My grandparents will come for one of the days, for sure, but mainly it will just be you in a box.
They’re not super-fancy, but they’ll do. ”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine, Hil,” Max said, “I can’t wait to watch you do your thing.”
“She won’t be riding.”
“Papa—”
“What did I say?”
She opened her mouth, and Sam shook his head.
“Mira, look, I said no. I’ve talked to everybody, no one’s going to let you ride. You’re pregnant. You don’t race.”
“He’s never seen me ride though—”
“If it was going to be a problem, mi’ja, you should have figured that out before you caught pregnant. Besides, you can ride afterward. Lots of girls race after they’ve had their babies, but not when they’re pregnant. No racing.”
There was no question at all about whose daughter Hillary was or who got the last say in things.
To be honest, it was usually the boys’ moms who ended up having the hard discussions in hockey.
And he wasn’t sure if this was cultural or if it was just this particular dynamic, but Hillary’s dad was the one who had the last word in apparently everything.
Her lower lip pooched out, and Hillary stepped back to her own chair, crossing her arms, but she didn’t argue.
“We’d love to come all three days. See what you do, even if we can’t see you do it. Right, Max?”
“Totally.”
“Will we get to see you work, Sam?”
“You will.” Sam offered over the box of pizza—first to Hillary, then him, then Max.
That was crystal clear.
“I’ll be out there doing the whole thing.
Kacey and I will be working cowboy safety, and Emmanuel Shepard is going to be our entertainer.
He’s a good barrel man—funny, stays away from the classless jokes, and can definitely jump in and help when he’s needed to.
” Sam’s lips were a little tight. “This is a good one, a good event. We like it, and we’ll get some good cowboys out there. ”
“Looks like you like your job; that’s good.”
Sam shrugged, and he swore he saw Hillary wince. “It’s not a job—it’s a calling. You don’t go and risk your life for a job. You risk your life because the good Lord put you on earth to do this one job, and thank goodness I can make a living doing it.”
Evan didn’t quite know what to say to that.
He loved hockey, and he was going to work around it the rest of his life, God willing, but he wasn’t sure he’d call it a calling—that seemed mystical, and what they did wasn’t mystical.
What they did on and off the ice was hard work—practice and practice and practice, watching tapes, running drills over and over again. There was no charm or magic to it.
Not very many people could do it, for sure. And it could be a God-given talent if your belief went that way. But it was also grueling. Concussions and bruises and broken bones. Traveling all the damn time, forty something weeks from October to April with home games in between, and…
Yeah. He loved hockey, but he could see Sam was a different animal.
So, he shoved pizza in his mouth and shut the fuck up.
Sometimes that was the best thing a man could do.