Chapter 13 #2
“I’m lucky,” she says. “I have an amazing role model. My parents are great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s Glamma who I look up to most.”
“Glamma? Is she… your grandmother?” I’ve heard Grammy and Nana and my grandmother on my mother’s side calls herself Mimi, but Glamma is a new one. “Does she live close?”
“Right next door to my parents, yes.”
“Do you see her a lot?”
“Not as much as I should,” she says, “especially now that I work such a weird schedule.”
“What’s she like?” I love that she’s telling me about her family. I want her to keep talking. I want to hear her soft, honey voice, her laugh.
“Glamma’s the best person I know. She doesn’t care what people think of her.
She’s loud and brash and she has no trouble sharing her opinion, although she’s always tactful and would never intentionally hurt anyone’s feelings.
She’s confident. She’s comfortable in her skin. I want to be like her when I grow up.”
“You don’t think you’re already like her in those ways?”
“Not at all.”
This surprises me. “Really? You always seem confident. You put Kels in her place today. And speaking from experience, that’s not an easy thing to do. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
Her cheeks pink up, and she bites back a smile. I like making her smile, even when she tries to hide it.
“So, your name,” I say. “That had to be intentional, right?”
She slides the queso bowl and chip basket closer to me. “Not at all. I mean, Dad—not my biological father—is a big Beatles fan, yes, and Rhodes is his real last name. But I wasn’t Abbey Rhodes until he adopted my brother and me after he married my mom.”
“Sounds meant to be,” I say. “How old were you when he adopted you?”
“Mom met him when I was four, they got married when I was five, and Dad adopted me a year later.”
“And your—your biological father?” I want to be careful with how I phrase this, so I use the same term that she did.
“He left when I was a baby. I saw him a handful of times over the next couple of years, not that I can remember, and apparently, it wasn’t hard to convince him to give up his parental rights.”
Wow. Jefferson A. Wilshire III might be an overbearing, controlling tool but he’s always been a part of my life.
“That sucks,” I say.
“Thank you for saying that, but I’m better off without him, and honestly?
I got the best dad out of the deal, and he treats my mom like a queen.
He’s bought her a bouquet of flowers every week since they met—he’s never forgotten, not once.
” She huffs out a laugh. “Whenever I have a little extra money, I buy myself flowers, too. Not every week, especially now, but most weeks.”
Especially now—she must mean because she doesn’t make as much money as she did at the paper.
“He sounds like a great guy,” I say.
“He is.” She pauses, then asks in a tentative tone, “If you don’t get along with your dad, why did you decide to work for Hometown?”
Like there was ever any question.
“It wasn’t so much a decision as it just…
had to happen. I joked once that I wanted to work at Target, but you may have noticed that Jeff—pardon me, Mr. Wilshire—doesn’t have a sense of humor.
So, I worked at Woodlake during high school and on breaks during college, and for a while, at the Dinkytown store. ”
“What was your major?”
“The only acceptable major in the Wilshire family is business administration. Dad wanted me to go to Schilling, his alma mater, but I didn’t have the grades. He told me, and I quote, ‘Even I couldn’t pull enough strings to get you in.’”
“Wow,” she says. “Harsh.”
I shrug.
“Why did you major in business if you didn’t want to?” she asks. “Life is too short to study something that doesn’t interest you.”
I pick at the label on the beer bottle. “It’s not that it doesn’t interest me. I like my job. I grew up with Hometown. I wanted to play for the Twins, but I got kicked off the varsity team because of my grades, and my baseball career ended before it began.”
“Baseball career, huh? I have questions,” Abbey says but Lisa brings our food before she can ask.
“Another beer?” Lisa asks. “How about you, hon? Another margarita?”
I nod as I lift my bottle and drain it. Abbey asks for water. She practically inhales those two tacos. I accidentally knock my elbow against her arm as I lift a huge forkful of cheesy, meaty goodness to my mouth and a streak of warmth like sunshine travels up through my arm, into my chest.
“That smells so good,” she says under her breath.
“You want a bite?” The question comes out of nowhere. I’m not the kind of person who shares their food, but there’s something about Abbey and this night that makes me want to give her half of everything I own. No, not half. All of it. Everything.
She looks at me, eyes wide, like this is the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard. “Are you serious?”
I use my fork to cut off a large piece of enchilada and hold it up to her mouth. She gapes, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.
“Come on,” I say. “Take a bite.” My voice is low, husky, and her eyes grow even wider at how dirty and raw this sounds.
She leans over and opens her mouth, and I feed her. I can’t take my eyes off her as she closes her lips around the food and her eyes flutter shut. Then she whimpers, and I’m half hard at the sound.
“Oh my god,” she says. “The cheese.”
A drop of enchilada sauce drips from the corner of her mouth to her chin, and I’m seized with an intense urge to lean over and lick it, lick up her jaw to her earlobe, kiss my way back to her lips.
She notices the sauce and dabs at it with a finger, and I’d give anything to be able to draw that finger to my mouth and suck on it.
I clear my throat and turn away. “Good, right?” I ask, my voice thick and shaky. I take a deep breath. Calm the fuck down, I think. This is your employee.
She drains the last of her margarita and sets it down with a loud bang. She’s not oblivious to my impropriety, or maybe she’s feeling the intensity of our contact, too. “So, ah, what do you like to do in your spare time? Besides go to shows?”
I jab my fork into the sour cream and spread it on the chalupa. “Managers work a minimum of fifty hours a week. I don’t have much spare time.”
“I overheard you tell Sam that you were planning to volunteer at some fall festival.”
“Yeah, it’s a fundraiser for the Hometown League.”
“Oh, the nonprofit.” Her face lights up. “Tell me about it.”
I launch into an explanation of the nonprofit youth sports organization for kids and young adults with disabilities, and her eyes—god, those eyes—glimmer with interest. That’s one thing about Abbey Rhodes—she gives you her full attention and really listens to what you’re saying… or not saying.
“There are thirty-two leagues right now, one in every major city with a Hometown Electronics store,” I say.
“They each serve two to three hundred athletes every year, people who would otherwise not have the opportunity to participate on a sports team. The Twin Cities league has been around the longest and has the most teams, and we’ve got a few outstate teams, too. ”
“That’s amazing. And your dad—he started the nonprofit?” she asks with a note of incredulity.
“Absolutely not. It was my mother’s idea. She did the work, and he took the credit.”
“No offense, but that sounds like something he would do.”
“None taken,” I say almost cheerfully. “I completely agree with you.”
“What do you like best about it?”
What don’t I like about it? I get to play ball, for one.
There’s nothing like the crack of a bat or the thwump of the ball hitting the center of your glove.
I love working with the kids, teaching them the game and how to be a good teammate.
Being out on the field with those athletes—who’ve overcome some of life’s worst challenges—settles me, calms me, gives me the perspective I need.
I tell her all of this and then huff out a laugh. “But you know what? The best thing is that I’m the best version of myself when I’m out on the ball field.” I swallow hard, not sure how she’ll take this sappy admission.
She surprises me by reaching over, squeezing my hand, and then letting go, much too soon. I let out a long breath.
“And your mom?” she asks quietly. “Is she still involved?”
That space in my heart cracks a little at her question, the place where I keep my grief locked up and inaccessible. “No. She essentially lost the nonprofit in the divorce, too.”
“Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” It’s refreshing to spend time with someone who doesn’t know my family’s history.
“She started the league for people like her brother. He’s got Down syndrome and he loves baseball so much.
Since he aged out of the league, he helps the players however he can.
It broke Mom’s heart to leave the nonprofit behind—and leave Howie behind, too. ”
“Does your mom still live in the Cities?”
“Ah, no.” I give her the nutshell version of Mom’s new life. “They’re in Angola right now, building a school.”
“Oh, wow. Do you hear from her often?”
“Every couple of months, and she comes home once in a while. But the difference she made, starting this league? It’s the best thing you could imagine, seeing the joy on these kids’ faces. I love it. So, yeah, I guess if I have any spare time, I’m going to spend it with the Hometown League.”
“Wow,” Abbey says with an enormous grin.
“What?”
“You sound different when you talk about the Hometown League.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re excited about it. Like you really care about it. You’re enthusiastic. Passionate. It’s nice to know that you actually have feelings in that cold, cold heart of yours, Wil.”
“Ha ha.” Warmth spreads through me when I think about what I’ve been feeling for her lately.
“But truthfully, it’s incredible. Life-changing.
You should come to Fall Fest. I’m playing in an exhibition game.
” It slips out before I can think better of it.
But I want her there. I want her to see it, experience it for herself.