Chapter 9
Paxton
I woke up before my alarm, which was nothing new.
My body had been running on an internal clock since I was about fourteen.
My coach at the time decided that five-thirty morning practices were character building.
He wasn't wrong. The character it built was a kid who could no longer sleep past six no matter how hard he tried.
Pops was knocked out cold, his body spread across the queen-size bed he’d claimed yesterday.
I told myself to give him another hour and went about getting myself sorted.
The hotel had a small gym I'd already investigated, so I got a decent workout in, came back, showered, and was dressed and ready before he even stirred. The man could sleep through a freight train some days. Others he’d pop up at the slightest sound.
By the time he managed to get in the upright position it was well past eight.
Thankfully he’s not one to get too caught up in his wardrobe.
Pops throws on a NRU baseball t-shirt, khaki shorts, and a pair of New Balances.
I snorted as I thought about how much he looked like the typical American dad in this getup.
"Morning," he said, completely unbothered by my amusement. His stomach grumbled loudly, to which he added, "Breakfast?"
"Good morning to you too. Your hair is doing something." I waved my hand in the direction of his bedhead situation.
He patted at it without looking in a mirror, which fixed absolutely nothing. "It'll sort itself out. I need coffee and eggs. Then I'll be awake enough to handle the rest."
I grabbed my cap off the dresser and pulled it on. "There's a place about two blocks down that the front desk lady recommended. She said they do biscuits."
Pops pointed at me. "Lead the way."
Bellport in the morning felt like a storybook world.
I'd seen it in the afternoon and the evening, both of which were good, but the morning was stunning. The air was cooler than it would get later in the day and everything had a slow, unhurried quality to it. The city was taking its time to come to life, which I’m sure my pops appreciated since he functioned the same way.
People walked dogs and leaned against storefronts with coffee. They waved at each other, calling one another out by name. A couple of kids were riding bikes down the sidewalk with absolutely zero supervision and looking thrilled about it.
Why did that make me so happy? I wanted to spin around, arms out wide, like I was trying to be in a musical singing about how joyful life could be.
Pops walked beside me with his hands in his pockets, head on a swivel the whole time. He did that in every new place we went. Took stock of everything, filed it all away until we needed some random factoid later.
"This is good," he said after about a block and a half.
"Yeah. It is."
"You slept?"
"Well enough," I said, which was mostly true. I'd been up later than I should have, replaying the party in my head. Not in a spiral kind of way, just turning things over.
Grizzly's face when I sat down beside him. The way he'd lit up and then gone still, like he was unsure of how he felt. The small nod at the end of the night that had done more for me than a whole conversation would have.
Listening to Bellamy had paid off. I’d thanked him last night, but I had a feeling if things worked out, I’d be indebted to him for life.
"You're thinking about your man," Pops teased.
"I'm not."
He chuckled. "You've got that look."
"I don't have a look."
Did I? Surely not.
He cut a glance at me. "Son… You have a look. You've had it since you were little and you decided you were going to be the best baseball player in the country. It is the exact same face. Determination."
I didn't have a good response to his level of insight. Plus it was too early to be philosophical.
The breakfast place was called Hazel's. It was the size of a shoebox, which apparently didn't bother anyone since there were already people waiting outside. We got in line, and I pulled out my phone to give myself something to look at that wasn't my Pops’s knowing expression.
"Tell me about last night," he said after giving me all of four seconds of peace.
"I told you last night." We’d wound up getting back to the hotel at the same time. He took one look at me, then started in on the questions.
"You gave me the summary. I want the details. You came back to the hotel with a face of defeat, then went radio silent for two hours after giving me the shortest conversation I think we’ve ever had in person. I need to know what you fucked up so we can fix it together."
My shoulders bunched. "I wasn't quiet for two hours."
"You put on a game and stopped talking. That's quiet for you." He crossed his arms and waited.
I looked up from my phone. The line moved forward a few steps. I thought about how to explain it without it sounding like more than it was. Then I decided there wasn't any point in doing that because it was already far beyond whatever half-truth I could form.
"He's a Little," I said, keeping my voice low enough that it stayed between us. "I didn't know for certain until last night, but I dreamed. And the second I saw him I knew. It was like—" I stopped, trying to find the right word for it.
"Like what?"
"Like everything made sense. You know how you always said you knew with Mom?"
Pops went quiet for a second. "Yeah."
"It was like that. Except I'm not going to say that out loud to him for a very long time because the man already ran out of the room when I told him I'd been thinking about being his Daddy." I paused. "There's work to do."
Pops absorbed my words, a thoughtful look to his features. It reminded me of when he used to help me with math homework or try to figure out what to have for dinner when he didn’t feel like cooking.
A couple minutes passed. The line moved.
Then he said, "He ran because he had feelings too."
"That's what I figured. It’s what the others said."
"No, I need you to really hear me on this.
A man who isn't interested doesn't run. A man who doesn't care what you said doesn't need to leave the room to deal with it.
He ran because your words ripped him open, and he didn't know what to do with those emotions.
" He shrugged like it was the simplest thing in the world.
"Give him room and let him come to you. You're already here. Rushing him would be a mistake."
Sometimes I forgot that he'd spent years watching people and figuring them out. He'd had to, raising me on his own. He got very good at reading a situation fast.
"I texted him this morning. Before I went to the gym. I tried to keep it simple."
Pops raised his eyebrows. "What'd you say?"
"That I meant what I said and there's no pressure. I told him that I'm around when he's ready."
"Good. That's good. Short and no demands. I'm proud of you."
"You don't have to be proud of me for sending a text, Pops."
"I'm proud of you for keeping your shit together, son. Don’t pretend you didn’t want to send him pages of text declaring all the ways you’d be right together. I know you.”
He wasn't wrong. Restraint wasn’t generally my strongest suit when I wanted something. I had learned, mostly through trial and a fair amount of error, that the same aggression that served me well on the field didn’t always translate to personal situations.
We eventually made it inside Hazel's, landing a table near the window. The place smelled incredible, like butter and coffee and cinnamon. I immediately wanted to try one of everything.
A woman in an apron that said Hazel's since 1977 approached us, two mugs in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. “Mornin’. I’m Gemma. What can I get you gentlemen today?”
Pops ordered approximately half the menu. I got a glass of milk, biscuits, bacon, and eggs, mindful of my need to still impress a team in the near future. Indulging occasionally was fine. Eating enough for a family of four was not.
Once Gemma left, I turned my attention to the view outside. I couldn’t seem to stop staring at this place and its people. I was enamored.
"What are we doing today?" Pops drummed his fingers on the tabletop.
"I figured we'd walk around. See what's here. I heard there's a local college with a good baseball program. They've got a home game this afternoon."
His eyes lit up. "A game? Hell yeah."
"Nothing professional. Just—"
"I don't care. Baseball is baseball. What time?"
I sighed. "Two o'clock."
He sat back in his chair looking deeply satisfied with the day's itinerary. The man's threshold for fun was very low, which honestly, was one of his best qualities. Give him food, a walk, and a baseball game, and he’d tell you it was the best day he'd had in years.
He meant every word of it too.
The food arrived faster than I expected. It was, without question, the best breakfast I’d ever eaten in my life. I told Gemma when she came back to check on us. She winked, then said, "I know it," like she’d heard this a time or twelve.
Pops made a sound halfway through his plate that I chose not to comment on.
It was too close to sex noises for my taste.
Some things you didn’t need to know about a parent.
As open as we were with each other, sex was where it stopped.
He knew I was a Daddy in practice regarding playtime and such. Bedroom activities were a no-go zone.
"We're moving here," he said, damn near licking his plate.
I tried to bring him back to reality. "I haven't signed anything yet."
"Paxton."
"Pops."
"The biscuits," he groaned, gesturing broadly at his plate as though this completed his argument.
"The biscuits are not a deciding factor in my professional career. I have to have an agent. Then I have to have an offer. Then we have to sign contracts."
"These biscuits should be part of everyone’s life decisions." He took another bite. "They absolutely should be."
I laughed, finishing off my milk as I pushed my empty plate away. The morning light shone through the window. The noise of the small restaurant floated around us.