Josh didn’t notice our visitors until they both stopped on the sidewalk a few feet away as Trip’s hands came up flat in a pacifying gesture. “Not trying to scare y’all,” he apologized when the ten-year-old shot him a wary who-the-hell-are-you look, which I was pretty sure he’d picked up from me. I was also pretty sure I noticed him getting a better grip on his bat.
“Hi, Trip,” I greeted my newest acquaintance before acknowledging my neighbor. “Hi, Dallas.” I eyed both boys. “Josh, Lou, this is Ginny’s cousin Trip, and our neighbor Dallas.” Should I mention that I knew he was related to my boss? The boys liked Gin. Saying her name would be like a seal of approval, and I wasn’t sure if this man deserved the honor or not, but I made a spur of the moment decision. “He’s Ginny’s cousin, too.”
Neither one of the boys reacted until I gave Louie a wide-eyed stare, and he shouted out a “Hi” at our visitors.
Dallas had his gaze settled on Louie the instant he’d opened his mouth. He smiled so easily at him it totally caught me off guard. “How’s it going, buddy?”
So it was like that.
“Good,” the light of my life answered easily, his eyes shooting to my direction quickly as if searching for a clue for what he should do or say. Just because he’d been kind of cool and distant with me didn’t mean I had to lead by a bad example. I winked at Lou.
“Hi, Diana,” my neighbor finally greeted me next, all subdued and shit.
“Hey,” I returned, glancing back and forth between Trip, Dallas, and Louie.
What were they doing coming over? I wasn’t going to believe it was a coincidence that Trip was over at my neighbor’s house two days after we’d met and he’d found out where I lived, but… well, I wasn’t going to think about it too much. Ginny had told me what he was like. As cute as he was, that was it. Plus, he hadn’t acted that interested in me. He had just been doing what a man like him did best: flirt.
“These your boys?” Trip asked.
I would never deny them to anyone, especially not in front of their faces. So I nodded. “The little devil is Louie and that’s Josh.” Josh was frowning at the strange men while still holding his bat in a weird way and looking them up and down judgmentally. Ginny’s family members or not, he wasn’t impressed. I wasn’t sure where he’d gotten that habit from.
“You’ve got a great swing,” Dallas said to my older boy.
Just like that, with one single compliment, Josh’s who-the-hell-is-this look melted into a pleased one. God, he was easy. He also threw me under the bus. “She’s pitching slow.”
I kind of choked, and Josh threw me a playful grin.
“Nah. There’s a good arc to it,” my neighbor kept going like nothing had happened. “Your posture, feet, and hand position are good. You play on a team?”
My gaze met Trip’s and he flashed me that easy, flirting grin of his. If he remembered Ginny’s comment from two nights ago, he knew Josh had played on a team.
What was happening?
“Not anymore,” Josh answered, not needing me around from the sound of it.
Dallas’s eyes narrowed just slightly as he looked at my nephew. “What are you? Eleven?”
“Ten.”
“When’s your birthday?”
Josh rattled off the date coming up in less than two months.
Under normal circumstances, the exchange might have been creepy, but in the last two years, I’d sat through so many Select parents talking about ages and sizes, that I knew this was baseball related. It all suddenly came together for me. Ginny had mentioned a handful of times in the past about her cousin coaching the baseball team his son was on. A son that was around Josh’s age. I also faintly recalled seeing a baseball trophy at Dallas’s house when I’d gone in there. For whatever reason Trip had come over, both he and Dallas had scouted Josh from our playing on the front lawn.
Huh.
Wait. Did that mean Dallas was a coach too?
“We have an 11U team this year,” Trip explained, answering my question without even meaning to. “Tryouts are next week and we need a couple new players.” Those blue eyes that were exactly like my boss’s shot back in my direction for a split second before moving back to Josh damn near instantly. “If you’re interested and your mom lets you—”
Bless Josh’s soul, he didn’t correct him.
“—you should come by.”
The overly excited “Yeah?” that came out of Josh’s mouth made me feel terrible for not making more of an effort to find him a team sooner.
“Yeah,” my neighbor replied, already patting around on his back pocket. He pulled out a worn, brown leather wallet and fished through it for a moment before taking out a business card. To give him credit, he handed me one first and then Josh another. “We can’t make any promises you’ll get on the team, but—”
“I’ll get on the team,” Josh confirmed evenly, making me smile. What a cocky little turd. I could have cried. He was a Casillas through and through.
Dallas must have gotten a kick out of his confidence too because he smiled that genuine, straight, white-tooth smile he’d used on Lou earlier. “I’ll hold you to it then, man. What’s your name again?”
“Josh.”
Our big, rough-looking neighbor with a shitty brother, who hung out at a motorcycle club’s bar, but somehow also coached little kid baseball with a biker, thrust a hand out at Josh. “I’m Dallas, and this is Trip. Nice to meet you.”