Page 31

Chapter twenty-five

Griffin

“ B ro . . . I need you . . . to sign a poster . . . after we’re done,” I huff between breaths as Adrian and I run on curve treadmills next to each other. We’ve completed our strength training for the day and are finishing off the session with cardio conditioning.

“No prob, old man,” Adrian replies before increasing his speed with an impish grin. “All that time with your lady getting in the way of your conditioning?” He sounds hardly winded as he asks, but I know he’s making an intentional effort to hide his own breathlessness.

The closer we get to spring training, the harder our trainers push us.

“Remind me to . . . slap you when time is called,” I huff again.

“When do we . . . get to meet her?” Drew asks from my other side. “Lily keeps pestering . . . me about it.”

“Time! Next rotation!” one of the trainers yells, and I take deep breaths as the treadmill slows to a stop.

The three of us move to rowing machines, which should make conversation slightly easier.

Despite Adrian’s show-off nature, he’s breathing just as heavily as I am as we sit down on machines and wait for the start signal.

“We’re having dinner tonight with Danae’s best friend and her husband,” I tell Drew. “So I think Danae will be open to meeting some of my friends if tonight goes well. Even the friends I’m stuck with,” I add, giving Adrian a hearty shove right before the trainer yells to begin .

“I’ve already met Danae,” Adrian gloats as we begin rowing. “We should do a group thing—my familiar presence would definitely put her at ease.”

He’s half-joking but likely not wrong. Maybe getting all my teammates together to meet Danae at one time would be less overwhelming in the long run than multiple instances spread out.

“We could do a team dinner at our house sometime,” Drew offers. “You know Lily would love to plan that.”

“I’ll talk with Danae about it tonight,” I respond through the back-and-forth motion of the rowing machine. “It might overwhelm her to meet everyone at once—”

“Because we can be a lot?” Adrian playfully interjects.

“Pretty much,” I say. “But that’s probably the easiest way to introduce her to everyone before we leave for camp.”

Drew exhales sharply as he pulls the rower cables back. “Sounds good. I’ll tell Lily to start planning.”

“Hey, I need you to sign a poster before we leave today too,” I say, glancing over at Drew. “There was a mishap with Jason’s posters from camp, and I want to replace them.”

“Sure thing,” Drew says. “Mishap?”

I’m silent for a couple of rowing cycles. “The kid’s been through a lot. Sometimes the trauma responses are too much for him to hold in,” I say.

“I know I don’t understand trauma all that well,” Drew replies, “but you know we’ve got your back as you’ve got Danae’s, okay, man? Anything you need from us, you let us know.”

“You know I love giving you a hard time, but, yes, what Sheffield said,” Adrian pipes in. “Fireball is such a cute kid. Let me know anything I can do to help.”

“Thanks, guys,” I say, masking the swell of emotion in my chest with an extra-deep inhale and exhale.

“That’s time! Next rotation!”

When I arrive at Danae’s townhouse, I glance around the parking lot before jogging up to knock on the door. Danae opens it with a wide smile, and Jason quickly comes sprinting into view.

“Mr. Griffin! Are you excited to go to dinner tonight? You’ll get to meet Ms. Miller, my music teacher.

Music is only my third favorite specials class because I like P.E.

and library better. Don’t tell her I said that because we don’t want to hurt her feelings,” Jason rambles.

“But at least music is better than art.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” I say, holding my hand out for a fist bump. “Hey, Fireball, I’ve got something for you.”

Squatting down to his eye level, I pull three posters out of the bag of Crowns merchandise I’m carrying. I unroll them to reveal one of my posters, one of Adrian, and one collage of multiple starters, all signed.

Jason’s eyes grow wide but then flicker with worry. He darts a glance at Danae. “Miss Danae told you about the posters?” His voice trembles, and his eyes drop to the floor.

I tell him, “She told me that you were having a hard time calming down your big emotions and that the posters got damaged in the process. She asked if I would mind bringing you some new ones—of course, I didn’t mind!”

“Are you mad at me for ripping up the first one?” he asks, voice still small.

I reach a hand up to rest on his shoulder, encouraging him to look in my eyes.

“I’m not mad. We all have to learn good strategies to calm us down when we’re angry or hurt or frustrated.

It’s kinda like how most ball-players have the same at-bat routine—going through the exact same motions each time helps us calm down our nerves.

You've just gotta find some strategies that work for you when you need help calming down, ya know?”

Jason nods slowly, and although I can’t be sure that he fully understands, I know he’s trying. I ask, “Should we go hang up the posters now?”

“Actually, we should probably go so we aren’t late,” Danae says, and I look up to see her eyes shimmering with moisture. She raises an eyebrow as she adds, “But maybe Mr. Griffin could help you hang them up when we get back from dinner? ”

“Sure thing,” I say, my heart pounding double-time from her hint at spending time alone together later tonight. I hand the posters to Jason. “Why don’t you run these upstairs to set on your bed?”

Jason takes them and runs with enthusiasm for the stairs, and I match his enthusiastic energy, swiftly pulling Danae into my arms. She whispers, “Thank you,” and I plant a firm kiss on her lips, followed by her jaw and her neck.

She sighs and runs a hand along the faded buzz on my scalp, and I force myself to remember that we probably have two seconds until Jason is back at our feet.

“Anything for you. Anything for him,” I whisper back. I manage to squeeze in one more quick kiss to her lips before our time is up.

I extricate myself from the passenger side of Danae’s car and stretch out my limbs. She didn’t want to call attention to our presence at Kara’s house by parking my Jeep in the driveway, so we rode in her car.

It’s been a while since I folded myself into a sedan.

Grabbing the bag of autographed merch for Kara’s husband, I follow Danae and Jason up to the front door.

Jason rings the bell, and a few seconds later, the door swings open to reveal a woman with sandy-blonde hair and a beaming grin.

Her hair is swept back in a low bun, and the smile lines around her eyes are visible even behind thick-rimmed glasses.

“Welcome! Come on in, Jason! There are drinks on the counter that you can pick from,” she says before giving Danae a quick hug as we step into the entryway.

Jason scampers out of sight, I assume headed to the kitchen, and the woman immediately turns to me.

“I’m Kara—and you’re obviously Griffin, who I’ve heard so much about,” she adds with a smirk in Danae’s direction.

I like her already .

Danae’s cheeks flush, and I place a hand on her waist, giving her a teasing grin. “Glad to know you’re talking about me so much ,” I say with a wink. Danae starts to take a step further inside the house, but Kara holds up a hand to halt us.

She lowers her voice. “Listen. I’ve given Ron several pep talks about playing it cool tonight.

But you deserve to know that Ron has no chill.

He’s a huge sports fan—a huge Kansas City sports fan—and the Crowns team is the epitome of all sports fandoms for him.

So . . . please set your expectations to zero chill. ”

I chuckle because I can tell that she’s dead serious. “I have appropriate expectations. It probably won’t help that I have signed merch from the team for him,” I say, holding up the bag in the hand that isn’t rubbing circles on Danae’s back.

Kara abruptly takes the bag from me, hiding it beside the shoe rack. “Let’s just save that for later. After you guys have left. I don’t need him completely embarrassing himself.”

At that moment, a tiny girl with strawberry-blonde hair comes toddling up behind Kara, and Danae immediately crouches down to scoop her into her arms.

“There’s my little Millie girl!” Danae exclaims. She tickles the girl’s neck with kisses, making her laugh that adorable toddler giggle that universally turns people into mush.

“Aunt Nay-Nay,” Millie says, grabbing a fistful of Danae’s hair. “Come over eat!”

“Yes, we’re going to eat with you tonight,” Danae says, voice like honey. “Millie girl, this is my friend, Mr. Griffin.” She angles toward me with Millie on her hip, smile wide. Anything inside me that wasn’t already mush from Millie’s giggle is now a pile of goo seeing Danae with her.

I reach a hand over to gently pat Millie’s back. “Nice to meet you, Millie,” I say quietly. She smiles but then decides to be shy, burying her face in Danae’s neck. I understand the appeal.

“Why don’t we head into the kitchen and rip off the proverbial Band-Aid? Ron’s pulling the meat off the smoker, but I imagine he’ll be coming inside any second now,” Kara says, turning to lead us to the kitchen. Jason is already there, downing a lemonade juice box.

The back patio door opens and a red-headed man walks in holding a large aluminum pan covered with foil.

He pushes the door closed with his elbow, then turns to face us, mouth dropping open.

I’m grateful that he collects himself enough to not drop the pan he’s holding because the smell has my mouth watering.

“Hey, Ron,” Danae says, still holding Millie. “It’s good to see you. That meat smells amazing.”