Page 44

CHAPTER 43

SQUABBLE UP

WILDER

I roll my bad shoulder, circling the mound, ready for this game to be fucking over.

The tournament is the last of the year, and for two days, we’ve played our way through the bracket in Sevierville, landing us here, in the last game of the season. Game number six in two days. Currently in overtime. All I have to do is strike out the fucker behind the plate, and it’s over.

As if the pressure isn’t high enough, the fucker behind the plate is Ashley’s ex, Trent.

Again, I roll my shoulder, which is tight and a little sore, despite having rotated with Jackson, our other pitcher. But Coach always leaves me to close it whether I’ve played the whole game or not. Normally, I don’t mind. But with Trent drilling holes through me from home plate, I’d rather be just about anywhere else.

Tate signals four times before I realize I’m being obstinate and take his suggestion. A glance down at the familiar red clay and a long, deep breath grounds me. When I look up, there’s no thinking, no reasoning. No decisions. I just let my body do what it knows how to do without a single thought in my head.

The ball hits Tate’s glove with a pop. Trent didn’t swing. The ump calls a strike and I nod at the ground, circling back to the pitcher’s plate once I have the ball again, turning it in my fingers, feeling the seams. I take Tate’s first call.

Strike two.

“ One more, baby! ” I hear Cass yell from the stands, and my heart skips and stutters. When I glance in her direction, I’m smiling, distracted a little—now I’m thinking about her and Cricket, sitting among our friends and family. But the distraction fades with pride and certainty rising in me like a wave just from the sight of them.

It takes me a second to get settled, but when I finally do, I pitch. Trent swings, his bat slicing through the air, the ball dropping just before he connects.

Half the crowd erupts when the ump calls strike, the other half yelling their discontent. But my half is louder, and we run around celebrating like idiots, exhausted and in desperate need of showers, I note when we’re all knotted together chanting.

I’m anxious to be done, but I do my best to be patient as we line up to shake hands with the other team, then to accept our trophies. When Trent shakes my hand, there’s a look in his eyes I don’t know how to decipher. Part wild animal, part heartbreak, part jealousy, if I had to guess. The hair on the back of my neck stands straight every time our eyes meet, and I distantly wish I’d never have to see him again.

But as Cass once said—shit in one hand, wish in the other. See which one fills up first.

Thankfully, Coach keeps our post-game huddle quick, and soon enough we’re leaving the field in search of our people.

I beeline for Cass and Cricket, first greeting my daughter, then kissing my wife.

“I’m all sweaty,” I warn when she throws her arms around me.

“Oh, I don’t care.”

Everyone’s scattered around. Dad and Cass’s mom, Jenny. Molly, who Jessa abandoned to wrap herself around Remy’s face like one of those aliens from the movies. And the Wilsons are here, always close to Cricket.

Paul extends a hand, and I shake it. He’s sunburned a little, the shiny top of his head woefully pink. “Great day of ball. Glad we could make it.”

“Me too. I’m surprised this one lasted all day after yesterday.” I shuffle Cricket’s Ramblers ball cap on her head, and she giggles. Her hand is in her mitt with a ball in the crease, just like it’s been all day.

Patty shakes her head, smiling. “I don’t know if you’ve tried to tell her no, but it’s not for the weakhearted.”

Paul runs a hand over his sparse hair and winces. “I’ll be right back—lemme grab Cricket’s stuff out of the truck for you. Wanna come with me, bug?”

She lights up and steps in his direction, but she doesn’t get but a few feet away when Trent says, “Mind if I say hi?”

Silence freezes us for a heartbeat before Patty and Paul spring into smiles and hugs and friendly greetings. Cricket’s grinning, her cheeks flushed. When Trent looks down at her, I wonder if he looks like I do in the same moments, full of love and pride and longing.

Trent kneels, and she launches herself at him. When he picks her up, his eyes close tight like he’s savoring the moment.

My chest aches at the sight. I’ve thought precious little about what he might be going through, the loss of Ashley, of Cricket. In fact, other than when he’s standing in front of me or I’ve heard news on Ashley’s death—murder, they’re calling it now—I don’t think of him at all.

Guilt gnaws at me.

Because despite the tension between us, despite my mistrust, I can see the undeniable love he has for her. It’s a pure, crystalline thing.

“Didja have a good time today?” he asks Cricket, grabbing the bill of her hat and wiggling it.

“I got ice cream and two hot dogs and a bracelet—look!” She sticks out her wrist to show him a red cord with my number on it—thirteen. His face shutters with fleeting emotions before he’s smiling again and reaches out to thumb my number.

“Hey, that’s pretty cool. You know, I saw a playground over there?—”

“I’ve been playing on it!”

“Wanna play for a minute with me? I miss you.” His tone is teasing, and he pinches at her ribs to get her giggling. “That is, if it’s okay with y'all.” Trent glances at Patty and Paul on instinct I’m sure, but they look to me and Cass. His face falls when he follows and meets my gaze again.

I don’t know how to answer, because I want to say no, but I can’t seem to find a good reason.

“Sure,” Cass says, smiling. “We’ve got a little more to tend to before we leave. Ten minutes, okay Cricket?”

“Okay, Cassie!” When he puts her down, she grabs his hand and tows him in the direction of the playground.

He casts Cass a grateful look, and that gnawing guilt sprouts teeth and bites.

We watch them go with worried looks on our faces.

“He loves her,” I note, still watching them as they approach the playground.

Patty nods. “He helped raise her.”

“Then why does he make me so nervous?” I ask.

They hesitate, sharing a look, and in that split second, my stomach drops.

“I don’t think you need to be nervous,” Patty starts. “He misses her, but we try to help with that, having him for dinner a couple times a month. We just don’t want him to feel…alienated. Despite all this that’s going on with the—” She pauses, swallows. “With the fire and all.”

All of a sudden, I have no guilt, only suspicion and a little bit of rage. “You have him over when Cricket’s there?” The words are darker than I intend, and Cass glances up at me, concerned.

Patty looks shocked at my tone, and hot anger webs across my skin. “Yes, a few times.”

I’m shocked that she’s shocked. “And you didn’t think to tell me? Wouldn’t you want to know?”

Paul’s frowning. “Wilder, Trent has been a part of her life her whole life, and so have we. Are you suggesting that we should tell you every time Cricket sees somebody you don’t know?”

I can’t shake it off, but I tamp it down. “No, sir. But you don’t seem to think it matters if I know anything you do once you leave with her. This isn’t just you not telling me when your plans change, when you’ll pick her up or drop her off, regardless of how it’ll disrupt her day. I’m not saying she shouldn’t be able to see him or that you can’t have him over. But I think it’s only right that I know about it when it happens. Especially since he’s been accused of?—”

“I know what he’s been accused of,” Paul snaps, his sunburn redder with his anger. “But we’d never put her in danger, and you know it. You’re right—you have a right to know. But you just stepped into her life, and as such, you don’t get to decide what she can and can’t do.”

Patty lays a hand on his forearm.

“With all due respect, Mr. Wilson,” I say evenly and with much effort, “she’s my child. And if I decide don’t want her to see an accused murderer , I think that’s well within my rights.”

Paul’s eyes widen with a flash of anger, but before he can speak, Patty steps in.

“Now, it’s been a long weekend, and I think we’re all too tired to hash this out now. Let’s put a pin in it and talk about it another time. Wilder, Trent won’t see her without your knowledge from here on out. Paul—go on and get Cricket’s things. I’ll come with you. Why don’t y’all head over to the playground, and we’ll meet you over there, all right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I mutter, and Paul grumbles but lets his wife guide him toward the parking lot.

Cass sighs and picks up the first of what looks like thirty-seven bags and a camping chair she brought.

“Well, that was intense,” she says as I sling my duffle across my chest and take bags first from her, then for her.

“It’s not right that he’s been seeing her without them telling me.”

“No, it’s not right. Not that I’m surprised—they don’t tell us anything, just come and go as they please,” she says, looking around for something to carry, then at me with a chuckle. “You look like a pack mule.”

“I was just an ass so I guess it’s fitting.” When I start to walk, she falls in step beside me.

“Neither of you are wrong. It’s just…complicated.”

I’m already scanning the playground for them. When I see him pushing her on a swing, the knot in my chest loosens a little.

“Yeah, I know,” I say. “I can’t think about him too much or it scares the shit out of me. It makes me want to do something. Like not let her go with Patty and Paul anymore if they’re not going to at least fucking tell me when he comes over there. I don’t trust him, but I know he loves her. He’s rash, but he’s the closest thing to a dad she’s ever had.” The knowledge is a knife to my guts. “So what does that mean for all of us? If he can’t see her, how does that hurt her? How does that affect him? He’s a loose cannon—we don’t know what he’d do if we cut him off. I feel forced into this, into a situation I’m not fucking happy with.”

As we approach, I can hear the happy tones of their voices, but not what they’re saying.

“There’s no answer. Not an easy one, at least. So I figure all we can do is what’s best for Cricket. So maybe we ask her what she wants. Because look at them—she misses him,” Cass says gently.

For a second, I do. Cricket is beaming, her braids flying, the two of them talking and laughing. He looks at ease, happy. Like a man with his daughter at the park.

A hot wave of jealousy blows through me, but I let it pass on.

Soon, she’ll be with me legally, all the time, but she’ll never be his again.

The closer we get, the more I can see it. Not only his love for her, but hers for him.

I know it’s wrong to keep them apart, despite the feral impulse to put myself between the two of them, hackles to the sky. It’s not just complicated, it wars inside me. And the way the Wilsons disregard us is fucked. Just because I’m new to all this doesn’t mean I don’t get a say. Because in the end, she’s mine, however inconvenient it is for the Wilsons. However sad that is for Trent.

I just hope he never decides to do anything about it.

I don’t know what I’ll do to him if he tries.