Page 6

Rio

“Are you eating enough?”

I laugh into the phone. “Yes, Ma. I’d be eating right now if you let me get off the phone.”

“Hey, now. I labored with you for thirty-four hours. I can keep you on the phone for as long as I’d like. Don’t forget that.”

“That was twenty-seven years ago. It’s time you stop holding that over my head and let it go.”

“I’m your mother. Your Italian mother, at that. It’s my job to guilt trip you,” she says. “So, you miss me, or what?”

“Jesus,” I chuckle. “Of course I miss you. How was Sunday dinner? And why are you still cooking?”

I can tell she has me on speakerphone because the sound of a wooden spoon scraping against a metal pot is crystal clear through the line. Sunday dinner may as well be called Sunday lunch, so there’s no reason she should still be cooking at this time of night.

“The Morenos’ grandson is visiting for the week, and they brought him over today. He said he loved my Bolognese sauce, so I figured I should make them a batch. You know, in case he gets hungry while he’s visiting his grandparents. Carla has never been one for the kitchen.”

“Ma,” I scold.

“Don’t ‘Ma’ me. You know how good my Bolognese is. Best in the neighborhood.”

I shake my head at her but also salivate at the mere thought. She’s in no way wrong.

As much as I love our family dinners in Chicago with all my friends, nothing quite compares to the Sunday feast my mom would prepare growing up. Our Sundays almost always included the entire neighborhood coming over for dinner. It was one of my favorite things about growing up where I did. Everyone was, in a sense, family.

In the years since I moved away from home, my only real concern has been her. The guilt from living far away sits heavy on me. I’m an only child, after all, and that’s how I was raised. Children take care of their parents once they reach a certain age.

A Sunday check-in is a must for her, but we call and text randomly throughout the week too. She’s the best woman I know, always cheered me on, and she’s been through the ringer over the years. She handled it the best she could, but as her only son, I want to protect her.

And yes, I’m a self-proclaimed mama’s boy and completely unashamed about it.

“Who came over today?” I ask her.

“The usual neighborhood suspects, a few of the ladies from my bingo night, and your uncle Mikey.”

My dad’s brother has been going to every Sunday dinner this last year, and my mom’s neighborhood friends have been coming to my childhood home since I was a kid.

The neighborhood consisted of ten staple families, with previous generations living in those same homes long before I was alive. So, when the Harts moved to town, they didn’t just shake up my world, but everyone on the block took an interest in the new family.

“I made semifreddo for dessert,” she continues.

“Ma! What the hell? That’s my favorite.”

“Well, move home and you might get some. Any word from Boston?”

I close the door to Indy’s office, making sure my friends can’t hear me. “You know there won’t be anything concrete until the season is over.”

She sighs into the phone. “I just want you home, Tesoro .”

“I know. I’m working on it.”

There’s a beat of silence on the phone. Yes, I’d love to play for my childhood team. I’d love to live closer to my family. But that’s not without the guilty notion that it’s what I feel I should do for her.

The truth is, even though I didn’t sign my early extension with Chicago, I haven’t made up my mind that I want to leave. I love it here. My friends are here. In a way, I grew from a boy to a man here, and I’m not sure I’m ready to walk away from this place yet.

“Tell me about your week,” she says. “Then I’ll let you go.”

Without hesitation, my thoughts go to Hallie.

The image of finding her waiting for me outside of practice last Monday, much in the way she used to when we were in high school.

How it felt to see her again. The lack of sleep I’ve gotten from knowing she’s sleeping in the house next to mine. How right it felt to banter with her for a moment. How fucking good she looked by the rink, wearing that blue and white checkered skirt that hugged her hips and thighs. It was topped with a vintage Harley-Davidson sweatshirt that was cropped to show a sliver of her stomach, and she was layered in both gold and silver jewelry. She once told me that style didn’t have rules, and she’s lived by that motto ever since.

Hallie has always been stylish, whether that be in her fashion or interior design. She had the confidence to wear whatever she wanted to, and that confidence made any style of clothing work for her. Even pieces that might seem wacky or loud, that others were afraid to experiment with, Hallie found a way to make them cool.

She once went through this phase where she painted each of her nails a different color, simply because she couldn’t choose one, and even that little quirk started a trend among the girls in our school.

Seeing her again now, seeing the renovation she did on Wren’s house, it’s clear that creative expression hasn’t gone anywhere.

But I don’t tell my mom any of that. I don’t tell her that I’ve thought about my childhood neighbor every day since seeing her again, and I certainly don’t tell her that Hallie is living in Chicago now. It would only further her case that it’s time for me to move home.

Instead, I debrief my games and travel from the week. She tells me about how much money she won at bingo night. We make tentative plans for when I’m in Boston for work next, and she finally lets me go after I promise to get her and Indy on a video call soon so she can teach my best friend how to make her famous Bolognese sauce for one of our family dinners—as if I didn’t grow up watching her cook, and already know exactly how to do it myself.

“Sorry,” I say, exiting Indy’s office to find my friends already around the Shays’ dining room table. “Did I miss anything?”

“Nope. Just got the kids to sleep upstairs,” Stevie says.

Stevie is married to my teammate, Evan Zanders or Zee as we call him, but I originally met both Stevie and Indy years ago when they were flight attendants for our team’s private plane. She and Zee got together that first year we all met and the rest of our crew kind of formed from there.

Indy went on to marry Stevie’s brother and then four more friends came into the fold when the Rhodes brothers, who play or have played for Chicago’s MLB team, started coming around more. Kai Rhodes met his wife, Miller, when she spent the summer nannying for his young son, and Isaiah Rhodes met his wife, Kennedy, when she joined his team’s medical staff. The four members of the Rhodes family started coming to Sunday dinners here at the Shay house and thus formed our little Chicago found family of nine.

Yes, nine . Because everyone is paired up except for me.

Miller takes a seat at the table next to her husband. “I swear Max gets so excited about seeing his friends every week that by the time it’s bedtime, he’s so exhausted that he sleeps better here than at home.”

Indy smiles from across the table. “I love how much the kids all love each other.”

Kids now refers to all five of them. What was once just Max here sleeping upstairs during family dinner has turned into a whole slew of little ones.

Zee and Stevie have one. Ryan and Indy have two, as do Kai and Miller. Isaiah and Kennedy are too focused on their careers to think about having kids, and I... well, I’m single as fuck, so there’s that.

We all dig into the pizzas in the center of the table, and I make sure to take a few slices from the one with dairy-free cheese. They’re homemade and fresh out of the Shays’ new brick oven outside.

I’m adding a helping of salad to my plate when Ryan asks, “Miller, how’s the new location going?” referring to Miller’s second patisserie she opened downtown earlier this year.

“Great. The team is on top of it, so I’ve been able to be somewhat hands-off now that it’s up and running. I hired a new general manager for that location. Her name is Beth, she recently moved here from Oregon, and she’s great. Smart. Organized. Single.” Miller drags out the last word.

I take a mouthful of salad as all eight of my friends shift their attention my way.

“What?” I ask slowly, eyes bouncing to everyone around me.

Isaiah cocks his head in confusion. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine. Why?”

“Something is clearly wrong,” Zee says.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Stevie’s blue-green eyes narrow. “Miller’s new general manager. New to town. Single.”

“I know. I heard. I’m glad she has someone solid running the patisserie.”

“That’s it. He’s sick,” Kennedy interjects. “I’m a doctor. I would know.”

“That’s your cue.” Indy nudges her shoulder into mine. “It’s always your cue.”

Oh.

“I think you’d like her,” Kai says to me. “I met her. Nice girl.”

“Okay,” Miller huffs. “She’s not that nice.”

Kai’s knowing smile spreads. “Jealous.”

She playfully rolls her eyes. “Always.”

He wraps an arm over her shoulders, pulling her into him where he places a kiss on the top of her dark hair. Miller knows as well as the rest of us that she’s not actually jealous, nor does she need to be. Kai has never looked at another woman the way he does her.

“What I was trying to say,” Kai continues, “is that she might be a nice girl for Rio .”

Indy sits up with excitement. “I couldn’t agree more.”

My brows cinch in confusion. “You haven’t even met her.”

“And when has that ever stopped you from being interested?”

“I just...” I hesitate. “I think I’m going to hit pause on the whole dating thing for a while.”

From the other side of Indy, Ryan chokes on his food.

“Shit.” Kennedy’s eyes go wide, her mouth slightly agape. “He’s sicker than I thought.”

“It’s not that big of a deal.” I return my attention to my plate. “I’m tired of doing the same small talk on every first date. I just need a little break from trying.”

Stevie’s smile turns knowing. “And this has nothing to do with a certain someone who was waiting for you outside of practice last week?”

I immediately turn to Zanders. “You’re a fucking gossip.”

His laugh is loud. “You really thought I wasn’t going to tell her? I tell her everything. Especially when our friend is looking at someone in a way I’ve never seen before.”

“Her name is Hallie,” Stevie supplies.

“And how exactly was he looking at Hallie ?” Isaiah asks Zee.

“A lot like you when you got to marry Kennedy. He looked like a love-sick idiot. And I’m not talking about infatuation. There was history there.”

Every pair of eyes swings my way once again.

I shake my head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Miller’s mouth lifts into a smile. “We’re not denying the history part, I see.”

“Can we talk about something else?” I ask, taking a bite of my pizza to avoid any conversation surrounding Hallie.

“Sure,” Ryan says. “When is the house renovation starting?”

Jesus . I can’t get away from the subject.

It’s all too much to explain. Who Hallie is, regarding both our history and present predicament with the house. Why the renovation hasn’t begun. Why I may have been caught looking at her like a love-sick idiot when I’ve never looked at someone else that way before.

Because none of them know that there was a time that I was love-sick for her.

No one here knows I’ve been in love before. No one knows that though I had a front-row seat to watch them all find their person over the years, I had found mine long before any of them.

At least, I thought I did.

I’m still so fucking confused on what I should do about the house, still in shock from seeing Hallie again, that I don’t have it in me to explain.

“I’m going to grab another bottle of wine for the table.” Standing from my seat, I take the empty bottle of red with me. “Anyone need anything from the kitchen?”

The group stays silent, and I can feel every pair of eyes on me as I leave the dining room to hide away in the kitchen. I toss the empty glass bottle in the recycling before bracing my hands on the counter in front of me to take a deep breath.

I’ve only known about Hallie being in Chicago for a week and already it feels like things are getting too muddled. I’ve kept our history a secret from my closest friends all this time, as if leaving everything between us in Boston and not speaking of her would help me pretend as if it never happened.

It didn’t do shit for me. I simply spent the last six years living in a delusional state of denial, telling myself I wasn’t hurt over it all, while subconsciously comparing everyone to our relationship because that’s what I was looking for.

“So, who is she?” Indy asks, reaching around me to grab a fresh bottle of wine off the counter.

Exhaling, I turn to face her, leaning back against the kitchen counter with my arms crossed over my chest. “She’s the designer assigned to my house project.”

Indy raises a single eyebrow as she uncorks the bottle. “You know what I’m asking, Rio.”

Stevie joins us in the kitchen. “Oh, don’t mind me, I’m...” She looks around for something to do, a reason she’d need to be in the kitchen right now. “Helping with the wine.”

“And I’m doing dishes,” Kennedy says, carrying a single plate to the sink. A single clean plate.

“I’ll be honest here. I’m being nosy.” Miller hops onto the kitchen counter, taking a seat. “Spill it. Who’s the girl?”

That pulls a laugh out of me.

There’s something about my friendships with women, especially these women, that I value in a way that’s different from my male friendships. Sometimes, with the guys, we tend to shoot the shit and laugh off the hard stuff too quickly. But when I need to discuss a tough topic, I tend to find that I get a more empathetic and understanding approach from the women in my life.

So, if there’s anyone I’d be willing to open up about Hallie with, it’s these four.

With half as many eyes on me as there were in the dining room, I finally admit, “We grew up together in Boston. She was the girl next door.”

Too many knowing smiles reflect back at me in the kitchen.

“We have... a sordid history and I unknowingly hired her to renovate the house. I didn’t know she was living here until last week, but once I realized it was her, I made it clear that someone else needed to be on the project.”

“That’s what happened outside of practice?” Stevie asks.

“She was there to ask me to reconsider. Said she was desperate to work on the house. Needed to show her boss what she could do so she could get hired full-time or something like that. I think she’s in an internship program but wants a permanent position.”

Kennedy’s smile turns sympathetic. “When was the last time you saw her?”

The images of those last days in Boston flood my mind. It was the worst time of my life, and I’ve tried my hardest over the last six years to block it out.

“Shortly after I had gotten drafted, before I moved here permanently.”

“What happened between you two?” Miller asks.

An odd surge of protectiveness coats my chest like a piece of armor. Though Hallie and I have a sordid history, it’s still our history, and everything in me wants to keep it that way. Regardless that I got hurt, I don’t want my friends to have that first impression of her. I don’t want anything to skew their opinion of her.

“I’d rather keep that between her and me.”

Every single one of the girls’ shoulders drop, heads tilting with big sad eyes as if they’re playing out some kind of rom-com version of a destined reconnection.

“You four can stop looking at me like that.”

Miller’s smile slips into a smirk. “Like what?”

“Like you think this is it. As if she were the one who got away, and this is our second chance. It’s not going to happen, so get that out of your minds. Trust me, too much bad happened between us in the past for there to be any good between us now.”

Indy is the one I’m most reluctant to look at, because when I finally do, I see the realization all over her face. Without me saying anything, she knows. Maybe not all the details of Hallie and me, but I can tell she knows I loved the girl and got my heart broken over it.

Then she does the most Indy thing possible and finds the positive.

“Honestly, who better to design your house?” she asks. “She knows you.”

She has no idea how accurate that statement is.

“Whatever happened between you two,” she continues, “and I don’t know the details, but is there really no part of you left that wants to help her? If she’s coming to you like this, she must really need the job, and I can’t imagine you being okay with not helping her.”

Fucking Indy.

My molars grind together, jaw ticking because once again, she doesn’t realize how true that statement is either.

I’ve had a soft spot for Hallie Hart since the day I met her, and as my resolve slips away, I realize that softness hasn’t changed one bit in the years since I last saw her.

Indy smiles proudly. “Just a thought,” she says before she and the other girls leave me in the kitchen.

Little shit.

My phone feels heavy in my pocket, begging me to pull it out and get ahold of her. I take my time finding Hallie’s new number in my contacts—the one I may have asked Wren for earlier this week—before shooting her a text.

Me: You start tomorrow.