Page 17

As it turns out, she’s not quite ready to start school.

It’s toward the middle of the morning on Monday when I get a phone call from a number that pops up in my contacts as possibly the elementary school where Harper is registered to attend.

“Hi, is this Harper’s guardian?” the lady on the line asks after I answer.

“Yes.”

“My name is Ruth, and I’m the registrar at Stratford Elementary School. We received a registration packet electronically signed by you, and I just wanted to go over a few things with you.”

“Of course,” I say. I check that Harper is occupied by a Netflix show, and I head into the other room to answer all her questions.

But one throws me for a loop. “What is the expected date Harper will start school?”

I pause as I consider it. I’m trying to let her do things on her own timeline, but she’s ten and she doesn’t love school. It might be better to make that decision for her.

“I’m not sure,” I answer honestly.

“I need to put something in my system,” Ruth says with a touch of impatience.

“Look, her parents just died and named me her guardian, and we just met a few days ago. She’s been uprooted from her home in Los Angeles and dragged here with me, and I don’t want to push her if she’s not ready.”

“I’m so sorry.” She pauses, and she lowers her voice a little. “I understand this is a very difficult time for you both. Sometimes the best thing for kids is to establish a routine early on. They thrive on routine, so getting her into her new school might be the best thing for her.”

It might be…or it might not be. Who’s to say?

“I’ll try to get her there by Thursday, okay?” I say. I say I’ll try because I can’t make any guarantees here.

We end the call, and I decide to take her to the Complex to show her around the Aces practice facility.

As we head out to the garage, though, she looks at me a little doubtfully.

It’s the first time I’m driving her anywhere, and I open the passenger door of my McLaren for her.

“There’s no backseat,” she says, and she looks back up at me.

“So?” I ask, confused as to why she’d care.

“I’m not supposed to sit in front until I’m twelve.”

I raise my brows.

Oh. I didn’t realize that.

“Well, this is our option for today, so I’ll drive extra careful.”

She twists her lips and nods. “You better.”

I laugh, and I do.

Bella shows up with her parents to the Complex after school, and the girls hang out on one of the couches in the empty locker room while Bella plays some game on her iPad and Harper watches. We’re not technically allowed to work out at the facility in the off-season unless we’re here for camps, so Evan and I shoot the shit for a bit while the girls hang out.

I might be able to play the you’ll get more Bella time angle to get her to go to school, but so far she hasn’t mentioned going at all, and part of me wants to let her decide when she’s ready.

I take Harper to Best Buy when we’re done and let her pick out her own iPad so she can play games, too, and then we go out to dinner.

She spends the day on Tuesday with her new iPad, and on Wednesday, we take a Lyft to a car dealer where I purchase a sensible Mercedes SUV with a backseat in the color red as chosen by Harper since, according to her, “it’s the closest to pink and matches the Aces colors.” And then we take the new vehicle to a park near my house that I’ve driven by loads of times but never had a reason to visit.

It’s Wednesday night at another dinner I ordered in when I mention to her, “Do you think you want to give school a try tomorrow?”

She shrugs. “Not really, but Bella said her teacher said they’re getting a new student, and I think that might be me.”

“I bet it is,” I say with a nod. “Are you ready?”

She sighs. “I’ll never be ready, but kids thrive on routine.”

I laugh. “Where’d you hear that?”

“My mom used to say it all the time.” She looks a little sad as she mentions her mom, but something that really helped me when I lost Coach Barrett was talking about him.

“What else did your mom say all the time?”

“Eat the green stuff.” She says it with a sour look on her face.

I laugh. “That’s actually really great advice.”

She rolls her eyes. “You adults are all the same.”

“What? Green M&Ms kick ass,” I say.

“You used another bad word.” She laughs. “I’m pretty sure she meant vegetables, but I like green sour apple gummy rings.”

I wrinkle my nose and adopt the same sour look she just had. “Sour candy? Gross.”

“I can’t eat M&Ms.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“The regular ones are made in the same place as the peanut ones.”

“So why can’t you eat them?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess sometimes peanuts get in with the regular ones.”

I guess I have a lot to learn.

“What do you want for lunch at school?” I ask.

She takes a bite of macaroni. “Same kind of stuff I eat here for lunch.”

“A cheese sandwich and yogurt?”

She nods. “And maybe a fruit roll-up and some sour gummy candies.”

I laugh, and I pull up the grocery app to place an order for all the things she wants.

Out of season, I’m a sleeper. I keep late nights and sleep half the day away, as my mother would say, and that’s just the way it’s always been.

But now that I have a kid, it’s one more thing that changes. School starts at half past eight, and I set an alarm that wakes us both up since she has crawled into my bed every night that she’s lived here.

I grab a cup of coffee with bleary eyes while she gets dressed, and she appears in the kitchen ready for some plain old Cheerios with a banana cut up over the top.

I have it ready for her when she appears, and I splash the tiniest bit of milk in there just the way she seems to like it.

She eats quietly.

“Are you more excited or more nervous?” I ask her.

“More nervous. I don’t get excited for school.”

“I put a surprise in your lunch bag,” I say.

She glances at the counter and sees the brown paper bag, and she narrows her eyes at me. “What is it?”

“You’ll see at lunch, kid.” I fold my arms over my chest. “Now stop asking questions and eat.”

She mutters something that I miss, but it’s another tick in the dad column as a vague memory of my own father saying something similar to me as a kid pops into my mind.

I don’t want to be like him…but I still think there’s probably certain phrases that all parents use with their kids.

Put the seat down.

Because I said so.

Don’t use that tone with me.

Finish your dinner.

Stop yelling.

Tie your shoes.

Don’t make me turn this car around.

I guess my turn is coming for all of them.

We drive the five miles toward the school she’ll be attending, and as I pull up, I see a huge, long line of cars waiting to get in.

“What the fuck?” I mutter. It’s moving slowly—crawling, really—and I don’t have time for this shit. I don’t want my girl to be late on her first day, and I also don’t want to just drop her off and leave. So I swing around the cars and pull into the teacher parking lot, find a space, and walk her in.

“This is Harper Randall, and today’s her first day,” I say brightly to the receptionist there.

“Nice to meet you, Harper Randall,” the lady says. “Let me just take a look at your information and I can tell you what class she’s in.”

She taps away at her computer, and I spot some teachers walking back and forth in the aisleway beside the reception desk. There must be some sort of teacher work room back there where they run copies, because each teacher that walks by is rushing and holds stuff in their arms—copies they just ran, or other supplies, or huge rolls of butcher paper. A few stop to drop folders on the counter behind the receptionist, likely the make-up work for absent students who won’t be coming in today.

The receptionist glances up at one of the teachers, and then she scans the aisle to see who’s there. “Oh, Victoria?”

Both Harper and I glance up at the woman the receptionist is addressing, and my jaw slackens as I recognize her.

I run a hand through my hair as my chest tightens.

So her name’s Victoria.

She’s the last woman I hit on before I found out that my entire life was about to change…and she’s one of the few who has ever rejected me.