Page 27 of Hard Check
“Cool. Which is your favorite?”
“You definitely need to start with the first one.”
“Looking forward to it.”
The pause that followed felt different this time. Less like a gap and more like a rest in music. Leo turned his beer glass on the checkered cloth, leaving wet rings.
“Your parents,” Dawson said. “You said they put all their energy into you.”
Leo’s hand stilled on the glass. He’d walked right into that one. He’d thought the deflection had worked, that they’d moved past it, but Dawson had just been waiting. Patient. Like the detective in the books he read.
“Yeah, well.” Leo flashed a smile he knew was good, the one that worked in interviews and postgame press. “They’ve always supported me. Sometimes, I wish they’d back off a bit, especially my mom. She’s overbearing and thinks it’s totally normal to call my agent when she thinks I’m getting screwed over.”
Dawson said nothing. He didn’t nod, make a sympathetic noise, or offer the kind of platitudes most people reached for whenLeo hinted at the edges of his family. He sat there with his beer and his steady brown eyes, and the absence of reaction was so disorienting that Leo almost kept rambling about how damned tired he was of her meddling, but he wasn’t going to give Dawson even more reason to be annoyed by him.
He picked up another slice. “This pizza is unreasonably good.”
Dawson let him change the subject. But the way he let it go—no push, no sympathetic head-tilt, a quiet acceptance of the wall Leo had put up—made Leo wonder if Dawson recognized the move because he used it too.
The door swung open, and Leo heard Charlotte before he saw her. “Daddy, I want the one with the little tomatoes.”
Ford came in with Charlotte at his side and a woman behind him. Not a girlfriend. The distance between them, easy but defined, said two people who’d worked out where they stood a long time ago. The woman was tallish, dark-haired, wearing a light jacket over a sweater and no makeup, and she reached for Charlotte when she let go of her dad’s hand.
“Go find us a table, bug,” the woman said, and Charlotte bolted for the booth by the jukebox.
Ford spotted Leo and changed course. “Vargas. Hey.” He clapped Leo’s shoulder on the way past, easy and warm. Then he saw Dawson, and his eyebrows went up a fraction. “Dawson. Didn’t know you two knew each other.”
“He’s fixing my car,” Leo said.
“The deer thing, right?” Ford shook his head. “How’s the car coming?”
“Getting there,” Dawson said.
The woman had followed Charlotte to the booth but turned at the sound of conversation. Ford waved her over. “Nadine, this is Leo Vargas. New winger. Nadine’s Charlotte’s mom.”
Nadine shook Leo’s hand. Her grip was firm and brief, and she studied him with the same assessing directness Charlotte had. “The one from Florida.”
“Does everyone in this town know that?”
“Word gets around.” Ford grinned.
Nadine gave Dawson a nod. “Hey, Dawson.”
“Nadine.”
“We’ll let you eat,” Ford said. He glanced between Leo and Dawson, paused for a half-second longer than necessary. “Glad you’re getting to know people. It makes a difference.”
“Starting to figure that out,” Leo said.
Leo watched Ford settle into the booth—Charlotte next to Nadine on one side, Ford across from them, already leaning in to hear whatever Charlotte was telling him about the pizza she wanted. Maria was at their table before they’d even picked up menus. If he didn’t know better, Leo would think they were a happily married couple out for dinner as a family. Ford passed a napkin across to Charlotte without being asked, and Nadine caught his eye and mouthed something that made him nod. Leo turned back. Dawson was watching him.
“What?” Leo said.
“Nothing.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Yeah, because it’s true.”
