Page 25 of Run Home

“What a great game today, mijo,” he says. “I found the first highlight video online. The barehanded catch—what a move!”

My dad is rarely able to watch our games live, but he’s always scouring the internet for recaps and highlights as soon as a game ends. Even from thousands of miles away, he’s my biggest encourager.

We comb through the major moments of the past three games for a few minutes, but even reliving the highlights doesn’t snap my thoughtful mood. When we’ve reached the natural conclusion to discussing baseball, I take the conversation a different direction.

“Papá, how old were you when you met Mamá the first time? Eighteen?” I ask.

There’s a pause, and I can vividly picture the curtain that closes over my dad’s face any time my mom comes up in conversation. He eventually answers, “We were seventeen when we first met. We got married when we were twenty. But it was several years before we had you.”

Slowly pacing a line back and forth across the hotel room, I pry further. “How did you know that you wanted to ask her out the first time? Did you know for sure that she liked you back? Or were you taking a chance?”

My dad laughs. The sound is so unusual in conversations about my mom, it brings a smile to my face. He says, “Ay, no, mijo, your mother was so far out of my league. I was shooting for the moon when I asked her on a date, and I fully expected to fall back to earth. Lucky for me, she took pity on me and rewarded my guts with a yes.”

“So she went on a pity date? And you wound up married?” I clarify.

“I really turned up the charm and managed to win her over enough on the first date to agree to a second. She kept having just good enough of a time to agree to the next date until she finally admitted she liked me on the fifth date,” my dad explains, a mix of wistfulness and humor in his voice. After another short moment of silence, he says, “Why are you asking? Is there a woman you have your eye on?”

I hesitate to fully tip my cards, even though my dad has never been anything but supportive. Instead of confessing my feelings for Sam, I respond, “I’ve just been wondering lately if I’m missing out on something by not settling down with someone. You know Griffin is getting married, and Drew has his new baby boy. They’re so happy with their families, and as much as I enjoy baseball, I guess I’m thinking about the future. About what I want my future to look like—who I want to have in my future.”

Dad is silent again, and I know I’ve probably created a painful spiral by reminding him of his love with my mom. We rarely mention her, aside from lighting the candle next to her photo in the living room on her birthday and the anniversary of the accident. Guilt that I forced my dad to think about her gnaws at me in the silence, so I break the somber moment with self-deprecation.

“Of course, that would require me to somehow convince a woman to put up with my foolishness for the rest of her life, so I may be stuck living it up solo,” I joke.

Dad takes the opportunity to return to more lighthearted conversation, and by the time we hang up, I’ve abandoned any plans to go to the gym. Mindless TV and doomscrolling it is.

I notice a message from my agent, reminding me to reserve a tux for a big fundraising gala I’m attending in two weeks. A beam of heavenly light breaking through the clouds couldn’t be clearer than the LED light of my phone screen.

This could be my opening.

Searching Sam’s name in my messages, I start typing.

ME

Hear me out.

Before I can even finish typing my next message, I get a response from Sam. The immediate reply sends my heart dipping down a roller coaster hill.

SAM

If you’re about to ask for assistance committing a crime, the answer is no.

If you’re about to ask for me to come back to baseball world as your PA, the answer is also no.

Flustered, I delete what I was typing and send a different message.

ME

Could you slow down? I don’t type that fast.

The phone rings in my hand with a call from Sam. Grinning, I swipe to answer and say, “Sheesh, not even giving a guy a chance to type. Where’d you get so fast typing anyway?”

“Voice to text,” Sam replies. “Griffin almost always uses it with the dyslexia, so I learned it’s typically faster than typing. Although there can be wild mistakes if you don’t double-check it. Now, what am I hearing out? My personal assistant days are behind me, you know.”

I want something much more personal with you than an assistant. I’m tempted to say my thoughts out loud—to simply declare my feelings and get it out in the open. But I know I need to slow roll this a little more.

“I do not need a PA. But I do need a favor,” I say. “On June eighth, I’m attending a big black-tie gala to raise money for youth sports programs in Kansas City.”

“Oh yeah, are you the Crowns player attending this year? This is the one with a player from each of the major sports teams in Kansas City, right? I remember Griff going to that once,” Sam says.