Page 25 of The Best I Never Had

“The very one.” I pat the side. “She gets us where we need to go safely, and we reward her by only vomiting in her once every fifth trip.”

Thea’s head tilts back as she laughs, and it’s like I’ve been filled with helium and am at risk of floating away. When her laughter cuts off abruptly, I follow her gaze over my shoulder and spot Addy watching us. Thea pastes on a fake smile, and it feels like I’ve been poked with a needle, that buoyant feeling seeping out of my body. She mounts the stairs without another word, and I’m left staring after her, wondering what just happened.

Harrison pops up next to me before I can bring myself to look away. “You ready for this?”

“Depends. Did you stack the teams in your favor?”

“Like I need to cheat to take you down.”

I smack the back of his head and he laughs, jumping a couple of feet away from me.

His cocky smile slips and he shuffles his feet in an uncharacteristic show of nervousness. “Hey, when you have a minute, I was hoping we could talk. About the business.”

I’ve heard this speech before, and I know where it leads. He’s gotten what he needs from the estimating department—just like accounts payable and operations before this—and he thinks he should move. Which means I’ll need to find a new estimator and figure out where I can fit Harrison without upending everyone’s work. The added responsibility lands like an anvil on my shoulders, and I worry my knees will buckle under the pressure.

“I mean,” Harrison continues, “right now isn’t the best time, but I just thought, you know, we’re both here and we might as well talk. Not, like, right now, just in general.”

I force a smile. “Yeah, we can talk about it.”

A breath whooshes out of him, and he smiles that brilliant Harrison smile that’s charmed every person he’s ever met. “Awesome. Great. Thanks, Owen. Now let’s get on the bus so I can hand you your old ass.”

He bounds up the steps, and I call after him, “Have you seen Mom?”

There are only a few stragglers loading up, and I haven’t spotted her yet.

“No, I haven’t seen her since last night,” Harrison says.

My stomach drops. I’ve been so caught up I didn’t think to check on her. This wouldn’t be the first time she said she was fine, then disappeared for a couple of days. I pull out my phone and dial her.

She answers on the first ring. “I know, I know. I’m late. I’m on my way, but if it’s too much of an inconvenience, you can leave me.”

I hold in my sigh of relief. “Not an inconvenience. Just making sure you’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she says, hanging up as she walks through the front door, “I’m here with my family. My youngest son is getting married, and my older son has another shot at love.”

She skips up the stairs of the bus, patting me on the cheek as she passes, and all my excitement for the day curdles into anxiety.

I stare Harrison down from the pitcher’s mound, clocking his cocky smile and the way he casually swings the bat to warm up. He points it at Addy in the dugout, blowing her a kiss as he steps up to the plate.

“Better get your head in the game, baby brother,” I call out.

His grin grows at my goading. “Doesn’t take much concentration to hit one of your pitches.”

I toss the ball up and down a few times. “Don’t forget who taught you how to swing that bat.”

“Yeah, then you quit, while I just got better.”

You quit.

He thinks I got tired of the game, too young to realize my practices were replaced with caring for him. While my old teammates were fielding ground balls, I was sitting in the pick-up line at the elementary school. Then I was in college and working, and the closest I got to a baseball diamond was sitting in the stands at Harrison’s games.

Regardless of what Harrison thinks, I haven’t lost my love of the game. Or my skill, which I prove with a fastball that flies right past Harrison’s bat, sinking into my cousin Johnny’s glove with a satisfying thud.

“Strike one,” Johnny bellows, even though it’s not his job.

This is why I wanted Johnny as catcher. He can catch my pitches, but more important, he’s the best at screwing with the rest of our cousins, muttering trash talk I can’t hear but can see the impact of as each batter glares at him.

I lift my hand to my ear with a smug grin. “What was that about my pitches?”