Page 87 of Off Limits: The Firsts

“He’s looking good, like his old self, but do you think he’s really back to where he was? The top of his game?”

“Are you asking me as his father, or as the club’s liaison?” I ask, trying not to sound disrespectful, but at the same time needing to protect Easton.

He narrows his eyes and angles his head as he looks at me, lips opening and then closing a moment before he nods as if he gets what I’m saying. “I deserve that.”

“I’m not trying to be disrespectful, sir, nor am I trying to overstep my boundaries. I’m just asking so I know which report to give, because with all the crap that’s happened over the past two weeks, I think he needs you to be his dad more than be on the side of his employer.”

He nods and then looks back out to where Easton makes a perfect throw down to second base that clearly beats the runner trying to steal. Yes, it’s just a practice. Yes, it’s his teammates helping him get back in the groove. But his talent is unmistakable. His natural ability is phenomenal.

“I know you must think I’m a pushy asshole. A guy who only thinks about the game, about his own image, and not his son who plays it.” He pauses, watches Easton throw to third base with laser perfection. “Easton’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I only want the best for him.”

The emotion in his voice stuns me and is such a contradiction to the hard-ass I’ve seen bits and pieces of.

“What’s best for him or what’s best for your legacy?”

He whips his head my way, and I know I’ve overstepped here, but it’s Easton, and he deserves to have a relationship with his dad. The kind I have, which I’m going to lose soon.

“For him.” He says the words, but I can see he’s questioning himself by the furrow in his brow and swallow in his throat. “This is a hard business, Scout. It’s not your right to judge me.” His tone is stern. The features on his face tell me he’s offended.

“You’re right. I don’t. I overstepped.” And I hate that a part of me feels the need to back down to make sure I don’t screw up my chance at getting the club’s contract, since he’s such an integral part of the front office. “But I’ve grown to care about your son, sir. You don’t spend all this time rehabbing someone, training them, celebrating their small victories to get them back where they can play the game they love without caring about their continued success. And I do care about it with Easton. He has more talent in his pinky than most guys would dream of having.”

“He’s definitely more talented than I ever was,” he murmurs, both of our attention pulled back to the field. To the man we both care about, whose swagger is back and unmistakable. We watch him for a few minutes, the silence settling between us.

“Maybe you should tell him that.”

In my periphery, I can tell Cal has turned his attention back to me. “He knows it.”

“Does he, though?” I meet his eyes. “He’s clawing his way back from an injury that was so severe it would be career-ending for most players. His team, which he’s been a part of for most of his life, traded for the man who caused the injury, currently in his position while he’s on the DL. Physically, he’s getting ready to take the field and kick ass . . . but it’s his mental game I’m worried about now. It takes a lot to come back from an injury and not be timid of reinjuring it and suffering through the pain again. Add to that the bullshit with Santiago, and a father who is the Iron Giant of baseball, perfect in every way. That’s a lot to swallow all at one time.”

“I was and still am far from perfect,” he murmurs, in a faraway voice that tells me he’s speaking of way more things than I am.

“Not in your son’s eyes.”

There’s a crack in Cal’s armor as he blinks away tears that well in his eyes.

There’s a commotion on the field that pulls our attention. The guys are practicing bunt plays, so that Easton has to run out from behind the plate, barehand the bunted ball, dying in momentum right in front of the plate, and then throw it in an off-kilter stance down to first base.

It’s a hard play for sure. One that makes you throw with your arm at odd and often inconsistent angles. It’ll be a test to his arm’s range of motion. If there is any scar tissue that’s going to cause a problem, he’ll notice it now because the guys are watching him, the adrenaline is pumping, and he’s nowhere near thinking about how to properly throw the ball. He’s acting on instinct, falling back on the motion he’s done hundreds of times over his career.

I cringe as he scrambles out from behind the plate, calls the other players off so they know he has it, picks up the ball with his bare hand, and then throws down to first base on one foot and off balance. And the throw is perfect, beating the runner by a few feet.

But more important than the ball’s placement is Easton. I watch him as he walks back behind the plate, raising his hand to acknowledge something that was said to him by J.P. before pulling his mask back down on his face.

“He’s an iron giant in his own right, too, you know.” Cal speaks so quietly, but the emotion packed into every word is unmistakable. “I never pulled his kind of stats. I never had his strength or understood the game like he does. I just used my natural ability, but Easton . . . he has the ability and then some. He’ll surpass every record, every career high I ever had, way before he retires from this game.”

“And how does that make you feel?” If I’m going to overstep, I might as well clear the line with a flying leap. I turn to watch him as he watches his son play the game he no longer can, and wonder what that does to a man’s ego when their ego has been on one of the biggest stages of the sports world for so many years.

He doesn’t turn to look at me, and I’m more than surprised when he answers. “Every parent wants their child to have more than they did. More opportunities. More success. More happiness. More life. More love.”

“It’s hard constantly living in the shadows; maybe it’s time you helped him step out from under them. Telling him what you just said to me might just do that.”

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

I glance over at Easton in the driver’s seat and take him in. And I’m just as knocked back by how attractive he is now as I was when he unexpectedly knocked on my door forty minutes ago with a bouquet of handpicked daisies and a request that I get dressed because he was taking me on a proper date.

“I’m not going to tell you, but I will say I like the skirt,” he murmurs as he reaches out and rests his hand on my bare knee and slides it slowly up my thigh, the fabric bunching with it. “And the boots.”

Without thinking about it, I slide my hand on top of his and link our fingers. It’s a natural gesture, so indicative of how he makes me feel. Comfortable. At ease. Okay with whatever this is.