Page 20 of Stealing Home

Shit. “Evan and CJ.”

“Oh!” Her tone brightened instantly. “Tell them hello.”

“They can hear you.”

“Good.” She was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Have they been there this whole time?”

“Yeah,” Dom answered. “And most of last night, after Talia left.”

“Oh,” Celeste said softly. “They’re good boys. Tell them thank you.”

“They can still hear you,” he said dryly.

“Hi, Mrs. Rizzo,” CJ called.

“Celeste,” she corrected.

“Hi, Celeste,” Evan and CJ said in unison.

“Thank you for looking after my son.”

Dom rolled his eyes. Seriously? “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“Dominic,” she said in the tone that meant she was about to say something he’d been hearing for years. “If that were true, I wouldn’t still have to remind you to eat lunch every day.”

He really wanted to protest, but she wasn’t wrong. “Anyway,” he said after clearing his throat. “I should go. I just wanted to let you know.”

His mother’s laugh crackled through the speaker, warm and familiar enough that it made his chest hurt.

“Did you hear your son, Frank?” she asked, still chuckling. “He thinks he’s done with this conversation.”

“Ma,” Dom started.

His mother cut him off, voice suddenly serious. “I’m booking a flight. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“No.”

“Yes.” Her tone made it clear it wasn’t up for discussion. “You have a newborn, and you don’t know what you’re doing, so I’m coming.”

“Ma, no,” he tried again.

There was a pause, and Dom suddenly felt like he was twelve and arguing with his mother for the first time.

“Excuse me?”

Double shit. “We leave for spring training in two weeks.”

“So?” Frank spoke for the first time in several minutes. “What? You don’t want your mother to help you?”

There it was. His parents had raised five children in a house where guilt wasn’t just an emotion. It was practically a second language. His father had clearly been taking lessons from his mother, who could make a grown man feel guilty for leaving a meal without leftovers.

“That’s not what I mean, Pops.”

“Then explain it.”

How was he supposed to explain something he barely understood himself? “I have to figure this out.”

“But you don’t have to figure it out alone,” Celeste said gently.