“What’s up, Owen?” I greet my favorite player, although I will never tell anyone he’s my favorite player, because coaches aren’t supposed to have favorites, just like parents. But they do. Oh, they do. It just depends what day you ask them.
Owen mumbles out a quick hello with his eyes downcast, bumping his fist against my outstretched one as he quickly climbs out of the passenger seat of Wren’s golf cart. I don’t know if Owen is my favorite kid because he’s the spitting image of Wren and even after only a few days I can see he has just as big of a heart as she does, or because he is the only kid on the team who hasn’t fawned all over me since I got here. He hasn’t asked for an autograph, he hasn’t begged for a picture, and he hasn’t hounded me with a thousand questions about my career. He’s reserved, a little shy, and mature for his age, always the one scolding his teammates when they won’t stop with the questions, pulling them away from me and telling them to get to work.
But I’ve been dealing with fans since I was twenty years old. I know what it looks like when one of your biggest fans is standing in front of you, but he or she is doing everything they can to play it cool and not look crazy. Owen Bennett could be the poster boy for that kind of fan. Which just makes me chuckle to myself as he grabs his bat bag from the back of the golf cart and starts to quickly scurry away to the field.
Like mother, like son. It seems they both want to make sure my ego stays in check.
“Hey!” Wren shouts to Owen’s back, the scowl momentarily disappearing, since she’s no longer looking at me. “Are you forgetting something?”
I look back over my shoulder as Owen pauses and does the same to look back at his mom.
“I love you. You’re the best mom in the world,” he deadpans, making me laugh again as he gives his mom a wave and then keeps walking.
When I turn back to look at Wren, a smile is lighting up her face as she stares after her son. She’s so goddamn beautiful, especially when she’s looking at her son with so much love shining all over her face, it makes my chest get tight. I heard one of the kids on the team say something to Owen about how he keeps forgetting his mom isn’t blonde anymore. It doesn’t occur to me until this moment she’s now a brunette. I hadn’t even noticed her hair color change the couple of times I’d seen her since I’ve been back.
All I’d seen was her. And all I see now is her, sitting behind the wheel of her golf cart, her hair up in its usual messy, adorable pile on top of her head with long pieces hanging down around her face. She can hide it from most people, but I can clearly see the exhaustion, mental and physical, from all the responsibilities she has to handle and decisions she has to make alone. I’ve never felt like more of an asshole than I do right now, standing here beside her, knowing I gave her a shoulder to cry on, two ears more than willing to listen, and never hesitated to help her with anything she needed. And then I took it away, because I was stupid and selfish. She needs to know how sorry I am and give me a chance to fix things between us, if she’d just stay in one place long enough for me to tell her.
“So, I thought maybe after practice, we could—”
My words immediately die on my tongue when Wren’s happy, loving smile immediately turns into a Grumpy Cat frown when she finally looks away from Owen and at me.
“Eat shit.”
Her golf cart sputters back to life, and she zips away from the curb before I can even take my next breath. I’m only in shock and feel a little defeated for about thirty seconds before I throw my head back and laugh.Getting up from the bottom bleacher, I smile and grab the large peppermint mocha with extra whipped cream that I know is Wren’s favorite from her mentioning it a few times during our chats. Owen told me she had to be at the Dip and Twist for a delivery at five this morning, so I know she must be running on fumes after working all day and then coming straight to Owen’s game.
I watch Wren walking toward me in a pair of blue-jean overalls with a white tank top underneath, and she’s so fucking adorable I don’t understand why she’s single. I don’t understand how I got so lucky that I came back here and no one has snatched her up yet.