Bound to Be His ( The Archer Family 2)

sp; "I saw the paper, Matt. You might be saying it's over, and you might be right, but there's more to this story than you're letting on and we both know it."

"What does the paper have to do with anything? And how did you already get today's paper?"

"It's called an iPad. And we're almost to spring training. They released the line-ups."

"They..." Matt's voice drifted off.

"You weren't on them."

"No," Matt said flatly.

"I'm sorry, man." Derrick made to put his hand on Matt's shoulder, but he ducked out of the way.

"No reason to be sorry. I'm still playing ball. What's one more year?"

"Don't come into my house and pull that bullshit with me." The words were soft, but Matt knew his brother better than to take them that way.

"I'm not pulling anything. Don't you remember what Dad used to say? Every year I get to play is a blessing, right?"

"He didn't mean you had to be thrilled about every setback, though," Derrick said.

"I really don't want to talk about this."

"Okay, then we won't. You don't want to talk about Shay, either. You don't want to talk about Logan. What do you want to talk about, Matt? You're running out of options."

"I'm..." He shook his head and then cracked an egg into the pan. "You wanted scrambled, right? I can do over easy, too."

"Scrambled is fine." Derrick frowned and then turned and poured their coffee into mugs. Silently, he sat one cup beside the oven and then made his way to the little breakfast bar. "We do need to talk," Derrick said, and though it had only been a moment since either man had spoken, it felt like a thousand-pound weight had dropped onto Matt's shoulders in that time. Why could nobody understand that he didn't want to talk? That talking made it worse?

That talking made it real.

"Derrick, look—"

"I'm not going to bother you about work or Shay or any of that." Derrick held up his hand in surrender. "But we still need to talk."

"What about?" Matt scrambled the eggs in the pan and then reached for the salt and pepper shakers.

"Mom."

Matt stopped short and then slowly turned his gaze to his brother's heavy, knitted brow. "What about her?" Matt asked.

"She's here, in Hawaii. I wanted to tell you, but Andy—"

"Andy knows too?" Matt's jaw slackened.

Derrick nodded. "We didn't want to keep it from you, not forever. We just thought—"

“How did you find out?” Matt asked.

“She sent me a letter. What does it matter? Look, we need to—"

"I knew. I knew, though," Matt said, more to himself than to his brother. "I knew she was here and she promised me. She promised me she would never contact you."

"Wait, you—?"

"I have to go." Matt moved the skillet from the burner to the oven mitt on the counter and sprinted for the door. "I'm sorry. We can talk about this later, but I've got to go right now."

When he got to the park, he realized that she still wouldn't be there for another hour, but he was too anxious, too pent-up to wait in the car. Instead, he stalked out and paced the yard, waiting for her blue minivan to pull up, all the time stewing over what he could possibly say to a woman he should have known better than to trust.