“You know,” Ryan begins with a small laugh. “For a split second, when I first introduced you to Indy, I was so concerned she was going to like you. You used to be a lot like her. A walking ray of fucking sunshine. Little did I know, six months later you’d be as grumpy as I used to be.”
“I’m not grumpy,” I state in a tone that sounds real fucking grumpy. “I’m exhausted. I became a single dad at the beginning of the off-season last year. I had it handled when baseball wasn’t an issue, but now . . . If I could just retire early—”
“No.”
“Shut your mouth,” Zanders adds.
“You’re not retiring early,” Ryan continues. “For being your age, you’re surprisingly at the top of your game. You’re not calling it quits. You just need to figure out how to ask for help and learn to accept it. How’s it going with Troy?”
I avert my eyes from his. “I fired him.”
Pausing for only a moment, he bursts out a laugh. “Of course you fucking did.” Opening the kitchen window that faces the backyard, he calls out, “Blue! Kai fired the nanny!”
I hear her footsteps racing inside the house. “Was it before or after Wednesday?”
“Thursday, I think. Why?”
“Goddammit!”
Ryan cackles. “Thank you for that.”
“What am I missing here?”
“Indy and I bet on when you were gonna fire him. Had a feeling it was gonna be this week. She bet on the first half of the week, I bet on the second.”
“You’re making bets on Max’s childcare now? Love that for me.”
Stevie follows Indy inside, holding Max’s hands above his head to help him walk. “What does the winner get?”
“Blue owes me a blow job.” Ryan smiles into his coffee once again.
“Gross.” Stevie grimaces.
Indy tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Joke’s on you. Little do you know, I like giving you blow jobs.”
“Yeah, little do I know. There’s no way I would know that, huh?”
Ryan rounds the kitchen island to pick up Max, he and Indy doting on him. Zanders joins Stevie in setting the table, with him not so sneakily copping a feel every so often.
As much as I feel connected to these guys, us all being professional athletes settled down, they both have partners they can lean on. Someone else to help lessen the burden. They’ll luckily never understand what it means to go through the hard stuff alone. But maybe worse than that is going through the good stuff and not having someone to celebrate those moments with. No one else heard Max’s first word. No one else saw the first time he crawled.
And in this moment, watching the four of them, I couldn’t feel more single.
That is, until the other very single guy of the group comes bursting through the door.
“I’m here!” Rio DeLuca, Zanders’ teammate, busts through the house with his boombox on full blast, making his grand entrance. “What did I miss?”
“Kai fired another nanny,” Ryan explains before throwing my kid in the air, catching him mid-laugh.
“Yeah, well, about time. It’s been what, two weeks since he got hired?”
“Four.”
“Record for ya, Kai?”
Is it? Wow, I’m not sure.
“I already hired someone else. She watched Max in Miami.”
Conveniently, I leave out that she’s now gone as well, but my tendency to hastily fire any and everyone is quickly becoming everyone’s favorite joke.
“She?” Stevie asks.
“She.”
Rio turns down his boombox. “Who is she? And is she single?”
Is she? I have no idea if Miller is single. I learned she doesn’t live anywhere in particular so I can’t imagine how she’d make a relationship work, but maybe her partner is a nomad like her.
“I’m not sure, actually.”
“Let’s say, hypothetically, she’s very single. Very available,” Rio continues. “Would she be into me?”
“No.”
“Geez, Kai. Answer a little quicker next time.”
“I mean, I don’t know. She’s my coach’s daughter so I think it’s best if no one in my life”—I motion around the room—“tries to find out.”
“Coach’s daughter, Kai?” Indy wears a knowing grin. “Interesting. I do love that plot line.”
“Nothing about this is interesting, you hopeless romantic.”
“Hopeful,” she corrects, pointing towards Ryan. “The new term is ‘hopeful romantic’.”
“Yeah, well, whatever kind of scenario you’re creating in your head right now about me and the new nanny, let me squash it for you. Monty hired her without me knowing and I couldn’t exactly say no.”
“Bullshit,” Ryan barks out. “You’ve never let something like pleasing your coach be the reason you compromise when it comes to Max. You like her.”
“No, I don’t. I kind of can’t stand her, but it doesn’t matter either way because she’s already gone.”
The entire house is wordless once again.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Ryan asks, breaking the silence. “You have a game tonight. What are you going to do with Max?”
I raise a suggestive brow at him and his fiancée.
“Oh, no. Don’t look at us like that.” Indy waves her hands at me. “We love Max, but we’re not enabling you. What was wrong with this one? Did you not like the way she breathed? Was she too nice? Did you not agree with her favorite color?”
“Max liked her too much already.”
She’s also way too fucking tempting to be glued to my side all summer, but I leave that part out.
Indy blinks at me blankly. “You’re ridiculous. You need to call her and get her back here.”
I already did. Right after she left. I didn’t get a chance to explain that she’s done too good of a job with my son, but even if she gave me the opportunity, how pathetic would it be for me to admit that my attitude towards her is due to Max growing so comfortable with her that it made me nervous. In the one day Miller was with him, he was the most content he’d been with any nanny before, and I fucked it up all because I’m afraid. Afraid of her being around, but even more afraid of her leaving.
“I tried,” I admit. “About fifteen times, but she’s ignoring me.”
“Oh, you’re so gonna sleep with her.” Zanders laughs. “Hate sex or make-up sex. One of the two.”
“No, I’m not.”
“No, he’s not,” Rio adds. “Because if Kai meets someone, I’m going to be the only single one left, and I refuse to be the old, sad, single one. Well, besides Isaiah, but he doesn’t count. He likes being single.”
“Rio,” Indy coos. “You’re still a baby, but when you get old, you could come live with us, and we’ll take care of you. Ryan will cook us breakfast and you could be our platonic third wheel.”
“I’m not cooking him breakfast,” Ryan cuts in.
“And I’m not anyone’s third wheel. And don’t even tease me about living with Ryan Shay, Ind. That will very quickly turn into a two-wheel situation, and you won’t be one of them.”
Ryan huffs a laugh under his breath.
“All right, let’s eat. I gotta get home. I’m hoping Monty can convince Miller to give me another chance before my game tonight.”
“Her name is Miller?” Stevie asks, taking a seat at the table, stretching out her legs and rubbing her stomach. “She sounds cute.”
She is cute. In the same way a tornado is cute. Or a pack of starved lions. Super cute.
“Oh my God,” Rio chastises my silence. “He didn’t even try to deny it! I am going to be the only single one left. I’m going to have to move into my best friend’s house and grow old with Ryan freaking Shay.”
Zanders makes a plate for Stevie as we all take our seats. “You don’t sound all that upset by that.”
Rio pops his shoulders. “Never said I was.”
Everyone gathers around the table, and I pull out the highchair I store for Max here before taking my seat as well. My friends take their turns feeding my son or entertaining him. His blue eyes are bright as he laughs and smiles at the group of professional athletes making silly faces at him.
And though, yes, sometimes I feel single as hell around these people, I couldn’t be more grateful for them pulling me into their fold and giving me a place in Chicago that feels like home.
Chapter 9
Kai