I was in the center of the room because I lived there, so I didn’t have to hide.
Sylvia and I had arranged it. She was going to let Dad walk in first. Tie a lace on her shoe or something. I’d left the door unlocked as usual.
“Wait,” Aunt Bette whispered sharply. “Who is that guy?” She glared at me. “Didn’t you say not to come after seven?”
Aunt Bette was always a little stern. I walked to the window amid the whispers behind the furniture and peeked through the seam between the curtains.
“Shit,” I said.
“Mouth!” Aunt Bette shot to me.
Fuck her. My life had just exploded.
Dash.
Dash Wallace.
Three-time Golden Glove shortstop with a .380 career average and the gentlest filthy mouth was in my driveway with a huge bouquet of pink roses, opening the car door for Sylvia. I put my hand over my mouth. My lips remembered his, and my fingers told them about the sweet silk of his cock. It was my heart that shouted the loudest. Screamed for him to make me laugh, soothe me, goad me into those moments when I didn’t worry about anything but how to please him. My nose and eyes tingled with the threat of tears, and my throat closed around a big lump.
Dash and Dad exchanged words. I couldn’t hear them, but they were pointing at Sylvia. She laughed and waved. Dad sniffed the roses and shrugged. Dash pulled one out and gave it to Dad. He passed it to Sylvia.
“Who is that?” Aunt Bette hissed.
“Dash Wallace,” I said, “He’s a—”
“The shortstop?!” My eleven year-old cousin stood ramrod straight from behind the couch.
“Get down!” three people said simultaneously.
His father pulled him down.
“Friend,” I finished.
The three of them came up the front walk, Dash and Dad talking seriously and Sylvia trying to stay behind. Dad wouldn’t let her. Goddamned gentleman.
Well, the original plan had changed, and I was bursting out of my skin anyway, so I opened the front door. I was supposed to have eyes only for my father. It was his birthday. I was supposed to get him in the house. Shout surprise. Make sure he didn’t have a heart attack. Give him a fraction of the love he’d given me over the years.
But I only had eyes for the guy with the flowers.
Don’t cry.
“Hey,” I said.
He was ten feet away and three feet below, all dressed up in a suit like the day he had waited outside my library. My heart sighed. I hadn’t dared to hope he’d ever be in my driveway again, so seeing him flooded me. Joy first, then pain. Acceptance then rage. Forgiveness then bitterness. What had he been doing for the past few weeks? Who had he been sleeping with? Was he in for the weekend? Was he trying to make me his LA girl? I guarded my heart with tinfoil armor. It was the strongest thing I had against him.
“Your dad said you made potato pancakes,” he said. “And I like potatoes.”
“There’s plenty,” I replied. I wasn’t going to ruin Dad’s party with drama, so I stepped aside and made room. “Birthday boy first.”
“Ladies first,” Dad said.
“Oh, I left something in the car,” Sylvia said with her lilting Honduran accent.
Dad, of course, started back to get it for her. The slapstick comedy of chivalry in the front of the house was maddening.
“Dad, can you let Dash help her? I have an emergency with the matzo soup. I know you told me not to make it, but I had to try.”
Sylvia was already at the car, waving for Dad to just get on with it.
He did. His knees still ached, so he was slow up the steps, but he finally got in the door.
“Surprise!”
The shout went up without a hitch, and Dad laughed and whooped right after. I heard it all, but I didn’t see it. Dash had stepped into the doorway, and he filled my vision with his piercing blue eyes and talented lips. I couldn’t tear my eyes from his face. His body. The heat coming from it. The smell of grass and summer. The tinfoil was crumpling.
“Can you forgive me?” he said softly.
“Not if you ruin my father’s birthday.”
He leaned in to kiss me.
And… no.
I pushed him away gently. “It’s not that easy.”
He stepped back. Nodded. Handed me the roses. “First step: I’m an asshole.”
I took the roses. “Good start because you’re leaving Sylvia standing on the steps.”
He looked at her as she stood, waiting, then he smiled in that way that turned me into jelly. We got out of the doorway and joined the party.
When he came in, Francine’s eyes went birthday-cake big. I shrugged, letting her know that if she was stunned, emotional, elated, curious, I was all that and more.
thirty-five
Dash
In a way, I’d spent the last six weeks planning to see her again. In another way, I was playing it completely by ear.
I’d tried implementing new routines in Arizona. This thing, that thing, then the other. The shame of going back to her with my tail between my legs was too much to bear. If I did that, I’d have to tell her everything. I’d have to have the guts to change my life around.
Every grounder I missed, every time I was caught looking, the walls closed in.