Stupid Girl(50)

He grumbled and swore at something random as he disconnected the phone. I put mine away.

“And you can shoot?” Brax asked.

I eyed him. “Sure.”

“I like you more by the second, Sunshine.”

I lifted a brow. “You’re easily impressed.”

He chuckled. “The hell I am. I like that guy, though,” he admitted. “Sounds as badass as his granddaughter. And he’s apparently crazy about you.”

I nodded. “He is, and he is.”

“I can see why.”

Just as my face started to heat up, the food came. “Okay, lovebirds, dig in.” The waitress interrupted the moment and plopped two loaded plates of apple pancakes and sausage down in front of us. She followed it with a pot of steaming hot maple syrup, a small bowl of butter, and two large glasses of chocolate milk. The entire time she set the food down, Brax kept his stare on me. The grin only grew wider.

“Wow,” I said, leaning over my plate and inhaling. I smiled at Brax. “This smells so good.” I plopped a gob of butter in the center of the stack.

“I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you eat all that,” he finally said.

I held out my hand to his for a shake, and he grasped it. His completely dwarfed mine; it was large and warm and calloused. And perfect. “You’re on, Southie.”

We dug in, delicious crispy-edged fried apple pancakes drowned in butter and hot syrup, and spicy sausage, and soon the uncomfortable shyness drifted out of me. “So how’d you get started in baseball?” I asked. I pulled a long sip of chocolate milk and waited.

A faraway look came over his expression, and I figured he was remembering things from a long time ago. He licked syrup off his thumb. It was the first time I’d ever recalled wishing like hell to be a thumb. “When I was a little kid I lived close enough to Fenway to hear the crack of a baseball against a bat.” A fond memory must’ve flittered over his mind, and a ghostly smile lifted his mouth. “Me and my brothers used to sneak over, and the old guy at the ticket booth knew who we were and always let us in through a back entrance.” He looked away then, like he was searching something familiar. “I got my ass beat more than once for sneakin’ to the park, but I hardly ever missed a game. Even when we moved.” Pahk. He looked over at me. “We’d catch the train and ride it to Fenway. I loved everything about that ballpark. Me and my brothers, we didn’t have to pay for anything. Hot dogs, sodas, peanuts, the game.” He winked. “All on our eight year old charm. But it was the sounds that drew me. Ball to bat. Ball to glove.” He dug back into his pancakes, and my eyes were drawn to his inked knuckles and tattooed arms. “The cracking sound they both made.” He looked at me, and kept chewing, then swallowed. “I remember hanging over the rail in outfield for the whole fucking game, just to catch a fly ball.” He drew a line across his stomach. “Had a bruise straight across here for a solid week.”

I listened intently, hanging onto every word. I could tell Brax was in his element. In his zone. Before or after the bad stuff, it didn’t matter. Here, with baseball, he’d been happy. I had a huge feeling though he’d faced a lot harsher times than he was letting on.

He grinned as if he’d read my mind. “We were poor as shit, and when good ole St. Nick didn’t bring me a glove for Christmas I stole one from the thrift shop up the street from our house. Took me a while to steal a ball. Hid them both under my bed so my old man wouldn’t find them. After that,” he shrugged those broad shoulders again, “I just kept on throwing. Every single day.”

As I inspected Brax’s very close profile I tried to envision him as a little boy. It saddened me to think of him being mistreated, or going without. But I wanted to keep things light right now. I liked the spark I saw in those odd, clear depths. “I bet you were a big ole stinker. Charming your way into the ballpark with those eyes.” I popped in the last bite of sausage and chewed, smothering a grin. “I bet you were all curls and teeth and pure deviltry.”

Brax turned a bit, to directly face me. “So you’re noticin’ my eyes and locks and teeth, huh, Sunshine?”

“Ego, Boston, ego,” I chastised. “We’re in a crowded booth here, don’t forget.”

Brax laughed, shook his head, and draped his arm behind me on the seat rest. “Yeah, I had hair out to fuckin’ here,” he held his hands inches from his head. “Looked like a Wildman. So what about you? How was it growing up?”

I looked at my empty plate. “Like I told you before, my dad left us when I was little, and I don’t remember him at all, really. But I remember after him.” I fidgeted with the paper from my straw. “We all worked hard, even at early ages. My two older brothers, me, and my younger brother. We didn’t have much. But as kids we didn’t know it. My grandpa Jilly had just retired from the Rangers—”