When Life Happened by Jewel E. Ann
Chapter Three
Parker needed a life. The endless tailspin had to end. Step one: shake off her past, gather her bearings, and stop being totally available at the last minute for a little league game.
Plans on a Saturday? Nope.
Just moved out of my trundle bed.
If Amazon Prime offered a life, she would have one-clicked the hell out of it and selected recurring monthly delivery.
However, Parker couldn’t resist Brady’s cuteness, and she found herself looking forward to watching him. Life or no life. In a way she couldn’t comprehend, she looked forward to hanging out with Gus as well. He was married. That wasn’t a problem. Parker was the victim of cheating. She could never be a homewrecker.
Friends. Maybe they could be friends, the kind of friends who teased each other about stupid shit like shearing dogs, karaoke, and old age. It had been quite a while since she’d had a friend.
“You made it.” Gus scooted over. “Here, you can sit in my spot, so you don’t burn your legs on these hot-as-hell metal bleachers.”
Parker tugged at the legs of her shorts, but they were way too short to protect her skin from the metal. “Thanks.” She sat next to him. “So no other family came to watch Brady today?”
“Not today. Usually, everyone is here.”
“Well, good thing I came to cheer him on too.”
Gus grunted a small laugh. Parker couldn’t decipher its meaning, so she focused on the game.
“The back of their shirts say Westman Electric. Someone sprang for some serious sponsorship.”
Gus rubbed his hand over his mouth, trying to hide his grin. “Brady’s up to bat.” He pointed to number eight in his batter’s helmet, tapping the bottom of his cleats with the bat like a pro.
“Let’s go, Brady!” Parker clapped and bounced up and down.
Gus shot her a look with a single peaked brow.
“What? Don’t you know how to cheer on your guy?”
With a soft chuckle, he shook his head.
Brady knocked it deep into left field on the first pitch.
“Attaboy! Woo hoo! Nice hit, Brady!” The bleachers shook beneath Parker jumping up and down.
Brady stopped at third base.
“Jeez, old man, how’d you even climb this high in the bleachers? Look alive!” Parker tugged on the bill of Gus’s Cubs cap.
“August? Who’s your friend?”
They both turned to the couple up behind them a few rows. The tan blonde kept her head down, focused on her phone while the equally tan man beside her dragged his hawkish gaze over Parker. He had a nearly-bald head with patchy peeling skin and crooked teeth peeking out between cracked lips. That weirded Parker out a bit.
“Matt, this is Parker.” Gus let her name hang in the air.
She waited to see if he would define her role in his life—neighbor, fake sister, cousin, friend. Nope. Just Parker, said in a way that did funny things to certain parts of her body in a very un-friend-like way.
“Nice to meet you, Matt.” She shook his hand and turned back to the game. “Go, Brady, go!”
Brady slid into home right as the catcher caught the ball from the first baseman.
“Out!” the ump yelled.
“What?” Parker shot to her feet, hands in the air and then they dropped to her head, and she tugged her hair. “Are you kidding me? Are you blind?”
“Parker,” Gus tried to interrupt.
“Get this guy some glasses! Brady was there like … a week before that ball hit the catcher’s glove. What the—”
“Ma’am?” A middle-aged gentleman with jeans and a red polo shirt crooked his finger at Parker.
“Me?” She pointed to herself.
He nodded.
Parker climbed down the bleachers and hopped off the last one, standing an inch taller than the man with Brady’s team’s logo on his baseball cap.
“Do you have a child on this team?” he asked.
“No. Why?”
The man nodded toward the back of the bleachers. She followed him.
“We have a good conduct policy for these games. Parents are expected to follow the rules of good sportsmanship same as the kids.”
“Well, thank goodness I’m not a parent, huh?”
He sighed. “While we cannot penalize the child for the actions of a non-family member, we can ask that you leave the ballpark.”
“You’re kicking me out? For what? Being a spectator? I’m pretty sure yelling at referees and umpires in sports dates back many years. It’s part of the game.”
“These are nine and ten-year-old boys. This isn’t an MLB game with a crowd of drunk spectators. We expect the people in the bleachers to be role models for our young players.”
“Is there a problem?” Gus walked around the corner, hands in the pockets of his shorts.
“No, sir.” The spectator police gave Gus a reassuring smile. “Just informing this young lady of our good conduct rules.”
“Do you know who this man is?” Parker jabbed her thumb in Gus’s direction. “He’s Gus Westman as in Westman Electric, the man who sponsored the shirts for the team. And I’m his friend. So if you kick me out it’s like you’re kicking him out, and who kicks their top sponsor out of the game?”
Gus leaned close to Parker’s ear. “See the name of the orthodontist office on the scoreboard? I think they are the top sponsor.”
“Listen, I’m only trying to keep everyone happy and a positive environment for the kids. If you can keep your comments to encouraging ones, then I’ll let you stay.”
“She’ll obey the rules.” Gus eyed Parker, daring her to say another word.
She blinked a few times. “Whatever.”
“Come on.” Gus turned. “Brady’s pitching.”
Mr. Rules nodded at Parker as she walked past him with a scowl on her face. She climbed the bleachers and sat next to Gus, who tugged on the bill of his hat as if the shadow cast by it could hide the amusement curling his lips.
“Let’s go, Brady!” Gus yelled as if to shove his positivity in her face.
“So … I got thrown out of three volleyball games in high school for arguing with the ref.” She watched Brady pitch.
“Ya don’t say?” Gus chuckled.
“I know. Shocking. Jerky?”
Gus turned, eyeing the turkey jerky she pulled out of her pocket. “You have jerky in your pocket again?”
Parker shrugged as she ripped open the top of it with her teeth. “Smell it.” She held it to his nose. “Would you rather have a bite of this or a stick of gum?”
Like a dog grabbing a treat, Gus snatched it with his teeth. Parker giggled and tore it away from him.
“Mmm, pretty good.” He nodded, chewing it slowly.
“See, told ya.” She nudged his knee with hers.
He stiffened. They were friends, that’s all. Nudging came with playful banter. A man and a woman could be friends without it being sexual. Parker knew her limits and they were hard, uncrossable limits branded into her conscience since the day she walked in on her sister and Caleb.
“So you didn’t splurge on advertising on the scoreboard. What’s up with that?” Taking a bite of the jerky, Parker leaned in to nudge him with her shoulder but stopped short, thinking of the people behind them who only knew her as “Parker.”
“Brady wanted the name on his shirt.”
“You’re a pretty cool uncle.”
“The coolest.” An impish smile twisted his lips as his gaze remained on the field.
Parker found his coyness adorable—in a platonic way.
“So … how is it you had no other plans today?”
She sighed a small laugh. “Well, when you’re twenty-six with no job and no boyfriend, it leaves the old social calendar pretty bare. My friends are all getting married, having babies, or adulting with real jobs.”
“What’s your problem?”
“Wow!” She couldn’t hold back. Her elbow landed in his ribs.
He shook with silent laughter.
“We’ve known each other for twenty-four hours and you’re making assumptions that something is wrong with me?”
“Hey, you started it. The gloves came off when you started in on my age.”
Twisting her lips, she nodded slowly. “I see. Oh, Gus Gus Gus … I haven’t smiled this much in a long time.” She winked at him. “I’m glad we’re neighbors. You’re so much more fun than my parents.”
“And younger.” He narrowed an eye at her. “Right?”
“A bit.”
They returned their attention to the game as sparse claps accompanied hoots and “You’ve got this, Lance,” and “Run, Simon!”
“Sooo … tell me about your wife.”
Gus stiffened again the way he did when she nudged him with her knee. “She works a lot. Travels a lot.”
Parker waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.
“That’s great. I guess. Must mean she’s successful.”
Gus grunted. “Yeah, she’s definitely that.”
“Is she out of town now?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Parker swatted at a fly probably detecting her jerky stash. “When does she return?”
“Tomorrow. I think.” His reply lacked all enthusiasm.
Parker pointed to the dugout. “Brady’s up to bat next.” And that’s all she said to Gus for the rest of the game.
