Long Ball(19)

“Showing pigs.” I grin. “I remember.”

This catches her off guard, which I love. She tries to hide her smile, but I can see it. “Right. Well, anyway, I thought if he had such a great life with us, maybe she could have a great life with someone else. My parents eventually convinced me to keep her, but I wasn’t sure until they placed her in my arms in the delivery room. After that, I never looked back.”

“That’s beautiful.” I don’t say, “I wish I could have been there”, even though that’s all I want to do. “It must have been hard.”

Megan shrugs. “I’m scrappy, so I figured things out. We stayed with my parents for a while, until just a few years ago when my best friend moved out here. I decided we needed a change, and I always hated Omaha, so we followed her out here. I take night classes for my real estate license and wait tables during the day. Kate helps out as much as she can. We make it work.”

“That’s so amazing.”

“It’s what people do for love.”

For love. That’s all I want. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. And it’s here, it’s really, truly here, for me to take. “I know you had your reasons for not telling me before, but I really, really want to get to know her.”

“Why?” The tone of her voice makes me freeze in the street. She looks angry, and a little weepy, again. “You’ve barely known her five minutes. Okay, she looks like your sister, but you’ve literally gone years knowing nothing about her. Why now?”

Before I can open my mouth, she continues. “I’m not like the pretty bombshells you fancy baseball players date. I’m a plain country girl who is going to make it on her own. I don’t have fancy dresses and eighteen shades of lipstick and I don’t have lots of money. We are nothing special.”

In my heart, I can feel it happening. The love for Megan, that was first cultivated over knock-off colas and kettle corn and later cemented on an old blanket in the bed of my truck, flares back to life. I think about my abuelito and abuelita, how they got married after just knowing each other, and think this is exactly the story we’ll one day tell Cora.

“Look, I know I look like some fancy baseball player, but I’m just a plain Venezuelan country boy who’s out to make it on his own, too. I want to do right by you and by Cora. I want to get to know this beautiful, funny, amazing little girl.” I take a deep breath. “And I really want to get to know her mom.”

Megan chews on her lip again and doesn’t look at me.

“One date, Megan.”

“I barely even know your name. I only know your name because Kate told me your name.”

“I only know your name because I read it in a paper.”

“They still have papers around here?”

I grin. “They still do.”

Megan scratches her nose and sneaks a glance at me. I give her a huge, goofy grin, and she laughs. “This is a terrible way to start a date, not knowing each other’s names properly.”

“Jamie Bonilla.”

“Megan Holt.”

We are grinning at each other like idiots. At least, I am. And she’s finally looking at me, finally smiling. I feel like I could fly to the moon right now.

“One date.” I take her hand slowly, and she lets me, briefly. “Let me take you on one date, and we’ll go from there. I’ll prove to you I’m worth your time, and Cora’s. I’m not going to run away, Megan. I’m not going anywhere. I have done nothing but think about you and Cora from the moment I saw you standing on that street corner.”

Megan laughs again, covering her face. “Oh god, that sounds so bad.”

“Just one.”

She looks back at her house, down the street, up at the sky. Finally, she looks at me again, studies me a minute, and then nods. I jump up and click my heels.

“But only one.” She warns.

“That’s fine. That means I have one date to convince you that I’m serious. You’ll see.”





6





We pull into my favorite hole in the wall pizza joint, Papa Morellis, and I turn to look at my date, barely able to count my lucky stars. She’s here! In my truck! Willingly! She looks slightly terrified, but this just means I have to prove to her I’m the man for her.

If I have to swan dive into a fountain and twist my ankle to do it, so be it.

We settle into a booth in the back, sitting across from each other, silent and smiley. I take that to mean a good thing, that she keeps looking up at me and smiling. Me? I’ve never stopped. I’m with the mother of my child. Literally, the mother of my child. Today could not be any more perfect.

“I’ve never been here before.” She turns over the menu with a shy smile. “It’s been a while since I’ve had proper pizza.”

“I love this place. Not many people know about it, so I can sort of come here incognito. Not that I’m famous or anything— “

“Mmhmm.” She sips her ice water and nods very unconvincingly.

I laugh. “No, really. I’m not. But once upon a time, the Royals were a shit team and no one cared who we were. Now, we’ve built a bit of a legacy and everyone knows us. I have kids running up to me in the grocery store. Me, a poor kid from Venezuela. A nobody. It’s really cool, but it’s also really weird and I don’t always know how to handle it, you know? I like coming here because I can pretend that nothing ever changed, that I’m back home in Venezuela, waiting to pick up a pizza for my mom.”