One Look: A grumpy, single dad small town romance(2)

Last Christmas she’d asked for a blue teddy bear—two days before Christmas. I had scoured the internet, and the best I could do was a baby-blue hippopotamus with a dark-blue ribbon around its neck. There was no fooling anyone, because it was definitely not a teddy bear, but Penny loved him, and though it was barely a win, I was taking it. Some days it felt like I needed all the wins I could get.

Her ponytail was lopsided, but despite the late-night YouTube tutorials between game-film playbacks, I still hadn’t come close to mastering a french braid. That shit was pure witchcraft.

I swallowed a sigh. We had just gotten set up in St. Fowler, but it was our third city in three years. I didn’t miss the sadness that crept into her eyes as I watched her from the rearview mirror. That look alone was why I needed to make this work.

“You’ll like it here, I promise.” A lump formed in my throat. I really hoped I wasn’t lying to her.

“There’s the church.”

When I glanced up again, her index finger was pressed to the glass. I tracked her stare and, sure enough, in the distance was Wilson Stadium and the Athletic Center. It wasn’t the biggest stadium I’d coached at—certainly not the biggest I’d played at, but for now it was home.

“Sure is, baby.”

As the stadium whirred past us, Penny settled into her seat, squeezing Blue Teddy’s neck a little tighter. “How long is the drive?”

I glanced at the clock. “Only about an hour.”

The tiny sound of disgust told me I didn’t have more than twenty minutes or so until she was bored out of her mind and the why game would start back up. Flipping through the radio stations, I found some toe-tapping garbage I knew she liked and turned it up a bit.

Then we headed west toward the coast. Toward the hometown I hadn’t seen in years.





“Well, holy shit. The prodigal son returns!” A grin split across my little brother Lee’s face as he stomped across the parking lot of the funeral home. Even a few miles from the water, the fresh, coastal air stirred around us.

It had been a long time since I’d seen my little brother. He’d always been the reckless one, a bit of a wild card. A charmer. So it was no wonder that after his time in the service, Lee had found his groove as a local firefighter and had never left our hometown again.

His hand swooped to mine and gave it a hearty squeeze. Lee had bulked up too. His scrawny arms had filled out, and he’d gained a few inches in the years I’d gone without seeing him in person.

Before I could introduce him, Lee crouched down to Penny, who was tucked behind my leg. “Who’s this rat? It’s definitely not the Pickle I saw on FaceTime last month.”

Penny rolled her eyes and stepped out from behind my frame. “Hi, Uncle Lee.” Her voice was laced with boredom and annoyance, but it simmered with shy delight. Some days I swear she was seven going on seventeen.

Lee reached out and captured her around the waist, hoisting her high in the air. Her delighted squeals only egged him on as he bounced and jostled her.

“Who. Are. You. And. Where. Is. Penny?”

A hot lance of regret speared my side as she giggled and horsed around with my little brother. I’d denied her this simple joy.

That was on me.

After Dad got sick, our family was scattered, broken. I hadn’t made it back to Outtatowner in years, and that meant Penny knew my family only through sporadic video chats and presents mailed at holidays and birthdays.

I cleared my throat to dislodge the hot coal that had taken up residence there. “Is Katie coming?”

Our youngest sister had found some random college in Montana, and with the encouragement of her idiot boyfriend, she’d left everything and never looked back.

Lee’s smile didn’t falter, but I heard a bit of sadness creep into his voice. “Nah. She couldn’t make it in.”

I pressed my lips together and nodded. “Duke?”

Lee set Penny on the ground, and she beamed up at him. “Getting Dad.”

I nodded. Dad’s early-onset dementia had deteriorated so rapidly that he lived in the local memory-care ward in town. It was difficult, but with the four of us as broken as we were and Aunt Tootie unable to care for her brother herself, we’d made the choice to provide him the nursing care he needed.

The thought of a fifty-eight-year-old man requiring full-time nursing care ate at me, especially when I thought about all the times he was lucid. Himself. Until I thought about how upsetting it was when he wasn’t. Confused. Angry. Scared.

His sister loved him fiercely, but Aunt Tootie couldn’t do it on her own, and we weren’t equipped to help him. The thought of seeing him today, not knowing the kind of day he was having, stacked a slimy layer of unease on top of my already-churning stomach.

Let’s get this over with.

I glanced around the nearly empty parking lot. “Figured the King boys would be here.” My fingers clenched into a fist just speaking their name aloud.

“Aunt Tootie and Bug worked it out. Sullivans have the first hour, and then the Kings can pay their respects after.”

I nodded. The long-standing feud between the Sullivan family and the Kings was a thing of legends, going back longer than I could remember. Though Outtatowner was a coastal tourist town, those who were from there, us townies, knew the line was drawn. You were either with us or with them, no two ways about it.