Called Up Read Free

they picked up what Jimmy had started, chanting, “Call it! Call it! Call it!”
    So, with all the theatrics of a coach whose Little League team consisted of seventeen overly enthusiastic six-and seven-year-olds, Deke Babe Ruthed it, raising his hand and pointing up the third base line. “Coming at you, Portia!”
    The girl gave a toothy grin, setting her shoulders with grim determination as she held both her hands out, ready to catch. He threw up a ball and swung the bat. The soft lob fell right into her glove, pretty much against every natural law that existed.
    To the cries of “Me next!” he did the same thing to each player who managed to stick to their position.
    As more kids drifted onto the field, the moms started to gather, too, piling into the bleachers angling up the third base line, the knitting needles going as they arranged themselves into a virtual MILF buffet.
    “Looking good, Deacon!” Peggy Miller shouted, to a smattering of giggles from the other moms. “Jeans today, huh? No baseball pants?”
    “Time and a place, Peggy.” For fuck’s sake.
    “You know it, Deke,” she said to more giggles. “Oh, how you know it.”
    It wasn’t that he minded the attention. That was a lineup he’d enjoyed in the past, but lately it was falling flat. Even Peggy, who he’d hooked up with off and on since she’d moved back to town following her divorce, wasn’t doing it for him these days.
    Since he wasn’t about to announce in front of his kids he’d stopped wearing his baseball gear because their moms were paying too much attention to his ass, however, he just nodded and gave as genuine a grin as possible. Then he threw another ball up in the air and hit a first grade appropriate line drive to Jimmy and scanned the field. Silas wasn’t there yet, even though Lola defined “on time” as twenty minutes before anyone else expected her to arrive, and Deke was trying not to think about Si being late. Not that he worried.
    Lola’s Suburban rolled into the lot just as practice was officially getting underway.
    “Hey, guys,” he said as Silas and Jules’s son, Matty, jumped out of the car and ran onto the field. “Everything okay?”
    Before Silas could even respond, a strange sensation ran down Deke’s spine. As he straightened up and turned, he only vaguely heard Si say, “Mom asked Auntie...”
    “Fitz.”
    Wearing, thank God, a running shirt and jogging shorts. Much less revealing than the tank top from the other night.
    Not that he cared what she was wearing, he just happened to notice.
    “Hey.” She smiled distractedly as she rummaged through Silas’s bag and pulled out a bright red bottle. “Don’t forget your water, hon.” After brushing back the hair blowing around her face, she put her hand on Si’s shoulder and directed him back to the outfield.
    “Heads up, Si!” Deke called out, and hit one just far enough for the kid to have to dive for it. He hit another out toward center field, and the kids all went running for it. So much for keeping them in their positions. Deke took the opportunity to pair them up and get them going on some drills before turning back to Fitz.
    The sun caught the reddish highlights in her dark-brown hair, but he focused instead on how unusual it was for her to be doing the Little League run, even though she’d been living at Lola’s for about six months now and playing nanny.
    He and his parents had done whatever they could to help Lola in the two years since Dave had run off an icy road a few months after returning from deployment. She’d been coping okay until the triplets had turned three and hit a whole new level of hellion. She’d had a major breakdown at Thanksgiving dinner, saying something about parties and presents and, if memory served, Santa fucking NOT coming to town if one more kid asked one more time if he could eat his fucking pie before dinner.
    Fitz had moved into Lola’s house two weeks later. Her job running the foundation meant she made