Page 32 of Walk Off

“What if she hates me?” Oh God, even saying those words made his heart want to beat out of his chest.

Celia smiled, shaking her head. “She won’t. She couldn’t. I didn’t keep her from you because I thought you’d be a bad father. It’s the opposite. I knew you’d be her world, and in that, you’d lose the other thing you loved. Baseball.”

He wasn’t going to go there with her. He couldn’t. Not yet. “I have no reference point on how to be a dad. Let alone be a good one.” It pained him to speak the words, but they were the truth. He was good at a lot of things, but he had no clue how to be a father.

“Don’t you?” She lifted an inquisitive eyebrow. “Your aunt showed you what it was to be caring and kind. She loved you and taught you to be the man you are today.” She bit her lip. “A man who should be angry and throwing things at me instead of talking calmly, as if I hadn’t done the worst possible thing to him.”

He sighed, shaking his head. He was angry and he did want to throw things. But what would that solve? Nothing. He’d still be a father to a daughter he’d never met. “I can be angry and still be rational.”

She let out a small laugh. “You might be the only person in history to be able to do that.”

That made him laugh. “You might be right.” He lifted his head, zeroing in on her gaze. “What comes next?”

“I guess we should set up a time for you and Jasmine to meet. Are you planning on staying in town?”

“I wasn’t, but I guess I will be now.” He didn’t have anything pressing in Arizona he needed to get back to and spring training didn’t start for another week. He’d just have to find a gym to make sure he got in his daily workouts and maybe a massage therapist to keep his body loose.

“Jasmine has school during the days and Tuesday and Thursday, she has gymnastics. Would tomorrow night work?”

His daughter took gymnastics. Even saying that phrase was foreign to him. “Yes,” he said definitely. This was real. He had a child, and tomorrow he was going to meet her.

“Great. I will text you our address and you can come anytime after four. Her school is in the same complex as the one where I work so I just bring her home at the end of the day.”

“You’re a teacher?” He shouldn’t be surprised by that. She’d always said she wanted to teach.

“I am.”

He had so many questions, so many things he wanted to know about her, but he had to remember, this wasn’t about her. This was about Jasmine. He was here for his daughter.

Not for her mother, who still took his breath away, when she did nothing but stand there. He had to stop wanting her, stop wondering about her. She was not for him. Being with her, seeing her, was only so he could see and learn about his daughter.

Their daughter.

He broke out into a cold sweat. She’d said that early in their conversion. Their daughter. He’d tried to act normal, but on the inside, he wanted everything that entailed.

He wanted to be a they with the woman who’d lied to him the last eight years.

What kind of idiot was he?

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