Page 25 of Love Without Demands

My eyebrows lifted in surprise. “No. Really?”

Paul stares at his plate for a moment, and when he looks back up, his blue eyes are filled with tears. “Of course I did. I came to so many of your events and hid in the back. Your high school graduation. All your playoff games your senior year.”

My mind was blown. “You came to my baseball games?”

His smile broadened. “That walk-off homerun you hit over the left field wall in the state finals almost hit me in the head. Luckily, the guy beside me was wearing a glove, and he caught it.” He inhaled a deep breath and then blew it out. “I still have the ball.”

“Wait. What? You said the guy beside you caught it.”

“I bought it from him.” Paul reached beneath the table and pulled out a cardboard box with my name written in marker across the top. His eyes were wary when they met mine. “Do you want to see my Cruz box?”

My already blown mind practically detonated. “You have a Cruz box?”

His jaw trembled with emotion and then clenched hard and firm as he nodded. “It was the only thing I had of you. I couldn’t have my son, but no one could take away my memories.”

Damn. It was difficult to see the raw pain on his face. It told me what I already knew from our discussions. I was never some illegitimate bastard child he’d been happy to get rid of, which was my initial thought. No, I was the son who had been kept from him but who he had never forgotten.

“I’d love to see it,” I told him, my voice sounding huskier than usual.

Paul’s smile could only be described as prideful when he unfolded the lid and opened the box. “Here’s the ball.” He handed it to me, and I turned it over and over in my hand, my fingers finding the familiar bite of the laces.

“I can’t believe you have this,” I said, the sweet memories of that homerun infusing my veins with nostalgia. The resounding crack of the bat, the rise of the ball, the velocity of a perfect hit that I didn’t even have to watch to know it was gone. But I’d watched it anyway and then lost sight of it as I rounded first base.

“I was wondering if… if you’d sign it for me. You have no idea how much I wanted to march down onto that field after the game and ask for your autograph, but I didn’t want to take away from your big moment or upset your mother.”

“Sparkling water and a whiskey sour,” the server, Kenzie, said, setting down our drinks before we’d even ordered them. We’d been coming to this place for almost a year, and we got the same beverages every time.

Paul informed me on our first visit here that he had given up drinking years ago, and when he told me why, I was shocked by his honesty. It was a story he hadn’t even shared with Auburn and Monty, though he said he planned to when the time was right.

“Do you have a pen I could borrow?” I asked Kenzie, and she pulled one from her pocket. I took it and signed my name on thebaseball before handing it back to Paul. “There you go. I think this is the first time I’ve ever signed a ball.”

“Thank you,” he breathed, holding the small sphere in both hands like it was made of gold.

I passed the pen back to Kenzie, and she used it to write down our orders, pasta primavera for both of us. Paul began pulling items from the box, narrating their history for me.

“They sold these as souvenirs at your graduation,” he said, holding up a maroon tassel. The strands rippled as he gave it a little jiggle. “I was so proud of you for being the Salutatorian. Your speech was really good.”

“I was nervous as hell,” I admitted with a chuckle. “I’m not exactly theget up and talk in front of peoplekind of guy.”

“I couldn’t tell. Now this? I could tell you were nervous in this Christmas play. You kept shifting around.”

I took the folded program and busted into laughter. It was from when I played the esteemed role of Wise Man Number Two in third grade. “I had to pee. That’s why I was so antsy,” I admitted, and Paul grinned across the table at me.

“Well, good job on not peeing on the stage. That’s something.”

“You really came to all this stuff?” I asked, sorting through the paraphernalia he’d collected over the years.

“I did, and for what I couldn’t make it to, Ben sent me pictures and programs.” It no longer startled me when Paul referred to my papa with such familiarity. The two men had forged a kind of friendship, with their love for me as the cement that held it together.

“Thank you for being there. I mean, I know I wasn’t aware of you yet, but it really means a lot to me now.”

Paul graced me with an affectionate smile and a pat on my hand. “It was my pleasure. I wish I could have done more.”

We cleared the table as Kenzie approached with our dinners. “I hate that I didn’t even know you existed until you were six,” Paulsaid once she was gone. “I still remember the first time I ever saw you in person. You were playing in the front yard, and you gave me the cutest little snaggle-toothed grin.”

I’d heard this story before, but I sat quietly and ate as Paul told it again. It seemed to bring him some kind of comfort to talk about.

“I had gotten a private investigator to locate Estrella for me. I still thought about her all the time, and I had to know why she’d run. He found her in Texas, and I took a flight down the next day and found the address to your house. When I saw you playing with your dump truck, you looked up at me, and as soon as I saw your blue eyes, I just knew. You looked exactly like your brother, Monty.”

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