Page 2 of Sal Gabrini: Man on Fire

“And you think that’s a fact?”

Lucky started nodding his head. “I do, yes.”

Gemma grabbed Lucky and pulled him into her personal space. “You listen to me, little boy, and you listen good. Your father is not that kind of man. He’s not like that. He would never do that to us!”

“He thinks you’re doing it to him,” Lucky shot back.

Gemma gave her son a strange look. “How would you know anything about that, Lucci? Didn’t Daddy tell you to stop coming on our wing and listening at our bedroom door? Didn’t he kick your ass about that already?”

An anguished look came over Lucky’s gorgeous face. “I just want everything to be like it was before,” he said as the child inside of that tough exterior began to come out. “I just want it to go back to like it used to be.”

“What do you mean how it used to be?”

“When you and Daddy were happy. You and Daddy were on the same page. You and Daddy weren’t fussing and fighting all the time.”

Gemma knew he was right. It had been a tough patch for her and Sal lately. And sometimes even she wondered if Sal was . . .

She refused to even go there. She ruffled her son’s silky hair. Wanted to pull him into her arms. “It’ll get better,” she said. “We just need some time, that’s all.”

“Lucky? Lucky Gabrini?”

Lucky and Gemma turned and saw one of Lucky’s teammates coming toward them. He was the new kid, somebody whose name Lucky kept forgetting. “What’s up?” Lucky asked him.

“Coach ready for our post-game meeting,” the teammate said.

“Yeah, I know,” Lucky responded.

But the kid just stood there. Lucky looked at him again. Why was he still there?

“But you’re our team captain,” his teammate explained. “You gotta be there.”

Lucky frowned and began talking with his hands, just like his father. “Whatta you blind? I’m talking to my mom over here! Did I say I wasn’t coming? I’m coming. I’ll be there when I get there.”

But the teammate seemed confused. “Your mom?” he asked.

Lucky knew why he asked it. It was because Lucky’s mother was a black woman. A deep, dark-chocolate black woman. And Lucky looked straight-up white. “Yes,” he said to the player. “She’s my mom. Okay? That good enough for you?”

“You were adopted?” the kid asked.

And Lucky lost it. “Boy get your ass back in the dugout! I said I was coming, now get away from me!”

The teammate, shocked to have been spoken to that harshly, ran back toward the dugout.

Gemma was angry. “Lucci, you apologize to that boy. Why are you jumping all over him? He didn’t know.”

“They getting on my nerves though!” Lucky had a fixed frown on his face. “They act like little babies. Act like they can’t shit without me holding their hands!”

“You better watch your mouth,” Gemma made clear. “I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but watch it, Luck.”

“I’m sorry, Ma.”

“Sounding more and more like your daddy every day. But one thing about your father, he doesn’t mistreat people, Lucci. Because I don’t care if your teammates get on your nerves twenty-four-seven, that’s still no excuse to be nasty to them. They look up to you. They made you their captain. You apologize to that boy.”

Lucky exhaled and settled back down. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. Then he looked across the ballpark near the entrance gate again, but this time he saw somebody he recognized. And it was him. It was his father. Coming to a baseball game in a double-breasted suit. Which meant he came straight from “work.” Which meant he hadn’t planned out that evening at all. And that only angered Lucky more. “There he is,” he said.

Gemma looked too and saw Sal coming their way.

“Wearing a suit,” said Lucky, unable to suppress his anger. “Who dresses like that at a baseball game?”

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