Page 48 of Forbidden Love

She leaned back on her hands and tipped her head back on a laugh. “But I want to help everyone now.”

That’s what made Kylie so special. She didn’t go into anything half-assed. She was all in. I admired her even more for it. “We don’t know what’s going to happen yet.”

“I have a hard time being patient.”

I sipped the cool lemonade. “Where to next?”

“Let’s go to the ball fields and work the crowd for a while.”

“I wish we had a pool we could jump into afterward,” I said as she hopped off.

“Maybe you should put in a pool at your new place,” Kylie said with a smile, and now I was imagining her in a red bikini.

“Wouldn’t get much use. We don’t get that hot around here.”

“But it would be an amazing luxury if you could afford it. Plus, you could put in a hot tub that would get year-round use.”

“Hmm. The whole family would have to come to me for the pool. I’m starting to like this idea,” I said as I closed the tailgate and moved around the truck to climb inside.

“You enjoy being surrounded by family,” she said with a wistfulness in her tone.

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded. “I like the idea of being the house the kids want to come to. Maybe I should put in a game room in the basement.”

“I told you that you’d figure out what you wanted.”

We arrived at the same field we’d played on a couple of weeks ago and parked in the crowded lot.

“It’s a lot different from the first time we were here, huh?” Kylie asked as we walked through the lot to the pavilion and fields.

“It’s busy,” I agreed.

“Hopefully, we’ll sell some tickets. I think we should explain what we’re doing and ask if they’d like to support us by buying tickets to the games or donating money.”

“I think that’s the best we can do.”

“Let’s split up. You take field one and I’ll take two. We’ll reconvene before field three.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

She seemed nervous, and I wondered if this crowd would be open to what we wanted to do or if they preferred to just come to the fields and watch their kids’ games.

“Here goes nothing,” Kylie said.

I grabbed her wrist, my thumb lazily stroking the soft skin there. “We’ve got this.”

Kylie nodded. “Good luck.”

“Same to you,” I said, reluctantly letting go. I tried a few different pitches before I settled on, “We’re raising money to build dugouts. Would you like to purchase tickets to a game to support us?”

I got a few skeptical questions, like: Why do the kids need dugouts? They have a tarp.

I carefully answered each question, but I found those with similar questions didn’t donate. I was disappointed more people weren’t interested in coming to the games. I met Kylie at the backstop for field three.

“That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.”

“If the parents of kids playing softball don’t support us, then what are we doing here?” Kylie asked, her shoulders slumped.

“If they don’t want it, then we have our answer. Maybe we could reach out to the paper to see if they’d run an article on it.”

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