Page 73 of Base Block

“Yeah, I think I wanted you to pick which bus to get on so you didn’t end up hurt and alone in some weird-ass place.”

And that was why he wanted me to come with him now, too: because he thought he had to take care of me. Everything I’d done so far, all the stabilizing stuff, hadn’t been enough to show him that I was not the same junkie idiot who was running down the street.

“What were you texting me earlier?” he asked. “Something about your aunt’s dog but I didn’t understand.”

“I didn’t tell you the truth about why it disappeared. Like, it didn’t disappear. I was the person who got rid of it—not killing it, but I got it into my grandma’s car and I got it to the animal shelter in the biggest town near where we lived. I surrendered the dog to them and when Aunt Simone wanted to know where he was, I said that I didn’t know. I let her think that it had run away but I was lying. I let you believe a lie, too.”

He pulled my arms, tugging me around until I was seated on his lap. “I don’t know why you hid that. It sounds like a reasonable, smart thing to do.”

I sighed with contentment, so glad to be in this exact spot. “I had to. I wasn’t only thinking of myself, or the poor farm animals. Or even Simone, because he could have turned on her. I was trying to take care of her although she didn’t really take care of herself. Because she was going to have a baby.”

“Oh, hell. Wasn’t she old?”

I shook my head. “No. There would have been a big gap between her kids, but she’d had me young. She was eighteen when I was born.”

The only sound was Maverick dragging his water bowl before Callum asked, “What?”

It was a lie I’d lived for years—everyone in our house had. It started and ended with my aunt, Simone, who hadn’t been my aunt.

“She was actually my mother,” I explained. “She got pregnant but ran away to have me and gave a fake name for my birth certificate. Then she ran off again, back home to my grandma. That caused all the confusion about who I was. Eventually, she admitted what she’d been doing while she was gone, that she’d had a baby and left it at the hospital. Me,” I said. “I was the first baby that she planned to hide. When I came to live with them, she never let on that she was my real mother. She didn’t want to be, but that came out, too. My grandma confessed everything to me when she was dying.”

Callum was quiet. Then he said, “That’s a sad surprise.”

“It was good to know, but there were so many other lies involved in it. They had told me about another sister who died having me, and Simone spun all kinds of stories about growing up with her. Grandma never told me different and it made me realize that I shouldn’t have trusted her, either. But at least I knew. I still called Simone my ‘aunt,’ because she couldn’t deal with the idea of being a mom. That was why, when she got pregnant again, she wouldn’t admit to it. I didn’t know until I actually saw the bump of her stomach. I thought that I would take care of the baby, my brother or sister. But she refused to go to the doctor and I couldn’t force her.” I had to stop and calm down before I continued. “She had so many health problems already. By the time I realized that something was really wrong and I got her to the hospital, it was too late to save them.”

“I’m sorry, Rainey. Hell, you probably would have been more like the mom to that kid.”

I nodded. “I was really excited for that. Scared, too, but I already loved the baby. I think about it all and I dream about everything, too, because it was so terrible.” I took another breath. “And that’s the truth. I never told anyone, which I guess was the same as lying, but now you know almost everything about me.”

Just almost. I hadn’t said the one thing that was all about him. It was that I thought that I loved him. But maybe that was just another lie that I was telling myself, so I could manage to survive if I couldn’t have him.

Chapter 15

The flight was easy, the ride here was great, the seats were excellent, the crowd was non-threatening.

Anara and I were both about to throw up.

“Do you think that I’m experiencing hyperosmia? Many pregnant women experience an enhanced sense of smell. I could be picking up on something unique to California, and that’s why I feel so nauseated,” she mused.

“You’re nervous because Demitrious and the Woodsmen are going to play their first postseason game,” I told her, and she agreed that I was probably correct.

It was intense. This was supposed to be a neutral location and there was a lot of orange in the stands but also a lot of green for the other guys, which was disconcerting. It was also disconcerting for me to be back at this stadium, because it was the same one where Sage and I had come, so long ago, to attend the Pippy Polluelo concert. This was where she had lost the new sunglasses that Damian had given to her. Pippy himself was here today, to put on a halftime show. All the weird coincidences were throwing me off.

“Are you guys hungry? Help yourselves,” our host urged. Her name was Meredith, and she was Jory Morin’s wife. They had rented a suite here and she and Jory had invited the O-line families to sit in it. It was just as nice as the ones we had spied on at Woodsmen Stadium through Anara’s monocular, with comfortable chairs, big TVs to show Herb and Buzz doing their commentary for the home crowd, and plenty of snacks. Anara had started to fill her purse like an acorn woodpecker before I’d stopped her.

“We’re great,” I answered Meredith. “Thank you so much for inviting us.”

“Try not to be nervous,” she said. “I was too, at the beginning. But hopefully, they’ll both be Woodsmen for a long time and you have to get used to it or you’ll pull out your hair.”

“Like cockatoos, among others,” Anara murmured. We went to sit down. After her remark about how I’d resembled a vicuña when I did my mask of calm, I didn’t bother with it.

The game started ok with the Woodsmen defense on the field and we were left to wait for three downs and then a punt until the offense took their place. Callum was out there, because Jory Morin was on the bench for the first half and maybe longer. It was impossible to stay calm, but it was ok. Everyone in the box was screaming and jumping around, just like I was.

I expended enough energy that I had to get a large drink and also something to eat during halftime. “It’s ok, I’ll work this off,” I said out loud as I prepared a bowl of nachos. I would also be careful not to get cheese on my face in case the cameras turned to us, like they had before.

“You know what? That’s enough.” Anara grabbed my arm and marched me back to the seats. “I’m going to call Heidi,” she announced. She did, and held up her phone so we could all see each other. Our other friend wanted to talk about the action in the first half but Anara cut to the chase. “Rainey is worried about her weight again,” she announced. “She’s afraid of nachos.”

“Anara, are you talking too loud?” Heidi asked her.