Page 88 of Off Limits: The Firsts

We drive for a bit longer, leaving the city behind us with each mile. The houses grow farther apart. The wispy grass grows longer. The trees grow bigger. It’s so different than the brick buildings and high rises of the revamped downtown district around the ballpark. And while I love the new, trendy feel of the buildings the developers tried to make look aged, this is real. The country around us. It’s peaceful and idyllic beneath the blue sky, sitting beside Easton with Sam Hunt playing softly on the stereo.

“Scout and Ford. Did your parents have a thing with cars?” he asks out of the blue, and I laugh at the random but very valid question.

“Says the man named Easton,” I tease.

“No mystery what I was named after.” He laughs.

My smile widens as the country whips by outside my window and the memories come back. “Ford was conceived in . . . well, in the back of a Ford truck, from what my dad has told us. I guess he and my mom were having a hard time with names, and on the way to the hospital, he racked his knee on the bumper in excitement. As he was leaning over in pain, hand braced on the tailgate, there was the Ford decal, and so Ford was named Ford.”

“Logical,” he muses. “And you?”

“My brother loved the neighbor’s car. It was a bright yellow Scout International, but being two, all he could say was Scout. So, when my parents told him he was going to have a little brother or sister, he said, ‘No, I want Scout,’ and would point to the car next door.” Easton laughs. “And I guess he continued to say that all the way through my mom’s pregnancy, so at some point it became a joke and they would refer to me as Scout. Needless to say, they thought I was going to be a boy and thought Scout would be cute with the name Ford.”

“But you are definitely not a boy,” Easton says playfully, that hand of his sliding a little farther up my leg.

“No, I’m not, but the name stuck.”

“I like it. It suits you.”

“Yeah, well . . . people think my parents had a thing with To Kill a Mockingbird and named me after Scout Finch. I always disappoint them when I explain that my name has much less significance than that.”

“It’s unique. Just like you.”

I glance over to him and smile. “Thank you. I used to hate it but now I love its originality. I’m glad my mom went along with my dad’s suggestions.”

“Do you miss her? Shit. Fuck. I’m sorry. Don’t answer that.”

It’s cute watching him stumble all over himself. “No, it’s okay. People always want to know, but then don’t know how to ask.”

“Yeah, but it’s kind of a shitty thing to ask. I’m sorry.”

I nod to accept the apology and wonder exactly how it is I feel when it’s not something I think about much these days. “Do I miss her? Hm. I guess in a sense I do, because she’s my mom, and I hear other women talk about how they do this and that with their moms and how lucky they are . . . and I don’t have that. In fact, I have the exact opposite. I’m close to my dad. I work in a business dominated by men . . . so maybe subconsciously I’ve surrounded myself with people who won’t remind me constantly and unknowingly that I don’t have a mom.”

“It has to be hard, though. I mean, I have a mom. She makes things hard for me, makes me have strings most grown kids no longer have . . . but she’s my mom,” he says, the love evident in his tone, just as sincere as the look in his eyes two nights ago when he received a phone call at one in the morning, crawled from my bed, and went to take care of her.

“I think. . .” I begin, and then pause before I start again. “I’ve spent a lot of time over the years wondering if I’m glad she left when she did or if I wish she’d waited and I’d gotten more time with her. And I think I’m glad. If she’d stayed, then I’d have gotten used to her. I’d have missed her more. The way she did my hair, or the way she made me lunch for school. I remember the songs she’d sing me good night, but I don’t remember much about the predetermined ways she did things, and that means I couldn’t miss them. I couldn’t compare them to my dad trying to fumble his way through them and learn . . . it was harder for Ford since he was older. And it may sound strange, but if she was going to leave, I’m glad she did it when she did. As much as I missed having a mom around, I think it would have been harder if I’d known what I was missing, if that makes any sense.”

He rubs his thumb back and forth on my thigh in reassurance. “Yeah, it makes sense. Thank you for talking about it. I know it hasn’t been easy . . . there’s no way it could have been, but it also tells me that your dad is as good of a man as I always pegged him for. Raising two kids on his own, giving them as stable of a life as possible, all the while being the best of the best in his job. I respected him before, but now . . .” He shakes his head, and his kind words about the best man I’ve ever known make me smile.

“Yeah, he’s pretty fantastic. I’m a lucky girl.”

We fall into our own thoughts again, our fingers linked as we hum mindlessly along to the music and just enjoy the comfortable silence between us.

“Speaking of dads, mine paid me an unexpected visit yesterday.”

His words ring out, and while I’m immediately curious, I’m also unsure whether I should tell him about my conversation with his dad, too. “Hmm. Is that not normal?”

“Not this kind, no.” He squeezes my thigh, and when I look over at him, his eyes are hidden behind his sunglasses, but his smile is soft. “He said you two chatted the other day.”

“You were on the field, and he asked me if I thought you’d be ready to play by the club’s date. That’s all.” I hate that I lie, but think it’s important for him to think whatever Cal may or may not have said was because of his own recognition, not because his son’s lover said something to spur it on.

“I’m sure that’s not the half of it,” he murmurs.

“What do you mean?”

“He told me that if I were smart, I’d figure out how to keep you around . . . after your rehab assignment is over.”

“Oh.”