Page 95 of Off the Mark
“For the record, any reporter who says mean things about you should be illegal,” she continued. “Any mother who would leave you is a fool.”
I thought her eyes were watery, but they weren’t. Mine were.
“And any race you’re in should be yours to win. That’s why I’m giving this to you.” She touched the side of my face, and another jagged piece from the wall around my heart loosened and fell away.
“Thank you.” I slipped the chain over my head and tucked the coin between my breasts. “It’ll be here on race day.”
“And you’re going to win, yes?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I bent to give her a gentle hug, wondering how I’d showed up at this house a complete stranger and was now leaving with one of Alice’s treasured items.
Except Rowan had already warned me something like this would happen on our walk over here:you’ll meet her and see why I’m popular by association.
She opened the door, and we stepped back outside into the warm, slightly muggy summer night. The people around the kiddie pool cheered as she arrived. And Rowan extended a hand for me to take, which I did.
“Don’t do anything too wild tonight,” he said to his neighbors. “And thanks for being semi-normal around Charlie.”
I waved again, too overwhelmed and…happyto do much else. Though I did laugh when Tabitha mimicked a phone at her ear and said, “Call me, girl.”
We walked back along the narrow streets, the city buzzing with life, mirroring the electric charge that hovered between us. My body still hummed with the echo of his mouth on my wrist and his whispered request—will you come home with me tonight?
I glanced at his profile, so handsome beneath the purple shadows of twilight and the golden pools of the streetlamps.
“Thank you for inviting me tonight,” I said.
He cocked his brow in disbelief. “You’re thanking me? I was about to thank you for letting my family South Philly all over you.”
I bit my lip with a smile. “I loved every second. It was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time.”
We reached his street, turning toward his front steps. My pulse tripled at the sight.
“Glad to hear it,” he replied. “You cheered my grandmother up, Charlie. She’ll be telling all of her friends the story of how she met you for weeks. It’s the kind of distraction she appreciates in the summer.”
I climbed the stairs to his door, Rowan at my heels, the butterflies in my stomach as big as the full moon hanging above. I turned carefully at the top, pressing my back to his door. Our positions were flipped from earlier—the breadth of his body blocking my view of the street, one hand planted high on the wall next to me.
“Alice gave me something.” I pulled the chain free to show him. “She said it was a good luck charm for my race.”
He bent down to examine the small coin. After a second, his eyes shot to mine. “She gave this to you?”
I nodded, mouth suddenly dry. “Have you…have you seen this before?”
Rowan hesitated. “Yeah, I have. It’s from a set of coins her mother brought over from Killarney. I have one. My parents had two. She gave one to Midge and Maria the day they formally adopted Dean, and she gave one to him before his first amateur fight.”
“When did she give you your coin?”
He blew out another breath. “The first game I pitched in the majors.”
I closed my fingers around the coin, and he covered them with his hand. “It means a lot, Charlie. That she gave it to you.”
“I feel a little bad. She hardly knows me.”
“Alice has always been an excellent judge of character.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, then followed the thick length of my braid, tugging at the end. “You should keep it.”
I cleared my throat to smooth my voice. Every part of me vibrated in anticipation of what came next.
“Your grandmother thinks we’re gonna make it because she could see how important we’d become to one another.”
One side of his mouth quirked up. “And what do you think?”
