“He spilled some of his hot chocolate on her purse,” it was Josh who explained. “He said sorry, but she called him a brat. I told her not to talk to my brother like that, and she told me I should have learned to respect my elders.”

For the second time around this woman, I went to ten. Straight through ten, past Go, and collected two hundred dollars.

“I tried to wipe it up,” Louie offered, those big blue eyes going back and forth between Dallas and me for support.

“You should teach these boys to watch where they’re going,” Christy piped up, taking a step back.

Be an adult. Be a role model, I tried telling myself. “It was an accident,” I choked out. “He said he was sorry… and your purse is leather and black, and it’ll be fine,” I managed to grind out like this whole thirty-second conversation was jabbing me in the kidneys with sharp knives.

“I’d like an apology,” the woman, who had gotten me suspended and made me cry, added quickly.

I stared at her long face. “For what?”

“From Josh, for being so rude.”

My hand started moving around the outside of my purse, trying to find the inner compartment when Louie suddenly yelled, “Mr. Dallas, don’t let her get her pepper spray!”

The fuck?

Oh my God. I glared at Louie. “I was looking for a baby wipe to offer her one, Lou. I wasn’t getting my pepper spray.”

“Nuh-uh,” he argued, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Christy take a step back. “I heard you on the phone with Vanny. You said, you said if she made you mad again you were gonna pepper spray her and her mom and her mom’s mom in the—”

“Holy sh—oot, Louie!” My face went red, and I opened my mouth to argue that he hadn’t heard me correctly. But… I had said those words. They had been a joke, but I’d said them. I glanced at Dallas, the serious, easygoing man who happened to look in that instant like he was holding back a fart but was hopefully just a laugh, and finally peeked at the woman who I’d like to think brought this upon herself. “Christy, I would never do that—”

The pain in my ass had some balls to her because, even though she had one foot set to the side like she was prepared to take off, she still managed to clear her throat and bring her attention to Dallas, her mouth pursed. “Dallas, I feel like that’s grounds for kicking them off the team. It isn’t sportsmanlike.”

“Neither is making someone cry, and we already addressed that, didn’t we, Christy?” he replied to her in that cool voice that now had me imagining him in his dress whites. “Drop it. It was an accident, he apologized, and we can move on from this.”

She blinked so fast, it was like she was fluttering her eyelashes. Seeing her up close again, Christy wasn’t ugly. She had to be in her mid-thirties, she was in good shape, and when she wasn’t making ugly faces, she wouldn’t be horrible to look at. A memory from the tryout nudged at my brain… had those moms said something about Christy liking Dallas?

“Drop it?” she asked in a squeaky voice.

“Drop it,” he confirmed.

“If this was anyone else, you’d at least suspend them—”

I knew she had a point, and suddenly I sucked in a breath, expecting the worse.

But all Dallas said was, “You’re right. But I’m not going to. You’ve been starting this mess with them, Christy, and we all know it. You and I already talked about this, didn’t we? I don’t want to suspend anyone, but if I do, it isn’t going to be them.”

Yeah, I could tell from the look on her face, she liked Dallas. And she liked Dallas a lot. “But you’re playing favorites!”

“I’m always going to be fair with the boys, but I will play favorites with everyone else who isn’t an active member of the team. Don’t put me into that position, because I know she”—he tipped his head toward me—“only bites when she has to, and I will always take her side. Are we clear on that?”

He would?

Christy’s cheeks puffed up with so much indignation, she literally squawked. Everything from her forehead down was red. “This is unbelievable. Fine! But don’t think Jonathan is going to be on this team much longer.” Her gaze stayed on Dallas for a moment, a dozen emotions flashing across her face before, just like that, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd.

Why did I suddenly feel bad for her?

It wasn’t until then that I noticed half the parents of the team were sitting on the tables around the concession stand. What was probably half the parents of every other team playing in the tournament that weekend were, too. Great.

I cleared my throat and popped my lips. “Well, that was awkward.”

“I’m not a brat.” Louie was still hung up and outraged.

I pointed my finger at him. “You’re a tattletale, that’s what you are. Nosey Rosie. What did I tell you about snitches?”

“You love them?”

It was Dallas who laughed first, one of his hands already sliding into his back pocket where he pulled out his wallet and a bill. “Lou, go buy another hot chocolate.”

Louie nodded and took the five, heading back into the line as Josh, who was at my side, said, “I’m gonna go find my friends.”

“All right,” I said. “Careful.”

Josh nodded and disappeared.

Dallas looked down at me with a serious expression on his face, and I raised my eyebrows back at him. A sense of being overwhelmed filled my chest as I snuggled in deeper into the warm jacket, the backs of my fingers brushed against the Post-it notes in the pocket.