More than twenty boys age ten and eleven lined up along the field and started tossing the ball back and forth as the adults moved around, jotting things down on their clipboards, watching. Then, the batting part of the tryout began with Dallas pitching to the boys. They ran through a few other drills and split the kids up into two teams to play a game that seemed to last forever.

I was pretty smug when Josh whooped some ass at every drill they made him run. He was a great catcher, an excellent batter, and he was fast. He got that from my side of the family obviously.

But…

It was impossible not to listen to the two women sitting in front of me talking about some of the kids who had been previously on the team and other parents. Nothing they said, from gossiping over crazy-ass moms who made their kids practice too much, to couples who had split up, was anything I hadn’t heard or experienced with Josh’s previous team. That was the one thing I’d come to realize: there was always the same kind of people everywhere you went, regardless of location, skin color, or income.

And then they started up with the coaches. One in particular at least: “the hottie with the body.” I tried. I really tried not to pay attention, but I couldn’t help myself.

“God, what I wouldn’t give for him to pitch me some balls,” one of them muttered a little too loudly, making Louie glance up from his game and give me a funny look. If I had wondered which of the men they’d been talking about, I now knew for sure it was Dallas. He was the only one pitching.

“Mind your own business,” I mouthed to him, earning me a disappointed frown.

“I’ve tried offering him money to coach Derek in private, but he never agrees,” the other woman said.

“He says he’s too busy.”

“With what?” the first lady asked.

“Working. What do I look like? His secretary?”

I snickered and had to throw a hand over my mouth to hide my reaction from them when one of the ladies turned around to see what I was making noises over.

“I know he works a lot. He’s been redoing the floors at Luther’s place,” she paused and let out a sigh that sounded totally charged. “You’d figure he could spend some of that money he’s getting from his retirement on some new clothes. Look at those shorts. Are there holes on the pockets? Those are holes in the pockets.”

“But then the new ones wouldn’t mold to that ass, would they?” the woman cackled.

“Good point,” the other one agreed.

What a bunch of horny bitches.

I think I already kind of liked them. They were funny.

I’d barely thought that when a sour-faced woman, maybe a few years older than me, leaned over—she was sitting on the same bench as the other two women talking—and hissed, “Have a little respect, would you?”

One of the two women groaned loudly. “Mind your own business, Christy.”

“I would, but I can’t hear myself think over you two gossiping,” the woman to the side grumbled.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” one of the ladies muttered.

The woman named Christy shot the pair a glare before sitting up straight and focusing on the game again. But the two moms started mumbling just loud enough for me to hear something about “a stick up her ass” and “delusional if she thinks he’d give her ass the time of day.” After that, I couldn’t hear much else.

By the time the tryout had been wrapped up, followed by a long talk that I couldn’t listen in on that consisted of Dallas standing in a circle of kneeling boys, I was ready to get home. With Louie holding my hand, we hopped down the bleachers and walked around the front to wait for Josh, who had his bag over his shoulder. The kid was sweaty and flushed, but he was smiling.

“Somebody kicked ass,” I whispered to him as he approached us.

Josh grinned, shrugging his shoulder. “I know.”

I bumped him with my hip. “That’s my boy.”

Louie even held up a hand, earning a high five from his big brother.

“Is there anything else you need to do or are you done-done?”

“We’re done-done,” he answered. “He said they’ll post the list online next Friday.” He let out a visible shiver of excitement. “I’ll make it.”

It had taken me years to build up the kind of self-confidence that Josh had. Hell, even now, I still struggled with it more than I would like to admit. I had never been really good at anything growing up, much less so good that I had a reason not to ever doubt myself. Then there were people like my cousin who was slightly older than me, who, even when we were kids, walked around with this kind of internal swagger and confidence that was hard to ignore. She’d always been an amazing athlete, like Josh. But that awesomeness had skipped Rodrigo and me.

I had an eye and a hand for cutting hair, and it paid the bills. Plus, I really liked what I did. I accepted that I was never going to win a gold medal or be on the cover of a Wheaties box. But I knew Josh could do whatever the hell he wanted to do with his life. He could be anything.

Seeing the joy on his face made me happy, happier than happy. I loved knowing that was my boy on the field who was so good he made other parents jealous. But I knew that, even if he wasn’t the best, I would still root for him and think he was the shit anyway. That kind of stuff was important to a kid. I wanted him to know I would always love him anyway.

With a hand to his shoulder, I hugged him to my side and felt him hug me back with a hand on my waist.