She had a point. I also didn’t fail to catch that she didn’t suggest Dallas, who was the head coach, to be the one I called.

When the team mom had e-mailed all of us after posting the roster, we’d been given all the coaching staff’s phone numbers and all the fellow parents’ numbers. I’d called Josh’s last coach just about every week for one reason or another. I’d had that crazy, moody asshole on speed dial I talked to him so often.

So calling Trip or Dallas wouldn’t be some crazy unheard of thing.

Would it?

“You have a tournament one week in Beaumont and the next week in Channelview? That’s a pickle,” Ginny said from over my shoulder.

Blinking at the list on my phone, I reeled back as I took in the information she had just told me about. Those were both three-hour plus drives! What in the hell? I could only take off one weekend a month, and every other month I managed to get two off. The Larsens wouldn’t hesitate to take Josh somewhere that far away, but it seemed unfair to have to ask them to do that.

Without even thinking about it, I exited out of that e-mail and opened the one with the phone numbers, almost angrily punching Send on the screen when Trip’s phone number transferred to the correct screen. “This isn’t going to work,” I said to Ginny as the phone rang. “They’re out of their minds. I’m calling Trip right now.”

I did and he didn’t answer. Damn it. Facing the list of four phone numbers for each staff member—including that rude one, Jackson, who only ever talked to the boys—I eyed Dallas’s digits for a moment, wondering whether he should be my next option or not. I hesitated. Then I reminded myself of how I was going to be stuck dealing with him for a while; it didn’t need to be weird for whatever reason it could or would be. I hadn’t done anything to make him feel strange around me.

So I copied the number and pasted it into the keypad. “Your cousin didn’t answer so I’m calling Dallas.”

There was a short hesitation before she said, “Might as well.”

“Yeah. This is stupid.” Why was she hesitating so much, I wondered as the line rang. “Hey, is there something wrong with—”

“Hello?” a raspy, masculine voice answered on the other end.

I paused for a second, my words to Ginny hanging off my tongue before I snapped to attention. “Hi. Dallas?”

“This is me,” he replied evenly, almost professionally.

“Hi. This is Diana Casillas. Josh’s—” What the hell was I going to call myself? “Your neighbor.”

There was a brief pause while I’m sure he tried to remember who I was. His neighbor. The one who had saved his brother’s ass. The same one who had a nephew that was—in my opinion—the best player on his team, not that I was biased or anything like that. “Oh.” There was an awkward pause. “Hi.”

That sounded real friendly and honest. Not. “I was calling about the e-mail I just got regarding the schedule,” I tried to prep him.

The deep sigh that escaped him made me feel like I wasn’t the first person to reach out to him today about the same exact thing. “Okay,” was his answer that pretty much confirmed that suspicion.

So I just went right for it like I would have with Josh’s old coach. “Look, I don’t know what you guys were smoking when you put the schedule together, but this is way too busy.” I was doing it. Fuck it. I was a terrible bullshitter. “Three practices a week? He already has coaching two other days. All that with weekend tournaments multiple times a month isn’t going to work either. They’re kids. They need some time to do… kid stuff.”

There was a pause on his end, a controlled exhale. “I get what you’re saying—”

This wasn’t going to end well. I needed to go ahead and accept that.

“—but this is just preparation for when they’re older, playing more competitive ball.” He ended in that deep tone that sounded like he’d lost his voice once and never regained it.

“I think we have three or maybe four more years for that. I think they’ll be fine playing tournaments once or twice a month, and practicing two times a week. There’s no way I’m the only person that this isn’t working for.”

“Three other sets of the parents approved the schedule before we sent it out,” Dallas said in a voice that reminded me how Ginny had mentioned him being in the military. He was telling me this information.

Unfortunately for him, I had a problem with people telling me what I could and couldn’t do.

“Well, those three parents must only have one kid, no lives, and that one kid must hate them because they don’t do anything that isn’t baseball related,” I grumbled back, surprised at what he was telling me. What the hell was wrong with these people?

There was a shout in the background that sounded surprisingly like “Boss!” Then a muffled shout back that I was pretty sure came from Dallas before he returned in a cool, quick voice. “I gotta go, but I’ll think about what you said and somebody will get back to you about the schedule.”

That was it? “Somebody” was going to get back to me? Not him? “Please think about it—”

“I gotta go, sorry. Bye,” he cut me off a split second before the line went dead.

With a groan that came straight from my gut, I pressed my finger against the screen and ground down on my molars. “Damn it.”