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.I touched his arm and said “Excuse me” to the father he was chatting with.“They want to leave,” I told Andrew.“My mom and Noah.”He thought for a moment.“Could you stay? Let your mother bring Noah home?”“I don’t have a car.”“I can drive you home.”“Oh.Okay.” I wandered back to them.I said, “Mom, do you mind taking Noah home and watching him for a little while longer?”“Where are you going?”“Nowhere.It’s just… Andrew wants to talk to me.”She studied my face.“About Noah, you mean?”“I don’t know.” I avoided her gaze.“Can you just—?”There was a pause.Then: “All right,” she said.“I can take Noah.But, Rickie—”I cut her off.“It’s okay, Mom.Really.I’m not being stupid or anything.It’s okay.”She nodded.I couldn’t tell if she believed me or not.“Come on, Noah,” she said.“You’re not coming with us?” Noah said to me.“Not right now, but I’ll be home soon.”It was a sign of what a good mood he was in at the moment that he didn’t object, just said good-bye and let Mom lead him away.His terminal cough had completely disappeared.The two teams who were playing next were already moving onto the diamond by the time Andrew got rid of all the parents who wanted his attention.One of the mean dads was the last holdout.He was talking Andrew’s ear off about something while his kid stood there listening, his brow furrowed in a Little-League imitation of his father’s unpleasant scowl.I moved closer and heard Andrew say calmly, “If you’re not happy with the way I coach, please feel free to find another team.”“He has friends on this team,” the father spat out.“The team is fine—I just want you to do your job right.”“I have to go now,” Andrew said.He clapped the boy on the shoulder in a friendly way.“Bye, Jordan.You played great today.” He walked away from them and, scooping up his gym bag, said to me, “Come on, let’s go.”“Where to?” I asked, falling into step with him.“Anywhere away from him.” We walked in silence for a moment and reached the parking lot.“I’m hungry,” Andrew said.“You have time for lunch?”“Sure.”He opened the passenger-side car door first and held it for me while I got in, then carefully closed it behind me before going around to his side.As he drove, we talked about Noah and the moment when he had gotten that first hit.Andrew said, “I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.”“Me too,” I said.“The whole world became that one ball.”But I got the sense this wasn’t what he wanted to talk to me about, not what he had “been thinking” about.The sandwich place he picked was noisy and crowded.We ordered at the counter—he paid for both of us—and took our food to a booth where we ate quickly, hungrily.I told him how my mother had shut up the evil dads, and he whistled admiringly.“I love your mother,” he said.“She has her moments.”“She’s amazing.” Once we’d shoved our plates aside, he looked around the restaurant.People were hovering, waiting for tables to open up.“Let’s go somewhere quieter to talk,” he said.“I mean, if you have time?”“I’m good.”We walked out of the restaurant and got back in the car.“Where should we go?” I asked.He stuck the key in the ignition.“I don’t know.Somewhere quiet.You have any ideas?”The word “quiet” had given me one.“I do, actually.Only—are you in a hurry to get back?”“Nope,” he said.“I have no plans for the rest of the day.”“Me either.” I leaned forward and punched an address into his GPS, hiding it with my left hand so he couldn’t see what I was putting in there.“Follow the directions.”“Seventy-five minutes?” he said, squinting at the screen as it reset.“Really?”“You said you had time.”“I know, but—” He shrugged.“Okay, but this better be worth it.”“It will be.”“It’s a little scary,” he said, swinging the car out into the street, “not knowing where I’m going.”“It’s good to take risks.”“Just promise me it’s not Cambria.”“It’s not Cambria,” I said.“There’s nothing the slightest bit twee about this place.” There was a pause.I glanced over at him.“So can you tell me now what you were thinking about that you still haven’t told me or do we have to wait until we get to our destination?”“I guess we can talk now.” One hand on the steering wheel, he used the other to pull off his baseball cap and toss it over his shoulder, into the backseat, then he ran his fingers through his hair, making it stick out.“It’s just… Back at the party—at Casino Night—when you and I were talking in my office—” He took a deep breath.“I didn’t want to go back into the other room.I wanted to stay in there, alone with you.”I sneaked another look at him.Without his cap and with his hair all rumpled up, he looked really young.I forgot sometimes that he wasn’t even a year older than me.Every other adult I spent time with these days was a lot older than me, but not him.“And that got you thinking?” I said, a little faintly.“Thinking,” he said.“And also agonizing.There was the whole Gracie issue—” He darted a look at me.“Is this okay, that I’m saying this stuff?”“I’ll stop you if I get offended,” I said with a stiff laugh.I felt like this couldn’t possibly be real: this whole conversation, driving alone with him in the car, everything.It was what I wanted but it didn’t feel real so I wasn’t letting myself believe any of it yet.He went on.“And then there was the school thing too—that you’re the mother of one of the kids I teach.That seemed… problematic.”“So you were thinking about that?”“I was trying to think about that,” he said in a low voice.“I knew that was what I should be thinking about
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