Page 23 of Safe at Home

“We’ll explain everything later,” I said. “First, we want to get everything unloaded from the truck and start helping. Maybe we can get dinner together tonight and explain everything.”

“Everything?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, there is more to tell,” Molly said as she linked hands with me.

“We can have dinner at my place,” Penelope offered as she came over to where we all were. “My apartment complex has a room residents can rent, so I’ll see if it’s available.”

Molly thanked her friend and introduced Pen, Peyton, and Camden to my family. My mom immediately took the kids’ hands and led them through the volunteer area to show them where to put all the pillows and teddy bears that they would be in charge of passing out. Both kids had huge grins on their faces as they took the bags of sewn items to the area my mom pointed out. My mom was going to be the best grandma!

Carter, Alec, Dad, Erick, Tanner, Julia, and I began to unload all the items we brought while Molly went to check in at the Red Cross tent. She needed to let them know that she was okay and wanted to find out any other information she could about where to go from here. While I was unloading cases of bottled water, I heard a familiar shout followed by my girl’s giggle. I didn’t even have to turn around to know that Cooper had found Molly.

I shook my head as I turned and saw Cooper had Molly in his arms and was spinning her around.

“You scared the shit out of me. Don’t ever do that again!” Cooper was saying as he hugged her tightly.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Molly said with remorse in her tone. “You know I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I know you didn’t. We were so relieved to hear you were okay.”

“CJ!!!!” a little voice said from behind me. Cooper gently put Molly down on the ground and grabbed Peyton as she jumped into his arms. He twirled her around, just as he had Molly, but only faster and longer. Then Peyton burst into tears as she wrapped her small arms around his neck.

“PJ? What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” Cooper looked at us, scared he had hurt the little girl by twirling her too fast.

Peyton shook her head and whispered something in his ear. Cooper pulled her away from his body a little and let her know he didn’t understand what she had said.

“I left your thank you drawing at the bakery, and now the bakery is gone, and so is your letter.”

Cooper wiped a tear away from her eye and shook his head. I had never seen this tough, tall man cry before, but I saw a tear leak out of his eye. “A letter that important and special always gets to the best friend somehow.” He placed her on her feet and pulled something out of his pocket.

“You found it?!” Peyton squealed in delight.

“I found it,” Cooper said with a huge grin, but he still had watery eyes. He pulled the little girl in for a hug. “And I’m going to get a special frame for it. This means so much to me.”

“He lost it when he found the letter,” Hayden said as he came over to stand next to me. “Like he had a full-on panic attack. It was bad. We thought -”

I put my hand up to silence his thoughts from being said out loud. “I’m sure you guys thought the same as me. Thank goodness they are okay.”

Hayden nodded in agreement. “I can’t imagine what you were going through.”

I shook my head and sighed. “It’s going to be awhile before I can let her out of my sight.”

“Can she go with you on the road?”

“If they want me to play, they will let her,” I said with a little chuckle. “My manager said that she can as long as she gets a doctor's permission to travel with the team. She’ll have to pay for her own hotel room, and they asked her not to hang out at the hotel bar. Neither of those should be an issue since insurance should pay for her hotel rooms, and because she can’t drink, staying out of a bar won’t be hard for her.”

Hayden laughed in agreement. “How the hell is Double-A? We miss you, man. Endicott is doing okay and learned a lot from you, but the new backup catcher who took his place doesn’t even try.”

“That sucks. Double-A is different. The guys are okay, but it’s definitely not the same as being with you guys. I have one bro on the team, Montgomery, who would fit in with our group, but other than that, we mostly keep to ourselves and just play ball.”

Suddenly, we were surrounded by the Raptor players I had only left a few weeks ago. I really missed these guys and how well we had played together. Lots of hugs were shared between myself and Molly.

One former teammate I had yet to see was Ivan, and I found myself looking around for him. I wasn’t surprised to see him standing by my woman and showing her baby pictures. I walked over to them, wrapped my arms around Molly, and looked at the picture of a little Valentina trying to eat her own foot. We both couldn’t stop laughing and smiling as he scrolled through pictures.

“Your baby coming soon?” Ivan asked. “You so big! Not being asshole.”

“Not until the end of October or early November,” Molly explained.

Ivan looked like he couldn’t believe we still had that long to go. “You name bebé Ivan, right?”

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