Page 93 of Room 4 Rent

She holds out her hand. “Belly jelly?”

Laughing, I pull out the stash I keep in my pocket for her.

Sydney curls herself around my other arm. “I’ve never seen a no-hitter in person. That was amazing. I don’t think I breathed the entire time.”

I sigh into her hair. “You and me both.” Emotion digs deep inside me, and believe it or not, I fight back tears. This shit is heavy. I pause, mulling it over in my head, and then go for it. “My dad wants you to come with me.”

She looks up at me, our eyes locked on one another. “To dinner?”

I nod and shove the unwanted thoughts of her turning me down out of my head. I don’t have time for negativity.

A stain of red spans across her cheeks. She tilts her head, narrowing her eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to spend some time alone with your dad?”

“He asked if you and Tatum wanted to come to dinner.” My smile falters. I shift my feet, adjusting my shoulders. Hell, I’m fucking fidgeting. “You don’t want to, do you?”

She blinks, smiling. “I’d love to. I’m starving.”

Jesus. She really knows how to keep a guy guessing.

“WHAT WAS CASONlike as a kid?”

Groaning, I set my beer down on the table. “We don’t need to talk about me.”

My dad chuckles under his breath, lifting his eyes to Sydney as he colors on a napkin. We’re at a local steak house. All you can eat meat. My kind of place. Although I’d rather Syd be eating my meat, I settle with her sitting next to me at the table, her hand on my thigh under the table and, unfortunately, asking about me as a kid.

Spoiled.

Unpredictable.

Irrational.

To name a few. I like to think college taught me a lot and made me grow up, but I also know my dad, he’ll never say that about me.

“He was the best kid,” my dad tells her, looking at me with a smirk. “As long as there was a baseball in his hand.”

“Hey, man, color,” Tatum tells my dad when he stops drawing her snowmen to color.

Man?She’s so fucking cute.

Smiling, I watch him with Tatum, reminded of my time spent with him. I loved every minute I spent with my dad. At home, on the road, he did everything he could to make me feel like I was the most important person in his life.

Dad winks at Tatum. “Hand me the red crayon, Loretta.”

“They’re cute together,” Sydney notes, watching my dad with Tatum.

“He’s really good with kids. I get it from him.”

Tears sting her eyes as she watches them. “My dad passed away before she was born, and Collin’s dad lives in Colorado. She’s never even met him.”

“Maybe he’s hanging out with my mom,” I snort, looking down at my phone. It’s my mom again.

The rest of dinner is spent with me ignoring the constant ringing of my phone, my dad sharing embarrassing stories of me wearing pull-ups until I was seven, and informing Sydney that when I was ten, I called my dad while he was on the road and told everyone my bat was hard when I woke up. Turns out, I was on speakerphone, and everyone on the team bus heard me.

Shaking my head, I scowl at my dad, my cheeks pink. “Stop talking.”

With whip cream on her lips from her pie, Sydney laughs so hard she clamps her thighs together. “I love your dad.”

I pull her into my side, kissing her temple. “You better love me more.”

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