Page 97 of Tagging Bases

He scoffs, his lips twisting into a bitter smile. “They bought the whole ‘I’m clumsy’ routine.”

“Are you going to get help for it? Before things get worse?”

Roy nods again, more certain this time. “I have to. I don’t feel like an alcoholic, but I enjoy how drinking dulls everything. If I don’t get help now, I’ll keep chasing that feeling and end up with even bigger problems.”

Relief washes over me as I realize he’s not as lost as I’d feared.

We sit for a while longer, two idiots trying to understand how we got into this mess in the first place.

“You better not mess things up,” Roy says eventually, breaking the quiet with a small smirk. “With either of them. I’m quite fond of that shaggy blond kid.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I reply confidently. “And I’m quite fond of that shaggy blond kid too.”

Roy stands up and stretches, more relaxed than he was when he first walked in here. “Pretty sure my mom will kill us if we don’t get back down there soon.”

Nodding in understanding, we exit the room. This time, I walk beside him instead of behind him. When we reach the stairs, Roy stops and stares at me with those serious eyes of his. “Youmeant what you said back there? About if I ever need someone to talk to?”

“Yeah,” I reply without hesitation. “Every word.”

He nods again—more to himself than to me—and heads down the stairs.

As Roy heads over to his dad, Charlie walks up to me, brow furrowed. “Everything okay? You two were gone for quite a while.”

I wrap an arm around Charlie’s shoulders. “Never better.”

Chapter 33

Basically a Maple Tree

Charlie

The best partabout being Charlie McManus is that I rarely give a crap about anything, but right now I’m about two seconds away from barfing all over Mom’s good tablecloth.

My hands won’t stop twitching, and my knee bounces under the table hard enough to rattle the salt and pepper shakers. Roy sits across from us with the same expression he wore the day he told us he wasn’t going to pursue baseball after high school.

“Just spit it out already,” I blurt, because the waiting is killing me. Mom shoots me a glare that could peel paint, but I can’t help it. My heart’s doing Olympic-level gymnastics.

Roy’s dark eyes sweep over each of us—Mom, Dad, then me. His jaw works like he’s chewing on words that taste bitter. The kitchen feels smaller than usual, the walls pressing in as the ceiling fan makes its lazy rotations overhead, clicking with each turn.

I grip the edge of the table until my knuckles turn white. Whatever Roy’s about to say, it’s big. Bigger than giving up baseball big. Maybe moving away big. Or getting-married-to-a-cow big. Christ, what if he knocked someone up? What if?—

“I have a drinking problem,” Roy says, his voice flat and matter-of-fact, as if he’s reading the weather report.

The words hang in the air between us, and for a second,nobody moves. Nobody breathes. Even the ceiling fan seems to pause its eternal clicking.

I stare at Roy, unblinking. My brother—my rock-solid, never-falters, always-has-his-shit-together brother—has a drinking problem?

“I’ve been using it to cope,” Roy continues, his voice still eerily calm. “The stress of running the hardware store with no full-time help…” His eyes flick to me. “Dealing with Charlie’s complicated love life.”

My stomach drops. “Roy, I?—”

He holds up a hand. “It’s not your fault. None of this is anyone’s fault but mine. I thought I could handle it all—the store, helping out here at the farm, everything. But somewhere along the way, having a beer after work turned into three. Then six. Then I lost count.”

Mom’s chair scrapes against the linoleum as she shoots to her feet. Before Roy can react, she’s around the table and wrapping him in the kind of hug that could probably cure cancer if she squeezed hard enough.

“Oh, honey,” she whispers into his hair, and I see Roy’s shoulders sag like someone cut his strings.

Dad leans back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin. He’s got that look—the one where he’s running calculations in his head, already three steps ahead of everyone else. Planning. Strategizing. Being Dad.

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