Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 102185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
I’ll be quick, retrieve him, and get out.
I dash up the stairs and stop on the landing to whisper-yell, “Jacob, come here right now.”
No response. “You’re going to get into trouble if you don’t come out here.” The sound of a small crash has me dashing to the farthest bedroom from the stairs. I push the door all the way open to find Jacob sitting on the floor with a baseball glove close to fitting on his hand. I whisper, “We can’t be in here, buddy. It’s not our house.”
“Glove.”
“Yes, it is.” I drop down to my knees to take it from him but then stop. Seeing him look so proud as he holds the leather in his hands has me wishing he could have it. Unfortunately, it’s not mine to give. I let him play with it a moment longer when I notice a baseball card sandwiched in acrylic knocked over at his feet. I pick it up and run my finger over the front. Griffin was much younger but still sports a familiar smirk as he’s caught in action, throwing a ball.
“It’s my rookie card.” Griffin’s voice carries from the doorway, but there’s no anger attached to it. “Might be worth some money one day or, like me, left with no value at all.”
I stand and go to him. With the card still in hand, I glance down at it and meet his gaze again. “You have more value than a card ever could.”
“Tell that to the collectors.”
Poking him in the chest, I reply, “I’m telling that to you.”
He slides his hands around my waist before quickly retreating when his eyes land on Jacob again. Shifting around me, he sits on the floor, leaning against the bed, and pulls Jacob onto his lap. With a little tug here and an adjustment to twist the glove so it’s on correctly, he says, “Fits like a glove.”
“Was that your glove?”
“When I was his age. It’s just memorabilia my mom saved that’s collecting dust. He can have it if he wants.”
I set the framed card on the desk under the window and sit on the edge of the bed, my leg bumping up against his bicep. “We can’t take that.”
“Why not? It’s going to sit here, and the leather will just crack even more if it doesn’t get conditioned and used like it’s meant to be.”
Jacob hasn’t made a peep, sitting contentedly on his lap and playing with the glove. I rub Griffin’s shoulder, and say, “That’s very generous of you.” But as much as he wants to shrug it off like it’s nothing, I know what he’s doing. It’s not about being conditioned or used. It’s about giving his son a piece of his legacy, a part of him. Tears start to fill the corners of my eyes, so I tilt my head back in a fruitless attempt to force them to return to where they came from.
It doesn’t work. One slips down, and another slides down the opposite cheek. I wipe them away with the inside collar of the shirt I’m wearing and then look around the room. Trophies line two shelves hanging on the wall next to the window, ribbons with medals adorning the bottom dangle from hooks underneath. A column of baseball bats lines the wall from ceiling to floor in one area of the small room. And cowboy hats for all occasions appear to float on the light blue painted wall facing the bed.
The bed. I actually laugh from the size of it, which feels so good after having my heart squeezed from the loft of what I’ve witnessed between them. “You don’t even fit on this bed, and you’ve been sleeping here?”
“I’ve been sleeping here because it’s the only bed I have.” He looks up at me behind him, and says, “Anything bigger wouldn’t fit in this room, so I make do like I always have.”
“You can stay at mine.” The words came before I had a chance to think them through, my heart just throwing out an offer like it’s the one in control of my head.
Jacob gets up, leaving the glove for Griffin to have. He rummages through a bookshelf and then climbs onto a box to investigate the top of the desk. Griffin gets off the floor and comes to sit next to me. With his hands in his lap and his shoulders slumped forward, he’s still taller than I am. “Is that a real offer?”
Logically, I shouldn’t have made it without thinking it through, but I can’t manage to regret saying it anyway. “It’s a real offer, Greene.”
With Jacob busying himself with coins he found in a jar, Griffin leans over and kisses my cheek. “I appreciate it, Dover. I’ll think about it.”
“Ouch.”
“No ouch,” he says, laughing. “I just don’t know if you understand what you’re getting yourself into.”