A small smile spreads on Ryan’s lips but he tries to cover it with his coffee mug; all the while Zanders stares at me like I told him someone kicked his dog.
“And the sleep schedule. Those naps are the most sacred times of the day. If one of my teammates tries to mess with his sleep schedule, I’ll lose it on them. I’m talking ‘use their balls as a speedbag’ kind of lose it on them. He’s miserable if he’s not sleeping properly, and those are the only moments of the day where I have my own time without feeling guilty.”
“You feel guilty?” Zanders asks.
“All the time.” I exhale a long breath. “All the fucking time. If I’m not with him, I feel guilty for being gone, but if I’m with him all day without a moment to myself, I feel guilty for wanting a bit of my own time. And the anxiety. I’m so afraid something is going to happen to him when I’m not there, or something will happen to me, and he’ll be left without anyone.”
Zanders takes my mug from me and adds a healthy pour of Baileys into my coffee.
“What are you doing? I have a game tonight.”
“You’re in the bullpen tonight, and you need that,” he says, adding a splash into his mug and his future brother-in-law’s.
Ryan nudges my shoulder. “You know Indy and I—we’re always here to help you. Whenever you need a break. We’ve got you.”
“I shouldn’t want a break, though. I had a break for the first six months of his life.”
“Jesus, Kai,” Ryan exhales. “You can’t be punishing yourself for that. You had no idea he even existed. You have no balance in your life. ‘Dad’ is just one of your titles.”
“And the other is ‘Starting Pitcher’。 My time is split between baseball and him, and when I’m focused on one instead of the other, I’m constantly feeling guilty that the other doesn’t have my full attention.”
Shit. Talk about word vomit. I try not to complain because I don’t have much to complain about. Max is the greatest part of my life, but I won’t lie and say I’m not tired. I’m tired of worrying all the time, tired of wondering if I’m messing everything up.
“You know,” Ryan begins with a small laugh. “For a split second, when I first introduced you to Indy, I was so concerned she was going to like you. You used to be a lot like her. A walking ray of fucking sunshine. Little did I know, six months later you’d be as grumpy as I used to be.”
“I’m not grumpy,” I state in a tone that sounds real fucking grumpy. “I’m exhausted. I became a single dad at the beginning of the off-season last year. I had it handled when baseball wasn’t an issue, but now . . . If I could just retire early—”
“No.”
“Shut your mouth,” Zanders adds.
“You’re not retiring early,” Ryan continues. “For being your age, you’re surprisingly at the top of your game. You’re not calling it quits. You just need to figure out how to ask for help and learn to accept it. How’s it going with Troy?”
I avert my eyes from his. “I fired him.”
Pausing for only a moment, he bursts out a laugh. “Of course you fucking did.” Opening the kitchen window that faces the backyard, he calls out, “Blue! Kai fired the nanny!”
I hear her footsteps racing inside the house. “Was it before or after Wednesday?”
“Thursday, I think. Why?”
“Goddammit!”
Ryan cackles. “Thank you for that.”
“What am I missing here?”
“Indy and I bet on when you were gonna fire him. Had a feeling it was gonna be this week. She bet on the first half of the week, I bet on the second.”
“You’re making bets on Max’s childcare now? Love that for me.”
Stevie follows Indy inside, holding Max’s hands above his head to help him walk. “What does the winner get?”
“Blue owes me a blow job.” Ryan smiles into his coffee once again.
“Gross.” Stevie grimaces.
Indy tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Joke’s on you. Little do you know, I like giving you blow jobs.”
“Yeah, little do I know. There’s no way I would know that, huh?”
Ryan rounds the kitchen island to pick up Max, he and Indy doting on him. Zanders joins Stevie in setting the table, with him not so sneakily copping a feel every so often.
As much as I feel connected to these guys, us all being professional athletes settled down, they both have partners they can lean on. Someone else to help lessen the burden. They’ll luckily never understand what it means to go through the hard stuff alone. But maybe worse than that is going through the good stuff and not having someone to celebrate those moments with. No one else heard Max’s first word. No one else saw the first time he crawled.