# Chapter 01

# Chapter 1: The Volunteer Sheet

"Mom, can Rex wear his helmet?"

I looked down at my five-year-old, currently trying to balance a plastic stegosaurus on top of a toaster pastry. "Weston, honey. Rex is a stegosaurus. They don't wear baseball helmets."

"But what if he wants to be the pitcher?" Weston insisted, blue eyes wide beneath a cowlick that refused to be tamed. "What if the other dinosaurs laugh at him?"

I knelt and smoothed his hair—the same stubborn cowlick his father had. "Rex just needs to keep swinging. That's all any of us can do."

Weston considered this, nodding solemnly. "Like you and Daddy?"

My chest tightened. "Yeah. Like me and Daddy."

"Daddy's coming to my game Saturday, right?"

The question hung between us, heavier than the humid Florida morning. I checked my phone—still no text from Derek. Still no answer to the three messages I'd sent yesterday about the T-ball schedule.

"We'll see, buddy," I said finally. "Now eat your pastry before the bus comes."

Weston stuffed the remaining toaster pastry into his mouth, grabbed his backpack, and headed for the door. The stegosaurus was tucked safely in his pocket, helmet-less but brave.

I watched him go, then checked the time. 7:42 AM. Three minutes until I had to leave for Gulf Coast Insurance, where fluorescent lights and flooded basements waited for neither of us.

---

The fluorescent lights of the Gulf Coast Insurance Group thrummed with a harsh, fluorescent buzz that made my teeth ache. I stared at the coffee ring on my desk, counting down the minutes.

"Mr. Henderson," I said, my voice hovering in that professional sweet spot between *I deeply care about your flooded basement* and *I am legally obligated to tell you your policy doesn't cover act-of-God plumbing failures.* "I understand the frustration. But the adjuster's report is final."

I checked the clock: 4:42 PM. Three minutes until I was late for school pickup. Again.

"Three weeks? I'll have mold by then, Liz! I'll have a goddamn ecosystem!" Henderson barked.

"I'll see if I can expedite the review," I lied, closing his file. "I have to jump into a meeting. Hard stop. I'll email you those forms by end of day."

I hung up, grabbed my bag, and performed the Senior Account Manager Shuffle—a brisk walk that suggested I was heading to a strategy session rather than fleeing to avoid a five-dollar late fee at after-care.

The parking lot air slapped me like a wet towel. Eighty-five degrees, ninety percent humidity. I climbed into my SUV, which had been marinating in the sun until the leather seats could inflict third-degree burns, and peeled out toward school.

***

I made it. Barely. Penultimate car in the Race of the Exhausted Parents.

Weston sat on the curb, legs swinging. He scrambled up when he saw my car.

"Sorry! Sorry, I'm so sorry," I called, rolling down the window.

"Mom! Did you get the email?" he asked, hauling himself into his car seat.

"Which one? The Scholastic Book Fair or the 'no peanut' policy?"

"The baseball one! The T-ball meeting! It's right now! Coach Miller said everyone has to be there or we don't get our hats!"

I checked my phone. Sure enough: *URGENT - Season in Jeopardy - Mandatory Parent Meeting.*

"What?" I asked, brain still half-composed of Henderson's flooded basement. "Can't you just... play?"

"No! If we don't get enough volunteers, they cancel the season!"

***

The cafeteria smelled like stale tater tots, industrial-grade floor wax, and the lingering desperation of a hundred elementary schoolers. It was a sensory assault of childhood nostalgia and adult fatigue. About twenty parents were gathered around the low, circular tables, looking as miserable and sweat-stained as I felt. The Florida heat had followed us inside, trapped by the high, vaulted ceilings and the lack of proper ventilation. a heavy-duty floor fan in the corner was doing nothing but moving the humid air around in a circle.

At the front of the room stood Bill, the league coordinator. Bill was a retired high school coach with shoulders like a bulldog and a voice like a gravel crusher. He was a man who looked like he had been carved out of a piece of salt-cured driftwood and then dressed in a neon-orange polo shirt three sizes too small for his barrel chest. He had a whistle around his neck that looked like it had seen combat. Beside him sat Coach Miller, or what was left of him.

Miller's right leg was encased in a massive, pristine white cast, propped up on a plastic chair. He looked heavily medicated, his eyes glazed with the sort of peaceful fog that only high-quality painkillers can provide. He gave a weak, shaky wave to the room, looking like a man who had survived a shipwreck only to realize he was still out at sea.

"Alright, folks, listen up," Bill shouted, his voice booming over the din of restless five-year-olds who were currently treating the cafeteria benches like a jungle gym. The squeak of rubber soles on the polished floor was deafening. "We've got a situation. a real curveball. Coach Miller here decided to take a tumble off a ladder while cleaning his gutters this morning. Compound fracture. He's out for the season."
A collective groan rippled through the room. It wasn't sympathy for Miller's shattered tibia; it was the sound of twenty people realizing their free childcare-disguised-as-athletics was under imminent threat. I felt a sympathetic pang in my own shin, but mostly, I felt the tightening of a trap. I recognized that look on Bill's face—it was the same look I gave clients right before I told them their premium was doubling.

"Now," Bill continued, his eyes scanning the room like a hawk looking for a particularly vulnerable field mouse. "The Grasshoppers are a great group of kids. We've got the talent, we've got the jerseys, and we've got the juice boxes. But without a head coach, the league rules are clear. We can't field the team. Safety regulations, liability, the whole nine yards. No coach, no Grasshoppers."

He paused for dramatic effect, letting the silence settle over us like a heavy fog. I could hear the hum of the vending machine in the back and the distant sound of a janitor's keys jingling.

"If no one steps up by five o'clock today," Bill said, checking a rugged-looking sports watch that probably had a built-in altimeter, "we have to dissolve the Grasshoppers and refund the fees. The kids will have to wait until next year to play."

Weston's hand gripped my thumb. He didn't say anything—he was a stoic little guy when it mattered—but I could feel the disappointment radiating off him in waves. This was the kid who had practiced his 'batting stance' in the living room for a week, nearly taking out a floor lamp and a decorative vase in the process. He had been talking about the Grasshoppers since January, his eyes lighting up every time he saw a baseball on TV.

The silence in the room became heavy, thick with the shared guilt of twenty adults who all had "real jobs" and "no time." It was the classic suburban standoff. Every parent suddenly found something incredibly interesting on the tips of their shoes or the cuticles of their fingernails. One dad in a crisp dress shirt was aggressively checking his Apple Watch, his foot tapping a frantic staccato on the linoleum. a mom in expensive-looking Lululemon was staring at the ceiling tiles as if waiting for a sign from God, or perhaps just a way to teleport out of the room before anyone looked her way.

I looked down at Weston. His lip wasn't trembling—he was too proud for that—but his shoulders were slumped, his small frame looking defeated in a way that made my chest ache.

My brain, the part of me that managed fifty high-stakes insurance accounts and navigated the labyrinthine, soul-crushing bureaucracy of corporate claims, felt a familiar, dangerous itch. It was the "fix-it" reflex. The one that made me the person people called when their basements flooded or their cars were crushed by falling coconuts. It was the impulse that forced me to organize the chaos because the chaos made my skin crawl. It was a professional hazard, a compulsion to bridge the gap between "problem" and "solution."

I had one question. One logistical, tiny, purely investigative question.

I raised my hand.

"Yes? You in the back? Blue shirt?" Bill pointed at me with the intensity of a man pointing at a winning lottery ticket. His eyes were wide, hungry for a volunteer.

"Hi, I'm Liz Brooks, Weston's mom," I said, my voice echoing in the gym-like space. I felt forty eyes pivot toward me, a spotlight of pure, unadulterated hope. "I was wondering—purely for clarification—if someone were to, say, *assist*, is there a manual? Or a set schedule already in place? Like, how much of this is already automated? Is there an app that handles the logistics?"

The room went dead silent. You could have heard a juice box straw drop. I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my neck, the humidity finally winning the battle against my composure.

Bill's face transformed. The grizzled, driftwood scowl vanished, replaced by a grin that was frankly terrifying in its brightness. It was the smile of a shark that had just found a buffet. He didn't answer the question about manuals. He didn't talk about automation or apps.

"We have a volunteer!" Bill bellowed, clapping his hands together with a sound like a gunshot. "Everyone, let's hear it for our new Head Coach, Liz Brooks!"

The cafeteria erupted. The Lululemon mom started clapping frantically, her face flooded with relief. The watch-checking dad looked like he'd been granted a stay of execution from the governor. Several parents started gathering their things, eager to exit before I could change my mind.

"Wait, no," I said, my heart rate spiking into the aerobic zone. "That wasn't a declaration. I was asking about the *structure*. I don't know the first thing about baseball. I thought there were... coordinators. People who actually knew the difference between a strike and a spare! I'm an insurance adjuster, not a manager!"

"I'll get you the bag of equipment and the roster," Miller said, his voice husky and slow from the painkillers. He reached out from his chair and grabbed my hand, squeezing it with terrifying, drug-fueled strength. His palm was dry and papery. "You're a lifesaver, Liz. Truly. These kids... they're a wild bunch. They need a leader. They need... you."

"I'm an account manager! I manage spreadsheets, not children!" I protested, but the tide had already turned. I was trying to swim against a tsunami of parental gratitude.

Bill was a retired high school coach with shoulders like a bulldog and a voice like a gravel crusher.s already walking toward me, lugging a massive, dirt-stained canvas bag that smelled like a combination of old leather, damp earth, and forgotten dreams. He dropped it at my feet with a heavy, metallic *thud* that echoed through the room.

"Here's the contact list, the practice permit for the park, and the keys to the equipment shed," Bill said, dumping a heavy ring of keys and a stack of papers—some of them stained with what looked like Gatorade—onto the table in front of me. "First practice is Tuesday at 5:30. You're gonna be great, Coach. It's T-ball. How hard can it be? You just put the ball on the stick and tell 'em to run toward first. If they hit it, great. If they don't, we give 'em a juice box anyway."

"Which one is first?" I whispered, my voice small, but Bill was a retired high school coach with shoulders like a bulldog and a voice like a gravel crusher.s already moving on to the next "emergency," which involved a dispute over the snack rotation and a gluten-free pretzel controversy.

Weston was jumping up and down now, his face lit up like a Christmas tree in a dark room. "Mom! You're the coach! We're the Grasshoppers! We're gonna win the World Series! I want to be the pitcher! Can I be the pitcher?"

"Honey, I don't think T-ball has a World Series. And I'm pretty sure everyone just stands in a circle," I said, but I was talking to the air.

I looked down at the clipboard. At the top, in bold, unforgiving, 14-point Arial font, it read: Head Coach: Elizabeth Brooks.** It looked so official, so permanent, like a signed affidavit.

I looked at the bag of equipment. a stray T-ball stand poked out of the top like a plastic skeletal finger pointing directly at my soul. I felt the walls of the cafeteria closing in, the smell of stale tater tots becoming suffocating. The "trapped" feeling wasn't metaphorical anymore; it was physical, a tightening in my chest that no amount of deep breathing or corporate mindfulness training could fix.

I had spent my entire life avoiding the spotlight. I was the person who managed from the middle, the one who stayed in the lane of "competent but invisible." I liked spreadsheets. I liked clear-cut policy exclusions. I liked things that stayed in their boxes, labeled and alphabetized.

And now, I was the face of the Grasshoppers. I was the one responsible for twelve five-year-olds with limited motor skills and a shared tendency to eat dirt.

I looked at Weston's beaming face, then back at the clipboard, then at the heavy, grime-covered bag. The panic reached its peak, a screaming siren in my head, and then settled into a cold, hard lump of reality in my stomach.

I was thirty-five years old. I was a single mother. I worked fifty hours a week. I currently had three unread, increasingly hostile emails from Mr. Henderson and a mounting pile of laundry at home that was threatening to achieve sentience and demand its own zip code.

And as I eyed the weathered, dirt-stained bag at my feet, the most damning realization of all hit me, sharp and painful as a foul ball to the ribs.

I don't even own a baseball glove. I don't even own a pair of sneakers that aren't for the gym. I was officially out of my league, and the game hadn't even started.

And then, Dani appeared at my elbow, looking like an avenging angel in a stain-resistant cardigan.

"You're doing it," she whispered, pressing a pen into my hand—a clicky, expensive-looking one that definitely didn't come from the bargain bin at Office Depot. "I've been watching you, Liz. You're organized. You're detail-oriented. You color-code your closet."

"I hide in supply closets to avoid office mixers, Dani," I hissed back, though I kept my voice low because the last thing I needed was for Weston to witness his mother's public unraveling. "I once spent forty-five minutes in a janitor's closet because I heard someone planning a 'team-building scavenger hunt.' I sat on a mop bucket and ate my lunch in the dark rather than do trust falls with the claims department."

Dani's expression didn't shift. Not even a flicker. "You're also the person who reorganized the entire filing system last month because 'it wasn't speaking to me efficiently.' You fixed the coffee machine three times. You organized the holiday potluck signup sheet into a color-coded spreadsheet."

"That's different. Those are *systems*. They follow rules. Baseball doesn't follow rules—it follows *emotion*. And chaos. And small humans who can't regulate their bladder functions, let alone their batting stance." The panic was rising now, sharp and prickly in my throat. I could feel it building, the same way I felt it during the company-wide meeting last year when they announced mandatory karaoke. I'd faked a pressure. I'd faked it so convincingly that I'd gone home and actually *developed* one.

I looked at the paper on the clipboard. At the blank line next to Head Coach: Elizabeth Brooks**. At the little square box that waited for my signature, innocent and devastating as a landmine.

"I can't," I said, and my voice cracked. "I'll mess it up. I'll forget the schedule. I'll show up at the wrong field. I'll call a strike when it's a ball. I'll disappoint Weston. I'll disappoint everyone." The other parents would hear about this—oh, they would Definitely hear about this—and they'd give me that look. The one that said *you tried? that's adorable* with just enough condescension to make my stomach hurt for three days straight.

"Liz." Dani's voice shifted, dropped into that tone—the mom tone. The guilt-trip tone. The nuclear option. "Weston is looking at you like you just invented baseball."

And he was. I glanced over, and my son was beaming at me, beaming so hard it looked like his face might actually split open from pure joy. He was vibrating. He was *radiating*. He was looking at me like I was a hero, like I was someone who rescued things instead of someone who sat on mop buckets to avoid human contact.

"If you walk away right now," Dani continued, her voice soft but relentless, "you're not just saying no to coaching. You're saying no to him believing you can do *anything*. You're saying no to him seeing you try. Even if you fail. Even if you fail spectacularly. Even if you accidentally sign them up for swim team instead of baseball and only realize it three weeks into the season when they show up at a pool with their bats."

I stared at the blank line. My heart was hammering. I could feel the walls closing in, the smell of tater tots, the humidity, the weight of twelve small humans depending on me to not ruin their childhood. I could call Weston. I could fake an emergency. I could say I'd just gotten a call from work, that there was a crisis, that Mr. Henderson's basement had become self-aware and was demanding to speak to management.

I hovered the pen over the signature line. My hand was shaking. Just a little. Just enough.

*You're going to regret this,* I thought. *You're going to regret this for twelve entire weeks.*

I signed.

ElizabethTH Brooks**

The ink was still wet when I handed the clipboard back to Bill, who beamed at me like I'd just offered to donate a kidney.

"Welcome to the Grasshoppers, Coach!"

I looked at Weston, who was jumping up and down, who was shouting "my MomsS the Coach!" to anyone within earshot, who was looking at me with something so close to hero worship that it made my chest hurt.

"Thanks," I said weakly, already calculating how long it would take to fake my own death and move to a remote island with no baseball and certainly no T-ball. "I think.

# Chapter 01

# Chapter 1: The Volunteer Sheet

Three weeks into spring training—at least for the professionals over in Clearwater—and two weeks until the local T-ball season officially kicked off, my life was less of a home run and more of a slow-motion collision at home plate.

The fluorescent lights of the Gulf Coast Insurance Group didn't just illuminate my cubicle; they hummed with an intensity that frayed my nerves. It was a low-level hum, the sound of corporate purgatory, echoing off the gray fabric partitions and the stacks of "Action Required" folders that seemed to breed overnight. I stared at a coffee ring on my desk, the brown stain mocking my attempts at professional order.

"Mr. Henderson," I said, my voice hovering in that professional sweet spot between *I deeply care about your flooded basement* and *I am legally obligated to tell you your policy doesn't cover act-of-God plumbing failures.* I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the beginnings of a tension headache blooming behind my eyes, a dull throb that kept time with the flickering light overhead. "I understand the frustration. Truly. Nobody wants a subterranean swimming pool where their water heater used to be. But the adjuster’s report is final. If you want to appeal, I can send the paperwork, but it’s a three-week turnaround."

I regarded the digital clock on my taskbar. 4:42 PM. The "Late Mom" panic started its low, rhythmic thrum in my chest, a physiological countdown that usually involved a spike in cortisol and a sudden, desperate need for caffeine. If I didn't leave in three minutes, I’d be the last car in the pickup line at Palmetto Springs Elementary. Again. And Weston would be standing there with Mrs. Gable, the kind of teacher whose pity felt like a lukewarm bath—sticky, uncomfortable, and making you want to scrub yourself clean the moment you got home. I could already picture her thin lips pursed in a line of "bless your heart" disappointment.

"Three weeks? I'll have mold by then, Liz! I’ll have a goddamn ecosystem! I’ve got things growing on the drywall that look like they belong in a National Geographic special!" Henderson barked into my headset. I could practically hear him gesturing wildly at his damp drywall, his heavy breathing crackling through the line.

"I’ll see if I can expedite the review," I lied, my fingers flying across the keyboard to close his file with a series of aggressive, staccato clicks. My blouse—a silk-blend that was definitely not designed for the subtropics—was already beginning to stick to my lower back in a way that made me feel like a human postage stamp. The Florida humidity was a sentient entity, a heavy, damp ghost that didn't care if the office AC was cranked down to a shivering sixty-eight degrees. It waited for you at the exits, ready to pounce with the weight of a soggy towel.

"I have to jump into a meeting, Mr. Henderson. Hard stop. I’ll email you those forms by end of day." I hung up before he could throw another verbal changeup, grabbed my bag—the leather worn smooth at the straps from years of overpacking—and performed the Senior Account Manager Shuffle. It was a brisk, purposeful walk that suggested I was heading to a high-level strategy session in the boardroom rather than fleeing for my life to avoid a five-dollar late fee at after-care.

I hit the parking lot and the air slapped me in the face like a wet towel. It was March in Palmetto Springs, which meant it was eighty-five degrees with ninety percent humidity. The air felt like a wet wool blanket that had been left in a dryer for too long, thick with the scent of sun-baked asphalt and hibiscus. I climbed into my SUV, which had been marinating in the sun until the leather seats were capable of inflicting third-degree burns on my thighs. I winced, shifted into reverse, and peeled out toward the school, praying for a green light on 4th Street while the AC unit let out a pathetic, high-pitched whine.

***

I made it. Barely. I was the penultimate car, the silver medal winner in the Race of the Exhausted Parents.

Weston was sitting on the concrete curb, his legs swinging in a rhythmic arc that suggested he’d been there for a while, scuffing the toes of his sneakers against the pavement. His oversized backpack made him look like a turtle struggling to stay upright, a bright blue shell perched on a pair of skinny, bruised shins decorated with a colorful array of dinosaur Band-Aids. Mrs. Gable stood over him, clutching a plastic clipboard like a shield against the setting sun, her expression a mix of saintly patience and "I have a chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio waiting for me at home."

"Sorry! Sorry, I’m so sorry," I called out, rolling down the window as I pulled up to the curb. The heat from the asphalt shimmered in the air between us, distorting the view of the playground.

Weston scrambled up, a grin breaking across his face that made the last eight hours of insurance claims vanish. He was five, a mop of sandy hair and his father’s stubborn, square chin, but he had my eyes—wide, inquisitive, and currently vibrating with a frequency that surpassed the office lights. He smelled like playground dust and fruit snacks.

"Mom! Did you get the email?" he asked, hauling himself into his car seat and fumbling with the buckles with the frantic energy of a squirrel burying nuts for the winter.

"Which one, honey? The one about the Scholastic Book Fair or the one about the 'no peanut' policy in the cafeteria?" I pulled away from the curb, checking my mirrors and checking Mrs. Gable off my mental list of People I’ve Disappointed Today. My brain was still half-composed of Henderson’s flooded basement and the looming quarterly audit, trying to calculate if I had enough gas to make it through the week.

"The baseball one! The T-ball meeting! It’s right now! Coach Miller said everyone has to be there or we don't get our hats!"

I slammed on the brakes a little too hard at the stop sign, sending my purse sliding off the passenger seat with a muffled thud. "Right now? Weston, the season doesn't start for two weeks. We haven't even bought your cleats yet. I thought we had time to at least look at a glove."

"Coach Miller sent it! Emergency meeting in the cafeteria. He said it’s *urgent*." Weston’s voice went up an octave, his small hands gesturing wildly. For a kid who spent most of his time meticulously organizing his Lego bin by color and height—a trait he definitely didn't get from his "free-spirited" father—'urgent' was a word that carried the weight of a national security crisis.

I checked my phone, which was currently wedged in the cup holder and vibrating with a fresh influx of notifications. Sure enough, an email from *Palmetto Little League* had arrived at 4:15 PM, right while I was explaining the "Flood vs. Seepage" clause to Henderson.

SubjectT: URGENT - Season in Jeopardy - Mandatory Parent Meeting.*

I sighed, a long, rattling sound that ended in a puff of bangs away from my forehead. I had a vision of my evening: a glass of cheap Sauvignon Blanc, a microwave lasagna, and the latest episode of that show where people bake things that look like shoes. It was a modest dream, a quiet sanctuary from the world of premiums and deductibles, but it was mine.

"Please, Mom? I want to play. I want to wear the hat. The one with the orange bird on it. Please?" He regarded me in the rearview mirror, his blue eyes pleading, his small hands gripped tight around his backpack straps.

He looked so small in that big car seat. His dad had moved to Palmetto Springs two years ago to "find his center" and apparently forgot to pack a sense of parental responsibility or a calendar that included his son’s birthday. Since then, it was just us. a two-person roster against the world. And if Weston wanted to wear the hat, if he wanted to stand in the dirt and swing at a ball on a stick, we were going to the meeting. I couldn't be the reason he stayed on the bench of life.

"Okay, pal. We’re going. But we aren't staying long. We have a date with some frozen pasta and a very specific episode of *Is It Cake?*, okay?"

"Yes! Go, go, go! Pedal to the metal, Mom!" he cheered, kicking the back of my seat in a joyful rhythm that matched the frantic beating of my own heart.

***

The cafeteria smelled like stale tater tots, industrial-grade floor wax, and the lingering desperation of a hundred elementary schoolers. It was a sensory assault of childhood nostalgia and adult fatigue. About twenty parents were gathered around the low, circular tables, looking as miserable and sweat-stained as I felt. The Florida heat had followed us inside, trapped by the high, vaulted ceilings and the lack of proper ventilation. a heavy-duty floor fan in the corner was doing nothing but moving the humid air around in a circle.

At the front of the room stood Bill, the league coordinator. Bill was a man who looked like he had been carved out of a piece of salt-cured driftwood and then dressed in a neon-orange polo shirt three sizes too small for his barrel chest. He had a whistle around his neck that looked like it had seen combat. Beside him sat Coach Miller, or what was left of him.

Miller’s right leg was encased in a massive, pristine white cast, propped up on a plastic chair. He looked heavily medicated, his eyes glazed with the sort of peaceful fog that only high-quality painkillers can provide. He gave a weak, shaky wave to the room, looking like a man who had survived a shipwreck only to realize he was still out at sea.

"Alright, folks, listen up," Bill shouted, his voice booming over the din of restless five-year-olds who were currently treating the cafeteria benches like a jungle gym. The squeak of rubber soles on the polished floor was deafening. "We’ve got a situation. a real curveball. Coach Miller here decided to take a tumble off a ladder while cleaning his gutters this morning. Compound fracture. He’s out for the season."

a collective groan rippled through the room. It wasn't sympathy for Miller’s shattered tibia; it was the sound of twenty people realizing their free childcare-disguised-as-athletics was under imminent threat. I felt a sympathetic pang in my own shin, but mostly, I felt the tightening of a trap. I recognized that look on Bill’s face—it was the same look I gave clients right before I told them their premium was doubling.

"Now," Bill continued, his eyes scanning the room like a hawk looking for a particularly vulnerable field mouse. "The Pelicans are a great group of kids. We’ve got the talent, we’ve got the jerseys, and we’ve got the juice boxes. But without a head coach, the league rules are clear. We can't field the team. Safety regulations, liability, the whole nine yards. No coach, no Pelicans."

He paused for dramatic effect, letting the silence settle over us like a heavy fog. I could hear the hum of the vending machine in the back and the distant sound of a janitor’s keys jingling.

"If no one steps up by five o'clock today," Bill said, checking a rugged-looking sports watch that probably had a built-in altimeter, "we have to dissolve the Pelicans and refund the fees. The kids will have to wait until next year to play."

Weston’s hand gripped my thumb. He didn't say anything—he was a stoic little guy when it mattered—but I could feel the disappointment radiating off him in waves. This was the kid who had practiced his 'batting stance' in the living room for a week, nearly taking out a floor lamp and a decorative vase in the process. He had been talking about the Pelicans since January, his eyes lighting up every time he saw a baseball on TV.

The silence in the room became heavy, thick with the shared guilt of twenty adults who all had "real jobs" and "no time." It was the classic suburban standoff. Every parent suddenly found something incredibly interesting on the tips of their shoes or the cuticles of their fingernails. One dad in a crisp dress shirt was aggressively checking his Apple Watch, his foot tapping a frantic staccato on the linoleum. a mom in expensive-looking Lululemon was staring at the ceiling tiles as if waiting for a sign from God, or perhaps just a way to teleport out of the room before anyone looked her way.

I looked down at Weston. His lip wasn't trembling—he was too proud for that—but his shoulders were slumped, his small frame looking defeated in a way that made my chest ache.

My brain, the part of me that managed fifty high-stakes insurance accounts and navigated the labyrinthine, soul-crushing bureaucracy of corporate claims, felt a familiar, dangerous itch. It was the "fix-it" reflex. The one that made me the person people called when their basements flooded or their cars were crushed by falling coconuts. It was the impulse that forced me to organize the chaos because the chaos made my skin crawl. It was a professional hazard, a compulsion to bridge the gap between "problem" and "solution."

I had one question. One logistical, tiny, purely investigative question.

I raised my hand.

"Yes? You in the back? Blue shirt?" Bill pointed at me with the intensity of a man pointing at a winning lottery ticket. His eyes were wide, hungry for a volunteer.

"Hi, I’m Liz Brooks, Weston’s mom," I said, my voice echoing in the gym-like space. I felt forty eyes pivot toward me, a spotlight of pure, unadulterated hope. "I was wondering—purely for clarification—if someone were to, say, *assist*, is there a manual? Or a set schedule already in place? Like, how much of this is already automated? Is there an app that handles the logistics?"

The room went dead silent. You could have heard a juice box straw drop. I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my neck, the humidity finally winning the battle against my composure.

Bill’s face transformed. The grizzled, driftwood scowl vanished, replaced by a grin that was frankly terrifying in its brightness. It was the smile of a shark that had just found a buffet. He didn't answer the question about manuals. He didn't talk about automation or apps.

"We have a volunteer!" Bill bellowed, clapping his hands together with a sound like a gunshot. "Everyone, let’s hear it for our new Head Coach, Liz Brooks!"

The cafeteria erupted. The Lululemon mom started clapping frantically, her face flooded with relief. The watch-checking dad looked like he’d been granted a stay of execution from the governor. Several parents started gathering their things, eager to exit before I could change my mind.

"Wait, no," I said, my heart rate spiking into the aerobic zone. "That wasn't a declaration. I was asking about the *structure*. I don't know the first thing about baseball. I thought there were... coordinators. People who actually knew the difference between a strike and a spare! I’m an insurance adjuster, not a manager!"

"I'll get you the bag of equipment and the roster," Miller said, his voice husky and slow from the painkillers. He reached out from his chair and grabbed my hand, squeezing it with terrifying, drug-fueled strength. His palm was dry and papery. "You're a lifesaver, Liz. Truly. These kids... they’re a wild bunch. They need a leader. They need... you."

"I’m an account manager! I manage spreadsheets, not children!" I protested, but the tide had already turned. I was trying to swim against a tsunami of parental gratitude.

Bill was already walking toward me, lugging a massive, dirt-stained canvas bag that smelled like a combination of old leather, damp earth, and forgotten dreams. He dropped it at my feet with a heavy, metallic *thud* that echoed through the room.

"Here’s the contact list, the practice permit for the park, and the keys to the equipment shed," Bill said, dumping a heavy ring of keys and a stack of papers—some of them stained with what looked like Gatorade—onto the table in front of me. "First practice is Tuesday at 5:30. You're gonna be great, Coach. It’s T-ball. How hard can it be? You just put the ball on the stick and tell 'em to run toward first. If they hit it, great. If they don't, we give 'em a juice box anyway."

"Which one is first?" I whispered, my voice small, but Bill was already moving on to the next "emergency," which involved a dispute over the snack rotation and a gluten-free pretzel controversy.

Weston was jumping up and down now, his face lit up like a Christmas tree in a dark room. "Mom! You're the coach! We're the Pelicans! We're gonna win the World Series! I want to be the pitcher! Can I be the pitcher?"

"Honey, I don't think T-ball has a World Series. And I'm pretty sure everyone just stands in a circle," I said, but I was talking to the air.

I looked down at the clipboard. At the top, in bold, unforgiving, 14-point Arial font, it read: HeadAD Coach: Elizabeth Brooks.** It looked so official, so permanent, like a signed affidavit.

I looked at the bag of equipment. a stray T-ball stand poked out of the top like a plastic skeletal finger pointing directly at my soul. I felt the walls of the cafeteria closing in, the smell of stale tater tots becoming suffocating. The "trapped" feeling wasn't metaphorical anymore; it was physical, a tightening in my chest that no amount of deep breathing or corporate mindfulness training could fix.

I had spent my entire life avoiding the spotlight. I was the person who managed from the middle, the one who stayed in the lane of "competent but invisible." I liked spreadsheets. I liked clear-cut policy exclusions. I liked things that stayed in their boxes, labeled and alphabetized.

And now, I was the face of the Pelicans. I was the one responsible for twelve five-year-olds with limited motor skills and a shared tendency to eat dirt.

I looked at Weston’s beaming face, then back at the clipboard, then at the heavy, grime-covered bag. The panic reached its peak, a screaming siren in my head, and then settled into a cold, hard lump of reality in my stomach.

I was thirty-five years old. I was a single mother. I worked fifty hours a week. I currently had three unread, increasingly hostile emails from Mr. Henderson and a mounting pile of laundry at home that was threatening to achieve sentience and demand its own zip code.

And as I eyed the weathered, dirt-stained bag at my feet, the most damning realization of all hit me, sharp and painful as a foul ball to the ribs.

I don't even own a baseball glove. I don't even own a pair of sneakers that aren't for the gym. I was officially out of my league, and the game hadn't even started.

# Chapter 02

# Chapter 2: The Calm in a Carhartt Jacket

I have a very specific system for dealing with impending doom. It involves a color-coded spreadsheet, a high-quality pen that doesn't bleed through the paper, and a controlled amount of caffeine that stops exactly three sips before the heart palpitations begin.

None of those things were helping me now.

I stood outside Room 3B of the Oakhaven Community Center, clutching a heavy-duty plastic clipboard to my chest like it was a ballistic shield. Inside that room were thirty men in various states of athletic wear and me—a woman who once tried to file an insurance claim against a "mischievous" gust of wind that blew my latte onto a client's beige suede loafers.

I don't do sports. I don't do "team-building" that involves physical exertion. I do risk assessment. And right now, the risk of me accidentally teaching fifteen five-year-olds that a "home run" is something you do when you realize you left the oven on was hovering at approximately ninety-eight percent.

I took a breath, adjusted my glasses, and pushed open the door.

The room smelled of stale floor wax and the collective testosterone of men who took T-ball as seriously as a divisional playoff game. There were whistles. There were actual clipboards with magnetic whiteboards on the back. There was a guy in the corner wearing a "Umpire Lives Matter" shirt that made me want to turn around and walk directly into the nearest body of water.

"Grasshoppers?" a voice boomed.

I jumped, nearly dropping my shield—I mean, clipboard. A man with a neck the size of my thigh was squinting at a list.

"That's me," I said, my voice coming out an octave higher than I intended. "Liz Brooks. Head Coach. Apparently."

The man looked me up and down, his gaze pausing briefly on my silk blouse and the sensible loafers I'd worn straight from the office. "Brooks. Right. You're at Table four. Your assistant should be there."

*My assistant.* Right. The league office had promised me a volunteer assistant, which I had interpreted as "someone who actually knows how to play baseball so I can stand in the dugout and look busy with a roster."

I navigated the maze of folding tables, feeling the weight of thirty pairs of eyes. I could practically hear their internal commentary: *Who let the actuary into the dugout? Is she going to explain the liability of a sliding catch to a kid who still wears Velcro shoes?*

Table four was tucked into the back corner. Seated there was a man who looked like he had been professionally curated by an outdoor lifestyle magazine.

He wasn't wearing a whistle or a neon-colored dry-fit shirt. He was wearing a faded Carhartt jacket with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, revealing forearms that looked like they spent their weekends chopping wood or rescuing stranded hikers. He was leaning back in the metal chair, one ankle crossed over his knee, looking entirely too relaxed for a man about to embark on a season of sustained chaos.

As I approached, the scent hit me. It wasn't the citrusy, aggressive cologne of the guys at the front of the room. It was cedarwood—warm, dry, and grounded. It smelled like a high-end library located inside a forest. It was the smell of someone who makes very practical decisions and never loses his keys.

"Liz Brooks?" he asked.

His voice was a low, steady baritone that seemed to vibrate right in the center of my sternum. He didn't stand up, but he did offer a small, polite nod.

"Guilty," I said, sliding into the chair next to him with as much grace as a woman holding a giant piece of plastic could muster. "And you are?"

"Cal Bennett," he said. "Your second-in-command. Or, more likely, your designated cat-herder."

I set my clipboard down on the table with a definitive *thwack*. "Well, Mr. Bennett, I hope you're prepared for a season of utter incompetence. I'm an insurance account manager. My idea of a 'double play' is when I manage to get two clients to sign their renewals on the same day."

Cal's lips didn't quite form a smile, but the corners of his eyes crinkled. They were a dark, steady hazel. "I think we can manage. T-ball isn't exactly professional ball. It's mostly about making sure nobody eats the dirt and everyone runs in the same general direction."

"I'm not sure you understand the stakes," I whispered, leaning in. "My son, Weston, thinks a 'shortstop' is a place where we stop to get chicken nuggets. I am the blind leading the blind, Cal. I am the captain of a sinking ship, and the ship is made of juice boxes and crushed expectations."

Cal finally let out a short, huffing laugh. It was a good sound. Too good. It made me realize that I was currently leaning very close to his Carhartt-clad shoulder, and that the cedarwood scent was actually quite distracting.

I pulled back, smoothing my hair. "Anyway. We have work to do. Have you seen the league's digital portal? I got the login email this morning, and I'm already prepared to file a formal complaint with the developer."

"The LeagueLink app?" Cal asked, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a phone that looked rugged enough to survive a fall from a cliff. "It's a bit of a nightmare."

"A bit?" I pulled my tablet from my bag, stabbing at the screen. "It's an affront to UX design. It took me twenty minutes just to find the roster, and when I finally did, it told me I needed to 'assign a hydration coordinator' before I could view the practice schedule. What happened to just calling people? Or a chain letter? I love a good chain letter."

"The hydration coordinator is just a fancy term for the parent who brings the orange slices," Cal said. He shifted his chair closer to mine. Not enough to be intrusive, but enough that I could feel the heat radiating from him. "Here, let me see."

He didn't wait for me to hand it over. He reached out, his large, calloused hand steadying my tablet. His fingers brushed against mine—just a fleeting contact—but it felt like a static shock. Not the kind that hurts, but the kind that makes you suddenly, inconveniently aware of the fact that you haven't been on a date in eighteen months and your body is apparently staging a protest.

"You've got the filters set to the wrong division," he murmured, his eyes fixed on the screen. "You're looking at the Under-12 softball settings. That's why it's asking for a hydration coordinator and a certified umpire liaison."

"I didn't set any filters," I argued, my defensiveness rising. "The app just... opened like this. It's hostile software. It's gaslighting me."

"It's just sensitive," Cal said, his thumb scrolling through the menus with an efficiency that was frankly insulting. "There. I swapped you over to the Grasshoppers. Now you can see the roster. We've got twelve kids. Six boys, six girls."

He handed the tablet back. I took it, trying not to notice how much smaller it looked in his hand than mine.

"Great," I muttered, looking at the names. "Twelve five-year-olds. Do you think twelve is a manageable number? Because from a risk management perspective, twelve toddlers with wooden bats sounds like a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen."

"They use foam bats for the first three weeks," Cal said calmly. "And we'll be fine. I've coached before."

I looked at him, surprised. "You have? Then why am *I* the head coach? I only got the job because I asked a question about the bathroom situation at the fields and the league director mistook my concern for 'leadership initiative'."

Cal shrugged, the heavy fabric of his jacket rustling. "I prefer being the assistant. Less paperwork. More time actually working with the kids. Besides, you seem like you have a system. I like systems."

He looked at my clipboard. I had already printed out the initial roster and color-coded it by school district and "potential for chaos" based on the parents' last names (I've lived in this town long enough to know which families have a history of being 'vocal' from the sidelines).

"You color-coded the names?" he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Yellow is for neutral," I explained, pointing. "Blue is for kids who go to Weston's preschool. Red is for the Miller twins. I've heard rumors about the Miller twins, Cal. They're like a tiny, two-man wrecking crew."

"I'll handle the Miller twins," he said. "You handle the spreadsheets."

I looked at him, really looked at him. He was so... composed. It was irritating. I was vibrating at a frequency that could shatter glass, and he was just sitting there like he was waiting for a bus.

"Are you always this calm?" I asked. "Does nothing rattle you? What if we get to the first practice and three kids are crying, one is throwing up, and the Miller twins have started a small fire in the dugout?"

Cal leaned back, his gaze steady on mine. "If there's a fire, we'll put it out. If they're crying, we'll give them a ball to throw. It's just T-ball, Liz. It's not an audit."

"An audit I could handle," I snapped. "In an audit, there are rules. There are GAAP principles. There are clear outcomes. T-ball is just... anarchy with a snack break."

"Then consider me your Chief Anarchy Officer," he said. He reached out and tapped the red section of my roster. "But just so you know, you spelled 'hydration' wrong on your to-do list."

I looked down. I had, indeed, written *hydraton*.

"It was a typo," I said, my face heating up. "I was typing while Weston was trying to use my leg as a climbing wall."

"I'm sure," Cal said. He didn't look like he believed me. He looked like he was enjoying this. "Don't worry. I won't tell the other coaches. We wouldn't want them to think the Head Coach of the Grasshoppers isn't a perfectionist."

"I am a perfectionist," I insisted. "I'm just... currently in a state of high-functioning panic."

"It's a good look on you," he said.

He said it so casually that it took a second to register. My brain, which usually processes information with the speed of a high-end server, suddenly hit a 404 error.

*It's a good look on you.*

What did that even mean? Was he mocking me? He had to be mocking me. No one thinks "high-functioning panic" is a good look unless they're a fan of Victorian-era heroines with the vapors.

Before I could formulate a witty, cutting response—or, more likely, another insurance-related metaphor—the league director stood up at the front of the room and started banging a wooden bat against a metal pole.

"Alright, listen up, coaches!" he yelled. "We're going through the safety protocols. If a kid gets hit in the face with a ball, what's the first thing you do?"

"File an incident report and check the liability waiver!" I whispered under my breath.

"Check for blood and call their mom," Cal whispered back.

I glanced at him. He was suppressing a grin. I realized, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, that this man was going to be the bane of my existence for the next three months. He was competent, he was helpful, and he was currently the only thing standing between me and a total nervous breakdown.

And he smelled like cedarwood.

God, I hated cedarwood.

***

The meeting dragged on for another hour, covering everything from the proper way to set up a batting tee (apparently, it's not just "stick it in the dirt") to the complex politics of the post-game snack rotation. By the time we were dismissed, my brain felt like it had been run through a shredder and then taped back together by a toddler.

I began shoving my things back into my bag, my movements jerky and uncoordinated.

"Wait," Cal said, reaching out to stop me. "You forgot this."

He held out a small, laminated card. It was my official coach's ID. I must have left it on the table during my digital portal struggle.

"Thanks," I said, taking it. Our fingers brushed again. This time, I didn't jump, but I did feel a strange, fluttering sensation in my chest that definitely wasn't caffeine-related.

"See you Saturday morning, Coach," he said.

"Saturday," I repeated. "Eight a.m. The hour when only joggers and the truly desperate are awake."

"I'll bring the coffee," Cal said.

I paused, my hand on the strap of my bag. "Really?"

"You look like you take it black. No sugar, maybe a little bit of judgment on the side?"

I narrowed my eyes. "I take it with a splash of cream. And the judgment is strictly for people who think eight a.m. is an acceptable time for sports."

Cal smiled then. It wasn't a small crinkle of the eyes this time; it was a full, genuine smile that showed a hint of straight, white teeth. It transformed his face from "rugged outdoorsman" to "dangerously charming."

"Cream it is," he said. "Don't be late, Liz. The Miller twins wait for no one."

He turned and walked away, his Carhartt jacket swaying slightly with his easy, confident stride. I stood there for a long moment, watching him go, before I realized I was still clutching my clipboard like a life vest.

I took a deep breath, the scent of his cedarwood lingering in the air.

*Risk Assessment, Liz,* I told myself. *The risk of this season being a disaster is high. The risk of you being weirdly attracted to your assistant coach is... manageable.*

I adjusted my glasses, straightened my shoulders, and headed for the exit. I had a roster to memorize, a spreadsheet to update, and a very strong urge to go buy a bottle of cedarwood-scented candles.

Just for research, of course.

***

The rest of the week was a blur of insurance renewals and T-ball YouTube tutorials. I spent my lunch breaks watching videos titled "How to Explain the Infield Fly Rule to a Child Who Is Currently Chasing a Butterfly" and "Basics of the Diamond for Dummies."

By Friday night, I was exhausted. Weston was finally asleep, his little snores echoing through the monitor, and I was sitting on the floor of my living room surrounded by equipment.

The league had provided a "Coach's Kit," which turned out to be a giant mesh bag filled with things that looked like they belonged in a medieval torture chamber. There were orange cones, heavy rubber bases, and a dozen neon-green balls that felt suspiciously like they could do real damage to a minivan.

I was trying to figure out how to fold the portable pop-up net, which had currently trapped me in a corner of the room.

"I hate you," I whispered to the net. "You're a failure of engineering. You're a liability."

My phone buzzed on the coffee table. I struggled out of the net's nylon clutches and grabbed it.

It was a text from an unknown number.

*Unknown: Hope you're not overthinking the net. It's a trick. You have to twist it like a figure eight, then fold.*

I blinked. *Cal?*

*Me: How do you know I'm struggling with the net? Are you outside my window? Because I will call the authorities. I have excellent insurance coverage for stalking.*

*Cal: I'm not outside your window. I'm just familiar with the Grasshoppers' equipment bag. That net has defeated better coaches than us. And it's Cal, by the way. I got your number from the portal.*

I felt a flush of heat crawl up my neck. I looked at the net. I tried the figure-eight twist. It snapped shut instantly, folding into a neat, manageable circle.

*Me: Fine. You're a wizard. Or a Scout leader. Same thing.*

*Cal: Neither. Just a guy who knows how to read the instructions. Get some sleep, Liz. Tomorrow is going to be loud.*

*Me: I don't do loud. I do quiet, professional consultations.*

*Cal: You do now. See you at the field.*

I stared at the phone for a long time. His texts were just like him—concise, helpful, and infuriatingly steady.

I went to bed that night and dreamed of spreadsheets made of cedarwood.

***

Saturday morning arrived with the kind of aggressive brightness that only exists when you have to be somewhere you don't want to be.

I was at the field by 7:45 a.m., wearing my "Coach" t-shirt (which was three sizes too big and made me look like a green-bellied marshmallow) and a pair of leggings I'd bought specifically for this occasion.

Weston was running circles around the dugout, already covered in something sticky despite having only been awake for forty-five minutes.

"Mom! Mom! Can I hit the ball now? Can I? Is it time?"

"Soon, buddy," I said, trying to organize the cones. "Just... stay in the fenced area. Don't go near the Miller twins if they show up."

"The who?"

"The harbingers of the apocalypse," I muttered.

A shadow fell over the grass. I looked up to see Cal walking toward the dugout. He looked exactly the same as he had at the meeting—Carhartt jacket, steady gaze, and a tray of coffee in one hand.

"Morning," he said, his voice even lower in the cool morning air.

"You're on time," I said, checking my watch. "I'm impressed. Reliability is a key metric in my book."

"I aim for five stars," he said, handing me a cup. "Splash of cream. No sugar. A healthy dose of 'why am I here'."

I took a sip. It was perfect. Hot, strong, and exactly what I needed to survive the next two hours.

"Thank you," I said, feeling a bit of my prickliness soften. "I might actually let you live through the first inning."

"I appreciate the clemency," Cal said. He looked over at Weston. "Hey there, slugger. You ready to play?"

Weston stopped his circling and looked at Cal with wide eyes. "Are you the giant?"

I choked on my coffee. "Weston! No. He's... he's the assistant coach."

Cal didn't look offended. He actually knelt down so he was at Weston's eye level—a move that made his Carhartt jacket strain against his shoulders in a way that I found very difficult to ignore.

"I'm the giant's brother," Cal said, his voice dropping into a playful conspiratorial whisper. "But don't tell anyone. It's a secret."

Weston's mouth fell open. "Whoa."

"Cal," I warned, though I was fighting a smile. "Don't fill his head with nonsense. He's already convinced the tooth fairy is a government contractor."

Cal stood up, brushing the grass off his knees. "Is he wrong? It's a highly specialized delivery service."

I looked at him, the coffee warming my hands, the scent of cedarwood mixing with the fresh-cut grass. For the first time since this whole nightmare began, my heart rate wasn't in the triple digits.

"Alright, Giant's Brother," I said, adjusting my oversized shirt. "Let's do this. How do we start?"

"We start with the whistle," Cal said, pulling a silver whistle from his pocket. "Do you want to do the honors, or should I?"

I looked at the twelve small children who were currently descending upon the field like a swarm of very loud, very disorganized locusts. I looked at the Miller twins, who were already wrestling in the dirt.

"You do it," I said, stepping back into the safety of the dugout. "I'll be over here, documenting the chaos."

Cal grinned, and for a second, I forgot all about risk assessment and liability waivers.

"You got it, Coach."

He blew the whistle, a sharp, piercing sound that cut through the morning air. The kids froze. The parents turned. The season had officially begun.

And as I watched Cal Bennett effortlessly corral twelve toddlers into a semi-circle, I realized that my biggest risk this season wasn't a lawsuit or a losing streak.

It was the man in the Carhartt jacket.

***

"Okay, everyone! Line up!" I shouted, trying to channel my inner Drill Sergeant. It came out more like "Overworked Librarian," but it worked well enough for the neutral-coded kids.

The Miller twins, however, were currently engaged in a heated debate about whether or not a rock they'd found was a fossil or a "dinosaur poop."

"Fossil!" one yelled.

"Poop!" the other countered, before shoving his brother into the batting tee.

I took a deep breath, preparing to intervene with a firm lecture on property damage, but Cal was already there. He didn't yell. He didn't even raise his voice. He just walked over, picked up the batting tee with one hand, and put a hand on each of their shoulders.

"In this league," Cal said, his voice carrying clearly to where I was standing, "we call that 'tactile evidence.' But right now, the evidence needs to go in your cubbies, and your feet need to be on the white line. If you can get there in five seconds, you get to be the first ones to swing the foam bat."

The twins were gone before he even hit 'three.'

He looked back at me and winked.

I felt a strange, prickly heat behind my ribs. *He winked. At me. In front of the Miller twins.*

"Don't get cocky," I called out, my voice slightly strangled. "We still have to explain which way to run after they hit the ball."

"True," Cal said, walking back toward me as the kids settled into an approximate line. "I once coached a kid who hit a line drive and then ran straight to the parking lot because he saw an ice cream truck."

"That sounds like a very logical reaction," I said. "I'd probably do the same."

"I know you would," Cal murmured as he passed me.

I froze. "What is that supposed to mean?"

He stopped, turning his head just enough so I could see the glint in his hazel eyes. "It means you're a flight risk, Liz. But don't worry. I'm very good at catching people."

He didn't wait for a response. He just kept walking, leaving me standing there with a half-empty coffee cup and a heart that was doing a very poor job of staying professional.

The next hour was a whirlwind of "No, we don't throw the bat," "Yes, you have to wear your helmet even if it's itchy," and "Please stop licking the base."

I spent most of it trying to keep the roster updated on the app, which kept crashing every time I tried to log a completed drill.

"I'm going to throw this tablet into the sun," I muttered, staring at a spinning loading icon.

Cal appeared at my side, seemingly out of nowhere. He took the tablet from my hand—again, with that infuriatingly gentle confidence—and tapped the screen three times.

"The field's Wi-Fi is spotty," he said. "You have to use your data, but you have to toggle the VPN off first. The league's security settings are overkill for T-ball."

"How do you know that?" I asked, frustrated. "Are you also a software engineer in your spare time? Do you build bridges? Do you whisper to horses?"

Cal handed the tablet back, the loading icon replaced by a green checkmark. "I'm a contractor, Liz. I build houses. And when you build houses, you learn how to fix things that people break because they didn't read the manual."

"I read the manual!" I protested. "The manual didn't say anything about a VPN!"

"It's on page forty-two," he said, his voice low and dry. "Under 'Technical Troubleshooting and Digital Security.'"

I looked at him, my mouth agape. "You read the entire manual? The hundred-page PDF they sent out last week?"

Cal shrugged, a slight, almost shy movement of his broad shoulders. "I like to be prepared. Helps keep the panic at bay."

"I hate you," I said, though there was no real heat behind it. "I officially hate you."

"No, you don't," he said, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a split second before returning to my eyes. "You're just annoyed that you haven't found a way to put me in a spreadsheet yet."

"I have a spreadsheet for you," I countered, my voice dropping an octave. "You're currently in the 'Unknown Variables' tab. And you're highlighted in orange."

"Orange?" he asked, a brow arching. "What does orange mean?"

"Caution," I said, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Potential for interference with established protocols."

Cal leaned in then, just an inch or two, but it was enough to make the air between us feel thick and charged. I could smell the cedarwood again, mixed with the scent of the morning air and something uniquely *him*.

"I'm not here to interfere with your protocols, Liz," he whispered. "I'm just here to make sure you don't fall off the ship while you're busy counting the lifeboats."

I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't have a metaphor. I didn't have a policy. All I had was the sudden, overwhelming realization that Cal Bennett was a lot more than just a "calm assistant."

He was a person who saw me—the real, frantic, over-preparing me—and instead of laughing, he was holding the coffee.

"Coach! Coach Liz!"

The spell was broken as Weston came barreling toward us, his helmet falling over his eyes.

"I hit it! I hit the ball! Did you see? It went so far! It went into the grass!"

I blinked, shaking off the daze. "I saw it, buddy! That was amazing! You're a natural!"

Weston beamed, then looked at Cal. "Did you see, Giant's Brother?"

Cal knelt down, giving Weston a high-five that made the little boy's entire day. "I saw it. Best hit of the morning. Now go show the Miller twins how to run the bases without tackling each other."

"Okay!" Weston shouted, sprinting away.

I looked at Cal, who was still kneeling on the grass. He looked up at me, the sun catching the highlights in his hair.

"He's a good kid," Cal said.

"He's my everything," I said, my voice softening. "Which is why I'm so terrified of failing at this. I don't want him to remember his first sport as the time his mom had a public meltdown over a digital portal."

Cal stood up, closing the distance between us. He didn't touch me, but he stood close enough that I could feel the steady, grounding presence he brought to everything he did.

"You're not failing, Liz. You're here. You're trying. And you're the only head coach in this league who has a color-coded contingency plan for a rainout."

"It's important to be prepared," I whispered.

"It is," he agreed. "But sometimes, you just have to play the game."

He stayed there for a moment longer, his gaze searching mine, before he turned back toward the field.

"Alright, Grasshoppers!" he yelled, his voice commanding and clear. "Water break! Five minutes, then we work on fielding!"

I watched him go, my tablet forgotten in my hand. The "hydration coordinator" (a very nice volunteer who looked just as overwhelmed as I was) started handing out juice boxes, and the chaos resumed.

But as I stood there in my oversized green shirt, watching my son laugh and my assistant coach lead a drill, I realized that for the first time in years, I didn't feel like I needed a spreadsheet to survive the day.

I just needed a Carhartt jacket and a little bit of calm.

And maybe, just maybe, I didn't hate cedarwood as much as I thought I did.

***

By the time practice wrapped up, I was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with insurance claims and everything to do with the physical effort of cheering for children who were mostly interested in looking for ladybugs in the outfield.

I was packing the last of the cones into the mesh bag—using Cal's figure-eight trick for the net, which worked perfectly—when he walked over to help.

"Not bad for a first day," he said, hoisting the heavy bag of bats onto his shoulder like it weighed nothing at all.

"We survived," I said, wiping a smudge of dirt off my cheek. "No one was injured. No one got lost. The Miller twins only hit each other once. I'm calling it a win."

"It was a win," Cal agreed. He looked at me, his expression uncharacteristically serious. "You did good, Liz."

"I didn't do anything," I said, feeling a flush of heat. "You did all the heavy lifting. Literally."

"I handled the tactics," he said. "You handled the heart. The kids like you. Weston is proud of you."

I felt a lump form in my throat. I hadn't realized how much I needed to hear that. Being a single mom is often a thankless job, and being a reluctant T-ball coach is even worse. But having this steady, quiet man acknowledge the effort... it felt like a warm blanket on a cold day.

"Thanks, Cal," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

"See you Tuesday?" he asked. "Five o'clock?"

"Tuesday," I confirmed. "I'll bring the snacks. I've already researched the most hypoallergenic, organic, non-choking-hazard options available in a three-state radius."

Cal laughed—that low, huffing sound that I was starting to crave.

"Of course you have," he said.

He started to walk toward his truck, a rugged silver pickup that looked like it had seen its fair share of dirt roads. He stopped after a few steps and looked back.

"And Liz?"

"Yeah?"

"You have a piece of orange peel stuck to your shoe."

I looked down. He was right. A bright orange sliver of peel was clinging to my loafer like a neon badge of shame.

"It's part of the uniform!" I called out, but he was already climbing into his truck, a smirk playing on his lips.

I watched him drive away, the dust from the parking lot settling in his wake. I reached down, plucked the orange peel from my shoe, and tossed it into the trash can.

Then, I pulled out my phone and opened the Grasshoppers spreadsheet.

I navigated to the 'Unknown Variables' tab. I looked at Cal's name, highlighted in cautious orange.

I hesitated for a moment, my thumb hovering over the screen. Then, I changed the highlight color.

I changed it to green.

*Green: Proceed with caution. High potential for... something.*

I didn't know what the 'something' was yet. But for the first time in my very organized, very insured life, I was okay with not having all the answers.

"Mom! Can we go get nuggets now?" Weston shouted, tugging on my hand.

"Yes, buddy," I said, smiling down at him. "We can go get nuggets. And then, we're going to go home and I'm going to read page forty-two of the manual."

"Is that the one about the giants?"

"No," I said, leading him toward the car. "It's the one about how to handle things when they don't go according to plan."

And as I drove away from the field, the scent of cedarwood still clinging to my memory, I realized that maybe—just maybe—the plan was overrated anyway.

# Chapter 02

# Chapter 2: The Calm in a Carhartt Jacket

The next morning, the clipboard was mocking her. Liz stared at the roster in her hands—twelve names, twelve tiny humans whose athletic development had somehow become her responsibility—and wondered if it was too late to fake her own death. a modest death. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to get out of coaching T-ball.

The metal clip of the board dug into her thumb, a sharp, cold reminder of her current reality. She could smell the scent of sun-baked mulch and the metallic tang of the chain-link fence behind her. It was barely five o'clock, but the humidity was already thick enough to wear, a heavy blanket that smelled faintly of salt and coming rain.

"Okay," she said to no one in particular, because her daughter Sophie had already abandoned her to chase a butterfly near the dugout. The butterfly was a bright, erratic yellow, much like Sophie’s current attention span. "Okay. I can do this."

She could not do this.

The late afternoon sun beat down on the patchy grass of Palmetto Park's Field Three, and Liz was already sweating through her sensible gray t-shirt. She could feel the fabric sticking to her shoulder blades, a damp weight that made her feel even more out of her depth. Around her, chaos reigned in miniature form: five-year-olds running in circles, their high-pitched voices creating a cacophony that vibrated against her eardrums. Parents clustered near the bleachers with varying degrees of helicopter intensity—some checking their watches, others clutching iced coffees like holy relics. Somewhere in the distance, the ominous sound of a child crying about wanting a popsicle drifted over on the stagnant breeze.

This was the first practice. The first official practice as coach of the Mighty Manatees. The name had seemed cute when she’d seen it on the registration form, but now, looking at the uncoordinated swarm of kindergarteners, she felt more like she was leading a herd of particularly confused squirrels.

She'd spent the last three days watching YouTube videos titled things like "T-Ball Basics for Complete Beginners" and "How to Keep 5-Year-Olds Focused (Spoiler: You Can't)." She'd made flashcards, the edges crisp and corners sharp in her pocket. She'd drawn up a practice plan in three different colored pens—red for drills, blue for water breaks, green for "sanity checks." She'd even bought a whistle, though it felt heavy and ridiculous around her neck, and she’d been too self-conscious to actually use it yet.

None of it had prepared her for the reality of twelve kindergarteners treating the baseball diamond like their personal thunderdome. The air was filled with the sound of velcro sneakers scuffing the dirt and the rhythmic *thwack* of a plastic bat hitting a rubber tee nearby.

"Mrs. Brooks?"

a tiny voice at her elbow. Liz looked down to find a boy with enormous brown eyes and a Batman cape fastened precariously over his jersey. The fabric was a cheap, shiny polyester that swished against his grass-stained shins. The roster told her this was Cal Webb.

"Hi, Cal. You can call me Coach Liz."

"Coach Liz, Tyler said I throw like a penguin."

Cal’s bottom lip trembled slightly, a tiny tremor that made Liz’s heart ache. She knelt down, the dry grass prickling against her knees.

"Penguins are excellent," I said automatically, her voice pitching into that "mom-mode" of desperate reassurance. "Very aerodynamic."

Cal considered this, his brow furrowing in deep, five-year-old thought. "Can I be a penguin?"

"You can be whatever you want, buddy."

He nodded solemnly, then tucked his elbows tight against his ribs and waddled away with his arms pinned to his sides, presumably to embrace his new penguin identity. Liz watched him go, adding "penguin-based throwing instruction" to her mental list of things she had not anticipated.

"Mommy!"

Sophie came sprinting back, her blonde ponytail already escaping its holder and whipping around her face like a frantic golden tassel. Her cheeks were flushed the color of a ripe strawberry.

"Mommy, there's a dog! a big brown one with a floppy ear! Can we get a dog? Please? I'll take care of it forever! I’ll feed it and walk it and give it baths in the sink!"

"We're not getting a dog, Soph." Liz reached out to smooth a stray hair from Sophie’s forehead, but the girl dodged it.

"But—"

"Focus, Soph. We're about to start practice."

Sophie's face arranged itself into the particular expression of a child who has been personally betrayed by the universe. Her lower lip didn't just tremble; it protruded in a pout of epic proportions. "But I don't even want to play T-ball."

"You said you wanted to play T-ball."

"I wanted to play T-ball when Lily was playing T-ball. Lily quit. She’s taking ballet now. She gets to wear a tutu that sparkles."

"Well, Lily's a quitter, and we're not quitters." I felt the words leave her mouth and immediately regretted them. The guilt was instant, a sharp pang in her chest. *Great, Liz. Call a five-year-old a quitter. Parent of the Year award is in the mail.* "I mean—Lily made a different choice, and our choice is to—" She stopped, seeing the utter lack of interest in Sophie’s eyes. "Please go stand with the other kids."

Sophie stomped off toward a cluster of children who appeared to be having a heated debate about whether hotdogs were sandwiches. The sound of their arguing—"It's bread!" "But it's a tube!"—rose and fell like the squawking of seagulls.

Liz took a deep breath, the air tasting of dust and old Gatorade, and checked the time on her phone. The screen was smudged with a fingerprint. Practice officially started in four minutes, and she was already losing control.

The assistant coach was late. She'd never met the assistant coach. The league had assigned one—some parent named c. Bennett who'd checked a box on a registration form—but Liz had only communicated with them through a single email exchange that consisted of "Looking forward to the season!" and "Same, see you Tuesday."

Now Tuesday had arrived, and c. Bennett was nowhere to be found.

*Fantastic. Perfect. I’m going to be the woman who let a toddler eat a handful of infield dirt because I was too busy explaining that hotdogs aren't sandwiches.* She was going to have to do this alone.

Liz squared her shoulders, feeling the tension hike up toward her ears, and walked toward the cluster of children, summoning every ounce of confidence she could muster.

"Alright, Manatees! Let's gather up!"

No one gathered. a few kids looked at her, then went back to poking a beetle with a stick.

"Manatees! Circle up!"

a girl with pigtails—Destiny, according to the roster—looked over her shoulder. Her hair ties were bright neon pink. "Are you the snack mom?"

"I'm the coach."

"Oh." Destiny turned back to her hotdog sandwich argument with a look of profound disappointment.

Liz was seriously considering the whistle, her fingers reaching for the cold plastic, when a truck pulled into the gravel parking lot. The sound of tires crunching on stone drew several sets of eyes.

It wasn't just any truck—it was a dusty work truck, a heavy-duty Ford with a ladder rack and a toolbox bolted into the bed. It was the kind of vehicle that suggested its owner did something practical and competent for a living. Something involving tools and problem-solving and a general ability to handle situations without needing a YouTube tutorial.

The driver's door creaked open, and a man stepped out.

He was tall—not dramatically tall, but enough that Liz noted the way he seemed to command the space around him. Broad shoulders filled out a simple t-shirt, and his dark hair looked like it had been finger-combed rather than styled, a few strands falling over his forehead. He was wearing well-worn jeans, work boots caked with a bit of dried mud, and a Carhartt jacket despite the Florida heat. It was a tan canvas jacket, faded at the seams, the kind of garment that suggested he'd forgotten he was wearing it because he wore it every single day. It was a second skin.

He reached into the truck bed and pulled out a heavy bag of baseball equipment, hoisting it over one shoulder with an ease that indicated long-standing familiarity. Then he spotted her—standing in the middle of the field, surrounded by chaos, holding her clipboard like a life raft—and raised a hand in a brief, low-key greeting.

Something in Liz's chest did a small, inconvenient flutter. It was a strange sensation, like a physical hitch in her breathing. She ignored it immediately. Flutters were not on today's agenda. Flutters were for people who didn't have twelve "manatees" and a "penguin" to manage.

"Sorry I'm late."

He covered the distance between the parking lot and the field in long, unhurried strides. His voice was low and a little rough, like he didn't use it much, or perhaps like he’d spent the day shouting over machinery. Up close, she could smell him—not cologne, but something better: sawdust, clean laundry, and the faint, metallic scent of copper pipes.

"Job ran over. Busted pipe in the Hendersons' kitchen."

"The Hendersons on Oak Street?" Liz asked, trying to ground herself in small-town geography.

"That's the one." He set down the equipment bag with a heavy *thud* and extended a hand. His skin was tanned, a stark contrast to the white of his shirt. "Cal Bennett. I'm supposed to be your assistant."

"Liz Brooks."

She shook his hand. His palm was warm and heavily calloused, his grip firm but not aggressive. It was the hand of someone who actually *did* things. Another flutter occurred, which she also ignored with the practiced skill of a woman who had spent years suppressing her own needs.

"I'm supposed to be the coach, apparently," she said, her voice sounding a bit more breathless than she liked.

His mouth twitched. It wasn't quite a smile, but it was definitely adjacent to one. a ghost of an expression that reached the corners of his dark eyes. "Supposed to be?"

"I was voluntold. My daughter's teacher cornered me in the pickup line. I think she sensed my inability to say no to people in positions of authority." Liz gestured vaguely at the field, where two boys were now trying to see who could jump the highest. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

Cal surveyed the scene with a slow, methodical gaze. He took in Cal the penguin-boy, the hotdog philosophers, and a kid named Jackson who appeared to be trying to see how much dirt he could fit in his shoe. His expression remained utterly calm, as if he were looking at a blueprint rather than a looming disaster.

"Yeah," he said, his voice a steady anchor in the storm. "Looks about right."

It was such an unexpectedly perfect response that Liz laughed—a real laugh, the first one that had escaped her in the last seventy-two hours of T-ball panic. The sound felt strange in her throat, lighter than she expected.

"You've done this before?"

"This is my third season. My daughter Lily's been playing since she was four." He nodded toward a girl with dark curly hair and a focused expression who was patiently showing another child how to hold a bat. She had Cal’s eyes. "Fair warning: I know all the drills, but I'm not great at the—" He made a vague gesture with one hand. "The pep talk stuff. The 'go-team-go' energy."

"I'm excellent at pep talk stuff," I said, and for the first time that day, she felt a flicker of genuine confidence. She'd spent years in customer service perfecting the art of enthusiasm she didn't necessarily feel. She could do "rah-rah" in her sleep. "I just don't know what to have them *do*."

"I can handle the *what*. You handle the *why*." He said it simply, like it was the most obvious arrangement in the world. It felt like they were already a team, like this partnership was a foregone conclusion rather than something they'd need to negotiate.

I felt something in her shoulders unknot slightly. The weight of the clipboard felt a little less mocking. "Deal," she said.

---

Twenty minutes later, the Mighty Manatees had been organized into something resembling a practice. The transition had been seamless. Cal had set up stations—throwing, catching, batting off the tee—with a quiet efficiency that Liz envied. He moved through the grass like he belonged there, his work boots leaving temporary imprints in the dry soil.

Liz was roaming between the stations, offering encouragement that she hoped didn't sound as desperate as she felt. The sun was beginning its slow descent, casting long, golden shadows across the diamond. The light was beautiful, turning the dust kicked up by the kids into shimmering motes of gold.

"Great job, Destiny! Your arm is like a rocket!"

Destiny beamed, her pigtails bouncing as she hopped in place. Her throw had gone approximately four feet and landed in a clump of dandelions, but Liz was learning that accuracy was not the point at this age. Participation was the point. Joy was the point. Not crying was definitely the point.

At the batting station, Cal was crouched next to a small boy named Oliver who seemed genuinely afraid of the baseball. Oliver was clutching the plastic bat like it was a live snake, his knuckles white and his eyes wide.

"It's not gonna hurt you," Cal said, his voice patient and low. "See? It's squishy." He picked up a practice ball and squeezed it to demonstrate. The foam crunched softly in his large hand. "Like a stress ball."

"I don't like stress balls," Oliver whispered, his voice barely audible over the chatter of the other kids.

"That's fair." Cal considered this, resting his forearms on his knees. He didn't look like he was in a hurry. He didn't look like he had anywhere else to be. "How about we pretend it's a watermelon? You ever wanted to smash a watermelon?"

Oliver's eyes widened. a tiny, mischievous spark appeared in them. "Yes."

"There you go. Smash the watermelon."

Oliver wound up, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth in concentration, and swung. He missed the ball entirely, the bat whistling through the air, but he swung with everything he had.

Liz watched from a few yards away. She saw Cal offer a quiet fist bump—no fanfare, no big celebration that would draw unwanted attention, just a simple acknowledgment of the effort. Oliver took the fist bump with a shy, proud grin.

At the batting station, a parent—a dad in expensive golf attire, standing too close to the backstop—shouted something that made Liz's stomach clench. His voice was sharp, cutting through the playful atmosphere like a blade.

"Hey! That's not how you swing! You're dipping your back shoulder! Level it out, Oliver!"

The boy at the tee froze mid-swing, his face crumpling instantly. The "watermelon-smashing" joy vanished, replaced by a familiar, crushing shame.

Liz opened her mouth to intervene, the "customer service" politeness ready to smooth things over, but Cal was already moving. He didn't run—his stride remained measured and controlled—but there was a new tension in his jaw that hadn't been there a moment ago. The easy calm had evaporated into something sharper, something made of iron.

"He's five," Cal said. He didn't raise his voice, but it carried across the dirt, vibrating with a quiet, undeniable authority. "He's learning."

The dad blinked, clearly not used to being corrected by a man in a dusty Carhartt jacket. He adjusted the collar of his polo shirt, his face reddening. "I'm just trying to help—"

"You're embarrassing him." Cal's tone was flat. No anger in the volume, but there was a hardness underneath it that made Liz’s breath catch. "If you want to coach, sign up next season. Otherwise, let him learn."

The dad opened his mouth to argue, saw the steady, unblinking look in Cal’s eyes, and closed it. He flushed a deep, embarrassed crimson and stepped back toward the bleachers, muttering something under his breath about "unprofessionalism."

Cal turned back to Oliver, and his expression softened so instantly it was jarring. "Ignore him, bud. You're doing fine. Show me that swing again."

Oliver swung, and this time the ball trickled past the pitcher's mound. It wasn't a home run, but it was progress. Cal offered another quiet fist bump.

But Liz noticed: Cal's hand was clenched at his side, his knuckles white, for a long moment after the interaction. It was as if he were physically restraining himself from saying more, or perhaps from something else entirely. He had a protective streak that ran deep, a quiet intensity that she found both fascinating and a little intimidating.

He was good at this. Good in a way that was understated and genuine, the absolute opposite of performative. Liz realized she was staring—watching the way the late light caught the rough texture of his jacket—and quickly redirected her attention to the throwing station.

There, she found that Cal had apparently convinced three other children that they were also penguins.

"Okay, penguins!" She clapped her hands, trying to inject some of that "why" energy back into the group. "Let's see those flippers in action!"

Four children threw balls with their arms pinned to their sides. It was a disaster for physics. Balls went sideways, backward, and in one memorable instance, directly up into the air. Liz caught one that came dangerously close to her nose and decided this was fine. Everything was fine. No one was bleeding.

"How's it going over here?"

Cal was suddenly at her elbow again. The scent of him—cedar and laundry—swirled around her.

"We've embraced the penguin methodology," I said, gesturing to the waddling children.

Cal watched as a boy attempted another pinned-arm throw that resulted in the ball dropping straight onto his own toes. "Unorthodox."

"He's committed to the bit."

"Respect." Cal's mouth did that almost-smile thing again. "Want me to show them the crow hop? It might channel that penguin energy into something more—" He gestured vaguely toward the outfield. "Aerodynamic."

"Did you use the word 'aerodynamic' because I used it earlier?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He absolutely did, and they both knew it. I felt a grin tugging at her mouth—the kind she usually reserved for her closest friends, for inside jokes and shared understanding. It was strange to be sharing it with a man she'd met forty minutes ago.

Cal gathered the "penguins" and demonstrated the crow hop—a skipping, jumping motion that got the whole body behind the throw. Within minutes, the boy who had been Cal the Penguin had declared himself a "penguin-crow hybrid" and was attempting throws that actually went forward.

"You're magic," I said, watching a ball fly nearly ten feet.

"I'm persistent." Cal shrugged, the canvas of his jacket creaking with the movement. "Different thing."

"In my experience, they’re the same thing."

He regarded her then, really looked at her, and Liz had the uncomfortable, electric sensation of being *seen*. Not in a romantic way—or not *only* in a romantic way—but in the way of someone recognizing something familiar. It was as if he understood exactly what she meant about persistence. As if he’d lived it too, in the quiet hours and the hard jobs.

She was the one to look away first, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

---

The last half hour of practice dissolved into what Liz could only describe as controlled chaos. They attempted a scrimmage, which was really just children taking turns hitting a ball off a tee and running to whatever base seemed most interesting at the moment.

Sophie made it to second base and then got distracted by a ladybug on her sleeve, standing perfectly still while the play continued around her. Jackson ate more dirt. a girl named Ava hit the ball so hard it sailed over the outfielders' heads—all of them, because the outfielders were currently lying on their backs looking at a passing cloud that looked "exactly like a taco." Ava had to be told that running to third base before first base was not, in fact, a power move.

Through all of it, Cal remained steady. Unflappable. He redirected tantrums with the same calm tone he used to explain batting stances. When one of the kids inevitably faceplanted on the way to first base, he was there with a band-aid from his pocket and a matter-of-fact "happens to the best of us" before the crying could even start.

Liz found herself watching him more than she should have. It was the way he moved—with a quiet, grounded purpose. She was watching him the way you watch someone who's good at something you're bad at, trying to reverse-engineer their competence. How did he stay so calm? Where had he learned that particular combination of patience and practicality? And why, when everything in her life felt like it was held together with duct tape and denial, did this stranger in a Carhartt jacket make her feel like maybe duct tape was enough?

Practice ended at six o'clock on the dot. The air was beginning to cool, a slight breeze finally stirring the humidity. Parents migrated from the bleachers to collect their sweaty, grass-stained children. Liz found herself standing in a small crowd, answering questions she didn't actually know the answers to.

"What's the game schedule?"

"I'll... I'll send it out tomorrow," Liz promised, making a mental note to find the schedule.

"My son's allergic to grass."

Liz blinked. They were standing on a field. "He's... allergic to grass?"

"Is there a uniform fitting?"

"That's a great question."

By the time the last family left—Oliver's mom, who wanted to discuss Oliver's fear of round objects in extensive detail—Liz was exhausted in a way that felt like she'd run a marathon instead of supervised a children's sport. Her legs felt heavy, and her throat was dry from cheering.

Sophie was sitting on the wooden bench in the dugout, kicking her feet and looking appropriately bored. Her jersey was smeared with something that looked like grape juice.

"Ready to go, baby?"

"That was so long, Mommy."

"I know."

"Like, *so* long. I think I’m a hundred years old now."

"I know the feeling."

"Can we get ice cream?"

Liz was absolutely going to say no. Dinner was waiting to be defrosted, bedtime was looming, and ice cream was definitely not in the budget this week. She was opening her mouth to deliver the "we have food at home" speech when Cal's voice came from behind her.

"First practice survival definitely earns ice cream."

She turned. He was shouldering the equipment bag again, his daughter Lily at his side. Up close, Liz could see the fine lines—the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the kind that came from years of squinting into the sun. There was a small, jagged scar on his jaw, faded to white. He looked tired in a way that suggested this was his default state: tired, but functional. Tired, but present.

"You're not helping," I said, though there was no heat in it.

"I'm building team morale." Cal looked down at Sophie. "Coach Cal thinks we should get ice cream."

"Coach Cal is not in charge of our dinner plans," Liz countered, though she was losing the battle.

"Dairy Queen's right down the road," Cal said, his tone aggressively innocent. "Lily and I were heading there anyway. Team bonding opportunity. Very official."

"Please please please please—" Sophie had launched into full-scale begging mode, hands clasped, eyes huge and watery.

Liz looked at her daughter, then at Cal, who was either oblivious to the chaos he'd created or pretending to be. Then she looked at Lily, who was watching the whole exchange with the patient amusement of a kid who'd seen this negotiation play out many times before.

"Fine," I said, throwing her hands up. "But only because you earned it at practice."

Sophie cheered, a high-pitched sound that echoed in the empty dugout. Lily smiled. Cal nodded once, as if this outcome had never been in doubt.

---

The Dairy Queen was exactly as Liz remembered it: fluorescent lights that hummed, sticky tables that smelled of industrial cleaner, and the faint, sweet smell of fryer grease and artificial strawberry syrup.

She and Sophie grabbed a red vinyl booth that squeaked under their weight while Cal ordered—he'd insisted, waving off her attempt to pay with a casual "you can get the next one." The assumption that there would be a next one settled into Liz's chest like a small, warm weight.

"Here we go."

Cal slid a Blizzard across the table to Sophie, a smaller one to Lily, and then set two cups of steaming coffee down for the adults. The plastic lids were beaded with condensation.

"Figured you'd need caffeine more than ice cream."

"You figured right." Liz wrapped her hands around the warm cup, grateful for the heat. "Thank you. For all of it. Today would have been a disaster without you."

"Nah." Cal settled into the booth across from her, his long legs stretching out under the table. He seemed to take up a lot of space, but not in a way that felt crowded. "Kids that age, the bar's on the ground. Show up, let them run around, don't lose anyone. Success."

"I almost lost Cal."

"He was behind the dugout the whole time. Doesn't count."

Liz laughed, and she noticed the way Cal’s expression softened. It wasn't a full smile—she was beginning to understand that those might be rare for him—but it was a loosening of the tension around his eyes. a warming.

"You did good," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "The pep talks. The penguin thing. You've got a way with them."

"I have a way with chaos. I'm not sure that's the same thing."

"Same thing." He echoed her earlier words back to her, and I felt her face heat up.

At the other end of the booth, Sophie and Lily had discovered a mutual obsession with a YouTube channel about dollhouse miniatures and were comparing notes with the intensity of UN delegates. It gave the adults a strange, quiet pocket of privacy in the middle of the brightly lit fast-food restaurant.

"So." Cal wrapped his large hands around his coffee cup. "How'd you end up in Palmetto Springs? You've got that look."

Liz tilted her head. "What look?"

"The 'somewhere-else' look. Like this isn't exactly where you planned to be when you were twenty."

It was such an accurate observation that Liz almost flinched. She looked down at the swirling brown liquid in her cup. "Is it that obvious?"

"I've got the same look. I recognize it."

She studied him then—the tired eyes, the calm demeanor, the Carhartt jacket worn soft from use. She wondered what his "somewhere else" was. Where he'd planned to be before he ended up here, coaching T-ball and fixing pipes in a small town in Florida.

"My ex-husband's job brought us here," she said finally, the words feeling heavy. "Then the job left, and he left, and Sophie and I stayed because—" She shrugged. "Moving's expensive. And she had friends here. a school she liked. It seemed wrong to uproot her more than she'd already been uprooted."

Cal nodded, a slow, understanding movement. "How long ago?"

"Two years. Two and a half, technically."

"It gets easier."

"Is that wisdom or a pep talk?"

"a little of both." He took a sip of his coffee. "Lily's mom and I split when Lily was three. Took me a while to figure out the single-parent thing. But you do figure it out. And then it's just—" He gestured around the Dairy Queen, at the sticky tables and the fluorescent lights and the two little girls giggling over their ice cream. "This. Life. Not the life you planned, but a life."

I felt something crack open in her chest. Not painfully, but in the way ice cracks in the spring—necessary. Making room for something new.

"You're surprisingly philosophical for a plumber."

"Lots of time to think when you're under someone's sink." His eyes crinkled. "Also, I'm not a plumber. I'm a contractor. I just fix the pipes when my crew's busy."

"My mistake."

"Forgiven."

The girls had finished their ice cream and were now drawing on the back of paper napkins with crayons from the kid's meal station. Sophie was explaining something about unicorn hierarchies with great passion. Lily was nodding along with what appeared to be genuine interest.

"We should do this again," Cal said.

It sounded casual, offhand, but something in the way he wasn't quite looking at her suggested it wasn't. He was focused on his coffee cup, his thumb tracing the rim.

"Dairy Queen?"

"That. Or practice prep. We should probably coordinate the drills before Tuesday instead of winging it." He paused, finally meeting her eyes. "Not that winging it didn't work."

"I like coordinating," I said, feeling a flush of relief. "I have color-coded binders. They’re very organized."

"Of course you do." The corner of his mouth lifted—the closest thing to a full smile she'd seen from him yet. It changed his whole face, making him look younger, less burdened. "Send me your binder. I'll send you my drill list. We'll figure it out."

"Figure it out" wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of confidence, but somehow, coming from Cal, it sounded like a promise. Like he meant they would actually, genuinely figure it out—together.

Liz found herself nodding, a small smile of her own forming. "Yeah. Okay. We'll figure it out."

Outside, the sun had finally set, leaving the parking lot bathed in the purple-orange glow of the Florida dusk. The air was cooler now, smelling of damp earth and evening jasmine. Sophie was chattering about the next practice as Liz buckled her into her car seat, already planning which "penguin-related modifications" she wanted to make to her throwing technique.

Cal and Lily were loading into the dusty work truck a few spaces over. He raised a hand in a wave—simple, unhurried, the same way he did everything—and Liz waved back, her hand lingering in the air for a second too long.

"Mom?" Sophie said as Liz started the car.

"Yeah, baby?"

"I think I like T-ball now. Even without the tutu."

Liz glanced in the rearview mirror at the truck pulling out of the lot, its red taillights fading into the evening gloom.

"Yeah," she said softly. "Me too."

She still had no idea what she was doing. The clipboard was still mocking her, the roster was still overwhelming, and somewhere in her bag was a whistle she still hadn't worked up the courage to use. But for the first time since she'd been voluntold into this mess, I felt something that might have been hope. Or at least something very much adjacent to it.

# Chapter 03

# Chapter 3: Herding Cats in Cleats

Two days later, the humidity of a late-August afternoon hung over Riverside Park like a damp wool blanket. By late afternoon, the sun had begun its slow, golden descent, casting long, distorted shadows across the patchy grass of the outfield. The air was a thick cocktail of freshly cut lawn, expensive sunscreen, and the faint, metallic tang of the chain-link fence.

The batting glove was a mistake, a stiff, leather-scented monument to my own insecurity. I realized this approximately four seconds after stepping onto the field, where twelve five-year-olds were already running in circles around the pitcher's mound like caffeinated hummingbirds. My palm was already sweating inside the black-and-tan Rawlings leather, making the interior feel slick and claustrophobic.

I'd bought the glove at Dick's Sporting Goods the night before, wandering the aisles in a daze of fluorescent lighting and athletic ambition. Along with it, I’d acquired a sturdy plastic clipboard, a silver whistle that felt surprisingly heavy in my pocket, and a book called *Coaching Youth Baseball for Dummies* that I'd hidden inside a reusable grocery bag so the checkout clerk wouldn't judge me. The glove was stiff, black, and professional-looking. It said *I know what I'm doing*. It lied. It practically screamed that I had spent thirty-nine dollars to mask the fact that I hadn’t touched a baseball since the Clinton administration.

"Mom!" Weston sprinted toward me, his movements jerky and enthusiastic. His too-big helmet bobbled on his head like a dashboard ornament, the chin strap dangling precariously low. "Did you bring the orange slices?"

Orange slices. The words hit me with the force of a physical blow. The email from the team parent coordinator had mentioned snack duty—I remembered the notification popping up on my phone at 11:47 PM. I’d read it while squinting through a sleep-deprived haze, thought *I'll remember that*, and promptly forgot it in favor of memorizing the infield fly rule, which, as it turned out, does not apply to T-ball.

"Next week, buddy," I said, forcing a bright, confident smile that felt tight across my cheeks. I hoped my voice conveyed *totally planned that* rather than *your mother is a disaster*. "We're on the schedule for next week."

This was a lie. I had no idea when we were on the schedule. I didn't even know where the schedule was, likely buried under a mountain of junk mail on the kitchen island. Weston's face fell for exactly one second, a brief flicker of disappointment that twisted my heart, before a yellow butterfly caught his attention. He was gone in an instant, chasing it toward the dugout with three other kids in pursuit, their cleats clicking rhythmically against the concrete.

I consulted my clipboard, my thumb tracing the edge of the laminated paper. I'd spent my lunch break at work printing out a practice plan, color-coded by activity with the precision of a hostile takeover bid.

4:00-4:05: Warm-up stretches.
4:05-4:15: Throwing drills.
4:15-4:30: Batting practice.
4:30-4:45: Base running.
4:45-4:55: Fielding fundamentals.
4:55-5:00: Team huddle and positive affirmations.

I checked my watch. The digital numbers blinked 4:02. We were already two minutes behind, and my "team" was currently occupied with a very intense competition to see who could scream the loudest at a ladybug.

"Okay, team!" I blew my whistle. The sound was shrill and aggressive, echoing off the nearby equipment shed. Several children startled like spooked deer, and one boy actually dropped his glove in shock. "Let's gather up for warm-ups!"

No one gathered. The chaos simply shifted focus. One kid—I think his name was Cal, though it might have been Jayden, Brayden, or literally any other -ayden—had discovered a particularly fascinating patch of dirt near third base. He was on his knees, excavating it with the dedication of an archaeologist who'd found dinosaur bones, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth in concentration.

"Team! Warm-ups!" I tried again, my voice up an octave. a little girl with pigtails and a jersey three sizes too big sat down in the outfield grass and started picking dandelions with methodical grace, oblivious to my existence.

"They can't hear you."

Cal Bennett materialized beside me like some kind of baseball-coaching apparition. I hadn't even heard his footsteps on the grass. Today he was wearing a faded Cubs shirt, the fabric worn thin and soft, stretching across his shoulders in a way that was frankly inconsiderate to my blood pressure. He wore cargo shorts that suggested he was here to have fun, not to implement a rigorous seven-point practice agenda. He smelled like cedarwood and a hint of something sweet, like Gatorade.

"They can hear me," I said, adjusting the grip on my clipboard until my knuckles turned white. "They're choosing not to listen. There's a difference."

"Is there?" His mouth twitched, the corner of his lips pulling upward in a devastatingly casual half-smile. He looked entirely too comfortable in the heat.

"In corporate training, we call it 'selective engagement,'" I explained, pulling my shoulders back. "It's a management challenge, not a hearing problem."

"Corporate training." He nodded slowly, the sunlight catching the dark stubble along his jawline. He looked at me like I'd told him I planned to explain compound interest to a group of kindergartners. "Okay."

"I have a system." I held up my clipboard, the sun glinting off the plastic. The laminated pages fluttered pathetically in the light breeze, making a soft *thwack-thwack* sound. Cal studied the practice plan for a long moment. I watched his eyes move across my color-coded timeline, my bullet points, and my carefully researched drills sourced from a website called CoachingWinners.com.

"You spelled 'fundamentals' wrong," he said, his voice maddeningly calm.

"That's—" I looked down. My stomach did a slow roll. He was right. *Fundementals*. The 'e' stared back at me, a mocking testament to my midnight editing. "That's not the point."

"What's the point?"

"The point is structure. Children thrive with structure. I read a study—"

"Was it about five-year-olds?"

"It was about children in general."

"Five-year-olds aren't children," Cal said, leaning back on his heels. He looked out at the field, where one boy was now trying to wear his glove as a hat. "They're chaos demons in light-up sneakers."

As if on cue, a shriek erupted from the dugout. Two boys had somehow gotten the webbing of their gloves tangled together and were spinning in circles, screaming in a pitch only audible to dogs, while a third child sat on the bench and laughed so hard he fell over into the dirt.

I took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth, just like the meditation app I'd downloaded and used exactly once before deleting it for taking up too much storage. "I'm going to implement Phase One," I announced, and strode toward the chaos, my whistle bouncing against my sternum.

---

Phase One was a disaster of epic proportions.

I tried to explain warm-up stretches, demonstrating a basic toe-touch. a boy named Cal—the kid, not the man—wanted to know why we had to stretch when we weren't made of rubber. I tried to explain the importance of muscle preparation, using my "serious professional" voice. Cal's friend (Grayden? Kayden?) announced to the group that his muscles were already ready because he'd eaten six chicken nuggets for lunch.

I tried to organize throwing pairs, but the concept of "partners" seemed to baffle them. Three children threw their gloves instead of the balls. One child, for reasons known only to him and God, threw his left shoe. Weston, desperate to impress me, threw the ball with such frantic strength that it sailed over his partner's head, bounced off the top of the fence, and landed in the parking lot, where it rolled under a dusty silver minivan.

I tried to demonstrate a proper batting stance, feeling the grit of the infield dirt beneath my sneakers. a girl named Sophia, whose pigtails were held together by sparkly pink bows, informed me that my stance was "weird" and that her dad stood differently. I asked her to show me how her dad stood, hoping for a breakthrough. She simply shrugged and said, "I don't know, but not like that."

By 4:23, we had accomplished nothing from my schedule except a growing sense of existential dread that was pooling in the center of my chest. My ponytail was coming loose, and a bead of sweat was trickling down my spine.

"Okay, new approach!" I clapped my hands, channeling every motivational speaker I'd ever been forced to watch at a mandatory work conference. "Let's talk about goals! Who wants to share their goal for today?"

Twelve small faces stared at me. Most of them had dirt on their cheeks. One was picking his nose with alarming intensity.

"a goal," I repeated, trying to maintain the pep in my step. "Something you want to achieve. Something you're working toward."

"I want a popsicle," said Cal the child.

"a baseball goal."

"a baseball popsicle?"

"No, I mean—" I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a tension headache blooming behind my eyes. The smell of the nearby concession stand—popcorn and hot dogs—was starting to make me nauseous. "What do you want to accomplish at T-ball today?"

Silence. a distant lawnmower hummed. Then, from the back of the group, a tiny voice piped up: "I found a worm."

I turned to see Cal/Jayden/Brayden holding up a wiggling, dirt-coated earthworm like it was an Olympic gold medal. The worm coiled and uncoiled in the sun, its slimy skin glistening.

"That's—that's great, buddy, but we're talking about baseball right now—"

"It's a really big worm."

"I'm sure it is, but—"

"Can I name him?"

"The worm?"

"Yeah."

I regarded my clipboard. I regarded the worm. I gazed at eleven other children who were now abandoned their positions to gather around the invertebrate, because apparently *worm* was the magic word that achieved the group cohesion I'd been desperately seeking for twenty-three minutes. They were huddling, shoulders touching, a sea of colorful jerseys and grime.

"His name is Kevin," the boy announced with the solemnity of a priest.

"Worms don't have names," said Sophia, though she was leaning in close to look.

"This one does. Kevin."

"That's a dumb name for a worm."

"You're dumb!"

"Hey!" I stepped between them, the plastic of my clipboard catching the light and momentarily blinding me. "We don't call people dumb. And we don't—" I gestured vaguely at the dirt. "We don't name worms during practice."

"But we're not doing practice," Cal pointed out from the periphery. I hadn't realized he was standing so close. "We're standing here."

He wasn't wrong. We were, in fact, standing here. My beautiful practice plan was crumpled in my sweaty fist, the edges damp and curling. Somewhere behind me, I could feel Cal’s eyes on me, watching this trainwreck unfold with that maddeningly patient expression.

"We're going to practice now," I said, injected a confidence into my voice that I absolutely did not feel. "Everyone grab a bat and line up at home plate."

They did not line up at home plate. Instead, they swarmed the equipment bag like a cloud of locusts, fighting over which bat was the coolest (the blue one with the silver grip) and which bat was cursed (the yellow one, for reasons no one could explain but everyone seemed to instinctively understand). I closed my eyes for a second, inhaling the scent of dust and cheap aluminum, and tried to pretend I was anywhere else—a dentist’s chair, a stalled elevator, literally anywhere.

"Can I try something?"

Cal's voice was right at my ear. The warmth of his breath sent a traitorous shiver down my neck. When I opened my eyes, he was standing beside me, hands tucked loosely into his pockets, looking entirely too relaxed for a man in the middle of a preschool uprising.

"Be my guest," I said, my voice cracking slightly. "I'm clearly failing. I’m a failure at T-ball. My son will be in therapy by ten."

"You're not failing." He sounded almost gentle, his voice dropping to a lower, resonant register. "You're just speaking the wrong language."

"The wrong—"

But he was already walking toward the chaos. He didn't blow a whistle. He didn't clap his hands or demand order. He simply crouched down to kid-level, his knees cracking audibly, and said in a voice loud enough to carry but quiet enough to command attention: "Who wants to stomp some monsters?"

Twelve heads swiveled toward him with mechanical synchronicity.

"Monsters?" one boy whispered, his eyes wide.

"They're invisible," Cal said, his expression dead serious. He leaned in as if sharing a high-level state secret. "But they're everywhere. On the bases. In the outfield. And the only way to get rid of them is to stomp really, really hard while you run. If you don't stomp them, they'll steal your shoes."

"That's not real," Sophia said, her lip curling in skepticism, but she was already bouncing on her toes, her pink bows dancing.

"Only one way to find out." Cal pointed a long finger toward first base. "I bet there's a big, purple one over there. Who wants to check?"

What happened next could only be described as a stampede. Twelve five-year-olds ignited, sprinting toward first base and stomping their little feet with the fury of a thousand tiny earthquakes. The sound of rubber cleats hitting the dirt was a rhythmic, chaotic thrum.

"Monster stomp to second!" Cal called out, his voice a calm anchor in the storm.

They stomped to second, giggling and roaring.

"Now third!"

They stomped to third, their little faces flushed with exertion.

"Home plate! Get 'em all!"

They stomped home, screaming with delight, and when they arrived, they were—miraculously—lined up. In order. Breathless and ready for the next instruction. Cal straightened up, brushing a bit of dust from his shorts, and caught my eye. He didn't say *I told you so*. He didn't have to; the smug tilt of his head said it for him.

"That's not in any coaching manual," I said, leaning against the fence as my heart rate finally slowed.

"Neither is laminating a schedule, but here we are."

---

During a break in the drills, the sun began to dip lower, painting the sky in bruised purples and oranges. Cal was adjusting the tee height for the third time in as many minutes. Not because any of the kids had complained—most were busy trying to see if they could fit their entire fist in their mouths—but because it looked "slightly off" to his eye.

"You okay?" I asked, walking over. The breeze had picked up, cooling the sweat on my forehead.

"The height's wrong." Cal didn't look up. He was twisting the tee adjustment mechanism with unnecessary force, his knuckles white against the black plastic. "It needs to be at their belt line. Belt line, Liz. Not 'close enough to belt line that we'll call it fine.'"

"Cal, they're five. They can't even find their own belts half the time. Half of them are wearing elastic waistbands."

"That's not the point." He finally got the tee to what he apparently deemed the acceptable height and stepped back, his jaw tight enough to snap. "If you're going to do something, you do it right. You don't do 'good enough.' I don't do 'good enough.'"

He said it with such sudden, sharp intensity that I took a small step back, surprised. The easygoing, "monster-stomping" assistant coach had vanished. In his place was someone harder, more rigid. a man who looked like he was fighting a war against a piece of plastic equipment.

Then he seemed to catch himself. He blinked, and his shoulders dropped an inch. The tension in his jaw released, though his eyes stayed shadowed.

"Sorry." He ran a hand through his hair, pushing the dark strands back. "I have... there's a thing. About things being done correctly."

"Is that a contractor thing?" I asked softly, trying to bridge the sudden gap between us.

"Something like that." He gestured toward the next batter, his voice returning to its normal, steady tone. "Your turn, Oliver. Remember: watermelon."

Oliver swung and missed by a mile. The tee wobbled slightly—not even an inch, just a faint vibration—but it was enough that I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been watching Cal’s face.

Cal noticed. His jaw tightened again, a small muscle leaping in his cheek. He stepped forward and re-adjusted the tee, his movements precise, clinical, and almost angry in their efficiency.

"Cal," I said, stepping closer. "It's fine. Really."

"It's not fine." He didn't look at her, his voice low and gravelly. "It's wrong."

By 4:45, the kids had completed more baseball-adjacent activities than I'd thought possible. Cal had turned batting practice into a game where the tee was a "sleeping dragon" and hitting the ball was how you woke it up. Fielding became "catching falling stars." Throwing was "feeding the hungry dinosaur," which was really just the blue plastic ball bucket.

I stood on the sidelines, my clipboard abandoned on the dugout bench next to a half-empty bottle of water. I watched Weston chase a ground ball with more enthusiasm than I'd ever seen him show for anything that wasn't a Minecraft marathon. He was laughing, his face streaked with a mixture of dirt and sweat, his little legs moving in a blur.

"He's got good instincts."

I turned. Cal had materialized beside me again. It was becoming a pattern. He was leaning against the fence, the mesh groaning under his weight.

"Weston?" I asked, feeling a surge of maternal pride.

"Yeah. He watches before he moves. Thinks about it. Some kids just react—he strategizes."

Something warm and unexpected bloomed in my chest, a glowing coal of validation. "He gets that from his dad."

The words slipped out before I could filter them. I felt Cal's attention sharpen, a subtle shift in his posture as he turned his head toward me.

"Good trait," he said, his voice neutral, unreadable.

"Yeah." I didn't elaborate. I wasn't ready to explain that Derek had been a strategic thinker, too. That his plan for our life together had included a detailed timeline—marriage at 27, kids at 30, house by 35—and that he'd strategized his way right out of our family when Weston was two because a "new opportunity" in Seattle didn't have room for a toddler and a wife who wanted to stay in the Midwest.

a piercing shriek interrupted my spiral. I turned in time to see a tiny body hurtling toward me, a yellow plastic bat swinging wildly in the air. Before I could move, something hard and plastic connected squarely with my shin.

Pain exploded up my leg, white and blinding.

"ow—" I hopped backward, clutching my leg, tears springing to my eyes instantly. The world tilted on its axis for a second. "Holy—"

"i'm Sorry!" Sophia stood frozen a few feet away, the bat still gripped in her hands, her face crumpling toward hysteria. Her lower lip trembled violently. "I DidntT Mean to!"

"It's okay," I gasped, clutching my shin through my leggings. It was very much not okay; I was pretty sure I could see cartoon stars circling my head. "It's fine, sweetie, it was an accident—"

"You're Bleeding!" one of the boys yelled, pointing with a dirty finger.

I looked down, panicked. I was not bleeding, thank God, but there was definitely a raised, red welt forming that I knew would turn into a bruise the size of Florida by nightfall.

"I'm not bleeding," I said, trying to force a smile through the throbbing pulse in my leg. "See? All good! I’m like... I’m like a robot. Robots don’t feel pain."

Sophia burst into tears anyway, a loud, racking sob. I stood there, one-legged, in genuine agony, facing a sobbing five-year-old while eleven other children gathered around to witness my public humiliation.

"Okay, team!" Cal stepped in, his voice booming over the crying. He scooped Sophia up effortlessly, tucking her against his hip like this was a perfectly normal Tuesday occurrence. "Who wants to practice their victory lap while Coach Liz gets some ice?"

The children scattered toward the bases, the crisis effectively diverted by the promise of more running. Cal deposited Sophia with her mother at the sidelines and jogged over to where I'd collapsed onto the dugout bench, my leg stretched out in front of me like a fallen soldier.

"Let me see," he said, kneeling in the dirt in front of me.

"It's fine. I’ve had worse injuries from my paper shredder."

"It's the size of a golf ball, Liz."

"a small golf ball. a Titleist, maybe."

"There's no such thing as a small golf ball." He crouched lower, his presence taking up all the space in the small dugout. His hand hovered over my shin, hesitating. "May I?"

I nodded, my breath hitching as he pressed two fingers gently against the edge of the swelling. His skin was warm, his touch surprisingly light for a man who spent his days swinging hammers. I hissed, my hands gripping the edge of the wooden bench.

"Not broken," he diagnosed, looking up at me. His eyes were very dark in the fading light. "But you're gonna want ice and about four ibuprofen."

"I want a time machine and different life choices."

He laughed, a real, deep sound that seemed surprised out of him. It rumbled in his chest. "That bad?"

"I bought a laminated schedule, Cal. I own a whistle now. This is what my life has become. I am the woman who brings a clipboard to a monster stomp."

"Could be worse."

"How? Please, enlighten me."

He considered this, his fingers still resting near my ankle. "You could be Kevin the worm. Living your best life in the infield dirt, minding your business, and then some kid picks you up and shows you to a group of screaming strangers."

a laugh bubbled out of me, unexpected and slightly hysterical, vibrating in my throat. "Poor Kevin."

"He didn't ask for fame."

"No one asks for fame. It just happens."

"Like T-ball coaching."

"Exactly like T-ball coaching." I wiped my eyes, which were watering—from the pain, I told myself. Definitely the pain. "I'm terrible at this, aren't I?"

"You're not."

"I tried to give them a motivational speech about goals, Cal. I used the word 'achieve' with a group of people who still can't wipe their own noses."

"That was rough," he admitted, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "I’ll give you that."

"I spelled 'fundamentals' wrong."

"Also rough."

"I forgot the orange slices."

"Now that," Cal said, standing up and offering a lopsided grin, "is truly unforgivable. The parents might revolt by next practice."

I laughed again, and this time it didn't hurt as much. Or it hurt, but in a way that felt manageable, like the sharp edges of the day were being sanded down. "Thanks," I said. "For the monster stomping. And for not letting them see me cry over a plastic bat."

"Thanks for not murdering Sophia. Some parents would've lost it."

"She's five. And honestly?" I gestured at my throbbing shin. "I've had worse from office furniture. a rolling chair once took me out for a week."

Cal smiled. It changed his whole face, making him look younger, less guarded—less like a man who was obsessed with the height of a batting tee. "Same time Thursday?"

"You mean do I want to come back here and be humiliated again in front of my own child and a dozen toddlers?"

"That's coaching."

"That's masochism."

"Same thing, really." He offered me a hand. I took it, feeling the roughness of his palm and the steady strength as he pulled me to my feet. His hand was large and calloused, engulfing mine. I dropped it faster than was probably polite, my heart doing a strange little kick-flip in my chest.

"Thursday," I said, smoothing my shirt. "But I'm leaving the whistle at home. It’s a liability."

"Good call." He picked up my abandoned clipboard from the grass and handed it to me, his fingers brushing mine for a fraction of a second. "Maybe lose the schedule, too."

"Don't push it, Bennett."

---

That night, the house was quiet, save for the hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of a cricket that had hitched a ride inside. After Weston was bathed and read to and tucked into his dinosaur sheets, I sat on the edge of his bed. The room smelled like kid shampoo and the lingering scent of the outdoors. I listened to him recap every single second of practice, his voice high and excited in the dark.

The monsters he stomped. The dragon he woke up with his bat. The star he almost caught in the outfield.

"And Coach Cal said I have instinks," he added, yawning so wide his jaw clicked.

"Instincts," I corrected gently, smoothing the hair back from his forehead. "And he did?"

"Uh-huh. He said I think before I do stuff. Like a ninja."

"That's a very good thing."

"I know." Weston's eyes drifted closed, his lashes casting long shadows on his cheeks. "Mom?"

"Yeah, buddy?"

"You were pretty good today too. Even when Sophia hit you."

I kissed his forehead, breathing in the scent of him—grass and sweat and something uniquely, perfectly Weston. "Thanks, buddy," I whispered into the quiet room. "I'm working on it."

I was still working on it. Clearly. But as I hobbled into the kitchen to find the ibuprofen, I realized that maybe being humbled wasn't the same as being defeated. Maybe learning to speak the language of chaos demons was just another skill to add to the list, right after "remember the orange slices" and "don't bring a whistle to a monster stomp."

Thursday. I could do Thursday. And if my shin still throbbed when I thought about it, well—at least it would be a good story someday. I grabbed a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and pressed it to my leg, letting the cold sting of it ground me. I looked at the clipboard on the counter, then slowly, deliberately, unclipped the color-coded schedule and tossed it into the recycling bin.

# Chapter 03

# Chapter 3: Herding Cats in Cleats

The clipboard was my shield. The three-ring binder, color-coded by player ability (which I had estimated based on a parent survey I'd emailed out forty-eight hours prior), was my sword. I stood on the edge of the dusty diamond at Miller Field, looking less like a T-ball coach and more like a woman about to lead a hostile takeover of a mid-sized insurance firm.

I had prepared for this. I'd spent three hours on Sunday night watching YouTube videos titled *T-Ball Basics for the Chronically Uncoordinated* and *How to Talk to Five-Year-Olds Without Crying*. I had a whistle around my neck that felt like a millstone, and a hat that sat a little too low on my forehead, giving me a permanent scowl.

"Okay, Weston," I said, checking my watch. It was 4:55 PM. Practice started at 5:00. "Remember the Objective Statement on the fridge? What is our primary deliverable for today?"

My five-year-old son, currently trying to see how much of his face he could fit inside his oversized batting helmet, muffled a response. "Don't eat the dirt?"

"Safety is indeed a KPI," I said, nodding solemnly. "But the goal is Engagement and Fundamental Skill Acquisition. We are here to learn the bases. We are here to form a cohesive unit. We are here to avoid a PR disaster."

Weston finally managed to get the helmet off, his hair standing up in static-charged spikes. "Cal says we're just gonna have fun, Mom."

The mention of my assistant coach sent a tiny, unwelcome jolt through my stomach. Cal Bennett. The man who had looked at my thirty-two-page "Seasonal Strategic Roadmap" during the coaches' meeting and asked if there would be snacks. He was the "vibes" to my "verticals." The "chill" to my "chaos-induced heart palpitations."

"Cal is the creative consultant," I informed Weston, adjusting my sunglasses. "I am the Project Manager. Now, let's set up the cones."

By 5:05 PM, the "Project" was already facing a significant budget overrun in the form of emotional stability.

Twelve five-year-olds had descended upon the field like a swarm of very small, very loud locusts. There was no "orderly check-in process." There was only a flurry of Velcro straps, the smell of off-brand sunscreen, and the immediate, inexplicable disappearance of three left-handed gloves.

"Everyone! Line up on the foul line!" I shouted, blowing my whistle.

The whistle was a mistake. It didn't command respect; it triggered a localized panic. Two kids immediately burst into tears. One boy, whom I identified from my spreadsheet as Leo Miller, began spinning in circles until he fell over. His twin brother, Oliver, decided this was a signal to start a wrestling match in the dirt.

"Internal stakeholders are agitated," I muttered to myself, clutching my binder. "Requesting immediate mediation."

"Hey, Coach Liz."

I turned, and there he was. Cal Bennett looked like he'd been born on a baseball diamond. He was wearing a faded "Oakley's Bar & Grill" t-shirt that clung to his shoulders in a way that should have been illegal in a youth sports setting, and a pair of backwards-facing cap. He was carrying a bag of balls and a mesh bag of... oranges?

"Cal," I said, my voice an octave higher than usual. "You're late. We're currently five minutes behind on the Initial Orientation and Icebreaker."

He looked at the scene behind me—the Miller twins were now trying to see who could throw their cleats the farthest—and gave me a slow, easy grin. "Orientation? Liz, they're five. Their orientation is usually 'where is the nearest juice box?'"

"I have a schedule, Cal. It's optimized for maximum skill retention." I held up my binder, showing him the color-coded tabs. "Five minutes for the 'Welcome and Mission Statement.' Ten minutes for 'Basics of Baserunning.' Fifteen minutes for 'Infield Synergy.'"

Cal leaned over, squinting at my binder. "Is that a Gantt chart for T-ball?"

"It's a visual representation of our success metrics," I snapped, though I could feel my face heating up.

"Right," he said, his eyes twinkling. "Well, your success metrics are currently eating a ladybug."

I whirled around. A small girl named Maya was indeed contemplating a ladybug on her thumb with an intensity usually reserved for neurosurgery.

"Maya! No eating the wildlife!" I yelled.

I looked back at Cal, feeling the familiar prickle of anxiety behind my ribs. This was exactly why I didn't do 'unstructured.' Unstructured led to chaos. Chaos led to failure. And failure was not in my five-year plan. "How do we get them to listen? I've used the whistle. I've used the 'listening ears' metaphor. I even brought a portable white board."

Cal stepped closer. He smelled like cedarwood and something sweet, like Gatorade. "Liz, breathe. You're treating this like a board meeting. These aren't employees. They're caffeinated squirrels."

"I know how to manage squirrels!" I lied. "I just need... a more robust incentive structure."

"Or," Cal said, putting a hand on my shoulder. It was a brief touch, just a second of warmth through my moisture-wicking polo, but it made my brain skip a beat. "You could try speaking their language."

He walked toward the center of the chaotic swarm. He didn't blow a whistle. He didn't yell. He just sat down in the dirt.

Slowly, the locusts slowed down. The Miller twins stopped wrestling. Weston wandered over.

"Hey, Monsters," Cal said, his voice low and conspiratorial.

"We're not monsters," Oliver Miller shouted, though he sounded intrigued. "We're the Blue Jays!"

"Are you?" Cal asked, looking skeptical. "Because I heard that the Blue Jays are actually secret giants. And giants have a very specific way of moving."

I stood there, clipboard pressed to my chest, watching him. He had them. In thirty seconds, he'd done what my three-ring binder couldn't. He had their undivided attention.

"Coach Liz has a plan," Cal said, gesturing to me. I straightened my shoulders, ready to dive into Section 1.1: The Fundamentals of the Diamond. "She wants to teach you how to run the bases. But I told her you guys are too small to be giants. I told her you probably couldn't even do a Monster Stomp."

"I can do a Monster Stomp!" Leo Miller screamed.

"Prove it," Cal said.

Within minutes, the "Basics of Baserunning" had been rebranded. I watched in a daze as Cal led them to home plate.

"Okay," I said, trying to regain some semblance of my organizational authority. "If we are going to... stomp... we should do it in a clockwise fashion to simulate the—"

"Counter-clockwise, Liz," Cal corrected gently. "Baseball goes left."

"Right. Left. I knew that. It's on the diagram on page four."

"Forget the diagram," Cal whispered as the kids lined up. "Just watch."

"Everyone!" Cal shouted. "To get to first base, you have to stomp so hard the ground shakes! If you don't stomp hard enough, the Invisible Infield Mud will trap your feet! On three! ONE... TWO... THREE!"

It was the loudest thing I had ever heard. Twelve pairs of tiny cleats hammered into the dirt. They weren't "learning the geometry of the field." They were a thundering herd of miniature disasters.

Weston was leading the pack, his tongue sticking out out of the corner of his mouth, his arms swinging wildly. He looked... happy. Not the focused, "I'm-doing-this-for-Mom" happy, but genuine, wild-eyed joy.

"See?" Cal said, walking over to where I stood by the dugout. "Engagement."

"It's... loud," I said, rubbing my temples. "And it's not very efficient. Look at Leo Miller. He's stomping toward the parking lot."

"Leo! The mud is that way!" Cal pointed toward first base. Leo pivoted with the grace of a runaway shopping cart and headed in the right direction.

"I had a drill for the 'Stance and Grip,'" I said, looking down at my clipboard. It felt heavy now. Useless. "I had a series of progressive steps involving hand-eye coordination exercises."

Cal took the clipboard from my hand. He didn't do it aggressively; he just eased it out of my grip. He set it down on the bench. "Liz. Look at them. They're five. They've been in a classroom all day being told to sit still and be quiet. The last thing they want is a lecture on 'The Synergy of the Swing.'"

"I just want them to be good," I whispered, the honesty of it slipping out before I could corporate-filter it. "I want Weston to have a good experience. I don't want to be the reason the team fails."

Cal's expression softened. The teasing light in his eyes dimmed, replaced by something steadier. Something that made my heart do a weird, uncoordinated flip-flop. "Weston is having a blast because his mom is here. The rest of this? The 'winning' or 'learning the fundamentals'? That's just gravy. They won't remember the drills, Liz. They'll remember the Monster Stomps."

I looked at Weston. He had reached first base and was currently doing a victory dance that involved a lot of hip-wiggling. He caught my eye and waved his glove frantically.

"Mom! Did you see? I broke the mud!"

I felt a lump form in my throat. I'd been so worried about the "deliverables" that I'd forgotten the actual human being at the center of the project. I'd been trying to manage my anxiety by managing everyone else, a habit that had served me well in insurance adjustments but was currently failing me in the Great Outdoors.

"I saw it, West! Great job!" I called out, forcing a smile.

"Okay," I said, turning to Cal. "If we're doing the 'Monster' theme... what's next? I have a section on throwing mechanics."

Cal grinned. "Well, usually, giants don't 'throw' balls. They launch 'boulder-bombs' at the 'Target Trolls.'"

"Target Trolls?"

"That's us, Liz. We're the trolls."

The next twenty minutes were a blur of flying tennis balls and high-pitched shrieks. My job, apparently, was to stand twenty feet away and act like I was being hit by "boulder-bombs" whenever a ball came within a five-foot radius of me.

"Oh no!" I shouted, dropping to one knee as a ball rolled slowly past my shoe. "The boulder-bomb! It's too powerful!"

The kids roared with laughter.

"You're a natural, Coach," Cal said, jogging past me to retrieve a stray ball. He leaned in close as he passed. "Much better than the Mission Statement."

"Shut up," I said, but I was smiling. A real smile. The kind that made my cheeks ache.

But then, as it always does with five-year-olds, the "laughter" part of the Abby Jimenez spectrum began to tilt precariously toward "tears."

The Miller twins had discovered a hole.

It wasn't just any hole. It was a deep, muddy depression near the edge of the outfield where a sprinkler head had apparently malfunctioned.

"Look!" Oliver shouted. "Worms!"

In the insurance world, "worms" would be a liability. In the world of T-ball, they were a total work-stoppage.

Within seconds, the "Boulder-Bomb" drill was abandoned. Twelve children were huddled over a six-inch patch of mud.

"Team! Back to the line!" I shouted. No one moved.

"I have one!" Leo screamed, holding up a wriggling, brown creature. "He's my pet! His name is Spaghetti!"

"I want a Spaghetti!" Maya cried, diving into the mud.

"No, no, no," I said, rushing over. "We have a schedule! We have five minutes left for the 'Cool Down and Recap'!"

"Liz," Cal said, coming up behind me. "Let it go."

"I can't let it go! They're covered in mud! The parents are going to kill me! This is a catastrophic failure of the 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM block!"

I could feel the panic rising again. This was the chaos I feared. The dirt, the worms, the lack of control. My life had felt like one giant worm-hole since the divorce—slippery, messy, and impossible to organize. I just wanted one thing, one tiny corner of the world, to follow the plan.

"Look at them," Cal said quietly.

I looked.

They weren't fighting. They weren't crying. They were all—every single one of them—fascinated by a three-inch invertebrate. They were talking to each other, showing each other their "pets," and for the first time all practice, they were actually a "cohesive unit."

"They're bonding," Cal said. "Over mud. It's the best kind of synergy."

I looked down at my shoes. My expensive, white-on-white sneakers. Then I looked at the binder. Then I looked at Cal.

He was watching me, a challenge in his eyes. He wasn't judging me; he was waiting for me to join the party.

"If I get mud on these shoes," I whispered, "I am filing a claim against you personally."

Cal laughed. "I'll take my chances."

I knelt down in the dirt.

"Is that Spaghetti's brother?" I asked, pointing to a particularly large worm near Oliver's foot.

The boys looked at me like I'd just offered them a kingdom. "That's Meatball!" Oliver declared.

"Meatball looks like a very fast runner," I said, my corporate brain finally finding a use for itself. "I bet Meatball could beat Spaghetti to that cone."

"WORM RACE!" the team screamed in unison.

For the final ten minutes of practice, we didn't play baseball. We held the inaugural Miller Field Worm Derby. I used my clipboard as a finish line. Cal acted as the "official commentator," giving play-by-plays of the worms' glacial progress.

It was ridiculous. It was messy. It was the least efficient use of a municipal sports facility in the history of the state.

And then, the transition happened.

As we were "releasing" the athletes back into the wild (the bushes), Maya tripped. She didn't just trip; she face-planted directly into the "Spaghetti" hole.

The silence was instantaneous.

Maya sat up, her face a mask of brown sludge. Her lower lip began to tremble. Her eyes filled with tears. The other kids backed away, the "fun" suddenly replaced by the looming threat of a Meltdown Event.

I looked at Cal. He was already moving toward her, but I beat him to it.

I didn't think about the mud. I didn't think about my dry-clean-only pants. I dropped onto my butt in the mud right next to her.

"Oh, Maya," I said, my voice filled with mock-horror. "You did it."

She paused, a sob catching in her throat. "I... I did?"

"You found the Secret Giant Face Paint," I said, leaning in. I took a finger, swiped a bit of mud from the ground, and drew a streak across my own cheek. "Cal said only the bravest Blue Jays get the Face Paint."

Maya blinked. She looked at me, then at the mud on my face. A small, watery giggle escaped her.

"I'm brave?"

"The bravest," I said.

Cal knelt down on her other side and swiped a big glob of mud onto his forehead. "Wait, I want some too! I'm a giant! Look at my war paint!"

Within seconds, the tears were gone. The entire team was "painting" themselves. By the time the parents started walking over from the parking lot, we looked like the cast of a very low-budget, very muddy *Braveheart*.

I stood up, wiping my hands on my thighs, realizing with a start that I was covered in filth. My hair was sticking to my neck. My "Strategic Roadmap" was currently being used by Leo Miller as a place to store "Meatball."

I felt... light.

"So," Cal said, stepping up beside me as the parents began the frantic process of loading mud-covered children into leather-upholstered SUVs. "How do you think the first 'quarterly review' went?"

I looked at the chaos around us. Weston was currently trying to explain to a horrified-looking mother that he was a "Giant with Boulder-Bombs."

"Well," I said, trying to find the right corporate terminology. "The Initial Launch had some significant technical glitches. The infrastructure was unstable, and the stakeholders were uncooperative."

Cal grinned, leaning against the fence. "And the conclusion?"

I looked at him. Really looked at him. His eyes were the color of warm bourbon, and there was a smudge of mud on the tip of his nose that made me want to reach out and... well, I didn't know what I wanted to do. Which was a problem for a woman who always had a plan.

"The conclusion," I said, "is that while the deliverables were non-traditional, the overall impact was high. Engagement exceeded expectations."

"Translation?"

I laughed, and it felt like something inside my chest finally clicked into place. "Translation: It was a total disaster. And it was the most fun I've had in three years."

Cal reached out, his hand lingering near mine on the chain-link fence. "You're a good coach, Liz. Even if you do use Gantt charts for T-ball."

"They're very useful for tracking progress, Cal."

"Sure they are," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "But I think you're better when you're just... Liz. Mud-faced Liz is a real powerhouse."

I felt my heart skip—not a corporate skip, but a genuine, rom-com, Abby Jimenez-level thud.

"Don't get used to it," I said, though my voice lacked conviction. "Next week, I'm bringing a whistle that actually works. And we *will* learn the meaning of 'force out.'"

"Whatever you say, Coach," Cal said, giving me a mock-salute. "See you Thursday?"

"Thursday," I agreed.

As I walked Weston to the car—him hopping on one foot, me carrying a binder that now smelled like a swamp—I realized I hadn't thought about my divorce once in the last hour. I hadn't thought about my mounting to-do list or the insurance claim on the Peterson house.

I was just a woman with mud on her face, a worm in a binder, and a very confusing crush on a man who didn't believe in schedules.

"Mom?" Weston said as I buckled him in.

"Yeah, buddy?"

"Are we gonna do Monster Stomps every time?"

I looked at my ruined sneakers and my stained pants. I thought about the way Cal had looked at me when I'd smeared mud on my face.

"Every single time, West," I said. "It's a mandatory part of the strategic plan."

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I saw Cal in my rearview mirror. He was waving at us, his tall frame silhouetted against the setting sun.

I might not know a lot about baseball. I might be a disaster at "going with the flow." But as I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror—streaks of mud on my cheeks, hair a mess, a genuine sparkle in my eyes—I realized that maybe, just maybe, the chaos wasn't something to be managed.

Maybe the chaos was the point.

And if the chaos looked like Cal Bennett?

Well, I might just have to update my spreadsheet.

***

The drive home was a cacophony of Weston's "play-by-play" of the worm race. I found myself humming along to the radio, the tension that usually lived in my shoulders having dissipated into the humid evening air.

When we got inside, the house felt different. Usually, the quiet after a long day at work felt oppressive—a reminder of the empty seat at the table, the half-empty bed. But tonight, the quiet was just... quiet.

"Bath time, Monster," I said, steering Weston toward the stairs.

"Do monsters have to use soap?"

"Only if they want to go to the giant-meeting tomorrow," I said, catching on to the theme.

While Weston splashed in the tub, I finally took a look at my binder. I opened it to the first page. There it was: *Chapter 1: The Goal of Greatness.*

I picked up a pen. I didn't cross it out. I just added a small note at the bottom, right under "Instructional Methodology."

*Note: In the event of worms, abandon all protocols. Refer to 'Monster Stomp' sub-section. Also, check if Cal Bennett is single. For... administrative purposes.*

I stared at the last sentence. My heart did that weird thing again.

"Administrative purposes," I whispered to the empty bathroom. "Right. Because every project needs a thorough background check on its creative consultants."

I caught my reflection in the steamed-up mirror. The mud was starting to dry, cracking into a pattern that looked suspiciously like a smile.

I didn't wipe it off right away.

In the insurance business, we call this "Acceptance of Risk." You know something might go wrong. You know it might be messy. You know the payout isn't guaranteed.

But sometimes, you take the policy anyway.

I leaned against the sink, listening to my son sing a song about a worm named Meatball, and for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I was just waiting for Thursday.

And as I finally reached for a washcloth to scrub away the "Face Paint," I realized I was already thinking about what color-coded tab I could use for "Boulder-Bombs."

Maybe orange. For the Gatorade.

Or maybe just a messy, unorganized, perfectly chaotic shade of blue. Like the sky over Miller Field. Like the eyes of a man who knew exactly how to turn a boardroom-obsessed insurance adjuster into a monster-stomping T-ball coach.

Yeah. Blue would work perfectly.

I walked out of the bathroom, the binder tucked under my arm, already planning the next disaster. And for once, I didn't need a spreadsheet to tell me that everything was going to be exactly as it should be.

Messy. Loud. And perfectly, wonderfully out of control.

"Mom!" Weston yelled from the tub. "I found more mud in my ear!"

"Hold on, West!" I called back, laughing. "I'm coming! Save some for me!"

The herding of cats had officially begun. And somehow, I was the one leading the parade.

With mud on my face and a whistle I didn't need, I headed back into the fray. The Project Manager was off the clock.

The Coach was just getting started.

# Chapter 04

# Chapter 4: The Ex-Factor

Three days passed before I finally felt the phantom itch of turf pellets leave my sneakers. The thing about coaching five-year-olds is that they have absolutely no concept of time. To a kindergartner, fifteen minutes is an eternity if they’re hungry, but an hour is a blink if they’re allowed to kick things. Practice could be fifteen minutes or fifteen hours and they'd react the exact same way when their parents showed up: like they'd been liberated from a pow camp where the Geneva Convention had been flagrantly violated.

MommyY! Daddy! we Stomped Monsters!"

The shrill, joyous screams echoed across the flat expanse of the Palmetto Springs park, competing with the distant hum of traffic on the i-75. The kids scattered toward the parking lot like startled chickens, their tiny neon jerseys fluttering in the late afternoon breeze. They left me standing in the middle of the field, the sun beating down on the back of my neck, clutching a heavy mesh bag of soccer balls that smelled like old rubber and disappointment. My skin felt tight with a layer of dried sweat and sunscreen, and I was ninety-nine percent sure there was a stray blade of grass currently migrating south inside my sports bra.

At one point during practice, the atmosphere had shifted. The air had been still, the kind of heavy heat that makes children particularly prone to wandering. Cal's voice had risen slightly—just a notch—when he was redirecting a group of kids who'd wandered off toward the parking lot, lured by the siren song of an ice cream truck three blocks away.

"Hey! Get back here!"

The volume wasn't angry, just carrying—the deep, resonant chest voice of a man used to being heard. But I saw Weston flinch. It was a tiny, involuntary thing—a quick jerk of the shoulders, a momentary widening of the eyes. It was the kind of reaction you didn't learn from a textbook; you only developed it as a survival mechanism. My heart gave a painful little thud against my ribs.

Cal noticed too. He was mid-stride, but he froze, his gaze locking onto my son. Something in his face shifted, the authoritative "coach" mask softening into something raw and observant. His voice dropped immediately to its usual calm register, low and steady like the hum of a well-tuned engine.

"Sorry, bud. Didn't mean to yell."

"You didn't," Weston said quickly. Too quickly. He wiped a smudge of dirt from his forehead, his small fingers trembling just a fraction. "It was fine."

But he'd taken a small step back, his cleats crunching softly on the dry grass, and I felt a cold prickle at the base of my spine despite the eighty-degree weather. I watched Cal watch him, a heavy silence stretching between them that felt far older than a soccer practice. I didn't ask—couldn't ask, not yet—but I filed it away in the mental folder where I was keeping all the things I didn't understand about Cal Bennett.

Practice number two had gone... better. The bar was admittedly on the floor—somewhere down in the dirt with the pill bugs—but we'd cleared it. No one had cried. No one had wandered off into traffic. The monster stomp drill had devolved into an actual game of tag at one point, a chaotic swirl of purple jerseys and high-pitched giggles, but Cal had somehow herded them back with the promise of "special monster stompers" getting a special high-five at the end.

The man had a gift. An annoying, effortless, probably-never-had-to-work-for-anything-in-his-life gift. He moved across the grass with a natural grace that made me feel like a stumbling giraffe in comparison.

"Same time Thursday?" Cal was suddenly beside me, the scent of him—something like cedarwood and clean laundry—cutting through the lingering smell of the park. His daughter Lily was hanging off his arm like a small, grass-stained koala, her blonde pigtails a frizzy mess of static and sweat.

"If I survive that long." I adjusted the strap of the ball bag, which was currently digging a permanent groove into my shoulder.

"You're doing fine." He said it casually, like it was an objective fact, and I felt something warm flicker in my chest. It was a dangerous sensation, a little spark of validation that I didn't have the energy to manage. Compliments from attractive men were like carbs—satisfying in the moment, regrettable later when you realized they didn't actually provide any long-term sustenance. I ruthlessly stomped the feeling out.

"Coach Liz let us use our Hands," Lily announced to the world at large, her eyes wide with the scandal of it all. "But only for monster catching, not for soccer."

"Technically accurate." I hoisted the ball bag higher, the plastic mesh scratching against my damp arm. "We're working on technicalities."

Cal's mouth quirked, a slow, lopsided smile that reached his eyes and made my stomach do a nervous little flip. "Sound strategy."

I was about to respond—something witty, hopefully, though my track record suggested I was more likely to trip over my own feet—when I heard it.

The familiar, low-frequency rumble of an engine that cost more than my first car and my current car combined. It was a precise, expensive sound, the kind that didn't belong in a dusty public park filled with minivan-driving parents. The black Audi q8 pulled into the parking lot with an arrogant smoothness, gliding into a spot like it was arriving at a valet stand in the beach instead of a suburban Palmetto Springs field.

I watched it take up slightly more space than necessary—just enough to be noticed—and my stomach dropped to somewhere around my knees.

Derek.

He wasn't supposed to pick up Weston today. We had a schedule. a color-coded, lawyer-approved, don't-deviate-or-I'll-have-my-attorney-contact-your-attorney schedule. It was the only thing keeping the fragile peace of our post-divorce life intact. And yet here he was, unfolding his six-foot frame from the driver's seat like he'd stepped out of a catalog for Men Who Make Your Life Difficult.

He looked good. He always looked good. That was part of the problem. Derek Brooks—sorry, Derek *Hartley* now, back to his maiden name or whatever men called it when they shed their married identity like a snake shedding skin—was the kind of man who'd been handsome at twenty-five and had only gotten more irritatingly attractive with age. He had that distinguished gray at the temples that made him look like a billionaire in a tech thriller. His jaw was a sharp line that could cut glass, and he had the kind of tan you only get from spending your Wednesday afternoons on a golf course, not from actual outdoor labor.

"Daddy!" Weston broke away from a group of parents and sprinted toward the parking lot, his little legs moving in a blur. He greeted Derek with an enthusiasm he usually reserved for chicken nuggets and Minecraft.

I watched Derek scoop him up, the expensive fabric of his button-down shirt wrinkling as he swung Weston around. His face split into that wide, genuine smile he reserved for our son—one I used to think was reserved for me, back when I was young and stupid and thought love was enough to pay the bills and fix the cracks in a personality.

"Hey, buddy!" Derek's voice carried easily across the field, rich and confident. "How was practice?"

"We stomped monsters! And Coach Liz only yelled a little bit!"

I had not yelled. I had *projected*. There was a massive pedagogical difference that Weston clearly didn't appreciate.

Derek's eyes found me across the field, and his smile shifted. It didn't disappear, but it morphed into something more complicated. Polite. Distant. It was the clinical smile of someone who'd seen you at your absolute worst—sobbing over a broken dishwasher, screaming about a missed mortgage payment—and decided they'd rather see you from a safe, ten-foot distance.

"Liz." He approached with Weston still in his arms, his leather loafers clicking rhythmically on the paved path.

As he got closer, I became acutely aware of the grass stains on my knees and the ponytail that had given up on life somewhere around the third drill. I was sweating in places I didn't know could sweat, and I probably smelled like a middle school gym locker.

"I didn't know you were coaching." He stopped a few feet away, the scent of his expensive, citrusy cologne clashing with the earthy smell of the park.

"Surprise." I kept my voice light. Breezy. I reached up to tuck a stray, sweaty hair behind my ear, aiming for the voice of a woman who definitely had her life together and was not at all thrown by her ex-husband's unexpected appearance. "I thought I had Weston today."

"Schedule change." Derek set Weston down, his hand resting on our son's head. It was a gesture that was probably meant to look paternal, but to me, it felt possessive, like he was marking territory. "My afternoon meeting got canceled. Thought I'd swing by, see how the little guy was doing."

See how the little guy was doing. Not see how practice was going, or see how your coaching is going, or any phrasing that might acknowledge I was doing something here that actually mattered.

"It's going great," I said, my grip tightening on the ball bag until the mesh bit into my palm. "We're working on fundamentals."

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