Tucker had ignored him for about an hour, then texted back with: Probably. And fuck you.
Grant grinned when he opened the envelope with his name on it and found four box seat tickets.
Because that’s what the brothers did for each other. They gave each other shit, then they pulled through when necessary.
They went through the gates and Grant led them through the crowd and up to the stands.
“Wow,” Leo said as they found their place. “These are great seats.”
They were along the first-base line with an excellent view.
“Tucker’s having a good season,” Leo said, reviewing his brother’s stats on his phone. “He’s twelve and three so far on the season, with a two point three earned run average. He’s also got over a hundred strikeouts. He’s like a beast out there.”
Grant smirked. “Yeah, he’s doing good.”
And then Leo proceeded to lean across him and explain to Kat what all that meant.
She listened intently and nodded, and he had to give her credit for at least appearing to act interested.
“So Tucker’s a pitcher,” she said after Leo focused himself elsewhere.
“Yes.”
“And the rest of your brothers play football?”
“Yeah.”
“So why did Tucker decide on baseball?”
Grant leaned back in the seat. “We’re not sure if it was because he loved this game more than football, or if he did it just to piss off Barrett.”
At Katrina’s curious stare, he said, “Barrett and Tucker are twins. Barrett plays safety—that’s defense—for the Tampa Hawks. He’s one mean, tough, sonofabitch and I’ve never known anyone who loved football more than Barrett.”
“More than you?” she asked.
Grant laughed. “Yeah, probably. Though I think my dad loves football more than all of us.”
“So was your dad upset when Tucker decided to play baseball?” Leo asked.
“Not at all. Dad just wanted us all to do what made us happy. The fact that all of us ended up in sports was a bonus. He would have been just as happy if we’d been accountants. He didn’t care.”
Katrina focused her gaze on the pitcher’s mound, where Grant’s brother, Tucker, was taking warm-ups.
He was tall, like Grant, and had dark hair he wore a little long. But he also wore black glasses, which Katrina had to admit didn’t detract from his attractiveness at all, at least not from what she could tell from this distance. And the pitches he threw were fast. Like, wow fast.
“Did you ever play baseball?” she asked Grant.
He nodded. “I played Little League when I was a kid. By the time I got to high school, I realized I wanted to focus on football. That’s when Tucker moved strictly to baseball. He got a scholarship to play ball at Oklahoma.”
“So he’s really good.”
“Yeah, he’s really good.”
“He’s not only a good pitcher, he can hit, too,” Leo said, still apparently studying his stats. “He’s hitting three twenty-nine with runners in scoring position.”
“Impressive.” She didn’t know all that much about baseball, but she did watch it some when Leo was catching the games on TV. And she liked statistics, so when he’d talk about hitting percentages and averages, she paid attention. They’d discuss the players, who was good and who was struggling at bat.
As a result she knew hitting three twenty-nine was amazing. Okay, maybe she knew a little more about baseball than she’d thought.
“Who’s hungry?” Grant asked. “Hot dogs and beer? Soda for you kids, of course.”
“You’re no fun,” Anya said, then winked. “I’ll go with you.”
That was a surprise, but she was glad Anya had a male figure to bond with. Having grown up without a father, she knew Anya hungered for a dad. Not that she’d missed anything with their own father, who’d been absent for most of Katrina’s childhood, busying himself with work during the day and womanizing at night.
Katrina’s mother thought she didn’t know about the other women, but once she’d gotten old enough, she’d heard the whispered phone calls and had snuck out to follow him one night, curious about where he was going. She’d seen him with another woman, had watched him kiss her at the front door of her apartment before following her inside.
It had broken her heart. She’d never said a word about it to her mother, but she’d seen the sadness in her mother’s eyes, and knew her mother was well aware of what her father had been up to.