himself in this? Travis didn’t know, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “You, uh . . . seem to get left out a lot. Or not considered as much as you should.” He went back to cleaning the table. “Starting to think you weren’t exaggerating.”
When Georgie was silent for a few beats, he looked up to find her staring into space. “Remember when you were at my house the other day and you said it’s no one’s fault, you made yourself a joke?”
“Yeah,” he rasped.
“It’s a little like that for me, too. The family was already solid when I was old enough to be part of the conversation. Like all little kids, I got shushed a lot, so I had to be persistent and annoying to be heard. A pest.” She shrugged. “I’m older now, but the dynamics are the same. I guess it’s easier to let them remain than to try to change them. Because what if I failed? Or what if I really am a pest?”
Travis wanted to tell her she wasn’t a pest, despite his own treatment of her. The words were right there on the tip of his tongue, but what if saying so made her comfortable around him? Made her rely on him or view him as a friend? He didn’t want a friend right now, did he? Didn’t want anyone too close. “Families are complicated,” he said, even though it didn’t sound good enough. Wasn’t reassuring in the way her words had been for him. “They probably don’t even know they’re hurting your feelings, baby girl.”
She sighed. “No, I think you’re right about that.”
“I’ve been on teams where one voice always seems to get passed over. When I played on the Hurricanes, they brought a guy up from the minors. A vet. I mean, this guy was in his forties and still grinding. He was dismissed by all the new talent, including me, as an old man. A guy who took decades to be relevant.” He rolled his shoulders. “Right after the injury, I sat beside him in the dugout for several games, and I realized . . . this guy knew more about the game than all of us combined. Pointed out things I never would have seen on my own.” Georgie watched him silently from across the room. “You shouldn’t give up or stop demanding to be heard,” he said, needing to leave her in a better place and having no idea why. “Maybe you just need a different way to make them listen.”
Georgie gave a slow blink. “Thank you for that.”
Refusing to acknowledge his relief that he’d apparently said something right, Travis grunted and went back to tidying. A couple hours later, the credits rolled on the movie to the sound of Madonna’s voice, and Travis realized he’d been standing in the middle of his living room, broom forgotten in hand, for the last twenty minutes. The apartment was pretty damn close to spotless. Where was Georgie?
He found her sprawled facedown on the foot of his bed. Fast asleep.
Travis expected to be annoyed. Instead, he stood there noticing her lack of one sock, as if she’d kicked it off in her sleep. No toenail polish. Her face was pressed to the bedspread and turned to one side, smooshing her face into a pout. If he had any kind of functioning heart left in his chest, he might have found the whole picture she made kind of adorable. Since he didn’t, though, he really needed to figure out how to get her the hell out of there. They had already spent way too much time together. Letting her stay the night at his place crossed a line—and no one on God’s green earth would believe Two Bats had done nothing more with Georgie than clean.
“Hey.” Swallowing a surge of guilt, Travis nudged her shoulder. “Georgie. Wake your ass up.”
“Have you seen Dale?” Georgie muttered in her sleep, clearly nowhere near awake. “I need Dale.”
“Who’s Dale?”
Georgie’s eyes flew open. Her legs scrambled, but she was too close to the edge of the bed, so her knee found no purchase. She flopped onto the floor before Travis could drop the broom and catch her. “Ouch.”
All right. There might have been a dime-sized portion of heart left rattling around inside of him, because the sight of a sleepy, disoriented Georgie with half her ponytail loose had him kneeling before he could think better of it, one of his hands lifted to run over her