end where they would barely communicate, she walked out on us. My memories of her now are fuzzy and sparse, because as it was, she hardly spent time with me. I was mostly raised by nannies, and my grandparents on my father’s side. My mother is somewhere out there. Last I tried to track her down around my twentieth birthday she was living with some French vineyard owner in the valleys of Provence.
It’s sad, but I’ve never really missed her. Even after she initially left, I don’t remember crying. You can’t miss someone who never really showed you any kind of motherly love. Now, my father, that’s a different story. His betrayal left me reeling, unable to stand on my own two feet for weeks after he was arrested.
There should be no mystery about why I don’t feel connected to children, or having any of my own.
“Well, it’s beautiful. Better than any birthday I ever had, though there was that one where The Wiggles sang.” I chuckle, thinking of the very famous kid’s quartet my grandfather managed to snag off their American tour.
“That party was epic. I ate so much candy, I puked in the back of Dad’s beamer. He was furious.” Walker joins us, sipping what looks like a cocktail, and I kind of want to know where he got one.
“Oh, crap, Becky Feist is about to go toe-to-toe with another class mom. I have to break this up. See you guys later.” Whitney rushes off in the direction of an angry looking blonde who is two seconds away from tossing her lemonade on another woman.
“And the world says that our baseball team has its hands full with drama.” Walker shakes his head, smirking.
My head nods emphatically. “I have enough to worry about with you lot of infants in the locker room. Good thing I don’t have actual toddlers to deal with.”
“You ever think we’ll be family people?” Walker asks me, squinting around at all the little kids swirling around the lawn.
His question has my mind wandering back to Baltimore, when Hayes pulled me into that garden and kissed the daylights out of me. When he kissed me, I questioned everything. From my career choices to my stance on dating to what the heck I’m doing with my life if this man isn’t in it.
I shrug. “I guess I never really truly considered it. But being here, with a birthday coming up, I can’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind.”
“You have more time than I do,” he says.
“Biologically, I think my clock would disagree. You’re only thirty, Walker, just a short year in front of me.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to be one of those old-ass dads whose knees crack every time he gets down on the floor to wrestle with his kids. I want to be the cool, hip father who can throw them around in the pool and show them how to field a grounder.”
“Ah, the things that truly matter when it comes to raising kids.” I grin.
“You know it.” He takes a sip of his drink. “I mean it, though, Col. You can choose to be two things; happy and professionally successful. I know I’m one to talk, I haven’t dated seriously in ages, but I want more for you.”
“Why, because I’m a woman?” My voice is steely.
“No, because you seem lonely. Especially as of late.” Walker gives me a pointed eyebrow, as if to say don’t try that sexism game with me, you know it’s false.
I know he didn’t mean it the way I’m spinning it, and that he knows me better than almost anyone. “I’m just choosing to focus on work right now. It’s not like there isn’t a crisis to be dealt with every other day.”
“Speaking of drama, my dad went to see Jimmy today.” Walker bulldozes right over the casual part of easing into this conversation.
I blink, digesting what he just said. “Why?”
My cousin shrugs. “He sees him once or twice a month, as far as I know. We haven’t talked in depth about it, but they’re brothers, Col. I know they’re different men, both cold but very different. But they grew up together. Were each other’s closest confidants for years. If Sinclair did that to me, I’d want to know why.”
A snort, harsh and sarcastic, works its way up my nostrils. “Except the thing you’re forgetting is that your own brother doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body. Sure, he’s a royal idiot, but he’d never betray you like that.