Free Second Thoughts: A Hot Baseball Romance by Mindy Klasky

address. His message was simple. The subject was “Can We Talk?” For the body, he’d typed his phone number, and then he pressed Send. After that he’d waited—through his workout, through lunch, through a microwaved dinner that promised him all the nutrition necessary for a healthy, growing boy.
    She didn’t call until ten o’clock. He answered on the first ring.
    “Is it too late?” She sounded like she hoped it was.
    “Nope,” he said, setting aside The Old Man and the Sea .
    “It took me forever to get Olivia down tonight.” She was trying to make an excuse.
    “Is she usually hard to put to bed?” He was asking her to open the door a little, even a crack. He was asking for permission to stake his claim to fatherhood. Jamie could hate him for it, but he was Olivia’s father.
    He kept his breathing slow and steady. He tried to picture Jamie in some cozy bungalow, surrounded by quilts and throw pillows and all the rest of that interior decorating crap. She’d never have a hip-deep pile of unfolded laundry on her couch.
    His mind kept playing tricks on him, though. He could only picture her in her freshman year dorm room, leaning back on her narrow bed, feet pointed toward her yellow Formica desk.
    “Yeah,” she finally said, rewarding his patience. “She can be a challenge. We read a book together every night, but there are plenty of interruptions for drinks of water, and settling the stuffed animals, and checking for monsters under the bed.”
    “It’s the ones in the closet you have to watch out for.”
    “She hasn’t thought of that excuse yet. I’m sure they’ll be good for another fifteen minutes of delay, once she does.”
    “What book are you reading now?”
    “ Misty of Chincoteague . She’s crazy about horses.”
    “I bet her favorite color is pink, too. Or is it purple?”
    He could hear Jamie’s grin in her reply. “Depends on the day of the week.”
    “I really want to meet her, Jamie.”
    “I know,” she said. And then, just as he thought she might hang up, she asked, “Hey? Did you get teased when you were growing up? Because you had red hair?”
    He’d been beaten to a pulp more times than he could count—until he’d discovered the weight room at the school gym. “No one ever gave me a hard time twice.”
    “Olivia says some of the girls call her names.”
    “I’ll teach her a few things to say back.”
    “And will you show up at school when she gets sent to the principal’s office?”
    “Sure.”
    And he meant it. He would be there. But he knew Jamie had to be thinking about all the ways he hadn’t been around. Not for Olivia. And not for Jamie either. Still, he pushed. “She deserves a father, Jamie.”
    “It’s not that simple!”
    “It is.”
    “No,” she said, and now he heard real annoyance in her voice. “It’s not, Nick. Olivia will be full of questions—where you’ve been for all these years. How long you’ll stick around. Whether you’ll go to her Fall Chorale at the end of the month.”
    “I’ll go.”
    “You don’t even know her! That’s the point. You don’t know that she’s allergic to strawberries. You don’t know that she likes her toast cut into triangles instead of squares. You don’t know that she sleeps with Mr. Fluffy under her right arm, not her left.”
    “Then teach me. I want to learn.”
    And he did. He’d missed her. A thousand times, he’d considered picking up the phone, calling her, telling her he’d been wrong, that he’d do anything in the world to get her back. But every single time he’d convinced himself it wouldn’t be fair to do that to her. He couldn’t expect her to be there, waiting for him, ready to forgive him, willing to even speak to him again. And that was before he knew about his daughter.
    Jamie whispered, “I need more time, Nick. Olivia and I both do.”
    “Just let me meet her,” he bargained. “You don’t have to tell her the truth, not yet. Just tell her I’m a friend.”
    He