“Yeah. Sure. Perhaps,” I say and head out the door toward the parking lot where a big moving truck has just blocked the entrance to the gym area.

“Hey!” I say, waving my hands to catch the attention of the driver. “I can’t have you parking here. If you have a delivery, go to the main office on the other side.” I point.

The burly-looking guy looks at the top page on his clipboard. “I’m looking for Gunner Camden or uh, a Chase Kincade with The Center. You one of them?”

Jesus. Can I not talk to anyone without the mention of her name?

“Uh—yeah. I wasn’t expecting any deliveries though.”

“Well, I have a big one for you.”

Have I been so distracted with everything with Chase that I missed something?

“It says here the delivery is from Major League Baseball care of Easton Wylder.”

“Easton Wylder?” I ask, the name of the former MLB catcher and now sports announcer taking me by surprise.

But it shouldn’t now that I know who Chase is. Now that I know athletes like him are just a phone call away for her.

“I think you have that wrong.”

I war with indecision. With accepting something from the woman who currently crushed me and thinking this is something for The Center and the kids here.

Me or them.

“Here. The list is too long to read.” I shove my pride aside as he hands the clipboard to me. My own hurt doesn’t matter in the moment. Only the kids. Only fixing their hurt.

The two delivery guys start rolling up the back door of the truck while I look at the contents list. My jaw drops. There’s a detailed inventory of new uniforms, cleats, bats, gloves, baseballs, practice equipment like tees and fungo bats—more than I could ever imagine. And the quantities and the sizes provided are so vast that we’ll be able to outfit kids and those without for years and years.

I open my mouth to speak and then close it, overwhelmed by it all.

“See? I told you it was a lot of shit.” The driver points to the clipboard again. “Pages two and three have even more.”

“Pages two and three?”

When I lift the top sheet, I’m greeted with specifics on more ridiculous quantities of sports equipment—and not just baseball gear. There’s basketball and soccer equipment, cones and goal nets, field hockey sticks . . . and the list goes on and on.

“What in the—” Ellie asks as she walks outside. When she sees the first pallet of gear being offloaded from the truck on a pallet jack, her smile is slow and steady. “She wasn’t lying about this, now was she?”

My sigh is heavy. “No. No, she wasn’t.”