Standard disclaimers apply.
Second Chance
Gary was sitting at the bar when he noticed Kaitlyn and her daughters walk in. "Casey, when we get to the park you can have a hotdog." He heard her tell the youngest. She was the mirror image of her mother right down the dimple in her chin. Her curly blond hair was pulled into a pigtail and Gary noticed she had her mother's eyes. "And cotton candy?" He heard her ask. "Yes, you can have some cotton candy." Kaitlyn smiled when she saw Gary.
"Hi Gary.
"Hey." Gary smiled.
"Gary, this is Jessica and Casey." As she spoke, she put her arms on Casey's shoulders. "Girls this is Gary."
Casey looked up at Gary. "My real name is Cassandra Lee Kelly, but my nickname is Casey. Do you have a nickname?" She gave Gary the cutest smile.
"No, I can't say that I do, it's just Gary." Gary smiled.
"She does that every time she meets someone new." Jessica said.
"I do not!" Casey pouted.
"Do too!" Jessica raised her voice.
"Do not!" Casey screamed.
"Girls, Girls!" Both girls stopped and looked at their mother. "I don't think Gary nor I want to hear this. Can we stop, please?" Gary noticed that when Kaitlyn got frustrated she had the slightest bit of a southern accent. He started to laugh.
"What do find so amusing?" Kaitlyn looked at Gary.
"Oh, nothing, nothing." Gary shrugged. "That's a cute little accent ya got there." Gary teased.
"You're real funny. I hope you know I have worked very hard to get rid of that accent. I don't think that it is very nice to pick on people." Kaitlyn turned away.
Gary felt awful and stuttered. "I, I'm sorry. I was, I was, just kidding."
Kaitlyn turned around with a serious look on her face. Then she broke into a huge smile and started to laugh. "You're easy, I was just fooling around with you."
Gary let out sigh of relief and then smiled. He clapped his hands and started to rub them together. "Well girls, I think we have a baseball game to get to. What do ya say..huh, should we get going?
"I think that would be a great idea." Kaitlyn said. Gary, Kaitlyn, and the girls headed for the door.
They all walked the short distance from McGinty's to the EL. When they were halfway there, Kaitlyn noticed that Gary had taken Casey's tiny hand in his much larger one. Kaitlyn felt a twinge in her heart. Casey talked to him non-stop about going to the zoo that afternoon and all the animals she had seen. Gary spoke with her as if he had known her his whole life. He listened and during parts of the conversation, he would tell her about things that had happened to him when he was her age and his mother had taken him to the zoo.
Whenever Casey wasn't monopolizing the conversation, Jessica would ask him baseball questions. Gary was surprised at how much she knew about the game. Jessica talked a lot about her Uncle Greg and how he had taught her everything, she knew. Kaitlyn was content just watching and listening to them interact.
As they were waiting for the train, Kaitlyn noticed that Gary suddenly got distracted.
"Could you excuse me for a minute?" Gary asked, not really looking at her.
"Um, Yeah." Kaitlyn watched him walk over to two men who were having a heated conversation.
"Mom, what's Gary doing?" Jessica asked.
"I don't know honey."
Kaitlyn turned and saw the train starting to pull into the station. As she turned back around, she saw Gary grab one of the men who had apparently been pushed. She could not believe what she just saw. Gary just stopped that person from falling onto the tracks. He would have been hit with that train. The man was so grateful he hugged Gary. As Gary walked back towards her, she noticed that he stopped and pulled a newspaper from his back pocket. He started to look through it and then put it back in his pocket. Kaitlyn remembered that he did the same thing this morning after the incident in the park.
When Gary got over to where she and the girls were standing, he took Casey by the hand and turned to Kaitlyn and said, "We ready to go." He asked.
"Yeah." Kaitlyn said. They walked onto the train. Kaitlyn and Gary sat down in one seat and Jessica and Casey were sharing the seat directly in front of them. Gary was rubbing his shoulder. He looked over at Kaitlyn and he noticed she was staring at him with a strange look on her face. He smiled and asked, "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong? You act like what you just did is a normal occurrence in your life. You just stopped that guy from getting hit by this train."
"Well, I just n-n-noticed" Gary started to stutter. "That things were getting h-heated up between those two guys and I figured that something like that might happen so, well anyone would have done what I just did."
"No I don't think just anyone would have done what you just did. You are one of a kind you know that Gary Hobson?" She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "I have never met anyone like you." She smiled. Both of the girls' saw their mother kiss Gary on the cheek and began to giggle.
Gary's face turned red from ear to ear. He looked into Kaitlyn's eyes. "Well I guess I was just in the right place at the right time." He leaned in and whispered in her ear. "If I would have known it would impress you I would have done something sooner." Kaitlyn blushed.
"Girls, turn around." Kaitlyn told her daughters.
They spent the rest of the train ride talking about Kaitlyn's family. How her parents recently relocated to Chicago from Kentucky. So that is where the accent comes from, Gary thought. Kaitlyn asked about his parents. Gary told her that he was an only child from Hickory, Indiana. His parents still lived there and would visit occasionally.
Frequently, the girls would interject the conversation with a question for Gary. Kaitlyn noticed that he would stop what he was saying and answer their question. It was something that she found very sweet about him. He didn't seem to be nervous around the girls. This was something that Kaitlyn had never found in a guy before.
They spent the next few hours talking, laughing, and watching baseball. Gary was surprised at how much Kaitlyn new about the game. She knew a lot about the players, including, statistics, which amazed Gary.
Kaitlyn noticed how smitten Casey was with Gary, as well as he with her. She was sitting on his lap and he was explaining the game to her. Kaitlyn thought that she was doing a good job being a mother and a surrogate father. Until that moment, she hadn't realized how much her younger daughter was missing by not having a father around.
Kaitlyn noticed that Gary would occasionally take the paper out of his back pocket and look at it. She teased him about it once. "Are you afraid you missed something."
"Howzat?" He asked surprised.
"The paper. Are you afraid that you missed reading something earlier? I noticed that you look at it a lot." Kaitlyn teased.
"It's a bad habit." Gary joked.
During the 7th inning stretch, someone tapped Kaitlyn on the shoulder. "How you doing baby?" Kaitlyn gave the man a kiss and hugged him. "Pappy!" The girls screamed and ran over to him. He enveloped them both in a big hug. When he was finished Kaitlyn said, "Daddy, this is Gary Hobson." Kaitlyn turned towards Gary, "Gary, this is my Dad, Collier Kelly."
Gary shook his hand. "It's nice to meet you sir." Gary said. Collier Kelly was a handsome man. Gary noticed right away that Kaitlyn looked like her father. Now Gary knew where she got those beautiful blue eyes.
"It's nice to meet you too, Gary." Collier sat down in the seat next to Kaitlyn. He pulled Casey onto his lap. "So, I hear you two rugrat's are spending the night tonight." He tickled Casey.
"Yeah, Mamma wants to take them swimming tomorrow morning." Kaitlyn said.
"Pappy, Gary is the man who helped Mommy when she fell in the park this morning?" Casey gleamed.
"What happened in the park this morning?" Collier asked concerned.
Kaitlyn looked at Gary and then back at her Dad. "Oh, it was nothing, you know me just my clumsy self." Kaitlyn joked.
Gary got the feeling that Kaitlyn wasn't telling her father the truth for a reason. So, he played along. "Yeah, I think she tripped over her own shoe lace. Isn't that what happened?" Gary teased.
Collier watched his daughter and Gary stare at each other and smiled. Collier looked at his watch. "It looks like this game will be over early. I had better get back. You gonna bring the girls downstairs after the game." He asked.
"Yep. I have their overnight bags in the security office."
Collier put Casey down and she headed right back to Gary's lap. He stood up and went into the isle. Jessica sat back down in her seat. "Gary, hope to see you again, it was nice meeting you. Kaitlyn you should bring him to dinner some night. I'm sure your mom would like to meet him." He teased.
"Thank you Mr. Kelly, it was nice meeting you too." Gary shook his hand.
"Call me Collier. I'll see y'all after the game." He walked away.
After the game, Gary and Kaitlyn headed back to McGinty's. It was nice to be alone with her, Gary thought. When they got there, he talked her into coming in for a drink. Kaitlyn knew it was getting late, but she couldn't resist him.
Over a soda, she told Gary about how her parents met when they were kids, were high school sweethearts, and got married when they were very young. Gary found out that her father was a retired police officer, who was keeping busy by working security at the games.
He asked her about her job. Kaitlyn told him that she was a book editor. She had received a degree in literature from New York University. After college she got a job with a publishing firm and worked her way up to editor. When she had Jessica she started to work from home more and said that she liked it because she was always home when the girls needed her. When she decided to move to Chicago, the publishing firm didn't want to loose her so they agreed to do everything via telephone and mail. He noticed how animated she got when she spoke about something she obviously loved.
Gary opened up to her, told her about how his ex-wife threw him out on their anniversary, and then filed for divorce. When Kaitlyn asked why, he told her that Marcia felt they wanted different things out of life and she wasn't satisfied. He told her how he worked as a stockbroker. It was something Marcia wanted him to do and he just wasn't happy doing it so now he owned the bar.
Before they knew it, it was almost 1:00 in the morning. "Oh boy, look at the time. I better get going." Kaitlyn said as she stood up.
"I'll walk you to your car." Gary said.
They walked outside. Without even realizing it, Kaitlyn took Gary's hand. He walked her to the drivers' side door. "I had a…" They both spoke at the same time and laughed.
"You go first." Gary blushed.
"I had a nice time tonight." Kaitlyn smiled.
"I had a nice time too. Though it would have been better if the Cubs would have won." Gary joked. "We'll have to do it again sometime?"
"When?" Kaitlyn asked. Then she blushed when she realized how forward she was being. "I mean…I still owe you that dinner. How about tomorrow night? No kids this time, just you and me."
"Can I call you tomorrow?" Gary smiled.
"Yeah, that would be good. Um…let me give you my number." She opened the car door and looked around for a piece of paper. She wrote down her number and placed it in Gary's hand. "I should be home most of the day."
"Okay." I'll call you tomorrow." Gary smiled. She leaned in and gently brushed her lips against his. He pulled away and looked into her eyes. It was a simple kiss, but his heart was racing like he had never experienced before. He noticed that Kaitlyn became a little flustered. She lowered her head, but looked up with her eyes.
"I'll see you tomorrow. Take care of that shoulder." Kaitlyn turned and got into her car. Gary watched as she drove away. For the first time in a long time, he was looking forward to what tomorrow brought.