Lynn rushes into the restaurant, she is sure that her younger sisters are annoyed at having to wait for her. When she walks into her father's restaurant, she spots the three of them already sitting in a booth. She knows what they were going to say as soon as she sits down, but it's still annoying to get lectured by her younger sisters over her tardiness.
Lisa looks over at her fifth eldest sister, "You're late, Lynn."
"I know. I know. Alarms, what are you gonna do?"
"You could try setting it earlier. You've been running late for a long time," Lucy says as she stares at the menu.
"Then why are you guys upset? You should be used to it," remarks the elder sister.
"We're upset, because we've been meeting here every Saturday morning for years, and you still can't be on time," Lily says while fiddling with the assorted condiments and jellies that the booth has in stock.
"Well I'm here, happy?"
"Eh," the three younger sisters says in unison.
Lynn grabs a menu, and looks at her younger sisters, "So what's new with guys?"
"I'm going to 12th grade!" Lily says excitedly.
"I'm working on a new formula to combat insomnia and increase productivity at the university."
"Don't they already have that? I believe its called coffee," quips Lily.
"Yes, I am familiar with the caffeinated beverage traditionally consumed in the morning, but I mean–"
"It's nothing new, unless you plan on–"
"Let me finish, younger sister."
The two younger sisters go back and forth, while Lynn and Lucy watch them. As smart as Lisa is, she is still prone to some childish tendencies, especially with how charmingly playful Lily can be; some things never change between the two of them.
Lynn peruses the menu, and wonders what to get, when Lucy quietly asks her, "So did you get a chance to read my rough draft, Lynn?"
The older sister mentally groans, "A little. It's not exactly my genre."
"I know that, but you are in the demographic."
"Doesn't mean that I want to read it!" she says slightly raising her voice.
"Read what?" asks Lily.
Lisa explains to her younger sister, "Lucy sent us a rough draft of her latest literary endeavor a few days ago. Personally, I found the amorous moments between the two main characters rather forced, although it did leave something to the imagination, which I'm sure some of your readers will enjoy."
Lucy pulls out her phone and she takes down Lisa's notes. For a few years now, Lucy has made a career as an author, and tends to have her siblings read and critique her work. Usually, it would be a book of poems or some a supernatural romance novel, but lately Lucy, or as her new audience may know her, X. E. Brae, has stepped into the world of a more mature romance.
"How come you didn't send it to me?" asks Lily.
"I already explained, younger sister. It has amorous moments between the two main characters," Lisa replies before Lucy opened her mouth.
"Yeah, because that's so much clearer than before," sarcastically responds the young teenager.
"She means that it's an adult romance novel with sex and other things that aren't age-appropriate for you and Lucy doesn't think you should read it. Geez was that so hard to say, Lisa?" Lynn says irritated after hearing her younger sisters squabbling, but also due to her increasing hunger.
"Thank you, Lynn," Lily says smugly while gazing over at Lisa.
"It's the top of the sixth. The Squirrels are down, with three more innings to take this game back. The Daisies have their star pitcher on the mound, but no one has been able to score. What's this?! It's Lynn Loud! Can she end this streak of bad luck and get the Squirrels a much needed home run?"
Francisco just hears her from the mound. Honestly, sometimes he can't believe her and the silly little things that she does; good luck rituals, fake announcing, and her crazy need to be number one, but he doesn't bother to say anything anymore, since it was pretty fun to see what scenario she would come up with to amp herself up. Plus, she didn't stop even when he told her she was being silly, so there was no point in him wasting his breath anymore. When he is sure that she is done, he gets ready to throw the ball, when the sound of Lynn's phone interrupts them.
"Seriously?" he asks in disbelief, "Didn't you get mad at me when I left my ringer on a few weeks ago?"
"Calm down, besides it can wait. C'mon! Show me what you got!"
The ringing stops, and Francisco gets ready to pitch again, when the phone goes off again, "Just answer it!"
Lynn goes to her bag and sighs. "I have to go."
"Now?"
"Yeah...my parents want me home. Besides its getting dark," she says as she retrieves her stuff.
"I guess…" he responds. Both of them clearly lost track of time as the sun was almost completely set, but that didn't mean that either one of them was ready to go home.
She runs up to him, and spit a loog in her palm, "See ya later."
He proceeds to do the same and shakes her hand, "See ya."
Francisco watches her go; he is all alone on the field, "Why the heck did we start doing that in the first place?!" he asks himself.
Lynn takes a sip out of her coffee mug. She can't stand the bitterness from the drink and asks Lucy, "Can you pass the sugar, Lucy?"
"Really, Lynn? Aren't chocolate chip waffles with powdered sugar and maple syrup a sweet enough breakfast?"
"So, I like sweets. It's not a crime," Lynn says as she reaches for a few packets of sugar for the coffee herself.
"It isn't, but I doubt you want to lose your teeth before you turn 35," Lily remarks as she takes a bite of her eggs.
Lynn rolls her eyes, "I'll be fine; it's just a little sugar."
Lucy clears her throat, "So Lynn, is there anything new in your life?"
The older sister shakes her head, "Nothing much, just work, although you won't believe who I ran into – Francisco."
The three stop what they are doing and stare at her, Lily and Lucy began to squeal; grabbing the attention of the other patrons.
"Girls are you okay?" their father asks as he runs towards their table.
Lynn assures him, "We're fine. Lucy and Lily just decided to scare the living daylights out of everyone this morning."
Relieved, Lynn Sr. walks back to the kitchen. Lynn is about to go back to her breakfast, but notices her younger sisters staring at her with a knowing look in their eyes.
"Calm down. It's no big deal."
"Where did you see him? What's he been up to? And how is he?" Lily says in rapid fire, with an excited look in her eyes.
"You remember him?" Lynn asks, honestly surprised that Lily remembered a guy she hasn't seen since she was about five-years-old, "Well, umm…I met him at work, and he was there to pick up his daughter."
The girls start off excited upon hearing the first part of Lynn's response, but give her a comforting look after hearing the end. They knew that she had a crush on him when they were kids, despite her continuous protests that she thought of him as a friend. Now they reunite for the first time since high school, and he's taken.
"It doesn't matter anyway. It's not like I'm interested in him."
"I can see why. Pursuing a married man would welcome some rather choice words from your peer group, not to mention family members from both sides–"
"He's not married," Lynn says to end Lisa's rambling, "From what I heard from the parents, both he and his ex never got hitched."
"So dating is an option? Although, I'm not sure you could handle it. A single man with a child does bring on some challenges," Lucy points out.
"I concur. Not to mention you seem to lack the maturity needed to handle such a relationship," Lisa remarks while staring at Lynn's breakfast.
"Quit being so hard on Lynn, I think it's sweet that she found Francisco again," Lily brings up.
Lynn slams a fist on the table, "I'm not going to date him. I never wanted to date him! Why's that so hard to understand?!"
"Because you're stubborn," Lily says.
"And this is your opportunity to pursue him without your fear of losing acquaintanceship and having to see him on a daily basis."
"Not to mention–"
"Enough already!" Lynn exclaims, interrupting Lucy, "Can we just go back to before I even brought this up?
The table settles down, before Lucy startes again, "Well if you were to date him, do you think you could handle being someone's stepmother?"
Lynn nearly spits out her coffee, "Why would you ask that?!"
"We're curious. It's like a romance movie – two childhood friends split apart by circumstances, they meet again, and start dating; it's bound to happen," Lily says with a not-so-innocent look on her face.
"Younger sister, you seem to be confusing reality with Hollywood schlock. Besides, that's the romanticized version of how things will play out concocted by your adolescent brain. Once reality sets in, Lynn and her former adolescent love interest will have challenges arise which frankly, our fifth eldest sister may not be able to handle," Lisa mentions before a sip from her coffee mug.
"What? You don't think I can handle it?" Lynn asks, offended by Lisa's assumption.
"I thought you weren't interested?"
Lynn clenches her teeth and grips her fork, "I'm not interested. But I'm not gonna to sit around hearing all of you bring up why I shouldn't date someone I'm not interested in."
She get up from the table and makes her way to the exit. Lynn returns to the table and tells her sisters, "I'm not here for you, I just want my waffles," Lynn grabs her plate, gives one last menacing stare to her sisters before she walks away.
"She's going to go after him," Lucy says as she watches her older sister walk away.
Both Lisa and Lily nod in agreement.
Lynn's phone dings. She received a text message from Lucy reminding her doing a reading at a coffeehouse.
"Dang it!" Lynn exclaims as she looks at her phone.
She shuts her locker and pouts as she responds to her sister. There goes her whole Saturday! Instead of running around and enjoying the outside, she is going to be in a stuffy room sitting around and hearing people complain while rhyming.
She sighs loudly and tries not to dwell on that, it is for her little sister after all.
Francisco notices the bummed look on Lynn's face, "What's wrong?"
"I forgot that I promised Lucy that I would go to her poetry reading Saturday, so we can't hang out."
"She's the smart one, right?" he states as he tries to recall her siblings.
"No, that's not the point. The point is that we can't hang out."
Francisco shrugs his shoulders, "It's fine. I mean we can hang out another time, right?"
"I guess…but still," she sighs at the thought of spending her Saturday afternoon being a dark coffeehouse hearing gloomy people moan on and on about emotional issues that she didn't really care about.
"Still what?" Francisco silently waits for a response from her. When she didn't give one, he offers a solution, "How about this? I text you, and you won't feel so lonely at the poetry reading, Lynn."
Lynn blushes, "Who said I was going to be lonely?" She starts to walk away from him, but stops, and without looking back at him, "But it'd still be nice to hear from someone between all those depressed kids that aren't my sister."
"Okay, then," he tells her.
A few days later, while she is sitting around at the coffeehouse waiting for Lucy to go up on stage, she gets a notification from her phone, and smiles at her phone.
"Who's that?"
"Just a friend."
Francisco takes a seat as close to the field as he can and looks out onto the field for Elena. When he spots her, he whistled as loud as he could to get her attention; not realizing that he also grabs someone else's attention.
Lynn walks up to him, "You're here again? Elena mentioned that you were a workaholic, now all of a sudden you have time to see nearly every practice?" she playfully asks him. For the past few weeks, Francisco has come to the practices; he mainly focuses on his daughter, but that doesn't stop him from sometimes striking a conversation with her.
"Does it bother you? I assumed that a girl who comes from a large family knows how important it is have support," he says with a cocky smile.
Her face turns red, "Shut up," she says before giving him a playful jab.
Francisco takes the hit with a smile; not caring who saw the two. "You know one of these days; I'm going to return the favor."
"Pfft yeah right, you've had plenty of opportunities, and you never have," Lynn remarks, "C'mon. Right here, right now," she says moving her arm closer to him, but he doesn't budge. "That's what I thought." She walks back to the field, and feels a buzz in her pocket.
Don't get hit by the ball.
'Seriously!?' Is he seriously telling her that!? She's not a rookie, she can handle herself on the field. She is about to send a response to the text, when a ball comes flying right at her head.
The kids gathers around her, all of them with concerned looks on their faces. A series of 'Are you okay?' and 'Call a doctor!' can be heard from the kids, but the coach disperses them before leading her to a dugout to get her an ice pack.
Her phone buzzes again; it's a text from Francisco. "I know I didn't keep my eye on the ball!" she yells to him before looking at the message. When she sees his message, her cheeks warm in embarrassment. She doesn't like looking like a know-nothing rookie, and she committed the most basic mistake ever – keeping your eyes off the ball. Suddenly, she is reminded of when they were kids and how he would text her randomly when they were apart, especially if she ever hurt herself after pushing herself too far.
"You know I can easily walk myself home, right?" Lynn said as she slowly limped home after a full afternoon of playing baseball in the park. She pushes herself to make up for that Saturday when she went to the poetry reading and now here she is paying the price.
Francisco, who is currently carrying her things, slowly walks besides her, "It's no big deal, besides I live nearby."
That wasn't really her concern. Her concern is the possibility of her siblings seeing him and getting the wrong idea, especially since he's carrying her things. "I'm fine. You don't need to help me."
"Okay, I'm not helping. I'm just walking next to a friend."
"While carrying my stuff?"
"I'm a good friend, Lynn. I could have just let you go home limping while carrying a duffel bag full of equipment."
"You wouldn't do that. You're too much of a nice guy."
"Exactly."
The two stop in front of her house, "Well thanks for the help," she attempts to take her things from him, but he holds onto it.
"I was going to at least help you to the door, so you don't trip and make things worse."
"I'll be fine. I'm not a baby who needs to be looked after," she says as she makes another attempt for her duffel bag.
Francisco holds on tightly, "I'm not treating you like a baby, but you sure are acting like one."
Lynn grabs one of the straps of her bag, and pulls, but Francisco won't let go. They go back and forth, neither one wanting to give in. He loses his grip, and she falls back with her bag in arms, "About time you let go."
He silently shakes his head, and offers her a helping hand so that she can at least get to her feet.
"Thanks," she whispers.
"I guess I'll see you later?"
"Duh," she turns towards the front door, and notices that some of her siblings are looking at the two, before they quickly duck out of sight.
She isn't sure how much they saw, but she's sure that they saw more than enough to start asking questions as soon as she opens the front door.
"Do you want me to help you to the door?"
"I'm fine," she limps away from him, but she notices that he isn't leaving. "Why are you still waiting around?"
"I want to make sure you don't hurt yourself."
Lynn reaches the door, she looks back and sees him keeping an eye on her. "See. I'm fine. Nothing to worry about." She hears the door about to open, but she quickly grips the door knob, and keeps her siblings inside.
He wonders about what she's doing, but he decides to let it go, "Okay…? I'll see you later," he says before walking away.
When Lynn is sure that he was no longer within earshot of the house, she lets go of the door knob to face her meddling sisters.
"Was Coach Lynn okay?" Elena asks from the backseat.
"Yeah, she said she was fine. She's been through worse."
Between broken bones and bruises and scrapes and everything in between, a simple bump to the head by a ball wasn't going to do much damage to Lynn and Francisco knows it. As a kid, she was the kind of girl that would get injured and try to sneak out to get back onto the field, and he doubted that much has changed since then.
Elena nods in agreement, until it occurred to her, "How would you know that? I thought that you both met a few weeks ago?"
Francisco stays quiet and focuses on the road; he isn't sure what to say to her. Granted, he isn't a very open man when it comes to his personal life, but even his own daughter isn't given much clearance either. He seldom speaks to her about his life before her mother, and even then, going back that far is still rare. She knew some things about her father, but he felt like he was just the man that she would spend her weekends with, and recently her afternoons when baseball practice was over.
"From the way she talked, she seemed like the type to have hurt herself when she was younger."
Elena nods her head and accepts the excuse; she was hoping that he would have said something more interesting than that, but she didn't keep her hopes up.
When Francisco stops the truck, the two walk up to the porch, where Elena's mother is waiting for the two. The girl gave her father one last hug before running inside to get washed up.
Caroline turns to Francisco, "You know you don't have to pick her up every day. I don't want you getting in trouble at work just for leaving early."
"I'm not going to get in trouble; I got an earlier shift so I can get out earlier. Besides, I don't mind being at her practice."
She nods, "So how are you doing?"
She always asks him the same question nearly every time that they met since they split up, and as always he responds with, "I'm fine. Mostly work and going to Elena's practices."
"So you finally got the shift change that you've wanted?"
"I just had to wait for someone to retire, but at least I can see Elena at her practices, I can pick her up after school, watch her if you need me to–"
"Francisco," Caroline interrupts, "I don't think that that's a good idea…at least not yet."
He sighs, "It's been years, and I think that I can handle having my daughter for a few more hours a week even when the season is over."
She stays silent.
He waits for her to say something. Even after all these years that they've been separated, she still doesn't trust him with Elena for more than a few days.
"Fine…" he sighs, "I guess, I'll get going."
"Wait!" she calls out to him, "I'm not entirely against the idea of you spending time with Elena, I just think that there's still more work for you to do before we make changes to our arrangement."
He nods as he takes in her words. He wants to prove to her that he wasn't the same as when they broke up, but he isn't sure how he was going to go about it.
"So what do you want me to do?"
"You know what the first thing is, when you get a hold of that, then we can talk about changing things again."
He know what she wants, it's been the same thing for years; and while he's much better than he was before, apparently, it still isn't enough for her to change her mind about how things are going.
"Make yourself happy too, but maybe hold off on whoever caught your eye, I don't want to see you take a step back."
He raises an eyebrow, "What are you talking about?"
"Your eyes, they have that familiar spark from when we were together. It's nice to see you interested in someone again."
He shakes his head, "I-I'm not interested in anyone right now," he tries to convince her.
With a small smile on her face, "Of course, I wouldn't know the man that I've known for over a decade or his little tells. So what's her name?"
"There's no other woman," he tries to convince her. She is about to open her mouth, but he quickly responded, "I'm serious."
She giggles at how flustered he is getting, "Alright, I'll leave you alone, but Francisco, if you need someone to talk to about anything, just let me know."
Francisco nods his head before he turns to leave, "Um…well I should get going…"
Caroline doesn't stop him or try to pry anymore, and she simply says, "I'll see you Friday."
Francisco is running as fast he could. Why did he have to be nice? Why did he have to offer to walk her home? And worst of all, why did he lie about where he lived? They live in opposite directions, and now here he is hightailing it to his house before his parents start calling him and wondering where he was.
When he reaches his porch, he stops to catch his breath. "Made it…" The lights turn on, but at least he was home.
The door opens, and Francisco sees his older brother Kiké, "About time you got home, menso."
The younger boy ignores him and walks to the kitchen.
"Still making out with your girlfriend after school?" teases his older brother, as he follows behind Francisco.
"She's not my girlfriend," Francisco says in an irritated tone.
"So you are making out with her, then?"
Francisco stays quiet; there is no point in going along with his games, but it's the price he pays for being the younger brother to an annoying pest.
He washes up for dinner, when another older brother appears behind him, "Hey Pancho, when'd you get home?"
"Just now, after he was done making out with his girlfriend!"
"He's still making out Lynn?" Chuy jokingly asks.
"I'm not making out with her!" Francisco loudly declares, "We just hang out and play some games after school. Why is that so hard to understand?"
Francisco's eldest brother looked down, and playfully ruffles his hair, "Because Pancho, we like to mess with you," Chuy turns to Kiké, "Some more than others."
"Why do you make me sound like a bad guy?"
"Because it's the role you love to play most," Chuy responds.
Francisco pulls away from his older brother's hand, and firmly says to both brothers, "Nothing is going on. We hang out. We go home. Nothing else happens."
Lynn lays on her couch and holds her phone in front of her face. She keeps reading the text message that Francisco sent after getting hit earlier at practice. Sure, she told him that she was fine, but he didn't get a chance to stay and talk like they sometimes do. Now, here she was staring at a screen wondering what to do.
'Why does this even matter? Why should I even respond? He knows that I'm fine…'
Then the words of her younger sisters from that Saturday breakfast pops into her head, about how she wants to pursue him. She doesn't. She just wants to reconnect with her old friend that she hasn't spoken to in over a decade. Nothing more.
Lynn groans. She begins to type, but quickly erases what she typed. It keeps happening over and over again, "This can't be that hard. He was one of my best friends, dang it."
She sets her phone down, grabs a tennis ball that she has on the ground and tosses it towards the ceiling, "Does it even matter? We've grown up. For all I know, the only thing that's still the same is baseball. He could be a musician on the street, a scientist in a secret military lab, or a secret billionaire."
She laughs at her own thoughts, as she tries to imagine Francisco as any of those things. He's never shown much interest in such careers, and knowing him, he would have picked something more practical, safer.
As she thought about those potential careers, her mind wanders to how things have changed for both of them. The last time she talked to him was in their freshman year of college and after that, nothing!
"Hmm, why did we stop talking?" she asks herself, before the tennis ball hit her in the face and bounces to the ground. She flinches at the sudden impact, "Well at least it wasn't a cricket ball," she jokes. "Hmm…where did that ball go anyway? I guess it doesn't matter, I don't have the guys to play cricket with anyway. Maybe it's at mom and dad's place? Or in the car? The closet? Maybe someone stole it? But who would want an old cricket ball?"
She shakes her head, trying to get back on topic.
"Focus, Loud! What was I thinking about?" she turns to her phone and remembered, "I could ask him that, maybe he remembers why we stopped talking," she shakes her head. "That's not a way to start a conversation."
Lynn doesn't know why she is so nervous about messaging him, "You know what, time to stop being a wimp, Loud. Bite the bullet and just say something!" she screams.
Her neighbor pounds on the wall, "Would you be quiet?!"
"You be quiet!" she screams back to the man.
She grabs her phone and sends him a text.
Hey
