Kat
“Ohmigod! We’re having Sunday Night Dinner with a famous baseball player!” Bree shrieked. “I have to put this on my Facebook status right this second!” She pulled out her phone and began typing furiously.
“Because we’ve never had any other famous baseball players in our house before? Thanks, honey,” Beau joked.
Chase grinned. “Yeah, the honor’s all mine, Mr. LeBlanc. I’ve always wanted to meet you, and now here I am, in your home, eating this fantastic—what did you call it?” he said, turning to Kat.
“ ‘Spapizza.’ Beau invented the recipe. It’s part spaghetti with meatballs, part pizza,” Kat explained.
“Yeah, it’s kinda different, isn’t it? And please call me Beau, you’re making me feel old.”
“You are old, Daddy,” Bree said without looking up from her phone. “I think you’re the oldest dad in my class! Well, except for Savannah’s dad, he’s like eighty.”
Everyone laughed. Kat glanced around the table, happy that people were enjoying themselves (well, most of the people, anyway—was something up with Kyle and Benjy?) and feeling warm and relaxed from the lovely Cabernet, courtesy of Chase, who seemed to know how to make the right gestures when “meeting the parents” for the first time.
Yet she was a little anxious, too. About Chase, actually. Kamille had been dating him for exactly two weeks, and she appeared—typical Kamille—to be madly in love, almost ready to walk down the aisle. She and Chase had been holding hands and stealing kisses and giggling at each other’s dumb jokes nonstop since arriving at the house. He was everything Kamille had said he was when she first told Kat about their relationship: handsome, charming, considerate. And he seemed pretty crazy about Kamille, too.
Still, Kat couldn’t ignore the magazine covers she’d seen in the grocery-store lines, ever since Chase joined the Dodgers and became their resident hottie. They showed him partying at clubs, juggling multiple celebrity girlfriends, and getting caught in alleged “cheating scandals.” Was that the real Chase? Or was that just the tabloids distorting the truth to sell copies? Sitting here, he seemed like a great guy, and so attentive to Kamille . . .
. . . who, on the other hand, didn’t have the best judgment when it came to boyfriends. Kamille was always falling in love with the wrong guy and getting her heart broken.
“Chase, let me borrow you for a sec. I want to show you some of my old trophies,” Beau said, standing up.
“Seriously? I’d love that, sir! I mean, Beau!” Chase said eagerly.
The two men got up and wandered off to Beau’s study. Beau had his arm around Chase’s shoulders and was talking animatedly about RBIs and such. Baseball soul mates. Kat studied the remaining faces around the table: Bree, Kass, Kyle, Benjy, and, of course, Kamille, who was staring after Chase like a lovesick teenager. Kass was unusually cheerful; she’d announced earlier that she had to dash after the lemon-cake course because she was seeing a movie with a friend later, saying the word friend with a lilt in her voice Kat had never heard before. Could she be going out on an actual date? Maybe with Parker Ashton-Gould or one of the other young men Kat had set her up with? It was a nice thought.
Kyle, on the other hand, had been in a weird funk all night—weirder than usual, that is, in that she hadn’t said a single bitchy, sarcastic thing to anyone since sitting down. In fact, she had been mysteriously silent, except to say “please” and “thank you” when asking for food to be passed. Kyle, saying “please” and “thank you”? Had she undergone a brain transplant when Kat wasn’t looking?
Benjy was his normal subdued self, except that he kept sneaking looks at Kyle across the table and then quickly looking away. What was going on between those two? Maybe they were having problems with their tutoring arrangement? Kat made a mental note to speak to Beau about it. They were overdue to check in with Benjy on Kyle’s progress, anyway.
After dinner—Kass had said her good-byes and rushed off, Kyle and Benjy had disappeared to their respective rooms, Bree had taken the dogs outside, and Beau and Chase were still holed up in Beau’s study having their male-bonding time—Kat found herself alone in the kitchen with Kamille, doing the dishes.
“Sooooo?” Kamille said eagerly. “What do you think? Isn’t he perfect? He’s perfect, right?”
“He seems very nice,” Kat replied vaguely. “You guys seem, um, pretty serious.”
Kamille beamed and nodded. “We are! Sort of! I mean, we’ve only been out on a few dates. And we haven’t—that is, I mean—well, you know what I mean. Chase is a total gentleman. He hasn’t pressured me to . . . well . . . you know. Okay, TMI! But I really like him, Mommy! And I think he likes me, too! He says he wants me to meet his parents sometime. They live in Laguna, that’s where he grew up, and he’s superclose to them. They go to church as a family, just like we do!”
“Really?” Kat began loading dishes into the dishwasher, buying herself time so she could choose her words carefully. “Honey. I don’t mean to sound like an overprotective mom. But I am an overprotective mom, we all know that, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“What do you mean, get hurt?”
“Welllll . . . Chase has kind of a reputation.”
“Mom! Seriously? Have you been reading those stupid tabloid magazines?” Kamille cried out. “Those stories are completely made up, you know that, right? Like, did you know they’re saying Milo Donovan and I are dating? Milo Donovan, yeah, he’s that Bill Boxer model. He and I walked into a party together, it was completely random, and because of that, the magazines are calling us a couple. Isn’t that insane? Just like those stories about Chase are insane!”
“So . . . you’ve read them?” Kat asked her.
Kamille shrugged. “Some of them. They’re total lies! Chase is such a forgiving person, he’s not even mad at those reporters. He says they have to make a living, too. Anyway, besides, he has a publicist now who handles them. He just hired this woman, Zoe something, she’s supposed to be amazing. She’s going to start dealing with all those reporters so Chase doesn’t have to.”
“Uh-huh.”
Kamille pouted. “Mommy, please be happy for me. Chase is the first perfect guy I’ve met in . . . well, never. I really like him, and I really want to keep seeing him. So can you just be sweet and supportive and not all worried-mom-like?”
Kat laughed and hugged her. “Okay, doll. I won’t be all worried-mom-like.”
Later, after Chase and Kamille had left, and the other kids and Coco and Chanel had gone to sleep, Kat turned to Beau as they were brushing their teeth in the his-and-hers, side-by-side bathroom sinks. “So what do you think?” she asked him, her mouth full of toothpaste.
“Of what, darlin’?”
“Chase. What do you think of Chase?”
“Oh! Well! I liked him. I liked him very much. And he’s a mighty fine pitcher, too. Really glad he and Kamille are together.” Beau grinned. “Was it just me, or do they seem like they’re ready to start picking out baby names? They seemed awfully cozy.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Why not? Not ready to be a grandma yet? You’d be the sexiest grandma in the state of California, I tell you that,” Beau teased her.
Kat spit out her toothpaste. “No, I’m not ready to be a grandma! And Kamille’s not ready to be a mom! Or a wife! She’s only twenty years old. Besides, I’m not so sure about Chase. I think he’s a player, not a settling-down type.”
“Yeah, he’s a player. He’s a baseball player. You know, not every good-looking guy is a—what’s that term the kids use?—man-whore. Look at me!” Beau wiggled his eyebrows.
“Ha-ha, very funny.”
“I’m completely devoted to you. And from the looks of it, Chase seems pretty devoted to our Kamille.”
Kat didn’t reply. She hoped, sincerely hoped, that Beau was right. But she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that Chase’s tabloid image might not be so far from reality.
Or was she just being too “worried-mom-like”?