“Of course,” he said evenly, like no skin off his nose. “Should’ve known.”

“No, you don’t understand—”

“Down, girl,” Dale said.

Killer had hopped onto Dale’s lap and was humping Dale’s arm.

Which was reason number two that Alison couldn’t take Killer to work. She humped anything in sight. It was adrenaline and excitement, or so the vet kept promising. They were to ignore the bad behavior rather than bring attention to it and accidentally encourage it.

But exactly how long was one to ignore the fact that six months later the dog was still humping everything in sight?

“She needs to be trained.” This came from the old man sitting next to Dale. Mr. Olsen was older than dirt and owned the apartment building next to Dale’s. They’d been Mr. and Mr. Bickering Bickersons for fifty-plus years now.

“Also,” Mr. Olsen said, “your boys R and J blew your leaves onto my property again.”

“That was the wind,” Dale said.

Mr. Olsen curled a hand around his ear. “Eh?”

Dale turned and spoke loudly right into his ear. “The wind was blowing hard yesterday!”

“Speak the hell up!”

“I said you’re a blowhard!” Dale yelled.

Dear God. Alison put a hand on Dale’s arm and turned to Mr. Olsen. “I’ll have the boys take care of the leaves, sorry about that.” She looked at Dale. “Didn’t you just tell me to be nicer?”

“Yes, to Ryan here.”

“Don’t worry about it, Dale,” Ryan said. “Alison and I are fine. We understand each other now.”

But that was the thing. He didn’t understand her or he’d know how devastated she was about their breakup. Sure, she could just tell him—except that would be embarrassing.

“Why didn’t you tell him about your big presentation tomorrow?” Dale asked after Ryan had walked to the field. “He’d have understood that, but now he thinks you just didn’t want to make the time for him, like everyone keeps telling him.”

“You know, you never used to talk this much before your strokes.”

He gave a rough laugh. “Never had the time to dwell on your shortcomings.”

Alison sighed. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care why I am the way I am, he just cares that I am the way that I am.”

“Or maybe he cares too much, and so do you, and I think that scares you. Also it wouldn’t hurt you to assume good intent once in a while.”

“I don’t know how to assume good intent.”

“Yeah, you also never knew how to be part of a family unit, but you and I worked on that, didn’t we?” He held her gaze. “All anyone ever needs is some practice with their problems.”

“And yet,” Mr. Olsen piped up with, “after thirty years of practicing, you still haven’t been able to figure out how to get your damn leaves off my property.”

“Aren’t you rooting for the visiting team?” Dale asked. “Their stand is on the other side of home base.”

“Which was a longer walk from my car. Plus my daughter’s over there, and she’s mad at me.”

“There’s no amount of practice that can make me nice,” Alison said. “You’re either born with it or you’re not.”

“Now there’s a load of bull pucky if I ever heard it,” Dale said. “A girl who looks like you do, with the amount of brains and wit you have, just hasn’t had to be nice.”

“That’s true,” Mr. Olsen said. “Cuz if you were old and ugly like your uncle here, you’d have had to learn the skill.”

Dale snorted. “You’re older than me, old man.”

“By one year. I was the football star. Got all the chicks, including your girlfriend.”

Alison gaped at the two men. “You went to high school together?”

“Yes, but I was more popular,” Mr. Olsen said.

“You were a bag of dicks,” Dale said.

Mr. Olsen smirked. “That might actually be true. We were . . . what do you call it? Frenemies?”

Dale snorted. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Frenemies,” Alison said with a laugh. “Really?”

“You didn’t have one?” Mr. Olsen asked. “I thought everyone had a frenemy in high school.”

Oh, she’d most definitely had one. Emmie Harris. She’d been hugely popular, surrounded by a great family with money, and still had taken the time to steal Alison’s college scholarship out from beneath her—the reason Alison had ended up at city college. And if that hadn’t been enough to hate her, she’d had Alison arrested on false charges in front of the whole school.

Okay, maybe not exactly false charges. Sigh. Gee, such great memories. Luckily, the first pitch of the game was thrown and . . . hit.

Alison quickly scanned the field for Ryan. He was manning second base, concentrating on the fly ball, then catching the fly ball, and looking pretty damn sexy while he was at it. In a fast blur he threw to Simon on first, beating the hitter there.

The game went fast. She and Killer cuddled. Well, unless Ryan was playing, because when he was in the field or at bat, he had her full attention.

It was actually pretty pathetic.

She’d self-detonated their relationship. All he’d wanted was for her to try to fit into his life more, and with the people in it. He cared deeply about his circle. She’d just had no idea how big his circle actually was. But as Alison’s own mom had shown the barest of interest in her daughter’s life, this put her so far out of her league, she couldn’t even see the league. Looking back, it shamed her actually, that she’d not handled Ryan’s family with care, but with suspicion. The truth was that they’d intimidated her, and she’d never known what to do with that.

When the game was victoriously over, Ryan stood just off the field with a group of guys including Simon. “Wait here,” she said to her uncle. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it,” she said. “Don’t move.”

“Okay.”

Alison narrowed her eyes and Dale lifted his hands. Well, his left. His right just sort of twitched. “I swear,” he said.

“Don’t look at me like that. Last time I asked you to stay put, you begged a ride home from a stranger and I thought I’d lost you.”