“I have a better idea,” Ryan said into his cell phone, as he placed a board on the saw, “how about you do what I pay you to do and get back to me with the information?”
Hearing Daniel Jennings sigh, he could picture his lawyer rubbing his forehead with his index finger and thumb the way he did when he didn’t think Ryan was making sense. Ryan smiled. Daniel’s eyebrows often stood up on end after a meeting with him.
“Ryan, come back to LA. Let’s sort some of these things out. Are you honestly happy out there in,” Daniel paused and Ryan could hear him shuffling papers, “West Lake, Minnesota?”
Ryan leaned against his worktable and considered the question. It wasn’t where he’d pictured himself growing up but he could answer the question easily enough. “Yes. Listen, you’re one of the only ones who has stood by me. I fired everyone else. Don’t make me fire you,” Ryan joked. They’d gone to school together and had been friends for more than half their lives.
“Right. Sometimes I think that might be a good idea. Okay, let me make sure I have this correct: you want me to look into starting a foundation in your name that basically funds small town sports. Also, you want to look into organizing some charity events that will raise money for bursaries and scholarships for kids that have lost their parents. What the hell did you do out there? Join a ministry?” Daniel huffed.
Ryan laughed. “No. I’m just trying to give back some of what baseball gave to me. And I have the contacts so I might as well use them.”
“Okay. I’ll get some information for you. While I have you on the phone, we have a few other things to go through.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“They’re clearing your name. The charges have been dropped and the league is issuing a formal statement in the next couple of weeks,” Daniel said.
Ryan’s heart constricted. It was good news, so why did it still feel like a knife was lodged in between his shoulder blades? “Nice that they can take their time issuing that statement. They didn’t waste any on telling the media I was suspended,” he said.
“You have every right to be pissed, man. And I told Samson as much when he called me.” The irritation in his friend’s tone went a long way toward loosening the tightness in his chest.
“The Commissioner of Baseball phoned you?” Ryan let out a low whistle between his teeth. They were back-pedaling now.
“To be fair, you fired your agent. And changed your number. They contacted Max and he directed them to me,” Daniel said.
Ryan switched the phone to his other ear, hating the feel of the screen against his face. “The media is going to be all over this. Again.” Ryan ran his hand through his hair, tugging on the ends.
“Um. Yeah.”
The tiny hairs on the back of Ryan’s neck stood up. He paced the length of his shop, inhaling the crisp air.
“What?” He tried to keep his voice level.
“Victoria’s lawyer contacted me. She’s trying to say that your divorce has led to lost wages that she would have made if you’d gone through with that reality show offer,” Daniel said, disgust dripping off every syllable.
Ryan resisted the urge to toss his phone and took a steadying breath. God, he was tired of this shit. She was out of his life and still doing her best to piss him off. He walked to the small fridge he’d picked up for the garage and pulled out a beer.
“I told her no before she finished telling me about that, when we were still married. There’s no loss of income when it was never going to happen,” Ryan said, popping the top and taking a long drink. It tasted sour going down his throat but it was most likely just the conversation about his ex, wrecking another good thing.
“I know. I just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
Ryan gripped the phone tighter. “Thanks for that. I don’t even know why I’m surprised. Do what you can to make it go away. Can’t you countersue or something?”
Daniel gave a gruff laugh, but Ryan knew his friend was as pissed off about Victoria’s bullshit as he was. “She’s looking for another pay off.”
Ryan shook his head. “She’s gotten all she’s getting from me. Let her try for more. She won’t get anywhere.”
They chatted for a few more minutes before Ryan said he had to go. He plugged his phone into the docking station and blared some One Republic, pushing Victoria out of his mind the way he should have pushed her out of his life years ago.
He wasn’t there anymore and even though he hadn’t thought he would ever want a woman for more than a few hours again, just thinking about Frankie made him wonder what she was doing. As he began marking the wood and sawing the lengths he needed, he thought that if he compared the two women, they’d be in two distinct categories: Everything he’d never want again and everything he hadn’t known he was missing.
He worked for over an hour, shaping the wood into legs for the first piece of furniture he had planned out. It was going to be a nightstand for his bedroom. If he messed it up, at least it wasn’t where anyone would see it. Except maybe Frankie. He hoped. Because he liked his fingers, he didn’t let himself think too much about his bedroom and Frankie while the saw was still buzzing. The oak would look good with a coat of varnish. The legs were long to accommodate his high bed and because he liked the overall look of a tall nightstand. He surveyed his handiwork and was impressed that he’d done so well after so long.
“What’s that?” Carter asked, shuffling into the garage.
“It’s going to be a table. For beside my bed,” Ryan answered, noting that Carter had shown up on time.
“Cool. You ever made one before?” The boy ran his hand over one of the four legs that Ryan had shaped.
“It’s been a long time. Did you go speak to the coach?” Ryan asked. Carter lifted his gaze to Ryan’s and shrugged.
“You don’t know?” Ryan’s frustration clipped his tone.
“Dude said I gotta be in school to be on the team,” Carter said, his voice rising.
Ryan pulled the safety goggles off his head and tossed them on the workbench.
“I told you that would be the case. Did you ask about doing distance education like your brother?”
“Yeah. He said that if I can prove I’m enrolled I can try out.”
“I don’t know why you sound like he pissed on your bagel, but this is a good step,” Ryan said, wondering if he’d been this moody at sixteen. Carter shuffled his feet and then picked up the wood scraps that Ryan had on the floor and tossed them into a large bin.
“I can’t do distance ed, man. I ain’t Trav. I ain’t as smart as him and I freaking hate school work, dude,” Carter said.
“First, stop calling me ‘dude.’ Second, a deal is a deal. I help you with baseball if you start going to school. Frankie have a computer she’ll let you use?” Ryan asked.
“Probably not. She’s got a laptop but she’s always worried about us finding out twenty ways to please a man, like I wanna know that shit,” Carter said, half laughing, half cringing. Ryan’s body stirred at the thought of Frankie not only writing about that topic, but trying it out on him. He bet she knew a lot more ways than twenty.
“All right, well, go on in and use mine. Get registered, print out the proof, and then we’ll practice a bit,” Ryan said, smiling.
As Carter turned to go, Travis came up the walk. Travis was the closed book of these three. Polite enough, but definitely wound tighter than the other two. Whatever their story, Carter wore it in attitude, Miles wore it in his need for affection, and Travis kept it zipped up tightly. Ryan figured that, eventually, that zipper was going to bust apart.
“Hey,” Travis said. Unless he was talking to Miles, Travis said only what he had to.
“Your brother was just about to go set up his online classes,” Ryan told him.
“You really gonna teach him to play ball?” Travis asked.
“I’ll show him a few things. As long as he’s working towards his diploma. And helping Frankie out,” Ryan answered. He picked up a piece of sandpaper to smooth the legs of the table before setting it aside. Travis watched him closely; Ryan couldn’t read the kid no matter how hard he tried.
“How you doing?” Ryan asked.
Travis shrugged. Ryan waited him out. Something was up or the kid wouldn’t be looking at his feet, shuffling them.
“I think Frankie’s birthday is coming up,” Travis said. He wore his hair in a ponytail but it was the thickest one Ryan had ever seen on account of all the braids, or maybe knots, that were wrapped together.
Ryan waited until Travis looked at him. “Why do you think that?”
“I heard her on the phone telling someone that she didn’t need them to come here for her birthday and even if they did, she wasn’t feeling like going out.” Travis picked up one of the legs and examined it, his lips pushed together like he was trying to figure out what he was looking at.
Ryan picked up the sandpaper again. “Hmm. Seems likely, I guess. She hasn’t said anything but I’m not sure she’s the type that would,” Ryan said. He returned to smoothing the rough spots of wood.
Would she have told him her birthday was coming? Was there a woman alive who wouldn’t drop a hint about that? He was pretty sure there wasn’t one that would let a man live down forgetting the occasion. But forgetting and not knowing were two different things. He wasn’t a damn spy. Maybe she didn’t want him to know.
Ryan knew she’d been engaged but was pretty sure she’d tell him if her ex was coming around. Mostly sure. Fuck. He was turning into a girl worrying so much about it. If she wanted him to know, she’d have told him. Hell, they’d barely had any time alone: a few nights watching movies, making out when the boys weren’t around. He couldn’t remember wanting a woman the way he wanted Frankie. He’d never wanted so badly not to screw things up with a woman.
“Nah. She doesn’t say much about herself. But I’d like to do something for her. We ain’t got much money, I mean we got some now that Carter’s working for you—” Travis mumbled and Ryan interrupted.
“You need money to buy Frankie something, I have no problem with that,” Ryan said, putting down the sandpaper and the wood.
“I was thinking of cooking her dinner. I think she’d like that. I could cook for everyone if, like, you wanted to come and stuff. My brothers and me, you and Frankie.”
Ryan put his hands on his hips and studied Travis. The kid wouldn’t meet his eyes. Closed book or not, Frankie had made an impression on him. Ryan could certainly understand that. He could afford to buy her anything, but he knew the way to her heart wasn’t with something expensive. Like Travis’s idea, it had to be something personal, something that…Jesus, why was he thinking about the way to her heart? He was letting himself fall too far, too fast, and they hadn’t even started yet. He needed to back up. Slow down.
“That sounds like a nice idea, Travis. I think she’d like that. We can go shopping, get what you need,” Ryan said, feeling like he was fumbling. He wasn’t sure what Travis wanted from him but instinct told him that if he offered the wrong thing, the kid would shut down.
“Yeah. That’d be cool. So, like, this week?” Travis kicked at the dirt under his feet.
“Why don’t we go tomorrow? It’s Friday and I know she has a deadline to meet for a longer article she’s doing. She said she might go to the library when Miles is at school. You can do your coursework at any time right?”
A strange look passed over Travis’s face, like he was going to say something then thought better of it. He pushed his hands into his pockets then looked up at Ryan. “I’m pretty far ahead in my classes,” he admitted.
This made Ryan smile. Of course he was. This kid, with the weight of the world, or at least the weight of his parentless brothers, on his shoulders, was more responsible than most of the grown men Ryan knew. Max had always been pissed when Ryan tried to make what he considered ‘big brother’ decisions, but Carter never seemed bothered by Travis acting like the older of the two.
“You spend a lot of time at the library for someone who doesn’t need to be there,” Ryan said. Travis’s eyes lit up, a flash of brightness on his serious face. He started to say something else before Carter came back into the garage waving a paper.
“Eleventh grade, bitches,” he shouted.
“Dude. Language,” Travis said, but he smiled widely at his brother. The spark Ryan had seen was gone, replaced by Carter’s excitement. Ryan had spent his share of time at the library at Travis’s age, much of it with Maggie Collins, the only redhead in his junior high school. He had many fond memories of Maggie and the library.
“Sorry, mom,” Carter jibed. Ryan grabbed the paper from him and read the confirmation for English and math.
“It’s a start. All right, Travis, grab one of the bats off the wall. I’ll show you two how I hit a moon shot,” Ryan said, grinning. Anticipation pulsed in his hands and chest. He was looking forward to the next half hour or so, which surprised him. Baseball, no pressure. Just him, the ball, the bat, and some pretty cool kids. He could handle that.
“You said you’d show me how to make an impression with the coach, not show off,” Carter complained, grabbing a ball. Ryan looked at him and laughed, walking out of the garage and into the bright sunshine.
“No worries. I can do both.”
He heard Travis’s quiet laugh as the boys followed behind him.