by Sykes, V. K.
She barely focused on the rest of the meeting. All she could think about was Dembinski on the phone today with Joe Ridge, cooking up some kind of deal for Ryan. While part of her was thrilled by her success, another part still held on to guilt and, yes, a sense of sadness. Sadness for Ryan, who now might not get his wish to restart his career in the American League, and sadness for herself. Because once Ryan became a Patriot, she couldn’t allow anything but a professional relationship to happen between the two of them.
No matter how much she might want to.
8
RYAN HAD MADE a point of hanging around the clubhouse after the game. He’d congratulated every Hornet, and especially those who had contributed directly to this afternoon’s win over the Nationals. He’d always tried to be a good clubhouse guy, but these days he was paying even more attention because one day very soon—even today, for all he knew—it would be the last he spent in the Pittsburgh Hornets organization. And if he went to the AL, he’d rarely see these guys any more.
He sensed that the other guys were also making a point of spending a few extra moments with him, especially the veterans he’d played with who clearly understood the front office’s message regarding Ryan Locke’s future. Today, he’d been relegated to sit for nine innings on the bench, watching Antonio Swain play. The big kid had fielded his position perfectly and knocked in a pair of runs with a clutch double. He was so ready, and Ryan had been the first to congratulate him at the end of the game.
Ryan figured his benching today indicated that the showcasing was over and that trade talks were underway, maybe even nearing a conclusion. It was guesswork, sure, but he’d been around long enough to be able to read the smoke signals. Soon enough, the GM would call him in to tell him to clean out his clubhouse locker and get his ass in the car or on a plane to another spring training camp.
He’d had plenty of time to think while he cooled his heels in the dugout today, and the trade hadn’t been the only thing on his mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about two females—Taylor Page, who he wanted to see again so badly that it still shocked the hell out of him and, of course, Devon. He planned on calling Taylor later after he got home, when she’d likely be finished work for the day. Devon, though, was a lot more pressing. She’d left a curt message on his cell phone just before the game, and Ryan didn’t like the tone he’d picked up. When he’d tried her cell right away, it rang through to her mailbox and he’d left a message saying he’d call her after school.
His daughter often sounded a little surly when she spoke to him lately, but this time he’d caught a note of…what? Anxiety? Apprehension? In any case, it wasn’t good. He’d wanted to call her as soon as he turned on his phone in the clubhouse but waited because he knew she’d be in class until three forty-five.
After showering and dressing, Ryan headed out to his car. He punched in Devon’s number as he veered onto the highway heading to Interstate 75. Since it was past four o’clock, she should be back in her dorm room by now.
“Hi,” Devon said in a flat voice.
Ryan adjusted his Bluetooth headset. “Hi, sweetie. Can you talk now?”
“Yeah, I’m alone. Becca’s got soccer practice.”
When the school year opened, Ryan figured some counselor at Edenwood had decided to put the gregarious Becca in a room with Devon in the hope that Becca’s All-American girl persona would somehow rub off, motivating Devon to compete and excel. So far, it hadn’t happened, but there was no point in dwelling on that now. His daughter didn’t often call him—he was almost always the one picking up the phone—so she must have something on her mind. “I got your message, Dev. What’s going on?”
“Not much, other than the fact that I hate this damn hell-hole even more now than the last time you called,” she said sarcastically.
What now?
Even though Devon wasn’t exactly prone to understatement and she’d been complaining about the school for months, she’d never used that kind of dramatic terminology before. Ryan’s gut clenched as he slowed the car down to the speed limit. When he got upset, he tended to drive faster, and the last thing he needed was to get hauled over by a cop. “Just tell me what happened, Dev.”
Devon sighed, sounding like she thought as if he was the most interfering and exasperating parent in the world. “A couple of idiot girls have made me their latest Facebook victim,” she said. “I’m getting a lot of crap about the garbage the bitches have been posting about me.”
Her language seemed to be getting worse every time he talked to her. “Enough with the swearing, okay?”
“Oh, right. This from a baseball player?” she mocked.
Ryan didn’t want to get off on that tangent. If some girls were bullying Devon, he’d jump on a plane to New York and knock some heads until the school dealt with it. “Is Edenwood going to do something about it?” he asked. “They take that kind of cyber-bullying seriously, don’t they?”
She snorted. “As if I’d complain to the wardens of my prison. No, I’ll take care of the problem in my own way, Dad, and in my own time. I’m sorry I even mentioned it, because it’s not what I was calling you about.”
Ryan didn’t like the sound of her implied threat. “What exactly are they saying about you, Dev?”
Another deep sigh. “You really want to know?”
“Of course I do. You want me to get on the phone to the Head of School?”
“Dad, geez…okay, okay,” she said, her voice carrying a note of panic. “The morons are saying I’m the biggest Oxy user in the school.”
Ryan flinched. Oxycontin—schools these days were rampant with the drug, or some variation of it. “But you’re not using, right?” He wondered why he bothered to ask, since the chances of her telling the truth about that were slimmer than him signing a new contract with the Hornets. While his gut told him Devon wouldn’t be into drugs—other than maybe taking a toke of somebody else’s pot—he couldn’t help worrying. In his experience, where there was smoke, there might just be a fire smoldering somewhere.
But no kid was going to voluntarily tell her father she was using drugs. He’d worried a little about that as he watched her drift further and further away from him in Pittsburgh, spending her time with kids who had too much money and parents who protected them from even the most minimal of life’s consequences. They lived in one of the most affluent suburbs outside Pittsburgh, but Ryan figured there were more drugs—especially prescription meds—on those leafy crescents than any inner city street.
And Edenwood would no doubt have its share, too.
“Of course not,” Devon snapped. “Those dumbasses are just trying to get back at me.”
The hair on the back of Ryan’s neck stood up. “Get back at you for what?”
“Oh, nothing. Look, Dad, can I fly down this weekend?” She shifted the conversation abruptly. “I’m so sick of this place. If I can’t go home, I’d rather be with you in Florida. Weekends are brutal around here. They make me want to jump in the river.”
Ryan’s guilt threatened to swamp him. With him away at spring training, Devon couldn’t go back to Pittsburgh, even with Maria, their housekeeper, there to look after her. Not with the crowd she’d been running with before he’d sent her to the new school. He’d brought her to his Tampa home for a few days during school break a couple of weeks ago, since he had no overnight trips during that stretch. Devon didn’t usually want to spend a lot of time with him, so when she asked like this, he thought he’d rather cut his arm off than have to say no.
“I’m afraid this weekend won’t work, honey. We’ll be heading north to start the season, so I’ll be on the road.”
She sighed. “Right, I forgot about that.”
Ryan knew he had to tell her about the trade, possibility right now. “Dev, I really don’t know how to say this, because I don’t know anything yet for sure.” He sucked in a deep breath. “But the truth is that I’m likely going to get traded any day now.”
“Traded? Really?” Devon sai
d in a thin, stricken voice.
“I’m afraid so. Management hasn’t said anything yet, but I can read the signs. I don’t know where I’ll be going, but I’m praying it’s going to be to New York or Boston, or maybe Baltimore. Anywhere where I can be close to you.”
Anywhere in the American League, anyway.
Devon practically wailed over the phone. “Jesus, I can’t believe we’re going to have to leave Pittsburgh.”
“Hang on, Dev. Nothing’s certain yet, so I wasn’t going to say anything until I heard for sure one way or the other. But I think it’s going to happen in the next day or two, and if it does, I’ll be on my way to some other team’s camp within hours. That’s just the way it works.”
“You could end up in frigging California or Arizona,” she groused.
“I hope not,” Ryan replied. “What I’d really love is to go to New York so I could be close to you.”
“God, Dad.” Devon was obviously on the verge of tears. “I don’t want to move. I don’t want to leave Pittsburgh. At least I know some kids there. Can’t you stop them from trading you? I don’t know…maybe offer to take a salary cut or something? You love the Hornets, Dad. You’ve got to do something.”
Sometimes, Devon sounded like she was in her twenties. Other times, like right now, she sounded about seven, sputtering almost incoherently, grasping at straws she knew very well didn’t exist.
This was one of those times when Ryan hated his life—or at least hated the impact it had on his daughter. At this moment, he’d give anything to have the luxury of being able to walk away from the game—to retire gracefully and live on some nest egg for the rest of his life, like a lot of players were able to. The problem was that he didn’t have a nest egg. The only things he owned besides his car were the house in Pittsburgh and the smaller home here in Tampa and, since the housing crash, both were now worth less than he’d paid for them. Even if he sold the houses, the proceeds wouldn’t be nearly enough to live on—certainly not with the costs of raising his daughter and taking care of his spendthrift, alcoholic mother. Sure, he could probably get a low-level job coaching in the minors or scouting, but those gigs paid poorly and were even worse in terms of trying to maintain some semblance of a normal life for Devon.
No, he couldn’t afford to quit playing under any circumstances. To provide for his family, this was where he needed to be right now.
“You know how it works, Dev,” he said, keeping his voice low but firm as he stayed in the slow lane. “In the end, the teams hold all the cards. Besides, I could offer to play for nothing and they’d still dump me because I’d be taking up a spot they need on the twenty-five man roster. No, if the Hornets trade me somewhere, I’ve got to go. I don’t like it any better than you do, but I can’t jeopardize our futures.”
“Great.” She’d gone back to surly. “Just great, Dad. It’s bad enough that you’re making me go to this prison you call a school, but now you’re taking away my home, too. And if they trade you somewhere far away, I’m sure you’re going to yank me out of Edenwood and send me to an even worse private school somewhere else.” Unexpectedly, she started to sob. “You know, I don’t really even blame Mom anymore. Baseball sucks. It ruined her life and it’s ruining mine.”
Ryan’s heart sank down to the floorboards, even though he figured Devon didn’t really mean the words she’d just used to cleave open his chest. “I’m sorry, Dev. But you know I’m doing my best. And I know how hard it’s been on you, believe me. But we’ll get through this, kid. I promise.” He had to fight to keep a quaver out of his own voice, so racked with guilt did he feel. “The minute I hear something from the Hornets, I’ll call you. Once we know where we stand, we’ll find a way to get together soon, no matter what.”
It sounded completely inadequate, but what else could he say and do?
“Whatever,” Devon said with the kind of flat resignation that seemed more typical every time they saw each other.
He couldn’t let her go without getting back to the Facebook issue. “Devon, about those girls, please don’t do anything dumb, okay? It’s not worth it.”
“Uh, huh.” She hung up before Ryan had a chance to say goodbye.
* * *
DEMBINSKI HAD ALREADY exchanged calls with Joe Ridge by the time Taylor left the stadium office at six to head back to her room at the hotel. Though her boss had relayed to her that Ridge was definitely interested, it was too much to ask that Dembinski would actually consult Taylor about any back-and-forth taking place between the two general managers. That wasn’t Dembinski’s style, and she could understand that. After all, the buck truly did stop with the general manager. If trades and draft picks didn’t pan out, his neck was usually the first one to be chopped by the team ownership, although Taylor’s wouldn’t be far behind, in this particular case.
Both mentally and physically exhausted, all Taylor wanted to do tonight was order room service and settle down with a pay-per-view movie—something with a little humor and preferably an uplifting conclusion. She was starving, too, since she’d skipped lunch to watch the Patriots take batting and infield practice, and then a game against the Blue Jays. The truth was she’d wanted to keep as busy as possible to avoid obsessing about Ryan Locke and the trade.
In another life, thinking about Ryan would be anything but troubling. She’d already had more than a few fantasies about him, ones that involved a lot of naked, sweaty activities not connected to baseball. But today wasn’t a day for that kind of unproductive—and dangerous—daydreaming. Today wasn’t a day to be thinking about Ryan at all, because whenever she did, guilt and regret threatened to swamp her.
And though Ryan had said he’d call her, she had no intention of meeting him one-on-one. Given that Dembinski could at any moment be finalizing a trade, she simply couldn’t face the guy. No, it was far better to be unavailable tonight and, sadly, every other night.
Her cell phone rang as she was scanning the room service menu. She answered automatically, not bothering to check the call display.
“Hello?”
“Taylor, it’s Ryan.” His voice sounded flat, even troubled.
Shit. How could she not check her goddamned call display?
“Hi, Ryan. How are you?” she said, struggling to sound natural.
Could he have already heard something from Ridge? Taylor gave her head a mental shake. It was highly unlikely that Joe would have said anything to Ryan before a deal was finalized. Although Ryan had the right to veto a trade, general managers usually put together the deal before consulting with the player. Sometimes, the player would provide a list of specific teams he wouldn’t go to, but she was pretty sure that had not been the case with Ryan.
“I’ve been better. They sat me out the whole game today, and then I had a pretty tough conversation with Devon on the way home.”
Taylor wasn’t surprised that the Hornets had benched him—that was normal in this kind of situation—but it would certainly have heightened Ryan’s suspicions that a trade was imminent. But she suspected that most of the angst in his voice stemmed from the situation with his daughter. “I’m sorry to hear that. What’s going on with Devon?”
“I was hoping we could get together for a drink. I really need to talk to somebody, and for some reason that somebody is you. Not at the Summer Moon, though. Someplace more private.”
His deep voice was laced with such a grim, unhappy tone that it went straight to her heart. The poor guy really had too much on his plate, and she bore some responsibility for that.
“I’d really appreciate it,” he continued when she didn’t respond right away. “I could use a sympathetic ear, and not some bro I see in the showers every day.” His voice lightened a bit. “I’ve never met anybody that’s easier to talk to than you are, Taylor. What do you say? Help a poor guy out?”
Taylor’s knees started to feel a little rubbery at the sound of his deep, mellow voice. Crap. As much as she knew she should put him off, under the circumstances she couldn’t
concoct a bald face lie about having some phony prior commitment. Could she claim exhaustion? Maybe, but, God, she’d feel like a complete jerk.
Besides, she really did want to know what was going on with Devon. Ryan was a pretty tough guy, so whatever was bothering him must be serious if he wanted to share it with someone who barely qualified as a friend—despite the magnetic chemistry between them.
“Okay, one drink,” she said hesitantly. “I’m sorry, Ryan, but I’m absolutely exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping well lately and I’ve got to get up really early tomorrow.”
To catch a plane, depending on what Dembinski comes back with.
Taylor wasn’t lying when she claimed to be missing sleep. The promising but now diabolically problematic trade idea had her mind whirling twenty-four seven.
“Thanks,” he replied, relief evident in his tone. “The White Pelican on Gulf Boulevard should be private, and we won’t run into any other players. I’ll meet you there in an hour?”
Near St. Pete Beach, Taylor had passed the small, unobtrusive bar a couple of times. “I’ll see you there.”
She hung up and flopped down onto the king-size bed, spreading her arms wide as she stared up at the ceiling. Why was she doing this, when every instinct told her it meant wading ever deeper into the quicksand? She’d always found it difficult to say no when somebody put his heart on his sleeve, like Ryan just had, but there was such a thing as self-preservation, too.
Unfortunately, it was beginning to look like her self-preservation instincts—not to mention her common sense—might have met their match in Ryan Locke.
9
“DEVON’S BEING BULLIED at school,” Ryan said in a flat voice.