Priceless (An Amato Brothers/Rixton Falls crossover)

by Winter Renshaw

  Matteo rolls his eyes. “She worked on the set earlier. Her job was to steam all the wrinkles out of the underwear we were modeling.”

  Tossing back the rest of my drink, I place the flute on the table and declare that I’m in need of a real man’s drink. The drunk girl pouts before taking her sweet ass time climbing off me, and I make my way to the bar.

  “Hey,” the bartender says, eyes lighting when he sees me. “I know you.”

  I keep my head down. So much for the beard and flashing club lights camouflaging my identity tonight.

  “You’re that baseball player. Ace, right? Huge fan.” he says. “Huge.”

  “Thank you.” My gaze is averted. Meeting loyal fans anymore tends to serve as a reminder that I’ve let them down.

  “What can I get you?” he asks.

  I order a whiskey sour, top shelf, and take a seat on a nearby stool while he pours. A minute later, he slides the drink to me and waves me off when I try and hand him a twenty.

  “On the house,” he says, hunched over his side of the bar. The lights flash on his round face, reflecting in his thick-rimmed glasses.

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely,” he says. “We’re glad to have you, Ace. You’re drinking for free tonight, man.”

  “Thank you.” I give him a tight-lipped smile, one he probably can’t see anyway thanks to the beard, and head back to the lounge.

  By the time I’m finished with my whiskey, I’m feeling better than I have in a long time. I’ve never been a drinking man, always opting to maintain control over myself at all times. Plus when I wasn’t conditioning and eating things like quinoa and kale, I still had to stay in shape.

  I may not be quite as cut as before, but the muscles are still there, like corded steel reminders that I was once capable of strike outs and 100mph speedballs.

  Warmth floods my veins in slow motion, and I sink into my velvet chair, eyes half open and focusing on the pulsing tunes and swaying bodies in the crowd across the club. For the first time in a long time, I’m merely existing. In a good way.

  I’m not dwelling on the past.

  I’m not fixating on the question mark that is my future.

  I’m just . . . here.

  After a while, I lose track of time.

  And I lose track of how many drinks I’ve ordered.

  Come two in the morning, I find myself back at home, in my bed, with no recollection of how I got here, though I’m sure Matteo had something to do with that. It’s funny how things have changed. I was always the big brother, looking after the younger kids, making sure they were staying out of trouble and keeping their noses clean. I was always the one taking care of them when our mom was working two jobs.

  Sinking into the messy sheets that cover my bed, I feel the cool glass of my phone screen. Looking up at the ceiling, the room spins. Faster and faster. Like I’m on a Merry-Go-Round. I want to get off, but I know I can’t. This is why I hate being drunk.

  I bring the phone to my face, eyes pierced with pain as they adjust to the bright light in my darkened room.

  For a brief moment, I forget about the ungodly hour upon me and consider calling Aidy. I should apologize. I should apologize for calling her crazy. If anyone’s crazy, it’s me. I haven’t been myself, not since last year. She should know I’m not myself. And I want to send that freckle-faced kid an autograph. He didn’t do anything wrong, and it’s the least I can do.

  Maybe it’s the alcohol talking, but I kind of don’t want to be an asshole anymore.

  I don’t want to be heartless.

  Rolling over, I clutch my phone, eyelids at half-mast and free hand reaching for the cold, empty side of the bed. Moving to my side, I tuck my hands under my pillow and shut my eyes.

  The room spins.

  “Hello?” A woman’s voice sounds far away, muffled. “Ace?”

  I’m dreaming, I’m sure.

  Chapter 15

  Aidy

  Armed with a brown bag of groceries that I lugged all the way from Chelsea, I’m rapping on the door of 942 Lexington Avenue Sunday morning, just before ten.

  The bag feels heavier than it did a few blocks ago, if that’s even possible, and I’m quite certain the bottom’s about to fall out. Fortunately, I spot a doorbell just in time.

  Pressing the button over and over, I almost feel bad. He’s got to have a horrendous hangover. Then again, he woke me up at two in the morning, so I kind of feel like we’re even.

  The door swings open a second later, and Ace stands before me, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His hair is going every which way and when he lifts his arm to shield the blinding sun from his eyes, his shirt pulls up and reveals a hint of the dark happy trail that runs straight south to the dwindling morning bulge in his pants.

  “Good morning,” I say in the cheeriest, Mary Poppins-esque tone I can muster.

  “Why are you here?” he asks.

  “Payback?” I glance down at the groceries in my arms and then up at him. “Plus I felt like you maybe needed to talk?”

  Ace scratches his head, squinting.

  “You called me . . . last night . . . two a.m. Remember?” I ask.

  He doesn’t blink. He just stares ahead at me.

  “I don’t think you meant to call me,” I say. “I think you must have pressed a button or something. You sounded really out of it. Like hammered beyond belief.”

  Ace blows a hard breath, nostrils flaring as he studies me.

  “Do you remember anything you said last night?” I ask.

  “No. I don’t even remember talking to you.” He stands back, hand gripping the door, and motions for me to come in. “What’s all this?”

  “Figured you’d be hung over, so I brought you some things. Gatorade. Eggs. Bacon. Bread. Orange juice. I don’t know what you eat. Maybe you’re vegan. I have no idea. Didn’t really plan this out too well . . .”

  We’re standing in the landing of his townhome. Ace closes the door, watching me still. A set of stairs behind him looks to lead to the main part of his place, but his frozen body language makes me wonder if he wants me up there at all.

  But I kind of don’t care because it’s not like I wanted him calling me at two in the morning.

  As far as I’m concerned, we’re even Stevens right now.

  “Is someone up there or are you going to invite me up?” I ask.

  I should’ve considered the possibility that maybe he wasn’t alone. That maybe he’d taken someone home with him the night before. Although if he did, she had to have been passed out cold because she didn’t make a peep as he rambled drunkenly into his phone for the better part of an hour.

  “No,” he says, still unmoving. “Nobody’s here.”

  My gaze falls to his shoulders, his muscled pecs curving beneath a white V-neck t-shirt. “If you don’t want me here, that’s cool. I can leave all this stuff, and you can do whatever you want with it. Feed it to the neighborhood cats. I don’t care.”

  “What did we talk about last night?” His hands hook on his hips, fingers slipping beneath the waistband of his navy sweats.

  “Lots of things.”

  The bag slips from my grip, nearly sliding down my body and hitting the ground until he catches it. His hands graze my hips as he relieves me, and my arms, now tired and shaking, quietly thank him.

  “Come on up.” Ace nods toward the stairs. I kick my shoes off and follow him. When we reach the top, it’s all I can do to keep from gawking.

  His place is nice.

  Better than nice.

  It’s modern and industrial and edgy.

  I pull in a lungful of what smells like spice and leather and tobacco and take a good look around. The floors, particularly hard and cold beneath my feet, appear to be some kind of stained concrete, and his kitchen is completely open. The island, which anchors that space, is wrapped in brick and covered with a stainless countertop. His fridge is enormous, easily holding enough to feed a small village, and a rack holding shiny, neatly
organized pots and pans and utensils hovers above it all.

  With a kitchen like this, there’s no doubt in my mind Ace knows how to cook.

  My mistake. I never should’ve doubted him.

  He places the bag on his counter, pulling out eggs and OJ as I nonchalantly peer around the rest of the space.

  In the far corner is a fireplace, covered in worn brick with names I can’t read stamped into random places. Oversized leather furniture is arranged conversationally, and a cable knit blanket hangs haphazardly over the back of one of the chairs. On the table, a lamp is clicked, providing a small amount of light, but every window in his palatial townhome is shaded and dark.

  I stand in silence, glancing around as he unloads the groceries.

  This place is hard like him. Dark. Walled off.

  “So,” I say, almost breathless for some reason.

  It’s as if all of a sudden, I’m realizing how silly it is that I picked up groceries at the store this morning and carried them all the way here, thinking he’d be appreciative of my efforts. If he truly doesn’t remember our conversation, it makes all of . . . this . . . seem a little ridiculous. “You want me to make you breakfast or you want me to leave?”

  Ace stops unloading groceries and locks his gaze onto mine. “No. Stay. You can make breakfast, and then you can tell me exactly what we talked about last night.”

  Chapter 16

  Ace

  “I’m going to shower really quick.” I carry my plate to the sink. “Don’t clean up. Just leave everything. Make yourself at home.”

  Aidy dabs the corners of her ruby red lips with a napkin and swallows the last of her omelet.

  “When I get back, we’re going to talk,” I call out before disappearing down the hall. We didn’t talk over breakfast. I watched her cook, and we sat in silence, side by side, as we ate. I’m sure I smelled like alcohol and dirty sheets, and I wasn’t about to blast her with all that in the name of getting a few answers.

  As soon as I step out of the shower, I dry off and then slip on a pair of jeans and a gray t-shirt. Slicking my hair back with my fingers, I finish getting ready and come out as soon as I’m confident that I don’t smell like I slept in a pile of garbage all night.

  “You ready?” I ask, startling her. “Thought we could get some fresh air. Do a little walk and talk, as my old coach liked to call it.”

  She was standing by the mantel, examining the assortment of photographs lined up in varying sizes. Most of them are of family, but there are a few pictures of me with some Firebirds.

  “Yeah.” She exhales, smiling. Her eyes drift to the mantel once more, to a picture of me and my four younger brothers, and then she spins on her heel. “Let’s go.”

  Outside, the streets are almost vacant. I’ve always loved the way the city clears out on the weekends. You never know how much you need that breathing room until you experience it firsthand. Holidays are like that too. Labor Day. Fourth of July. Memorial Day. Everyone scatters to the Hamptons or Cape Cod. Me? I prefer to stick around and enjoy the depopulated city before they all come back.

  “So,” she says.

  We kick along, our shoes scuffling lightly on the sidewalk.

  Aidy shoves her hands in the pockets of her white denim shorts and her blouse hangs off her shoulders. I’m beginning to think it’s intentional, this look of hers.

  “You going to tell me what I said?” I ask.

  Fuck me if I rambled on about Kerenza.

  Her lips pull up on one side as she looks up at me. “I don’t know where to start. You said a lot of things. I never knew you could talk so much.”

  Massaging my temples, I pull in a sharp breath. Whatever I said, it must have compelled her to come here today, because I can’t think of another reason she’d show up at my door offering breakfast and a listening ear.

  “You were vague about everything,” she says. “Mostly. You didn’t give a lot of details about anything really.”

  Oh, thank God.

  “First you apologized for calling me.” She laughs, reaching for a dainty gold necklace hanging around her neck, twisting it between neon pink fingernails. “Took a while for you to realize you weren’t dreaming. And then you said you’d been having a rough year, and that you haven’t been yourself lately, and you were sorry for being an asshole.”

  I exhale. Okay. Not as bad as I thought it’d be.

  “You also mentioned you’d made some poor choices over the last year and you had a lot of regrets, but you wouldn’t go into detail,” she says, releasing her words slowly and carefully. “I actually Googled you after we hung up. I mean, I was wide awake anyway and curious as could be. All I saw was that you were in a car accident about a year ago, and that it shattered your right shoulder in five places and forced you into early retirement.”

  I find it hard to believe she hasn’t Googled me until now. But it’s also refreshing.

  “Yeah,” I say, jaw clenched. “That’s pretty much what happened.”

  “I don’t know what kind of regrets you have,” she says. “I’m almost afraid to ask. Not that you’d tell me anything. And not that it’s any of my business. But you seem really unhappy, and I’m pretty sure it has to do with your regrets. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you want to talk about them, I’ll listen.”

  I don’t respond. I don’t know her well enough to explain the things I’ve done or to fully express the magnitude of my regrets. They run deep. Deeper than the gash on my face and the wound in my soul.

  “Anyway, then we talked about how ever since you retired, you feel like you’ve been treading water, and you’re kind of at a loss as to what to do because baseball was your life for so long,” she says.

  “I said that?”

  Aidy bumps her elbow against mine. “Sure did.”

  “I, uh . . .” Slicking my hair back, I clear my throat. “I don’t usually tell anyone those things.”

  “It’s probably why you’re so tightly wound all the time.” Aidy pulls her hands from her pockets and clenches her fists. “You’re like this. Angry. Hard. But you need to relax.” Her fists release and she drags a hand down my arm, which stiffens at her touch. “Even your arm is all tensed.”

  An older woman walking a Pomeranian passes us, giving us a bright-eyed grin as her gaze flicks between us. She thinks we’re together, which I find hilarious because the two of us strolling side by side must look like the sun hanging out with a rain cloud.

  “Before you hung up,” Aidy says, “you said you wanted to stop being heartless. Maybe you were just being dramatic, I don’t know you that well, but I don’t think you’re heartless, Ace. At least what I know of you. Grumpy? Sure. Moody? Definitely. But you’re not heartless. A heartless person wouldn’t feel remorse for the things they’ve done, and a heartless person sure wouldn’t have texted me asking if they could send an autograph to the little boy with tears in his eyes.”

  My shoulders feel lighter, and I glance down at Aidy, watching the way her hands animate when she talks. She keeps tucking a piece of hair behind her left ear but it refuses to stay put for more than a few steps at a time. Still, it doesn’t faze her.

  We’ve circled the block now, returning to the spot just outside my steps, stopping under the shade of a red-leafed maple.

  “Did I say anything else?” I ask.

  Aidy turns to face me, her chin pointing up as she stares to the side with her brows furrowed.

  “Nope,” she says. “That was it, really. You were just plastered, and I think you needed to let it all out. Not sure why you picked me.”

  She laughs, and I agree. I have no idea why I picked her, though it’s not like I have an overabundance of options these days. Guess she’s easy to talk to. I don’t really have anyone like that now.

  I’ve let too many people slip away over the years. And the ones who tried to come around this last year, I pushed to the wayside, convinced they were better off without me in their lives.

  I’ve done some s
hitty things in my life.

  And I’ve made some bad calls.

  But standing here, watching Aidy chew the inside of her lip and stare up at me like she doesn’t see the living, breathing monster inside me, gives me a sliver of hope that I didn’t have until today.

  This woman, this beautiful, Mary-fucking-Sunshine of a woman, doesn’t believe I’m heartless.

  My chest falls as I exhale, and I jam my hands into my pockets because my fingers twitch with an urge I haven’t felt since I’m not sure when.

  I want to touch her.

  I want to feel her soft, creamy skin under my palms. I want to taste that bee-stung pout that’s constantly slicked in a different shade every time I see her. I want to gather a fistful of her hair as I press her against the wall and graze my lips against hers.

  And in an irrational flicker of a second, I want to know what it might be like to love her so hard, it physically hurts.

  Chapter 17

  Aidy

  “What do you think of this one?” Wren slaps a wedding magazine in my arms when I get back from Ace’s.

  Dazed, I snap out of it and take the glossy booklet, flipping to the dog-eared page in the middle. The dress is covered in lace, the back exposed, with long sleeves and a traditional A-line skirt.

  “It’s very you,” I tell my sister.

  “Is it too Kate Middleton?” she asks. “I don’t want people to think I’m trying to copy her. It’s bad enough we look the same from behind. God, why couldn’t I have at least been given Pippa’s ass?”

  “Squats. I’m telling you.” I smack my behind and kick off my shoes.

  “So how’d it go?” Wren asks. “I take it he appreciated the breakfast.”

  “Scoot over, bud,” I say to Enzo before stealing his spot on the couch. “He didn’t remember talking to me last night.”

  My sister’s jaw falls. “What?”

  “No recollection.” I lean back, exhaling. “So I looked like a crazy person.”