“Thank you. Seriously. I — a lot of folks I’ve worked with undermine what I do, so I appreciate you sticking up for me.”
“They were dicks,” I said, trying to shrug off how her words made me feel.
“Right. Go practice, I won’t bother you with any more platitudes,” she said, rolling her eyes before turning to head to the open office.
Despite my better judgment, I stood there and watched her go.
An Invite
Kodi
“Fuck them Nasties!” Brooker shouted and the others shouted back, “Fuck ’em up, up, up.”
“Dastards gonna light ’em.”
“Cannon balls blow!”
“Do they always do this?” I asked Rosa, Jimenez’s wife, who gratefully kept me company on the plane ride to Nashville. We were waiting in a private room for them to pull our luggage and Brooker decided now was the time to hype the team up.
“They do,” Rosa said with a sigh. “Unless it’s a red-eye. I think Christenson is the only one who’s a morning bird.”
“That tracks. But not Kean?”
“Well, he sorta grumbles on a regular basis, so it’s hard to tell.”
I threw my head back and laughed. She was right, even though over the last week, I’d gotten a lot more words out of him thanbefore. He actually responded to one of my emails with a whole paragraph instead of an emoji. Though that was about Lindsey, so it makes sense he was more motivated to respond.
“What’re you two laughing about?” Jimenez asked, leaving the parade of rowdy boys to wrap his arms around his wife. “You making fun of me?”
“What makes you think we’re talking about you, huh?” Rosa said, her attitude going up a notch as she gave her husband shit.
“That’s 'cause anytime someone is looking Jimenez’s way, they’re making fun of him,” Brooker said, joining our little circle. As soon as he stepped next to me, Kean got up from where he was waiting to stand on my other side.
I rolled my eyes and pretended he wasn’t there. Kean and I might not’ve butt heads this week, but his attitude towards Brooker hasn’t exactly improved. Just the other day I happened by them in the hallway and Kean was glaring at him so hard, I thought laser vision might become a thing for a second. Then as soon as Kean saw me, he pushed Brooker out of the way to talk to me about travel arrangements.
“Oh, shut up, man.” Jimenez reached around Rosa and smacked at Brooker’s shoulder.
Rosa murmured something in Spanish and Kean leaned over to whisper to her. Also in Spanish.
“I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” I said to him while Rosa chuckled at whatever it was he said.
“My dad was stationed in the DR for a while, so I learned most of it there while I was young. The rest I picked up while playing. Brooker’s the only adult on the team who’s not multilingual.”
“Okay, bitch,” Brooker said. “Not all of us got to live abroad growing up.”
“Calling it living abroad makes it sound glamorous. I was on base most of the time.”
“Well I grew up in Ohio, so …” Brooker stretched out the word, shrugging.
“Cut him some slack, Kean. He’s trying,” Rosa said, reaching over to pinch Brooker’s cheek.
“Trying?” Jimenez scoffed. “Love, you should hear how this man butchers the language.”
“He’s gotta learn somehow.”
“All right, all right, let’s stop talking about my poor language skills and start talking about where we’re going tonight.”
“Brooker,” Kean said in a warning tone.
