“I know. But even good intentions can hurt.”
“I don’t know how to talk to her.”
“You do.” My dad gives me a smile. “Out of anyone in the world, I’d never doubt you know exactly how to be you around Ava Williams. It might take time and some getting used to, but this might be your sign to heal something that broke.”
I’m not one for signs. I like lists and tangible things I can touch. But I can’t deny there is a darkened piece of my heart that died when I cut Ava out of my life. I almost go down the path of agreeing with him, of considering opening old scars and letting her back in if she wanted.
Then, like a slap to the face, I recall what put those scars there.
“I think it’s best to keep a distance,” I say after a long pause. “It was an embarrassing mistake, that’s all.”
“I think it’s more than that.”
“It’s not.”
My dad takes another drink. He doesn’t agree with me, but I want to stop this conversation. It’s settling like a slab of iron in my stomach. I flick a few fingers, shake out my hands, and force a subject change. We talk about the upcoming design work on an after-school field house I’ve been working on with Dallas Anderson. I leave out that the design firm Ava works for is the one hired to complete the task.
I leave out anything to do with her or I’ll be forced to admit I can’t bring her back into my life because I can’t risk losing her again.
Ryder
I glareat the text on my screen. The guy is going to get the clue someday. How many messages is he going to send before he gets the hint I’m not writing back?
Mitch:Ryder! Did you get my last message?
Mitch: You up for helping your cousin out this weekend? I have a client dinner and they are HUGE baseball fans. I’ll buy if you’ll supply tickets to the season opener. I’m being direct, you like direct, right?
I’m not a petty person, but when I step into the clubhouse training room, a smile passes over my mouth.
Mitch can poke me all he wants. He doesn’t have his own baseball card.
A week after the incident, my teammates have finally stopped mocking me for the police slip up. Griffin and Wren returned from the honeymoon in wedded bliss and let me know they were laughing at me behind my back in different ways. Griffin said it to my face. Wren is more subtle, always asking if we needed to call the cops, or if she invited her mom and aunt over would I have them in handcuffs.
Funny.
After speaking with Dad, every day I’ve looked at Ava’s number. It might not even be the right one. Truth be told, I feel like a coward. I’ve done nothing since I fumbled back into her life.
To avoid thoughts of her crystal blue eyes and full lips and the way she can be disheveled and utterly sexy all at once, I draw my focus back into the field house.
The place will welcome anyone from kindergarten to twelfth grade, but when I told Dallas I’d like a special focus for kids who deal with chronic illness, neurodivergent kids, homeless kids, or maybe those who simply don’t know where they fit, Dallas loved it.
Being Skye’s dad and knowing how out of place she felt for so many years after her accident, he wasn’t a hard sell on the focus group.
We bought an old warehouse, it’s been gutted and rebuilt inside, so what is the issue now?
At my sides, my fingers tap my thighs while I wait outside the board offices. I don’t know why I haven’t been invited in, but I’m starting to feel a lot like a kid in time out. My money is as good as anyone’s, and I—
The door to the office swings open. Dallas offers his standard half grin that makes him look like he’s mid-thirties instead of fifty.
“Ryder, come on in. Sorry for making you wait; Dean had some objections.” He enunciates the name and cuts a look at Dean McMann. An investor from the days when Dallas’s old man owned the Kings.
Ah, the delay in letting me in makes a bit of sense now. McMann is a stickler when it comes to players mingling with business. To him, athletes are products of an industry. Pieces in a game of billionaires to shift and play as they see fit.
Dallas owns the team, but a few lingering people with vested interest in Burton Field are allowed their say.
I take a moment to shake the hands of the board members. Most are polite, they give me their jovial feedback on the season, crack a few jokes I don’t find particularly funny, but still leave me feeling like a kid who doesn’t know what he’s messing with. I have over half a million invested in this project.
Right now, I’m the biggest player at the table.
