Shane doesn’t respond and we’re all still standing there. Him, his wife, the baby . . . Kaydence, a girl probably, Vladimir and me.
“Go, I insist. Vlad take you wherever they need to go. You should get the baby out of this chill.”
“You’re sure?” he asks, his face wrinkling into a deeper frown than usual.
“I’m sure.”
I’m already taking a step and then another back to the sidewalk and glancing around to find the sign for the cab line.
“Frankie,” he says, and I look back over my shoulder. “Thanks.”
Shrugging, I send him a tight smile, the kind you use when there’s way too much to say, but you’re absolutely not going to say any of it.
Turning away, so I don’t have to watch Vlad help them into the car and secure the baby seat and put their luggage in the trunk, I pull out my phone to start ordering myself an Uber.
“Ms Sullivan,” Vlad calls out from behind me, and I stop, not keen on making the older man run to catch up.
“It’s really okay, Vlad, I promise.”
“No, no, I understand. I will takethat manto where he wants to go.” Ah, so Vlad put the puzzle pieces together. “But there is another car.”
“Another car?”
“Yes. The team sent another car this morning to pick up a guest from Los Angeles.”
“A guest.”
“Yes, from Los Angeles. Just behind you, ten minutes.”
He motions back toward his car where another has pulled up behind, black and sleek, just like all the cars the team employs.
I can’t see a name in the window from here.
“Who is it for?”
Vlad shrugs his large shoulders. “I don’t know, but if you wait, you can share.”
Okay, so keep to the plan. Get in the car and wait for whoever it is ownership is flying in fromLA, get to the office, shower, a change of clothes and then pitch Stew.
That’s my priority: get Stew on board with signing Nakamura and then go from there.
Dragging my luggage back toward the cars, I avoid looking into the tinted windows of Vlad’s car and allow the other driver, a man I vaguely recognize and who introduces himself as Sam, to take my bags and load them into the trunk before he holds the door open for me.
Just as I’m about to climb into the backseat, a voice calls out from the sidewalk.
“You jackin’ my ride, Sullivan?”
That voice.
I know that voice too.
Closing my eyes, as if I don’t see his face he won’t actually be there. No stupid ever-present five o’clock shadow, no ridiculous broad shoulders and thighs to match, and definitely not eyes crinkled with a shit-eating grin, and the slightly premature lines from spending most of his life on a baseball field.
Charlie Avery.
What is he doing here?
Chapter 2
