“Okay, so you’re good cop and she comes in later as bad cop if I don’t take whatever you’re offering. Not a bad strategy. Dan thought that’s what you’d do.”
“Yeah, where is Dan?”
“Japan. Apparently Nakamura’s looking for an American agent.”
“He left you to negotiate your own deal?”
“I know what I want.”
“How’s this?” I slide the folded-up piece of hotel room notepaper across the table to him and wait, finishing my drink and gazing out into the Montana landscape.
There’s a grunt of what sounds like approval from Quicke and then the click of a pen and the scratch of it against paper.
He slides it back across the table.
Same specs, but one extra year.
It’ll make him thirty-nine at the end of the deal.
The same age I am now.
But he’s a pitcher with a rubber arm and he’s a lefty.
“Welcome back to the Brooklyn Eagles, Ethan,” I extend a hand to him, but he takes another sip of his beer and grins.
“One more thing and we have a deal.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to start Opening Day.”
“Don’t push it.”
He laughs and then reaches for my hand to shake it firmly.
Done and dusted.
That’s one of those cowboy sayings, right? If not, it sounds like it.
This almost makes that godawful flight stuck between adrunk asshole and a woman who I desperately want to touch even though I know that way absolute madness lies. She’ll be happy, though, and now maybe she’ll understand that I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.
“Do you have tickets to the game?” Quicke asks, as he stands.
I stand too and toss a few bills down on the table for the server. “Nah, not really my thing.”
“You should come. Both of you. I have a suite. I assume she’s waiting back in her room for word on whether or not she needs to come up here guns blazing to play the heavy?”
“Yeah, okay,” I agree, suddenly a little bit chagrined that I won’t get to see her in action. “Text me the details.”
My phone dings once and then again as I’m headed back down to the room, both messages from Quicke. The first is the info about the suite. The second is a link to his Instagram, where it’s a simple dark blue background with anNY. The caption is simple:Always home.
That was quick. Too quick and the feeling of victory I had all the way down from the roof crumbles and, before I can reach for my room key, the door flies open.
Her hair is thrown up into a riot of a messy bun and she’s wearing a tank top and cotton shorts with a light cotton robe over the top, just an inch or so longer than the shorts. She looks fucking amazing and absolutely furious.
“What the hell did you do?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, buying some time because I obviously know exactly what she’s talking about.
