~Got it. So which of your babies are you going to put out on the street?
~My cars are not my babies.
~Could’ve fooled me.
~You like them more than I do.He’d read up on performance and specs before buying, and talked about them in the locker room because it was a way to connect with some of the other players. He’d grown up awkward, nerdy, enthused about things the other kids didn’t seem to care about. But he wasn’t stupid. Teambuilding was a challenge that could be researched, same as anything else. In Juniors, he’d studied video games and superheroes and popular actresses. When he hit the majors, he asked his dad to teach him to golf. The cars were another entry point. He wasn’t attached.
Although, to be fair, he did like cruising down a highway in summer with the top down and a lot of power under the hood. He liked the rumble of the engine and the nimble response to his foot and hands… okay, maybe he was fond of them. Still not hisbabies.
He told Scott,~They’re cars. They won’t melt.
~Always so mature. See you at 3.
“Mature” should’ve felt like a compliment, not an accusation. But in a sport where he was maybe past his peak, coming from a guy who’d barely hit twenty-four, it stung. He pushed that feeling aside and switched over to his shopping list.Respirators.Better buy a bunch, since Scott was good at roping people in.Box fans.He didn’t want to poison the lungs of his teammates with this little stunt. Better get several.Sandpaper. Tarp. Masking tape. Plastic.
By the time he was done, he was glad he’d driven his SUV to get “a few cans of spray paint.”
Back home, he decided to clear the left half of his four-car garage, which meant putting out the working cars— theHighlander SUV and the Lexus he loaned his sister when she came to visit. He unloaded, cranked up the heat in the garage because the paint said don’t use below fifty degrees and Portland had decided to do forty-five and raining.
Prep time. He glanced around the garage, his eye catching on the camera over the door into the house.
His house had a video doorbell and three-sixty-degree camera surveillance of the property and a camera on his gate, and this one, all monitored by his father’s security people. Way overkill, except when he got back from the ranch last summer, he’d been pathetically glad of the security. Now he was back to where the lack of privacy grated.Well, itshouldgrate, like it has all my life. I should want to get rid of it.He pretended some dark little place back in his head didn’t shiver and get scared at the notion of being left unprotected.
Either way, it was what it was. He texted Amy Nelson, head of LaCroix family security.~Will be putting two of the cars out on the road and having friends parking on the drive. One old battered truck in the garage.
He quickly got back,~Noted. Dolan’s truck? And why not leave yours on the drive?
Of course she knew who in his life drove something like that. He really should want privacy.
~It’s raining. I don’t make my friends hike in the rain.That was a better excuse than saying he didn’t want to show off his possessions in front of Rusty. The kid had to know Cross was loaded, but maybe he could not rub Rusty’s face in it. He could throw tarps over the Porsche and the antique Mustang, and they could be anything under there. Covering them would be smart anyway.
He set up the fans, the heat, the tarps, laid out paint and supplies. Then he showered, even though he’d already had one that morning, and no doubt would again afterward. He refused to examine why he wanted to feel totally fresh and clean. Likewise, he didn’t think about why it took him ten minutes to persuade himself to wear old baggy clothes, instead of his favorite sweater that brought out the color of his eyes. Rusty— and the guys— wouldn’t care how he looked, and he made the smart choice in the end.
He ate lunch and made sure he had fixings for nachos and sandwiches ready. The guys would’ve eaten too— no one skipped a meal when they were fighting to keep on weight as the season wound down— but by the same rationale, they could always eat more. He popped and seasoned a big bowl of everything-popcorn, got out crackers, hummus. Stopped himself when he realized he was contemplating making a veggie platter.Keep it casual. Don’t be weird.
Volkov, their backup goalie, was the first to arrive, ringing the doorbell at two-forty. Cross had been distracting himself by keeping track of the garage temperature (almost sixty now) and watching the Gryphons’ ECHL rival Sacramento wipe the ice with Reno in a recorded game on his laptop. It wouldn’t hurt to give Rusty some pointers on Sacramento’s number twenty-seven. He seemed to lose the puck if he was forced over to his left…
Cross shut off the game and buzzed Volkov through the front door. Time to focus on his own teammates.
Volkov handed Cross a case of beer as he came into the kitchen. “Here. Painting is thirsty work.”
“Thanks.”
“Edzie sent me picture of truck. Is there someone I can punch?”
Cross had to smile. “Sadly no.”
“Last summer neither. I am sad. What color paint did you buy?”
“Black.” Cross held up a hand to fend off Volkov’s reply. “Rusty asked for black.”
“I guess he wants to look badass. We will fix it for him.”
“Right.” Another ring at the door heralded Goldie and Axel. Cross unlocked for them, and Scott was hard on their heels.
Goldie brought more beer, Scott had a big bag of takeout. “In case Rusty didn’t get to eat after the game,” he said. “Plus some for the rest of us.”
Fries, even sweet potato fries, weren’t on Cross’s cheat list. Hopefully he’d be putting in enough elbow grease to burn off the fat. He wasn’t strong enough to turn those down.
