Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Sadie said nothing but out of the corner of my eye I could see her smile.
“What?” I said accusingly.
“Nothing. It’s just a smile. It means I’m happy.”
“Oh.”
“But I have questions.”
I groaned.
“First, where are you going to live?”
“No idea. I haven’t even looked yet, since I just started thinking about this last night.”
“When would this happen?”
“Don’t know that either. Summer? Maybe I can check out some listings over the weekend.”
“Perfect. Finally, this thing with April. . . is it serious?”
“Why do you need to know?”
She sighed in exasperation. “Because I need to know how excited to be on a scale of one to ten that you actually might, for once in your life, have an honest-to-goodness adult relationship.” She clutched her heart. “A—gasp—girlfriend.”
I rolled my eyes, but I thought about it. “Seven.”
“Seven?”
“Maybe eight. I might even go as high as nine, but remember, it’s only been a week.”
“Romeo and Juliet met on a Sunday, got married on a Monday.”
“And weren’t they dead by Tuesday or something?”
“No,” she said, as if she were offended. Then she quietly added, “It was Thursday.”
Laughing, I shook my head. “We will not be getting married—or dying, I hope—anytime soon. But yes. I might have a girlfriend.”
She swooned, tipping back on her cement porch and shouting at the sky. “You hear that, Dad? It’s a miracle!”
Later, I took April out for dinner, and we talked more about everything—when I’d move, where I might look for houses, how much I’d miss Anna, what else I might do once I was back for good.
“What about owning a business?” she suggested. “A sporting goods store? A sports bar? Batting cages?”
“I don’t know anything about running a business.”
“Well, you could hire people to run it. You could be the silent investor. Or the loud investor, whatever you prefer. You could be as involved or as uninvolved as you chose.”
“I’ll give it some thought.” I took a bite of my New York Strip. “I talked to the lefty about his scholarship.”
“Did you get through to him?”
“Maybe? Hard to say for sure, but—”
“Excuse me for interrupting.”
Even before I saw who was standing there, I recognized the smooth feminine voice dripping insincerity—it was that fucking reporter, Bethany Bloomstar. “I told you before,” I said without looking up from my New York Strip. “No comment.”
“I was hoping maybe you’d changed your mind,” she said. “The piece is running tomorrow, and there’s still time for changes. Are you aware that some local parents have a problem with you coaching their children?”
“Fuck off.”
“And hello, April. We meet again,” she said.
I looked up. Again? What the hell?
“Yes. Hello.” April cleared her throat and met my eyes.
“You two have met?” I asked.
“Bethany and I had a meeting earlier in the week about having her wedding at Cloverleigh,” April said, her face flushed. “I didn’t realize you knew each other.”
“We don’t.” I glared at Bethany, knowing a game player when I saw one. “Are you even planning a wedding? Or were you just digging around for dirt on me?”
Bethany laughed and tossed her hair. “I’m practically engaged. And a woman needs to be prepared, right?”
“I’m sorry, I’m confused.” April shook her head. “You’re not really getting married? That meeting was just an excuse to talk to me?”
“Let’s just say I was killing two birds with one stone.”
“Let’s just say you get the fuck away from us right now,” I told her, keeping my tone under control. The last thing I wanted was a scene.
“Are you threatening me?” she asked loudly.
A murmur rippled through the crowd, and I knew without even looking around, there were now phone cameras aimed at us.
“Of course not,” April said, rising to her feet. “Why don’t we just—”
“Because I’m only trying to do my job!” Bethany whined. “And I don’t appreciate being threatened by a man!”
“Bethany, he’s not threatening you. He’s only—”
“Forget it, April.” I stood up, grabbed my wallet from my pocket, and threw more than enough cash to cover the meal on the table. “Let’s just go.”
Without another word, we grabbed our jackets and headed for the door, and just as I suspected, plenty of people took a video of us moving through the dining room toward the exit.
In the car on the ride home, April took my hand. “I’m sorry, Tyler.”
“Don’t be. Not your fault.”
“It really stinks that people are so rude to you. They don’t respect your privacy at all.”
I shrugged. “I can take it. I’m sorry your dinner was ruined.”
She was quiet for a minute. “I feel so stupid about that meeting. I honestly thought she was getting married and wanted her wedding at Cloverleigh. But she asked me to please be discreet because she didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Of course she didn’t.”
“God, I’m so gullible. She went on and on about all the good things she’d heard about me, how incredible the place was, how it was exactly what she wanted.”