CHAPTER ELEVEN
November, present day
Hunt pulled into the high school baseball field and parked next to a rental car. He knew Rhett Bryan had come home to lick his wounds. So did the rental belong to his former best friend, or was it merely a soccer mom getting her transmission fixed?
But why would Rhett be at the high school field? Then he remembered Summer’s unread text. Something about a funeral. Probably helping her sister. Of course, the Boy Wonder would step up to give the kid a lift. Rhett had always enjoyed the role of good guy.
Climbing out of the truck, Hunt brushed a hand through his shaggy hair, trying to cover the thinning area. He’d spent the morning in meetings with architects before joining a few potential investors at Sea Oat Plantation, an exclusive golfing community, for a quick nine. He’d bullshitted about his handicap and had one last beer before realizing he wouldn’t make David’s full practice. Maybe if he hadn’t stopped to flirt with the beer cart girl, he would have made it in enough time to watch David throw some pitches.
Sure enough, the pride of Moonlight sat spraddle-legged and loose next to Hunt’s father, who never left the house without a crease in his trousers or a collared shirt. Hunt couldn’t recall seeing his father in his undershirt and boxers but a handful of times, mostly when they went on hunting trips and Mitchell had to shuck out of his waders and wet thermals. Mitchell had a certain standard he held himself to . . . and everyone close to him.
Hunt’s father sat erect, leaning slightly forward, eyes fastened on David, who stood listening to Don show him the proper way to grip the ball for what looked to be a curve or a slider.
“Dad,” Hunt said, as he walked up. Then he shifted his gaze to Rhett. “Long time, man.”
Rhett gave the lazy smile that, no doubt, sent many hearts into a quick trot. “Doesn’t seem like it, though.” He held out a hand.
Hunt gave it a hard, fast shake and slid onto the bench. “Yeah, time flies whether you’re having fun or not.” Again, the bitterness. Wouldn’t do to let it leak out too much.
“True enough. Good to see you,” Rhett said, glancing back at Don positioning David’s arms. The kid looked focused on the task at hand and hadn’t seemed to notice Hunt had arrived. For some reason he wanted David to see him, to smile, to want to please his father. If only because the thing he had that Rhett didn’t was a kid. God, he was reaching for a way to beat Rhett, the way he always had. Rhett probably hated kids. After all, it was a kid who’d fucked up Rhett’s life last summer. Guess that was another thing he had on Rhett—Hunt had never killed someone.
“What brings you back to Shitville?” Hunt asked.
Rhett issued a chuckle. “That’s what they call it now? No longer ‘America’s backyard’?”
“We still have all those godforsaken no-see-ums, so it’s kinda like a backyard . . . next to a dump.”
“Hope you’re not trying to interest Rhett in investing in his home state. If so, you’re going about it the wrong way.” Mitchell McCroy’s lips seemed frozen in perpetual downturn.
“I’m joking, Dad. Rhett knows that. Don’t get your shorts in a twist.”
“My shorts are never in a twist,” Mitchell said, jabbing a thick finger toward the pitcher’s mound. “I don’t like the way Don has him addressing the batter. He needs a wider stride for more power.”
“Don knows what he’s doing,” Hunt said.
“Maybe we need to look around for someone who knows new techniques. Don’s getting on up there.” Hunt’s dad narrowed his eyes in that critical manner that made Hunt’s dander rise. Mitchell had no business here. He wished to hell he’d never mentioned David taking pitching lessons to his dad. The practice field mere yards outside their office was too much a temptation for the old man.
“Good pitching hasn’t changed, has it?” Rhett asked, doing what he’d always done—defusing the situation between Hunt and Mitchell.
His old friend wore a Rolex on his tanned wrist. His clothes looked casually rumpled, but Hunt would be willing to bet they’d come out of some Rodeo Drive shop priced at what most people paid as a mortgage. Jealousy pecked at him despite his best efforts to not give a damn about how successful Rhett was. The dude had come home because his life was fucked up. He’d run over a kid and then went ballistic on television. Obviously, he had issues.
Hunt didn’t. Or at least nothing of that proportion.
“Sure it has,” Mitchell said, clasping his hands between his knees. “Or don’t you watch baseball out in California?”
“Sure. When I’m not getting my junk waxed or having Pedro bring me martinis at the pool,” Rhett said.
Hunt gave a bark of laughter, but his father frowned. “Wax your junk? What’s that code for? Doesn’t matter. What matters is that Hunter get that boy the best coach possible. Anyone can see the potential he has. He’s big, strong, and athletic. He could probably be better than Hunter with a little work. Maybe David will be the one to make it.”
The unstated words fell hard, crushing Hunt. He didn’t want to give a shit what his old man thought about him and his failures, but the words left unsaid weighed heavy on him. Because Hunter here couldn’t cut the mustard. “I’ll take care of David. I’m his father.”
Mitchell crooked an eyebrow. “That’s what the blood test said.”
“Cut it the fuck out, Dad,” Hunt said, anger finally inching up his back, flushing him with heat. His father had to bag on him in front of Rhett. Of course.
“Language, son,” Mitchell said, easing up from his seated position. “I’m going to walk out and speak to Don. I won’t interfere. Just want to say hello.”
Rhett was silent as Mitchell made his way toward the dugout and eventually out toward the mound.
“I can see your father hasn’t changed,” Rhett said.
“Nah, he’s still a son of a bitch.” Hunt gave a tight laugh.
“How are things with you?” Rhett said, polite as ever. That was Rhett. Never confrontational, always the peacemaker. And fucking lucky in life, like a shiny penny that was never passed over.
“Good. Just put together a big deal out on Bohicket Island.” God, why had he done that? Pissing match with an effing millionaire Hollywood hunk? He sounded defensive. Trying to be important in some small way.
“I’m surprised at how things have built up. Hardly recognized the town.”
“Yeah, it’s growing. Perfect location for vacationers. Who would have thought?”
Theirs was an awkward conversation. Two guys who’d once been good friends who’d drifted into different currents, and now they found themselves surprisingly beside one another again. Wasn’t like Hunt could come out and say, “Why didn’t you ever call me? Why weren’t you there when things were too hard to face alone? When I needed a friend?”
’Cause that would have made him a little bitch, whining about feelings and all that shit. But Hunt resented the fact that Rhett had gone away and erased the life he’d had like it hadn’t mattered. He’d deleted Hunt. In fact, Hunt would probably have trouble getting tickets to Rhett’s stupid late-night show. He’d have to call and say, “Um, I’m this guy he had his first beer with. Uh, we used to climb the water tower, watch porn, and shoot crows together. Think he can get me some tickets?”
Stuck in his damned craw that he was so unimportant to everyone. He hated feeling like that, too. He didn’t want to need other people’s approval . . . but somehow he did.
“I had forgotten how pretty it is here,” Rhett said, looking out at the woods showing off fall color. “Sorry I didn’t do a good job of keeping in touch. I wasn’t a good friend.”
“No big deal. People move away. I did. I was on the road and stuff.” Hunt hoped Rhett couldn’t hear the emotion in his voice. He didn’t want Rhett to know his casual dismissal of their friendship had hurt him. “It’s whatever, you know?”
Rhett frowned. “Yeah, whatever, but I’m sorry.”
“It’s cool.”
Silence stretched a cold shadow between them.
Hunt turned his attention to his father, who demonstrated a motion to David. His son’s gaze found Hunt and the kid smiled. Hunt couldn’t stop the pleasure that bloomed inside him. Here was a person who thought Hunt important.
“He’s a good kid,” Rhett said.
“Yeah, he is.”
“So much like you. It startled me when I first met him. He looks more like you than Summer.”
Hunt nodded, pride joining the pleasure inside him. He’d not had much cause to feel such an emotion. Yet the kid out on the mound watching his grandfather with hungry eyes evoked it. “David has her eyes. Her stubbornness.”
“Never remembered Summer being stubborn back in school. She was pretty easygoing, but she’s changed.”
“She’s different. I didn’t see her for a while after high school. The whole pregnancy thing was . . . awkward. Shouldn’t have happened and then . . . suddenly I was a father. I wasn’t ready for that. I didn’t do right by David.”
Rhett didn’t say anything.
“I’m trying to change things,” Hunt said, wondering why he admitted this to Rhett.
“I don’t think anyone is really ready to be a father, huh? Or that’s what I’ve heard.” Rhett’s tone wasn’t accusing. Just conversational. It occurred to Hunt this was how Rhett got all those movie stars to say things they didn’t mean to say.
“Definitely not at nineteen. I don’t know how Summer managed to be a mom and go to school at the same time. She could have, you know, skipped it all and no one would have known.”
“Mm,” Rhett murmured. “That’s true.”
“Sometimes I wish she would have. It’s wrong, because David is great, but that one decision molded the rest of my life. Sometimes . . . nah, never mind.” God, what was he saying? Why not just get out a blade, open up a vein, and bleed out? Rhett wasn’t even trying to get him to say these things, but yet they were spilling out. Dark, ugly truths he’d never want anyone to hear.
“You resent her for having the baby?” Rhett asked.
“Not anymore. But back then, I did. But, hey, it was her choice, right? Isn’t that what all the women libbers say?”
“I don’t think they like being called that. Maybe go with feminists or pro-choice advocates.” Rhett said it with a smile.
“Yeah, I’m politically incorrect, I guess. Dumb redneck. Sorry.” Hunt tried to remember what they’d been talking about. He didn’t want to admit to the mistakes in his life. “I was just commenting on Summer’s stubbornness. She’s like the ocean. Finds a path no matter what you erect against her. But I can’t complain. Summer never asked for one damned thing from me.”
Rhett didn’t respond. Instead he stared out at the field, his face reflecting an indiscernible emotion. In the dying light, a golden hue bathed the field, a rarity seen only in November when the orange and reds of the hardwoods lining the outfield greedily pulled at the last rays, desperately soaking in the remaining warmth before darkness covered them. The setting was poetic, the emotions between him and Rhett not so much.
Rhett looked back at Hunt. “I know about how one decision can fuck you. One simple veer off the path and everything changes.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry about that, man.”
“Thanks, but that’s how life is, right? Tons of people make those seemingly simple decisions every day without knowing how quick life can change. They buy a lottery ticket with the rent money and become millionaires. Or they buy the last ticket on the Titanic and get a watery grave. We can never predict the ramifications of a simple decision. I took a shortcut to avoid traffic and a child died. A simple, split-second decision that on any other day would have saved me a few minutes to the studio.”
“Is that what happened? They said you’d been texting, not paying attention.”
Rhett stiffened. “Who’s they? The press? You think they know what happened?”
“You saying that’s not true?”
Rhett’s face narrowed. “If they say it is, it must be, huh? Where there’s smoke and all that crap.”
Hunt latched his hands together and trained his eyes on David and his father. Don looked up and shot him a look. Hunt knew that look. Come do something with your old man.
Sliding off the bleacher, Hunt stood. “I need to rescue Don. Mitchell’s obviously trying to hijack the lessons.”
“Like I said, same old Mitchell,” Rhett said, a wry grin twisting his handsome features as he relaxed his posture. Water off a duck’s back. Nothing truly bothered Rhett. He rolled with the punches, handled whatever came his way, and came out smelling like a petunia. But maybe this time his old friend couldn’t undo what he’d done, any more than Hunt could undo what had happened between him and Summer all those years ago. Sometimes mistakes stuck with you despite your best effort to shake them loose. Hunt knew, because he’d spent nine years trying to pretend away his own son. He regretted he’d done that. More than anyone could know.
Hunt made his way through the dugout, marveling at how familiar and yet foreign the squat concrete bunker seemed to him. He’d spent too many years sitting on that bench, awaiting his call to the mound. Somewhere near the third screw, he’d carved his and Molly’s initials into the plank. Probably painted over now.
“If you’d just get the ball back here, see?” Mitchell said, jerking David’s arm at an awkward angle. “You’d be able to put better rotation on the ball.”
“That’s not exactly true, Mitch,” Don said, shaking his head.
“The hell it ain’t,” Mitchell said, maneuvering David’s hand. “See? Let your elbow come slightly toward your ribs when you start your forward motion and then whip—”
“Dad, stop,” Hunt said, taking his son’s arm. “David’s had enough for today.”
“He’s still got plenty of pitches in him. Gotta work on the curve. The kid can’t even throw a curve!”
“It’s okay. I can try, Dad,” David said, his voice growing solemn at the obvious tension between Hunt and his father.
“No, you don’t need to wear out your arm. You’re not used to throwing a lot of pitches and need to work on arm strength. The curve will come. No need to rush it. Why don’t you go check out what Rhett’s doing? Maybe he can prank call some celebs or something. Scoot.”
Had he just said scoot? Jesus, he sounded like his mother.
David shifted his gaze between a grandfather who looked ready to blow and Hunt. Hunt winked. “Tell Rhett to tell you about the monkey.”
“The monkey?”
“Yeah, go on.”
David tucked his beat-up glove under his arm and loped back to the dugout. As he entered, Hunt turned on his father. “Don’t start, old man.”
“Start what?”
“Doing to David what you did to me. It’s not happening,” Hunt said, crossing his arms, trying to tamp down the anger creeping into his gut.
“What did I do to you? Give you every opportunity to succeed? Don bought a boat with what I paid for your opportunity. And look what it got me.”
“Got you? I’m not a fucking investment, Dad. I’m a person. You took the one thing I could do well and mined it. You ignored all the other parts of me. It was all baseball all the time. When I wasn’t practicing, you made me watch games and break down pitchers’ movements. I couldn’t even be normal. You’re the reason I didn’t make it.”
“Bullshit,” his father said, jabbing a meaty finger his way. “Same old song and dance from you. Always someone else’s fault. You had an opportunity in front of you on a silver platter and you pissed it away to chase skirt and feel good. Don’t put this on me. Your failure is yours.”
Hunt curled his fist and thought about decking his father. He wanted to for all those years his father had ridden his ass, made him throw a ball over and over until he got it right, and refused to let him make any excuses. Mitchell had pushed and pushed Hunt until he broke . . . and when he did, his old man would berate him for his tears. Sometimes he hated his father . . . with a passion that exceeded all other passions.
“Dad?” David called from the bleachers. “Did you really kiss a monkey?”
Rhett called out, “Never make a bet with your father. He’ll do whatever it takes to win.”
Hunt swallowed the anger and pain before walking away from the source and toward the one thing he could do right in his life—David. No way he’d be like Mitchell McCroy. Hunt wouldn’t ride his son’s ass every day, pointing out every flaw, making him feel not good enough for him. A father wasn’t supposed to control his kid, nor was he supposed to build the kid up only to let him fall down a concrete set of steps, crumpling at the base like a cheap suit. Hunt wouldn’t ignore the parts of David that weren’t so good. He wanted to love all of the boy and be the father he wished he’d had growing up.
“Where are you going?” Mitchell called. In his father’s voice he heard the anger. The old man wanted to fight, wanted to bring up all Hunt’s shortfalls. It was as if the man reveled in Hunt’s failures.
“I got better things to do,” Hunt called, ducking through the dugout and heading back toward the benches.
Rhett still grinned and David’s eyes danced with amusement.
“The monkey’s name was Lily and she smelled like old shoes, but I wasn’t letting Rhett win the boom box, so I did what the DJ at the radio station told me to. He said I’d have to kiss Lily. He just didn’t tell me she was a chimp.”
“You’re joking,” David said, his eyes alight with laughter.
“You guys want to head to the Rib Hut for dinner? I’m in the mood for barbecue,” Hunt said.
David nodded. “Will you come, too, Rhett? I want to hear more stories about you and my dad.”
Rhett’s gaze met Hunt’s. Again, he couldn’t read his old friend. “I’d like that, but we better call your mom. You know how moms get.”
“Yeah,” David said, disgust edging his voice. “They’re crazy.”
Hunt gave a bark of laughter. “Come on, don’t rag on your mom. You know how much she loves you.”
David rolled his eyes. “Yeah, they’re good for that, too.”