Page 10

CHAPTER 10

LOGAN

H ow to Win Friends and Influence People plays on my living room sound system and I have an exercise mat rolled out over the carpet where the coffee table normally sits.

I keep my eyes mostly focused out the floor to ceiling windows that showcase an expansive Orlando downtown view—expansive by the size of the windows, not by the views. I live in the highest residential building and aside from this one, there’s just a handful of other tall ones. On a clear night I can catch the fireworks from the parks in the south, though.

Meanwhile, the rest of me is in a plank position over the exercise mat. It’s been fifteen minutes according to the counter on my phone that lays face up on the carpet where I can see it, so I’m not even shaking yet. After this, I’ll have a protein shake for dinner, get in the tub to listen to the audiobook for a while more, and catch some early Z’s. It’s an ideal rest day night before getting back on the road tomorrow.

Of course, this is when someone decides to disrupt my quiet by calling me on the phone.

At first I figure it’s my manager with news of a trade, but actually my brother’s name lights up the screen. I ignore it.

A huff comes out of my throat not because of the plank, but because he’s not taking the damn hint and leaving me the hell alone. He keeps calling, which means I keep not listening to my audiobook. And yes, I’d much rather read a ninety year old book than deal with Lewis Kim.

Finally he drops the call and the relief almost makes me drop the plank. I tighten my muscles again, starting by my toes that are holding up my lower body weight, clenching my stomach to not sag, and fisting my hands to motivate my arms to keep steady. It goes well for a couple of minutes until Lewis calls again.

“Shit,” I mumble.

I know him. He’s a hound with a bone and won’t leave me alone until I give him the attention he craves.

Slowly, I ease down to all fours and grab my phone. I do take several deep breaths before answering. “What do you want?”

“Is that really how you should greet your only beloved brother?”

“Only? Yes. Beloved? Absolutely the hell not.” Rubbing my forehead, I add, “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Fine, what I want is to know if the rumors are true.”

What rumors? Is this something related to Mena’s video that she refused to take down even when I asked nicely?

Anyone who hears this conversation would think, first, that I’m an asshole brother. And second, that Lewis is the youngest sibling by how his voice is all jovial and wholesome, whereas mine radiates hostility.

But that’s because they don’t know him—or what he’s capable of.

“I heard that you may be considering a return to the Eagles.”

I freeze and say absolutely nothing. Not even a peep.

What I really want to do is roar like a freaking lion. Did Kaplan approach the Eagles? Did my trade intentions leak? Does anyone in the Wild, other than Beau, already know?

Or… this could be my brother’s blatant attempt to suss me out.

See, we don’t love or support each other in the Kim-Lindberg clan—we don’t console, teach, guide or any of the other shit I assume functional families do.

We play mind games. We fight to win, no matter what.

It’s not a secret that I’ve changed teams every two or three years and that my time is coming up. A couple of sports blogs have even commented on it. My keener teammates may be wondering it. Certainly my sociopathic brother would’ve picked on it.

Since he knows that I know his shtick, and he knows that I won’t give him an inch, he carries on all by himself. “Because we would absolutely love to have you back. Water under the bridge and all that. I would even put in a good word for you.”

As if he wasn’t the reason I left in the first place.

“Are you done fantasizing?” I ask in a flat tone of voice that gives nothing. The last thing I should do is show that anything he says or does can affect me—even if it does. I learned this lesson before I was even ten years old.

“Think about it,” he says with a chuckle. “We can go back to being the best battery in modern baseball history. In fact, I think with our current skill we might even become the best ever . We’re definitely a shoo-in for the All Star game?—”

“I’m hanging up?—”

“Logan, c’mon. Our parents would love to see us play together again.”

We both know that he doesn’t give a flying turd about what our parents think.

“Do us both a favor and go watch that documentary they filmed about your life. Bye.” I end the call before he can keep nagging. The jerk calls back right away and I tap over to his contact and mute him.

I sit back on my haunches as the audiobook picks up where it left off, but there’s no hiding the rapid heartbeat in my chest from myself.

I’m a twenty eight year old man. I even found a gray hair on my head this morning. I haven’t lived with my parents or my brother in ten years. I’m not financially dependent on any of them, and could even cut them out of my life like my therapist has suggested multiple times.

But every time I hear Lewis’s voice, I get transported to my seven-year-old self when he locked me up in a closet for an entire weekend.

Mom’s voice takes me back to the night she screamed at Dad so much, she decided that smashing a vase would be a more effective way of getting across how pissed off she was, and the shards that sliced into my skin.

Dad’s voice reminds me of my right hand’s middle finger, crooked because he kept shouting at me to throw forkballs with a SPORTY hardball—even though I was just eleven and already knew I wanted to be a catcher—until my finger broke.

Shit, my breathing’s getting short.

Fortunately, the league’s getting wiser about player mental health and my medication is on the list of allowed substances. I spring to my feet and eat up the floor in a few strides toward the kitchen.

As I’m washing the little pill down the guzzler, my door bell rings and for a wild second, I fear Lewis is behind it. But I shake my head, remembering that he should be in New York right now or maybe somewhere on the road, I don’t know. I know for a fact that we don’t play them for a while.

The door camera system shows a different familiar face. One that is also annoying, but at least not terrifying.

I open the door and greet him just the same way, though. “What do you want?”

Rivera, who also happens to be my neighbor, sweeps his eyes from my bare chest, to my black sweats, and my toes. “Excuse me, sir. This is a residential building. Families live here. You need to consider their tender eyes.”

He’s lucky I’m not buck ass naked.

Folding my arms, I fire back, “Is there anything about you that is tender?”

“No.” He grins. “Certainly not my eyes. Anyway, can I come in?”

Well, so much for a quiet evening.

“No.” I try closing the door, knowing exactly what’s going to happen.

Dude wedges himself between the doorframe and the door. “It’ll just be a second.”

“You said the same last time and parked your ass on my couch until two in the morning watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle reruns.”

He opens his eyes wide. “Don’t you love feeling like a child again?”

My teeth grit hard enough to catch his notice. There is nothing I hate more than feeling like a child again. Nothing. Not even that ridiculous post on the team’s social media that makes me look like a sap.

“You have ten seconds before I shove you out the door,” I grit out.

“Okay, okay. Cade’s in a pickle and needs our help.”

That’s unexpected enough that it gives me pause. I really thought this was gonna be about more childhood TV show marathons.

Slowly, I ask, “What kind of pickle?”

“A bad one. Only we can help him.”

“Any more details so I can make a decision?” I frown.

“No, he just called me all panicky and I sprung to action.” He shrugs, hands raised and palms facing up in the universal gesture of what-else-can-you-do.

Deadpan, I ask, “Has he called nine-one-one?”

“Oh, it’s not that kind of an emergency, trust me.”

Which means this is probably a chick emergency. He screwed something up with Hope and now needs our help to get his head out of his ass. We should probably do that before it fries his brain and we have to bench him for more than one series.

“Fine, let’s go,” I concede.

“Nuh-uh. Not like that.” He points up and down at me. “You need to put on some clothes, pendejo.”

“You’re the pendejo,” I shoot back, knowing very well what the word means. “Of course I’m getting dressed first.”

This means that I end up letting him into my apartment. I also have to pause my book so Rivera doesn’t fall asleep on my couch while I get dressed. The whole thing takes maybe five minutes and in two more, we’re down at the parking lot where he gets in his Escalade and I hop on my Ducati. He didn’t give me the address but I follow him closely enough that I don’t need it. In fact, I can almost hear the reggaeton blaring in his sound system every time we stop at a light.

The sky is doing its show of colors for dusk. The rainy season hasn’t started yet, so the sun and the clouds treat us to quite the masterpiece. I barely even register that we enter a posh neighborhood in Winter Park, so distracted I am by the purple, pink, and yellow hues in the sky.

That’s when something more important occurs to me. Since Rivera showed up at my door, all the thoughts about my relatives vanished in thin air. My heart rate returned to normal, my breathing evened… I even forgot to keep playing my audiobook.

Rivera parks by a random building that looks like a bunker in between pretty houses. I sit back on my bike behind his vehicle, watching as he steps out and walks around.

I bet he’s one of the few, if not the only one, who has realized I’m due for a trade. Rivera’s way smarter than he pretends—something I’ll never acknowledge aloud.

Wait, what is he doing?

I unstrap my helmet and remove it, the better to watch him retrieve some shopping bags from the back of his SUV. And they sport the unmistakable logo of Publix.

“What kind of emergency would require you buying groceries for Starr?” I narrow my eyes.

Rivera smirks at me, then presses his finger to the doorbell of a door that looks like something out of prison. The door opens and sounds spill out. The problem is that I can’t really discern them.

“Aren’t you coming?” the Boricua asks, jerking his head toward the door.

And only because I don’t want to go back home to think about my brother, I hop out of my bike and follow him.