Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
He smiled, apparently noticing me staring at him, and I blushed fiercely. My arm, moving on its own accord without any instruction from the rational part of my brain, raised up, and I waved, then turned, facing Tessa and Kat again and staring down at my drink.
“I think I’m going to need about a hundred more of whatever this drink was,” I said.
“I think a hundred of those would kill you,” Kat laughed.
“Then ninety-nine,” I said.
“You heard the woman,” Tessa said. “You’ve got bar bitch duty until eleven, then we swap.”
Groaning and rolling her eyes, Kat stood and headed to the bar.
She came back just in time for my name to get called, and she handed me my drink as I passed her on the way to the stage. I heard a large whooping cheer and looked over to see Graham clapping loudly for me as I made my way over. The heat on my cheeks was intense, and I couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or the attention. I wanted to blame the former, but I started to expect it was the latter.
Five years later, and that grin still did me in.
I took the stage, shut everything else off, and belted out the tune I had picked. Halfway through it, I felt like myself again, performing without care and letting my voice fill the room. It wasn’t until the instrumental part of the song before the last chorus that I noticed Graham had moved a little closer and was watching me with that wide grin on his face.
4
GRAHAM
I was stunned when I saw Mallory sitting there at the table, stunned enough in fact that I barely registered when she waved at me. I was too distracted simply looking at her. She had been so cute in high school, but now that she was a bit older, she was simply gorgeous. Immediately, a host of regrets assaulted me, along with a flood of springing hope that maybe I could make those past mistakes right.
For some reason, we’d never connected in high school after the paint incident. I could remember it so clearly, and I thought for sure I would catch up with her afterward, and we could see where that chemistry led. But things got so intense so fast with the end of the school year, exams, and baseball that I barely had time to breathe, much less chase a girl.
We never reconnected, and after I graduated, life got crazy quickly. I lost track of everyone, even my closest friends, in a whirlwind of classes, a new city, and the offers to skip college and join the minor leagues. Considering my academic career essentially consisted of ‘things I kind of liked other than baseball,’ I really didn’t care much, and after only a year of classes, I waited to see what offers would come in the summer.
The draft was something spectacular, and even though I was a mid-round pick, mostly because of how young and inexperienced I was, I was excited by it, and I signed with a healthy bonus right away. My parents moved to the border of Canada to be nearby, and by the time I joined the expansion team, refilling the role it left when it left town decades before, I was among the crop of young blood that was destined to be the future of the organization.
I didn’t disappoint. Not yet, anyway. My agent was whispering all the time about how insanely rich I would be once free agency hit if I stayed on target, but that was a couple of years away. For now, I was wealthy, but not stupid money rich. Enough that coming through Murdock, Texas as we swung between Arlington and Houston meant I could take the boys out for some beer in a limo and show them a bit of the high life that they assumed I lived all the time.
Dropping by Big Danny T’s was their idea, and I was surprised when I walked in and saw it had turned into a karaoke bar. Not that it dissuaded me; I was just used to Murdock being the home of run-down redneck bars and biker hangouts. Not exactly the place one would expect to see a neighbor crooning love songs at eight in the evening after one too many highballs.
Yet there I was, my only night in Murdock, in Big Danny T’s bar watching the girl I’d never quite forgotten from high school singing in a voice that was as angelic as ever. She had a real talent, even if I might have been a bit partial. And I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.
As Mallory finished her song, I stood and clapped, which seemed to spread out among the other people there. Not that they weren’t clapping for her already, but apparently the word of my fame had spread already, and people were looking to me for direction. It was weird, but a fact of life. People liked pleasing famous people, especially those that came from their hometown. It gave them a thrill for some reason. If I was standing and clapping, by golly, other people were going to as well.