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)
“You talk to Principal Runnels yet?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah, he seems cool,” I said. “Really excited to have me on board and didn’t ask me to sign some stuff for him to sell yet, so there’s that.”
“He’s a good man,” Ryan said. “You’ll do fine. Did you talk to him on the phone or just over email?”
“Email,” I said, getting a grin from Ryan.
“Just be prepared. He has a lisp. He’s a pretty funny guy but can be hard to understand sometimes.”
“Got it,” I said. “I heard his son plays ball too?”
“Dustin, yeah. Kid’s a natural.”
“Is that why he wanted me to come in so bad?” I asked, laughing. “Because he wants his kid to get to the majors?”
“Probably,” Ryan said. “But you are still a hero around here. You threw a no-hitter against Houston on the road, man.”
“I remember,” I said, nodding. It was my finest performance in the majors and at least one thing I could go to bed knowing I had accomplished. I might not have ever gotten more than a week into October, but I put twenty-seven batters down in order one hot night in Houston. And got cheered for it, at that.
“Well, fuck all that serious stuff,” Ryan said, finishing his beer and standing up to go for another. “You’re going to have a blast here. No worries. Life is good, man.”
“I won’t be here long,” I said. “I’ll get my own place soon. I’ll start looking tomorrow. I just needed to get out of that town today.”
“Hey, I get you,” Ryan said. “But you can stay as long as you want.”
“I appreciate that. Anything I should know about town now? It’s changed a bit since I was here last,” I said.
“Yeah, they built up Broad with some tiny little shops,” he said. “It’s nice, but I don’t know how they cut a profit. Other than that, nothing much else has changed. Especially the pizza.”
It wasn’t like New York or Detroit or Chicago. But it was familiar. We sat and ate for a while before I turned in. His place had a whole apartment downstairs, something Ryan had apparently worked on in his spare time for a while. It had its own bathroom, its own shower, and its own living and bedroom. For something I was only going to hang out for a day or two in, it wasn’t bad.
It was where I was now. The page had turned. A new chapter was ahead. I just wish I knew what it held.
17
MALLORY
Tessa was beside herself waiting for me to get to the coffee shop. She had texted me over a dozen times, almost all of them a stream of consciousness single sentence. She was good at that. Or bad at it, depending on how you viewed texting etiquette. After several years of living in New York and dealing with Tamara, Dale, and Steven’s obsession with texting in a group chat, I could handle anything.
A pang of sadness swept through my heart, and I tried to shake it off. I didn’t have time for it. I had a million things to do on Saturdays, one of which was to go to coffee with the girls and gossip about whatever small-town bullshit was going around that week. It was something I cherished, and a remnant of my past that I was glad to have back to when I moved back to Murdock.
It wasn’t that they forgot me. Tamara especially still kept in touch, texting me all the time and sending me pictures from set. She was successful by her own standards, which was what was important. She wasn’t starring in Hollywood movies or headlining plays on Broadway, but she’d found her niche. She was often the comic relief, which fit her so well, and was a regular on the sappy romance movies that came on women’s channels all the time. It was fun to turn on the TV and see my friend quip her way through a bad movie and chew the scenery up while she was at it.
Dale and Steven were another story. They broke up and got back together twice, then one day up and moved to Scotland. No one knew exactly why until three years later when they resurfaced on social media. Apparently, Steven’s father owned a large share of a distillery, and when he passed, Steven inherited it. They ran off to Scotland to take care of his affairs, then just stayed, living on a houseboat and becoming board members in the company. Now they were both investors, movers and shakers in the digital money field and impossibly rich.
And also invisible. They sent Tamara and me wonderful Christmas and birthday gifts every year, but they always came from some far-flung country where they were presumably staying at that moment.
It seemed like all three of them had the life they always dreamed of. Then there was me. In Murdock, living a life that I never thought I would have.