Page 32 of The Sweet Spot

“Okay, breathe, brother. Don’t go stroking out on me. We’ll find you one of those nannies everybody has. Maybe we can get a hot one, and she can take care of Kennedy and you.” He laughs like a fucking perv. “Seriously though, you’re going to need help with my goddaughter, and it’s going to have to be someone she’s comfortable with and someone who’s going to stick around, so you’re minimizing the change she’s dealing with as much as possible. Bonus points if she’s hot.”

“I’m not screwing any nanny, dipshit,” I argue, and a vision of Brynlee plays in my mind from my last night in Kroydon Hills.

“Well, now you’re thinking of something that doesn’t involve your kid. Because that face isn’t PG, dude.”

I finally laugh because seriously, only a good friend can go there.

“Did you meet a girl?” he teases, like a teenager.

“What the fuck are you? A high school girl?”

“Is she why you blew me off at the bar last week?” Rip digs in like a dog with a bone. “I sense a story here. Seriously, Deacon, man, it’s like I’m psychotic.”

I drop down into the seat across from him and shove his feet off my goddamn table. “It’s psychic, shithead.”

“That’s not a no though.”

Ripley is one of those guys I met in the minors when I was a teenager. We were both placed with the same family in Canada one year, and I haven’t been able to get rid of him since. At least that’s what I like to tell him. In reality, he’s the closest thing to a brother I’ve ever had. And shithead or not, he’s been there for me through it all. My marriage, my divorce, the birth of my daughter. He was there when my dreams of playing pro blew up in my face, and the fucker flew halfway across the damn country to watch my first game as the head coach at Boston University. He acts like an idiot, but it’s an act... I think.

“I wouldn’t say I met her as much as we bumped into each other for the first time in years.” And fuck, just thinking of her makes me wish I was in Kroydon Hills instead of Boston. “I knew her when we were kids. She was younger than me, though, and her dad told me to stay away.”

“And you listened? What the fuck, man? Since when can an old man scare you away from something you want?”

I finish my beer, then set it on the table and pull two more out of the box at our feet. I wait to hand him his until he empties his bottle, then lean back. “Since her old man is Cade St. James.”

“No shit... The Saint? I saw him fight once in a charity thing when I was in high school. It was him and Hudson Kingston. They raised a ton of money for some foundation. Dude was probably forty years old, and that motherfucker was still jacked. Damn... I’d have stayed away too.” He leans forward and grins a cocky fucking grin. “What changed now? You think you can take him?”

My body shakes with a silent laugh. “No. It was just... I don’t know, man. There’s something about this girl. She’s... I can’t put it into words. There’s something there. Something I can’t stop thinking about.”

“I bet she’s pretty, right?” He lifts his eyebrows and waits for an answer.

“She’s incredible,” I tell him, unwilling to share anything else. Not when it comes to Brynlee.

“Better add her to the list then,” Rip tells me. His chest puffs up, proud of himself for thinking of it.

And he’s right. Brynlee St. James is at the top of the list of things I want for myself.

Deacon

How’s the countdown to unemployment going?

Brynlee

Ha ha ha. Very funny. I have a new job lined up.

Deacon

Did you talk to your dad?

Brynlee

I did. I’ll start for him once I’m done with the Revolution.

Deacon

And you’re sure you want to leave?

Brynlee

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