Page 66 of Game On

“That’s enough, you two. Stop behaving like the twins. Who, by the way, I am trying to get to sleep. If you want to act like kindergartners, go outside and roll around in the dirt with the dog.” She disappeared into one of the bedrooms. The sounds of the twins wrestling faded as she closed the door.

“It still turns me on when she bosses me around like that,” Roscoe joked as he stepped around Shane to pour his own glass of Scotch. “I do owe you a free hit, though.”

“What are you talking about?” Shane asked, wiping spilled Scotch off his hand.

“You don’t remember?” Roscoe slid down into one of the overstuffed chairs beside the hearth. “I gave you a shiner the day I told you I was going to ask Tif to marry me. You deserved it, by the way.”

Making his way to the opposite chair, Shane sat, trying to recall the exact events of that day. They’d been sailing, he, Roscoe, Tiffany, and some aspiring starlet whose name he couldn’t remember. It was late afternoon and they’d just docked in the marina. Roscoe, a little wasted from a day of drinking in the sun, told him that he planned on marrying Tiffany in a Vegas ceremony later that night.

Shane was just trying to protect his friend when he suggested Roscoe give it a day or two. After all, she was a no-name model who he’d known for less than a week. At least, the conversation had gone something like that. Obviously, Shane might have added a little more graphic detail and colorful language because before he knew it, Roscoe laid him out flat on the wooden decking of the boat dock.

“Nah, I don’t remember,” he lied.

Roscoe gave a disbelieving snort. “You said I couldn’t possibly fall in love with a woman in one week. As if you were an expert on love. Hell, judging by events today, you wouldn’t know love it came up and bit you on the ass.” He held a hand up as Shane balled his own hand into a fist. “All I’m saying is I love my wife more today than I did eight years ago. I can’t explain it and I can’t deny what it is. Maybe you have feelings for Darling Carly?—”

“I don’t,” Shane interrupted him, desperately wanting this conversation to end.

“Yeah, like you’d know if you did. You’re so busy shoving any feelings you have down that black hole where your heart is supposed to be. Jesus, Shane, that kid made me want to cry today. You can’t possibly say you don’t feel anything?” Shane glared at him. He didn’t want to think about or discuss his feelings with anyone.

“No, of course not,” Roscoe went on. “Because that would interfere with your grandiose plan to knock your father’s name out of the record books. You do realize your old man is dead? He’s not going to notice whether his records are broken by you or not. This obsession of yours is consuming you. One day you’re going to wake up and wonder where your life went.”

Abruptly, Shane stood, sloshing more Scotch on to his hand. He didn’t have to listen to this. Picking up the bottle, he walked toward his office behind the kitchen.

“Don’t drink all that,” Roscoe called after him. “If you get too drunk, we’ll be stuck eating Tiffany’s tuna casserole for dinner.”

“Great,” Shane mumbled. He was well aware Roscoe didn’t marry the voluptuous model for her culinary skills. “Beckett,” he called out the screen door. “Come in the house. They’re not coming back.” The dog lifted his head to look down the road before laying it back down with a huff. “Suit yourself,” Shane muttered as he entered the office he’d been using to study game films.

Placing the bottle on his grandfather’s antique desk, he sat in the leather chair behind it and pulled out the bottom drawer. Inside was a steel strongbox. Shane placed it on the desk along with his glass. Jeez, this day was a mess. His body was sitting in the office, but he felt like his insides were lying in pieces on the gravel drive. Slowly, he opened the strongbox. Inside were old photos, report cards, and newspaper clippings. Things his grandmother had collected for him throughout the years.

Gently, he placed on the desk a picture of him on his first day of school with his mother, a sad smile on her face. Most of the photos in the box were of him and his mother. Digging down to the bottom, he found the one he was looking for. A photo of a laughing three-year-old perched on his father’s shoulders. Bruce’s eyes were obscured by a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, but his smile was a happy one. The smile on Shane’s face looked eerily like Troy’s.

Could Shane have been wrong about his father after all these years? The man in the photo was barely twenty-four. Bruce had been thirty-one when his wife died. The same age as Shane was now. Yet his father had always seemed so much older to him. Taking a swallow of Scotch, he felt it burn the whole way down. At least he was beginning to feel again. Perhaps that might not be a good idea.

Tossing the photo back in to the box, he pulled out a worn manila envelope. Carefully, he dumped the contents onto the desktop. A rainbow of crayoned artwork and invitations fluttered out. He picked up a worn paper decorated in red and green glitter and read the letter scrawled in red marker.

Mom says if I pray real hard, you’ll come for Christmas. I asked Santa to bring you in his sled. Please come!

It was signed in big letters: TROY. Shane looked at the pile of birthday invitations and cards his brother had sent him over the years. Had Troy spent his birthdays and holidays waiting for him? Just like Shane had done all those years with Bruce? He tried to swallow the lump that sat like a boulder in his throat. Cradling his head in trembling hands, Shane tried to figure out how he could have gotten everything so terribly wrong.

TWENTY-ONE

Carly walked the lengthy deck crossing the dunes between the beach house and the gazebo facing the Atlantic Ocean. The laughter of children mingled with the sounds of gulls and the rough surf. She handed Lisa a glass of lemonade, then plopped down on the wooden bench opposite her, the ocean breeze blowing her hair around her face.

“I’m used to the harem of girls materializing around C.J. each day, but I wasn’t expecting the group of boys that seemed to have found their way to this end of the beach,” Carly said before taking a swallow of her drink.

Glancing down at the beach, Lisa saw the familiar bikini-clad teenage girls angling for her son’s attention, but she looked surprised by the four teenage boys bantering with Emma. “Good God,” she said. “Matt is going to blow a gasket when he gets wind of this.”

Carly chuckled softly and looked further toward the shore to where Molly was busy burying Troy in the wet sand. “The resiliency of children never ceases to amaze me,” she said.

Lisa followed her gaze to the younger children. Matt and her sister had been concerned when Carly arrived at midnight three nights ago with Troy asleep in the car, his eyes still puffy and his cheeks tearstained. Both were relieved she’d weathered the whole mess with Joel Thompkins. But aside from that, thankfully they hadn’t pried too much.

She told them about Shane’s decision to send Troy away to boarding school. Troy was remarkably hardy and, despite the sudden loss of his parents nearly three weeks before, he seemed happy and content to be absorbed into the Richardson family. All four kids were enjoying spending their evenings exploring potential boarding schools on the Internet, picking ones in the most exotic locations so they could go visit Troy throughout the year.

Carly’s heart broke each night as she listened to the boy’s muffled sobs as he went to sleep, though. But he seemed to be facing life a little better during the days. Unfortunately, she couldn’t say the same for herself. She was angry for losing her heart to Shane. Her eyes had been wide open and he’d never promised anything more than he’d given her. Carly still thought he was capable of more, but she couldn’t fight that battle any longer. Not if she wanted to stay whole.

“You’d never know what he’d been through these last weeks,” Carly said, her eyes still focused on Troy.

“You had a lot to do with helping him cope with his grief,” Lisa said.

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