Page 23 of The Sweet Spot

I didn’t want to take up any more of Donna’s time, so we ended the call, and I changed. Landon was still in the john. What the hell! He’d been in there going on twenty minutes. I marched over to the door and knocked loudly.

“You okay in there?”

“Fine,” Landon said quickly.

All right, he wasn’t taking a shit. He answered way too fast for that.

“I’m not sure what you’re doing, but I’m giving you twenty seconds to come out.”

In less than ten, the door slowly opened, and Landon stared at me with a long face. His gray eyes looked bloodshot, and I was sure the kid was doing hard drugs, but I wasn’t seeing or smelling anything coming from the bathroom.

“What were you doing in there?” I asked, more pissed off than I should have been.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t fuck with me. What were you doing?”

He frowned and clutched his stomach. “I’m not feeling good.”

And that’s when I saw it and felt like the biggest asshole on the planet. The kid was stressed out to the point of being sick. He’d all but made the team, but playing in the big league was a huge step up. A lot of kids had trouble handling it.

“Sit down,” I said, motioning to his bed.

He followed orders, and I gave him a bottle of water from the mini fridge and offered him some snacks from Wolseley’s care package, but he shook his head.

“I know how you’re feeling. I felt the same way when I started out. But I can’t stress this enough: you’re not alone. You have twenty other guys watching out for you, me included. We want you to succeed. But there is something I want you to do. I want you to call your parents every day, text your friends, work out, eat right, and stay busy. Don’t worry about the game or what people think of you. Don’t read anything about you online or in the papers. Does this make sense?”

He slowly nodded.

“And don’t take any drugs!”

He sheepishly smiled. “I won’t.”

“And keep the partying to a minimum. Don’t hang out with people who may be trouble, and you will have a gut instinct about them. Follow your gut.” I glanced at my watch. “In half an hour, a bunch of us are going for lunch. You’re going to come. In the meantime, try to eat something. The protein bars taste like chocolate bars. I need to go do something.”

Landon leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes. Maybe the kid would take a nap. He looked like he could use the sleep. I headed out of the room to give him a bit of privacy and to message Wolseley with Donna’s info. I also gave her a quick summary of the call and said I’d chat with her later. When I got to the room, one of my protein bars was missing, Landon had finished the water, and some color had returned to his face. I told him it was time to go for lunch. No way was this kid slipping through the cracks on my watch.

Everyone loved the restaurant and the food. The Green Bean was a vegetarian restaurant about twenty minutes from our hotel, so we ordered a few Ubers. The place had prepared for us, and instead of individual plates, they fed us family style and kept the food coming when plates and bowls were empty. In appreciation, we tipped 50 percent.

A few of the guys lounged around because we had nowhere else to be. I kept an eye on Landon, who seemed to have a lively conversation going with Wendall Armstrong, a rookie from last season. I liked that the kid had made a friend. If he was going to make it, he needed a good support system, and Wendall was a good guy.

Ryan, Jeremy, Ethan, and I were the last of the guys. I waswell aware that I had reluctantly been included in their trio, although the three of them still kept me at arm’s length most of the time. As the servers cleared away the last of the plates, I took a quick glance at Ryan. He seemed okay, but I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him much. I also didn’t want to overstep. If he wanted to talk to me, he would.

“This place was great,” Jeremy said, patting his stomach. “We need to come here again.”

“Wolseley worked it out for me and arranged the meal.”

“How is that going?” Jeremy asked while Ethan played on his phone. He really did tolerate me only. At least Ryan seemed interested in the conversation because he turned to face me.

“Very good. The food she makes is out of this world. Best investment I’ve ever made.”

“She had some tough breaks. Jill told me everything.”

“Seems like her sous chef really did a number on her,” I said.

“The situation sucks.”

“What do you guys know about him?” I asked. They’d mentioned things before, but nothing overly specific.

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