Page 52 of First Love, Second Draft

“Nah. Sounds worse than that,” Shorty responded. “His woman must have gone belly-up.”

“Nobody’s gone belly-up.” He hoped. “I told you, I’m—”

“Fine,” all three of them said at the same time.

Matt squeezed the brim of his ball cap. “You guys are impossible.”

“Better than being fine,” his grandpa said with a wink. He picked up his fork again and dug into his food. “This doesn’t have anything to do with a certain dialysis nurse not showing up for work today, does it? Because that’s certainly not fine.”

“Oh-oh,” Shorty said. “I think you might be onto something there, Buck-o.”

“Notice he’s not protesting,” Buck said around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

“If I did, you’d only accuse me of protesting too much.”

Buck shrugged. “If the shoe fits.”

Matt stood. “Well, you two look like you have everything under control here.”

“Always do,” Shorty said.

Matt kissed his grandpa on the top of the head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Same bat-time,” Shorty said.

“Same bat-channel,” his grandpa finished.

Matt could hear his grandpa holler after him from halfway down the hallway. “And go check on our girl, will you?”

As if Matt needed to be told. He took the stairs, too impatient to wait for an elevator. Roughed up? Kissing disease? Meningitis?

He needed answers. Because right now it felt like his good friend was keeping a whole lot of secrets from him.

A text message pinged just as he hit the parking lot.

I’m alive. Don’t bust down any doors. Not up for company. Talk to you later.

So much for getting any answers tonight.

27

Good grief. Noah knew plenty of baseball players with weird pregame rituals and crazy superstitions, but Gracie here just might surpass them all. “Tell me again why I’m moving your desk—”

“Specialwriting desk.”

“Excuse me—specialwriting desk—into the dining room now?” He folded his arms and leaned back against the counter next to the kitchen sink.

“Because,” Gracie said with a long-suffering sigh as if she couldn’t believe she had to explain something so obvious. “I need my special writing desk to be in my special writing place so I can meet my special writing deadline.”

“And where was all this special thinking when you told Matt and me to drag this beast of wood down the stairs and into the kitchen a few days ago?”

“So sue me if I forgot my special writing place was in the dining room and not the kitchen. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

“And the reason you can’t just plop your special laptop and special typewriter and special notepad with all its special color-coordinated matching pens on top of the dining room table is because—”

“It’s not my—”

“Special writing desk,” he answered along with her. “Yeah, yeah. Got it. One question though.”

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