Page 18 of Salvaged Heart
“I don’t understand.”
“The starting salary in the MLB is seven hundred and forty-thousand a year. Most guys get a couple million right out of college if they’re good enough. That’s a lot, at least to a guy like me. What if a team offered me this huge contract, and I choked? What if my name was plastered all over ESPN as a fraud, or worse, what if I was so inconsequential that my name wasn’t ever mentioned at all?”
“At least you would still get to play.”
“Yeah, but for how long? It would only be a matter of time before I was dropped to the minors and then inevitably dropped completely. I’m not sure my fragile ego would have been able to handle it. So, when that possibility was taken from me, I was surprisingly at peace with it.” He shrugged, an expression on his face telling me that statement was not entirely truthful whether he chose to recognize it or not. “I haven’t told anyone that before.”
“Not even Laurel?”
“Especiallynot Laurel. Your sister has her entire existence on this planet planned out from her own conception to the day she dies. Plans that involved me heading to the Majors.” He shook his head, wiping the small amount of sweat beading on his forehead away with the bottom of his shirt, flashing me a peak of abs so sharp I could grate cheese on them. “It was easier to let her rage against the injustice of me losing it all to a bad throw. But the truth is, I'd been playing with a shoulder strain for weeks and had purposely not told anyone about it. It was only a matter of time before I over-extended it and tore the whole thing to shreds.”
“So, what’s next? Now you don’t have baseball, what’s the alternative?”
He let out a long sigh. “That’s the big question. If you had asked me a week ago, I would've told you I had no idea.”
“And now?”
“Now, I think I would like to do this.” He motioned around himself at the room.
“Dismantle dead women’s furniture?”
“No, renovate old houses or some shit. You’re well past your quota of truths from me today, by the way, but I’ll give you this one as a freebie.” He chuckled. “My dad’s a contractor. Throughout high school, I always presumed I would follow in his footsteps. Work for the family business, and take over it when he retired. He doesn’t do cool projects like this one, mostly kitchen renovations and home upgrades.”
“So what changed all that?”
He sighed, like whatever he was about to say next brought him great pain.
“Your sister.”
10
ANDERS
Over the next few days, I learned the following things about Beckham David. His favorite color is traffic cone orange, his middle name is Marcus, and he is an only child of parents who have been happily married for thirty years. He was also terrible at math despite his mother being a high school mathematics teacher. However, this fact was learned not from our agreement but from him butchering the measurements for the new baseboards several times. Luckily for him, math was one of the few subjects I hadn’t been abysmal at in high school, and it was refreshing to find that the only thing he did not excel at was an area I could be of value. I also learned that he was passionate about helping people and spent a large amount of the little free time he had volunteering at homeless shelters and food pantries.
I chose not to disclose I had spent many nights in shelters myself and thanked pantries like the ones he'd worked at for keeping me fed when times got particularly rough. I'd told him, however, about my dreams of traveling the world to study architecture in different cultures, that my favorite book is ‘Jekyll and Hyde,’ that I speak fluent French, and that while I adorespicy food, it also gives me uncontrollable hiccups. This made him roll on the floor with laughter and insist we order Indian takeout for dinner.
Which led to an hour of research into the best Indian restaurant in the area.
Which led to discovering the answer to that question was ‘Palak Palace’, a hole-in-the-wall spot thirty minutes up I-77.
Which led to us standing under the carport, staring at my bike, like if we looked at it long enough, it would transform into something with four wheels and two seats or, at the very least, grow a sidecar.
“We can do something else for dinner.” I murmured, “Or get an Uber.”
“Nah, this will be fun. I have always wanted to ride on one of these things.” He pushed back his dark brown hair and replaced his ball cap with the extra helmet I’d stored in my room. “Presuming you don’t mind me riding bitch, that is.”
I flashed him a sly grin before swinging my leg over the bike and pushing on my helmet. “Come on then, darling.”
The thought of his toned body pressed up against mine, his hands gripping my hips, the entire ride up I-77 had my dick thickening in my jeans. Yeah, I liked that idea very much. A little too much, if I was being honest with myself. Beck, as always, seemed utterly unfazed by the wink I threw his way as I tapped the seat behind me and started the engine.
He lowered his visor and slid on. “Where do I hold?”
I reached behind me, taking his hands in mine and moving them to my waist. Then, I helped him slide his leg into the correct position on the back footrests before slipping my visor down. His hips slid into place against my back, muscular thighs caging mine. I was instantly aware of every place we were touching, my skin burning from the contact even throughseveral layers of clothes. It was the closest I’d gotten to a hug in five years.
“It will take a second to get used to. Try to go with the bike. Don’t fight leaning into the curves, but don’t throw your weight into them either.” I took the light squeeze he gave my ribs as understanding. “I will do a few laps of the peninsula before we get on the highway. I would rather hit the pavement at thirty miles an hour than seventy.” Another light squeeze, a rev of the engine, and we were off.
As with most things, Beckham took to riding the bike like a natural, and soon, I was confident enough to head in the direction of the highway, blasting up I-77, going twenty over the speed limit. The road was mostly empty, but we hit a slow spot when the highway crossed over the lake. It didn’t seem to matter whether it was tourist season or not. Everyone slowed, crossing the bridge to gaze at the expanse of crystal blue water spreading in each direction as far as the eye could see.
