Out of Bounds (Reedsville Roosters #5) (6 page)

Dean sucked in some air through his teeth. “I feel like I should say no, but I’ve never been the kind of man who’d run away from a troubling scenario.”

“
Troubling
, am I?” Gary’s lips quirked up at the corners. “Well, maybe I am a little.”

“A lot,” Lo said. “I’ve known you for two days, and I already know that.”

“Why are you so mean to me?”

“I’m not mean. I’m just telling you what you need to hear.”

“Are you sure your airline guests really can’t tell when you’re being rude? Because I can. I can a
lot
.”

“Keep insulting me, and I’ll keep my husband at home and all to myself, and then what are you going to do? Have that Wallace person find you a babysitter?”

Gary cringed. “Yeah, we don’t want that. Knowing my luck, he’d drum up one of the nuns from the Catholic school I went to as a kid. Being babysat is one thing. Being tortured is another.”

“You’ve gotta make this worth my while,” Lo said.

“Pardon?” Gary raised a brow.

“You heard me. This is inconveniencing. How are you going to make this up to me?”

“Make it up to
you
? Seems like I’d be making it up to the wrong person.”

“Yeah, well, he’s more laid-back than I am. I’m the one you need to worry about.”

“What do you want? Money or favors? I’m fresh out of one, but we could possibly negotiate something for the other.”

Lo gave a slow nod. “I’ll give compensation some thought. Maybe I won’t know today or even tomorrow, but when I ask for recompense, you better be willing to pay up.”

Gary fixed his tired gaze on Dean “She’s joking right?”

Denim-colored eyes. Dean had never seen anything like them. He gulped and stared down at the fingers he’d entwined with Lo’s. “I…don’t think so.”

“At first pass, she’s so sweet.”

“She’s always sweet.”

Lo beamed at him, and that smile made all the frustration and confusion of the morning worthwhile. He’d do anything to see her smile like that at him.

“Love you.” She leaned in and kissed his nose.

“Love you, too.”

Gary groaned and put his head down on the table. “I hope they’ll at least spring to put you in a separate room from me.”

“Ha ha ha, they lied.” Lo backed out of the motel room and looked pointedly at Gary.

He rolled his eyes and dropped his duffel bag onto the sidewalk. “I was pretty sure when the guy said ‘suite’ that what you were thinking wasn’t what he was saying. Language barrier. You were talking about connected rooms, and he thought you meant the room was nice. As in s-w-e-e-t. Let me call Wallace.”

While Gary rooted his phone out of pocket of his tight jeans, Lo turned to look at Dean, who’d been a bit green from the moment he’d stepped onto the plane in RDU. She’d had no idea he’d never flown before, and he didn’t quite seem to have recovered from the ordeal.

“Aw. Poor baby.” She pressed her hands to his cheeks and smiled. “You’re on the ground now. I promise.”

“Next time, we should just drive.”

“You plan on coming back to the swamps anytime soon?”

He closed his eyes and cringed. “Not if I can help it.”

“Hey, Wallace?” Gary said into his phone. “Is the motel the only place you could find to put me up? This can’t be the only approved vendor.”

“Must be,” Lo muttered, putting her forehead against Dean’s chest. “The only things we passed between the airport and here were gas stations and gator souvenir stands.”

Dean draped his arms tentatively over her shoulders, and she stepped closer to him. She couldn’t
get
any closer, in fact, unless she developed some technology to walk through people. Travel always stressed her out. Unlike Dean, the flying part didn’t bother her. The negotiation of lodging and finding stuff to do later was what set her on edge. Staying home was so much easier, but she didn’t want to be there alone.

“For fuck’s sake,” Gary said. “Hold on.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed his thumb over the mic. “Wallace says the motel most of the team is at for the season is undergoing renovation and half the roof is covered in tarps right now. The rest of us are here, and he says he’s only going to approve payment for one room. So.” He threw up his hands.

“No, no, no. Let me talk to him.”

Lo took the phone before Gary could object. “Excuse me, sir?” she said.

“This is Wallace. Who am I talking to?”

“Lorena Yeats. I’m here right now because you sent this guy Gary on a last-minute scramble for a chaperone and, out of the goodness of his heart, my husband volunteered.”

“And you thought to tag along?”

“Temporarily. I assumed he’d be sleeping apart from Mr. Morstad.”

“That would defeat the purpose of Mr. Morstad being babysat. Watching that guy is a full-time job.”

“I don’t believe that. Even twelve-year-olds can stay home alone for a few hours at a time.”

“Gee, thanks,” Gary muttered.

Lo put a finger over her lips and glowered at him.

“Listen, honey—” Wallace started.

“Don’t
honey
me and I won’t
papi
you, you got it?”

Silence filled the line, and Lo tapped her foot, waiting.

She could wait just as long as he could and never lose a single bead of sweat. She may have had to stand on a stepstool to look travelers in the eye at work, but she knew how to work them. She could always tell which ones were going to yell and shut them up before they could remember what they were going to complain about in the first place.

Wallace cleared his throat. “Okay. Look, I’ve been at this gig for a long time, and these boys pull new tricks on me more often than I care to admit. One of your husband’s responsibilities is making sure that Morstad obeys curfew, for one thing, and for another, that he’s not sneaking women back into the room. Some teams aren’t so uptight about that, but we are. Your husband can’t do that if he’s not in the room.”

“You admit what he’ll be doing is a full-time job, and yet you expected someone to do it in a volunteer capacity?”

“Hey, if you want reimbursement, take that up with Morstad. Demand that he pay you for pain and suffering, too.”

She cut a look over to Gary, who was leaning against the brick wall outside the room with his arms folded over his chest, grinding his teeth.

If he’d been finding the exchange entertaining, she might have smacked him. Instead, though, he looked completely inconvenienced and maybe even a bit embarrassed. She certainly understood that first feeling, and pitied him for the second.

“You know what?” she said into the phone, pulling her gaze away from the moody man. “I think you’re going to squeeze some money out of the team budget and you’re going to find my husband a room. Not only that, you’re going to pay him for meals while he’s here, and any other incidentals that might crop up. This isn’t a vacation for him, and if we have to dip into household finances for you to audition a player, I’m taking him home tonight.”

Gary pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, shit.”

“Pardon?” Wallace said in one of those
who do you think you’re talking to?
tones frazzled bullies at the airport always tried to use on her when she refused them something.

She clucked her tongue. “Oh, you were doing
so
well before that. I was very clear. If you want Gary on the team as much as you claim to—and you certainly seem to be putting him through a hell of a song and dance routine to get on—then you’ll cough up some cash. Perhaps this’ll kill any motivation you might have to yank his chain, huh? The sooner you get him squared away, the sooner your team budget stops bleeding.”

“Jesus Christ,” Wallace said in an undertone.

“
Don’t
use Christ’s name in vain,” Lo snapped. She couldn’t help her reaction. Although she wasn’t much of a churchgoer anymore, she’d had enough negative reinforcement with hand smacks as a kid that every time people around her blasphemed, she convulsed. “Keep His name out of this, and I don’t think He can help you now, anyway. Do we have a deal?”

“I don’t know what I did in my life to have deserved this kind of abuse from ladies lately, but hey. I’ll see what I can do about getting…uh, what’s his name?”

“Dean.” Lo looked up at him and gave his chin a playful tweak.

He smiled.

Aw.
“Dean Yeats.” She smoothed down Dean’s shirt collar and pretended not to see Gary’s nasty eye-rolling.

“Okay,” Wallace said. “I’ll see what I can do about getting him some kind of stipend for as long as he’s here. I can’t do anything about the room, though. I mean we’re seriously tapped out of resources. Even if we were willing to spend a little more on lodging for the season, there’s no place to put the guys unless we’re gonna drive them in from Miami every day. That ain’t happening. I had to offer them all single rooms just to get half of them to come back this year, and I don’t think you’re going to get me to convince any of them to double up. Getting that one room was hard enough. We got lucky and the long-term guest who had been in there finally left and that’s the only reason why it’s open. And like I said, your Dean can’t really do a good job of chaperoning Morstad if he can’t see him.”

“Just what kind of trouble do you think Gary is capable of that would merit this sort of attention?”

Gary thunked his forehead against the wall a few times and muttered, “Shit.”

“Ask Morstad,” Wallace said. “So, do we have a deal? Best I can do, really.”

“I expect you to make the deal sweeter at your earliest convenience.”

“Je—I mean,
crap
, woman. Ever considered a career in agenting? You could probably squeeze a fortune out of some guys. But, fine. I’ll do what I can to sweeten the deal as soon as I’m able to.”

“Then you’ll see Gary at the field tomorrow morning. Goodbye.”

She disconnected without waiting for Wallace’s sign-off and handed the phone over to Gary. “I expect you to behave yourself until I leave.”

He twisted his lips up into a crooked smile. “What about after you leave?”

“If you get my husband into any trouble, I will fashion your balls into tassels to decorate my next leather purse.”

Gary winced and pushed the room door open again. “Yes, ma’am. After you.”

Dean scooped up their bags and carried them ahead, stopping in front of the beat-up-looking dresser pushed against the wall.

The smell of old carpet, old curtains, and old wood paneling on the walls wafted out to Lo’s nostrils and made her nose twitch. “That’s freakin’ nasty.”

“I’ve been in worse. Go on in,” Gary said. “I’ll stand out here for a few minutes to give you some space. In case you want to chat or whatever.” He hopped up onto the barrier wall between the sidewalk and the parking lot and pushed his mirrored sunglasses onto his nose.

Lo furrowed her brow. “Don’t you get sunburned playing baseball?”

“Why, because I’m extra-
blanco
?”

She shrugged and shifted the strap of her heavy purse to her other shoulder. “You said it, not me.”

“I have good sunblock. Usually does the job. I’m glad you care, though.”

“Who said I cared?”

“You asked, so obviously you do.”

She clucked her tongue and cocked a hip. “You make me not want to care. I mean, here I am in Florida, and not even close enough to a beach to make the trip worth my while.”

“You can always rent a car and take daytrips while I’m out being broiled on the Roosters’ field.”

“Maybe I will. I need a tan or something to show for this trip.”

“You mean besides a good story to take back to Olivia?”

“With you around, I’m almost certain I’ll take one back.” Lo leaned her forearms onto the wall next to Gary and looked up at him. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything.”

“Clint said that you get distracted sometimes. What did he mean by that?”

“Ugh.” Gary shook his head and clucked his tongue. “He could have just told you. He probably thinks he’s doing me a favor by beating around the bush, but I don’t really care unless people make a big deal about it.”

“About what?”

“My brain doesn’t work like other peoples’. My attention drifts off unless I’m being stimulated.”

“You’re chronically impatient? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“If that’s a medical condition, I probably have that one, too. What’s one more?”

“What are you—”

The door of the room neighboring Gary’s pulled inward, and a black-haired man wearing a backward baseball cap and a scowl stuck his head out.

“Fuck,” he said. “I told myself, ‘that voice ain’t Morstad.’ I had to open the door just to convince myself it wasn’t you.”

“Surprise, motherfucker,” Gary said softly.

The guy in the doorway stepped the rest of the way out. He was wearing long shorts and shower shoes with athletic socks. His lack of a shirt allowed Lo to plainly see the large tattoo on his chest: hands held together prayerfully with rosary beads twined atop them. Printed over them in gothic lettering were the words, “Only God Can Judge Me.”

“No way,” she whispered. “
¿Lo dice en serio?
” She didn’t mind tattoos, but in her experience, men with his particular choice of phrases inked onto their bodies tended to be the biggest rascals a woman could ever encounter.

“Wallace didn’t say you were coming back,” the stranger said. “You’d think he would have told the captain.”

“Yeah. You’d think,” Gary said.

“You got a spot on the team, or are you on probation?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I think I have a right to know. I do have a say on who gets a final spot on the roster. I know you, man. You burn bridges like paper. We don’t need any more guys on the team who can’t get along.”

“Oh, yeah? If you had that much of a say, Wallace should have said something to you before he flew me down here. And I seem to recall that the last time I was on the team, the only person I was having a hard time getting along with was you.”

“Wasn’t just me. Nobody else spoke up, is all.”

“And you don’t think they would have said something to me directly if they
really
had a problem? They’re not little boys. They’re grown-ass men and they know how to work their problems out without running to Wallace like a bitch-ass snitch like you did the last time I was here.”

That made Lo straighten up. Drama was like candy for her. She suspected she should have been doing something to diffuse the situation, but she kind of wanted to see Gary punch the smug bastard in the mouth.

Good thing Dean’s babysitting him and not me.

And then she remembered Dean.

She hurried into the room and found her husband fiddling with the broken blinds. “Problem outside.”

“Fuck, already?” He picked her up, sat her on the bed, and started for the door. “Stay here.”

“Hell no.” She darted after him just in time to see Only God Can Judge Me shove Gary.

Gary shoved him back, harder.

Dean got in between them and put up his hands. “Gary.”

That was all. One bluntly enunciated word.

Gary’s nostrils were flaring and cheeks flaming. He had his fists bunched at his sides, but he didn’t try to get to the other guy again.

He walked past Lo into the room, calling over his shoulder, “Stay the hell away from me, Moreno. I swear, I will make you regret fucking with me.”

Dean closed the door and put his back to it, saying nothing.

Gary paced in front of the bed nearest the door, sweating and muttering, and obviously agitated.

Lo got in front of him, grabbed his wrists, and stilled him. “Hey.”

He laid head to one side of his shoulders then the other, popping the cartilage.

A knock sounded on the outer door, and Dean stepped away from it. Before he could answer, the man out outside—Moreno, apparently—shouted, “If you’ve got a chick in there, I’m calling Wallace.”

Gary wrenched his hands away from Lo and started for the door, but Dean yanked the knob, stepped outside, and shut the door behind him.

Lo grabbed Gary by the back of his pants and gave him an ineffectual tug. “Okay. I see now why you get a babysitter, bratty.”

He turned and pulled his sunglasses off his face. “I am
not
a brat. That guy…” He stabbed an index finger toward the door. “That guy, he’s
always
on my fucking case.”

“Okay. Okay.”