“You sure you want to come to the hotel with us?” Jack asked in a tone that suggested he was having the same misgivings as Michael.
“I can’t go home,” Parker muttered. “There’s an old woman who lives on my street, and Jack, she’s . . . she’s lethal.”
Something else hit the car, but it was a softer thud than before. “Hot dog,” Michael guessed.
Jack and Parker glared at him.
The reception at the hotel wasn’t any warmer, although they did manage to get up to the room without an incident, which was an improvement over the scuffle they’d had trying to leave the stadium.
Inside their suite, Jack was on Parker’s case. “What the hell is eating at you? You used to be so damn good. What happened?” he demanded.
“Okay,” Parker said, holding up massive hands. “You’ll think I’ve lost it, but here it is: I think it’s that Kelly O’Shay.”
“Who?” a clearly perturbed Jack shouted.
“Kelly O’Shay!” Parker cried. “She has a morning radio sports show here in the city, and every single damn day she is hammering on me. I think it’s her,” he said helplessly, and dragged all ten fingers through his hair. “She’s really on my case, Jack,” he said, sounding like a kid. “You won’t find a meaner tomcat than her, I swear to God.”
Michael rolled his eyes and tapped up the volume on the boob tube. He wasn’t a pro baseball player, but he thought that if he were, and he couldn’t hit a slow-pitch softball, then he’d be down at a batting cage somewhere instead of holed up here like some felon, whining about some disc jockey who had it in for him. A female disc jockey, for Chrissakes.
Jack, however, was appalled. “Wait, wait,” he said, waving a hand at Parker as he tried to process it. “Are you trying to tell me that you can’t hit because some . . . some chick is talking trash?”
“She’s jinxed me,” Parker muttered miserably. “I swear she’s jinxed me.”
Michael sighed and flipped channels. And as he zoomed past one channel after another, something caught his eye, something so unreal that he suddenly bolted forward, quickly bumped it back a couple of channels, and peered intently at the screen.
Holy shit.
He turned up the volume. “There are times I just don’t feel like myself.” A pretty woman with shoulder-length blond hair, tight low-rider jeans, boots, and a suede jacket was walking down a country lane with her dog. She paused by a wooden fence and leaned against it, looking into the camera. “Sometimes, irregularity can really put a damper on my day. But then my doctor told me about Fibercil.”
Jack, who had paused in the dressing-down of his brother, chuckled.
“Ssh,” Michael hissed at him.
“Just one pill before I go to bed, and the next day, I feel like me again!” She smiled brightly and resumed walking, pausing once to pick up a stick and throw it for the dog, as a male voice intoned, “Serious side effects may include nausea, fatigue, hypertension . . .”
Michael didn’t hear any of it—he was too mesmerized by the woman. He watched as she strolled along, her corn silk hair shimmering in the sun, her smile content, her stick-throwing abilities pretty lame.
Leah Kleinschmidt.
He hadn’t seen her in five years now, and man, she looked . . . she looked so much better than what he remembered. Long blond hair. Fabulous breasts. Legs that went on for miles. Oh yeah, he remembered those long legs wrapped around him as he moved inside her, and his wanker gave him a little nudge. And that warm, million-watt smile he’d carried in his mind’s eye, comparing it to all the other smiles he’d seen in those five years, never finding one that could match it.
So Leah had gone to Hollywood. Good for her. He just hoped there was something a little better in her portfolio than a commercial for some constipation product.
“Mikey . . . are you having a problem?” Parker asked, as a male voice continued with the serious side effects.
“Huh?”
“A problem. You know. . . ”
“No, no,” Michael snorted. “No, it’s just . . . I know her.”
Leah turned and smiled at the camera. “I can rely on just one pill at night, and I feel as good as new in the morning,” she repeated sunnily. “That’s great peace of mind.”
“So who is she?” Parker asked.
What a loaded question—she was everything in some respects. And really nothing since he’d dumped her five years ago. “No one,” he said. “Just someone I used to know.”