Always Waiting: The League, Book 3

by Declan Rhodes

  He paused, sipped at the beer, and said, “Yeah, I’m working for one of the big banks downtown. That’s how I ended up here in Milwaukee.”

  I did my best to smile and not reveal my inherent doubts about those involved with big money. I said, “Sounds like things are good, then?”

  I was taken by surprise by the charm and sense of vulnerability that tumbled out in the next comments. He said, “If the end of a three-year relationship and a house gradually crumbling to dust around me is good, then yeah, all is peachy.” He sighed heavily and wrapped his hands around the pint of beer.

  I wasn’t sure of the best way to respond to that information, so I looked into those blue eyes and said, “That really sucks.”

  He nodded and a lock of that blond hair fell down his forehead over an eyebrow. He said, “Maybe this is the beginning of my luck changing.”

  “Meeting me again?” I asked. “I’m not sure if I would consider that good luck. You don’t know me, and we didn’t even know each other at first.”

  Sven began to lean back in his chair. He said, “I don’t know about you, but I honestly didn’t think I would ever see you again after we broke up. I think that’s why I couldn’t figure out where I’d seen you at first.”

  I tilted my head to the side and asked, “Broke up? One date and never seeing each other again is a break up?”

  Sven nodded and said, “That’s fair. I guess we never really were dating per se. I’m still glad to see you again. I felt something when you landed on top of me, Lowell.”

  I gave him a half smile and said, “Careful, Sven, you’re on the rebound.”

  “You didn’t feel anything?” asked the blonde god.

  I hate it when someone pins me down about something and takes me by so much surprise that I have no choice but to answer with complete honesty. It was my turn to sigh as I said, “Yeah, I did. I’m surprised you didn’t feel it through my jeans.”

  I managed to be successful at lightening the mood. Sven rolled his head back, laughed a sexy-as-hell masculine laugh, and then asked, “Can I get you another beer? We’re both running on empty.”

  With a sheepish grin, I said, “Sure thing, Sven. Just make sure you come back. I’m not going anywhere.”

  * * *

  I made a trip to the men’s room while Sven was gone and took a good, long look at myself in the mirror. I had a forehead so big that you could land a helicopter on it, but other than that, the guy staring back at me didn’t look so bad. My arms were strong, and I’d managed to keep the belly in check while my pecs stayed bulked up with semi-regular trips to the gym. I wasn’t a match for calendar boy Sven, but I could understand guys taking a second look at me.

  Sven zig-zagged his way through the crowd as I made my way back to the small table. He set the two beers on the table and then settled on to a chair once more. As I was sitting, he said, “It really wasn’t that bad that we only had the one date. I guess just neither of us decided to contact the other again. Whatever it was, I know that everything eventually turns out okay. If we weren’t meant to be, that was it, and if we were, well…” He cleared his throat and said, “Who knows what happens.”

  I leaned forward and wrapped my hands around the pint. The icy cold seeped into my hands and made little hairs on my forearms stand on end. I looked up at Sven and said, “I don’t really agree with that.”

  He said, “But that’s the way my life has always worked out.”

  I shook my head and said, “I learned a hard lesson in junior high.”

  Sven’s adorable eyebrows knitted together when he asked, “Junior high?”

  I said, “Yeah, but I don’t know if I really need to tell the story. It’s just an example of how random life can be sometimes.”

  Sven waved a hand at me. “Go ahead and tell me. I like stories. You’ve got my attention, and I want to figure out why we met again. Spill it, Lowell.”

  I took a deep breath and said, “Ben was one of my best friends in junior high — eighth grade. I guess it’s a pretty simple and short story.”

  I paused and took a sip of the beer. Then I continued the story saying, “I was always sort of jealous of him in school. He was smart. Girls liked him.”

  Sven started to open his mouth, and I interrupted him and commented, “Yeah, back then I thought I wanted girls to like me. I didn’t come out until junior year in high school.”

  “Go on,” said Sven.

  “Well, we got assigned to work on a project together in social studies class. It went well, and we started hanging out together in general. I didn’t really understand it then, but I had a serious crush on Ben.”

  “Did he feel the same way?” asked Sven.

  I contemplated the question for a moment before saying, “I don’t really know.” Then I waved my hand. “Anyway, that’s not the point of this story. Ben and I became good friends. We hung out. When report cards came out, I got the best marks I’d ever had in school. My mom actually cried when she looked at the report card.”

  Sven whispered, “Wow.”

  I said, “Those were the report cards for the end of the third quarter. The day after I took that report card home, Ben didn’t show up at school.”

  I started to choke up. Sven looked alarmed. I said, “I assumed he got up that morning with a stomach ache or something.” I paused for a moment, and then I said, “He was dead, Sven.”

  Sven had just lifted his glass, and he very gently set it back down on the table before he looked into my eyes. I could see a slight glassiness in his eyes. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  I leaned forward and spoke with a firmer, louder tone, “He was dead, Sven. Just like that. He was in a car accident with his parents on their way home from dinner at a restaurant. It killed them all.”

  He reached his right hand across the table and grabbed mine saying, “I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t pull the hand back, but I said, “I’m not looking for sympathy. It’s just an example of how random life is. I don’t trust that it all turns out good in the end. Sometimes it just doesn’t. Sometimes it turns into a horror show.”

  Sven was obviously a little rattled, but he asked, “Is it okay if I change the subject?”

  I smiled and said, “Please do.”

  He asked, “Was I okay today?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. It was another completely adorable quality in Sven. From any reasonable person’s perspective, he was a phenomenal success in almost everything he tried to do. He had perfect genes. He was a banker, and he got a hit the first time he came up to bat at softball practice. Still, he was self-conscious about what everyone else was thinking.

  I said, “Sven, you were great. The guys on the other teams are going to be kicking themselves in the ass over not being first to recruit you. How did Reggie get so lucky anyway?”

  He shook his head gently and said, “I’m not sure he got lucky, but he was just a nice guy when I was feeling sort of down. I was doing my best to hide the crap about Stuart walking out and instead look like Mr. Smooth, and Reggie was just nice to me. You’ve known him for awhile. You know how he is.”

  I nodded and said, “Yes, Reggie is a sweetheart. You should see that hulk he’s dating. They are a great couple, but I bet his boyfriend could throw little Reggie over his shoulder.”

  Sven laughed and wiped a bit of foam from his upper lip. “You mean Connor? Yeah, he’s a bit of a rough-and-tumble guy, but Reggie’s got him wrapped around his little finger. They are a great couple.”

  He gave me the sweetest of smiles. I wanted to lean across the table and kiss Sven, but I knew that it was far too early to seriously contemplate something like that yet. I needed to figure out a way to secure a first date.

  He beat me to the punch, or at least I thought so for five minutes.

  Sven asked, “Are you busy this weekend, Lowell?”

  I shook my head no and said, “It’s the last softball-free weekend for awhile, so I’ve sort of made it a point to keep my schedule
free. Did you have something in mind, Sven?”

  I curled my fingers tight and waited for a date invitation. Instead, he said, “I’ve got an extra ticket to the Brewers game on Saturday. I’m going with a few buddies from work. It’s not like it’s a date or anything, but I like hanging out together, and I still don’t have that many friends to do things with. Reggie and Ian are a little occupied with their other halves.”

  I tried not to look as confused and perplexed as I was feeling. Still, I didn’t really think I had a lot of choice in making my decision. I could either kiss goodbye any hope of something with Sven or go be the third wheel at a banker’s party and hope that Sven might see my lips as kissable instead of only wanting to give me bro hugs.

  I said, “Sure. I haven’t been to Miller Park in a long time. Just let me know the time. Do you tailgate before?”

  “I don’t think we will this time,” said Sven, and I felt the door creak open just a crack.

  I asked, “Is it an evening or day game?”

  “It’s in the evening. I can pick you up if you want, or just send me a text when you get to Miller Park, and we can meet up.”

  “Dinner before, Sven?”

  He didn’t immediately reply. The pause was long enough that I knew I struck some sort of chord, but I wasn’t sure exactly what. Finally, he said, “Yeah, why not. Is there somewhere in particular you want to go?”

  I said, “No, but we can talk about that before we get to Saturday.” I started to pull my cell phone from my pocket and said, “How about you give me your number, and I’ll send you a text message back so we’ll both have the numbers. Cell phones make it so easy.”

  He stood up halfway and tugged a phone from the pocket of his tight jeans. He laughed and said, “I consider this another one of the house-related disasters.” He showed me the face of his phone, and it had an angled crack running from corner to corner. He said, “I dropped it on the basement floor.”

  “Number?” I asked.

  I typed it into my contacts list as he recited the numbers. Then I proceeded to type out my first text message. It read:

  In college, I waited for you, Sven.

  5

  Sven

  It was the first hot Sunday afternoon of the spring, the day after seeing the Brewers win with Lowell at my side. The temperature was pushing ninety degrees which was very warm for Milwaukee in late May. Ian and Blake decided to have a backyard barbecue at the last minute. Just after noon, I received a text message from Blake. It read:

  Barbecue, our place, at 6?

  I thought about what I had planned for the day and stared out my French doors at the roof that still lay half collapsed on the brick patio. I was trying to convince myself that I had the talent to begin reconstructing it on my own. Sunday was the day I picked out of the schedule to begin disposing of the debris. It looked like a huge job. The invitation was a handy way of delaying the start of my efforts.

  I stared out at the mangled wood and metal, and then replied to Blake’s message:

  That sounds fun. What should I bring?

  He responded:

  You and a salad.

  Reggie and Connor were invited as well. When I climbed the steps to the wood deck, I asked, “Is this it? Just the five of us?”

  Reggie smiled and handed me a beer. I passed a classic Wisconsin bowl of cranberry fluff to Ian and took the beer from Reggie. He said, “Yup, just the five of us. If somebody gets their act together, maybe in the future it will be six.” Reggie winked at me.

  I sighed and found a free Adirondack chair with cushions and seated myself next to Connor. He was already responding to the heat and had peeled off his shirt showing us all a buff, chiseled body. Reggie was a lucky guy.

  Blake appeared at the door to the kitchen. He was carrying a tray laden with bacon-wrapped cheese curds and little ramekins filled with ranch sauce. He asked, “Appetizer anyone?”

  Connor asked, “You made those yourself, Blake?”

  Blake rolled his eyes. “I’m doing well when I’m successful at putting together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. These are an Ian concoction.”

  Connor reached for the tray, grabbed a toothpick and dunked the morsel into the sauce. He deftly slipped the cheese curd from the toothpick with his teeth, chewed, and then smiled. He said, “Send our compliments to the chef.”

  As Blake disappeared back into the kitchen, I said, “I’m glad we don’t have to be worried about eating healthy.”

  Reggie guffawed and then he patted his belly. He was the only one of the five of us with a slightly rounded mound there. He said, “It’s Sunday afternoon. I’ll start to burn it off tomorrow.”

  Reggie asked, “So, Sven, is there something there with Lowell that we don’t know? It might not be any of my business, but it seemed like the two of you knew each other.”

  I said, “I don’t have anything to hide.”

  Then we heard Ian’s voice. His face was pressed close to the screened kitchen window. He said, “Don’t start yet. I want to hear this story, too.”

  I said, “I didn’t know I was the target of a news investigation.”

  Reggie reached a hand out to my thigh and said, “No, it’s nothing like that, but we need to know all of the latest juicy stories. It’s what we do.”

  Connor added, “And Lowell’s kind of a unique guy. I know a lot less about him than these guys, but I could even tell he’s a little outside of…” Connor searched for the word and then said, “The mainstream.”

  Ian and Blake both appeared at the door carrying glasses of iced tea. They pulled up two lawn chairs and sat down. Ian said, “You can start now. How do you know Lowell?”

  I said, “Well, at first I wasn’t quite sure how I knew him. You know how you see somebody and you both know that you’ve met somewhere before, but neither of you can match the face to a name or remember exactly where you met?”

  Connor said, “Oh man, yeah, I know that feeling. About two years ago, I saw this guy in a bowling alley in Milwaukee. He looked so damn familiar, but I really couldn’t figure out if he was from my hometown, somebody from college, or somebody who worked with me on a show.”

  I asked, “What did you do?”

  “Well, I lucked out. He walked up to me, and he knew my name, and introduced himself. Then I knew he was in my high school class. It was just so weird to randomly run into some guy I grew up with here in Milwaukee out bowling.”

  “Where did you grow up?” asked Blake. “I don’t think I know.”

  Connor said, “Omaha.”

  Reggie added helpfully, “He’s a cornhusker.”

  Ian asked, “So, is Lowell a high school friend, Sven?”

  I said, “No, college.”

  Reggie scrunched up his face. “A college buddy and you didn’t remember him? College wasn’t that long ago.”

  I winced slightly and then said, “Not really a buddy. We dated, just once, and he didn’t remember me either.”

  Connor chuckled saying, “It must have been a really good date then.”

  I cast a withering glance at Connor remembering Lowell’s text message. I didn’t ask him about it at the baseball game, but it was still on my mind. Clearly, there was something memorable from it for him. I responded to Connor saying, “It was better then you’re thinking it was.”

  He held up his hands and said, “Oh, it’s okay. I wasn’t meaning anything by it.”

  I said “Don’t worry, and besides, Lowell is a little…um…different.”

  They all laughed softly. Ian said, “I guess we shouldn’t be like that, but yeah he is. Lowell marches to his own drummer. He and Antonio make a perfect pair as friends. There’s nobody else on the team quite like them.”

  Blake spoke up and said, “I do want to say something on his behalf. Lowell has guts. Some of the stories that he tells…”

  I opened my eyes wider and turned to Blake, “What do you mean? Stories?”

  Blake said, “Oh, just if it’s anything that’s a li
ttle bit scary, I think Lowell has done it. He’s gone zip-lining, bungee jumping. He even said he took a buddy with him to Mexico for cliff diving the year after his college graduation. All of those take guts. I have to admire that.”

  I tried to imagine Lowell doing those things, and I decided he was just impulsive enough to try. Ian interrupted my thoughts by asking, “Do you still like him, Sven? If you do, I want to apologize. We’re not being very nice about Lowell, and that’s probably not fair.”

  Connor frowned and sipped at his beer.

  I said, “I don’t really know for sure. Can I be honest with you guys?”

  Ian looked around the small circle. “If you there’s a reason that you can’t be, I’m personally sending the offender home.”

  Blake piped up and said, “Unless it’s me. This is where I live.”

  Ian gave him a stern glance and said, “In your case, we send you to your room.”

  Blake laughed hard. He said, “Don’t worry. I’m the nice guy of the group.”

  “What do you like about him?” asked Ian. “I know I’m being nosy as hell, so just tell me to shut up if you want to, but maybe we can help a little.”

  I said, “He’s easy to hang out with, and he seems like he’s the same guy I dated back then, if you know what I mean by that. It was almost ten years ago, and for a guy to stay pretty much the same, there’s something about that I like.”

  Reggie hummed and sang softly, “Love, soft as an easy chair…”

  “Oh puh-leeze,” said Connor.

  “Maybe you should ask him out,” suggested Ian.

  I said, “We went to a Brewers game last night.”

  Blake piped up saying, “Oh wow, a date already, and they got to see all those strikeouts.” He turned to Ian and asked, “Why don’t you ever take me to a baseball game?”

  “Who’s the baseball expert in this couple?” asked Ian.

  I continued, “With three guys from his work offices and dinner before at a fast food place.”