Homecoming King

by Jami Albright

  It features Miss Texas 2010, Tiger Lyons. The beauty queen’s stunning face and open-mouth smile is on full display. Her perfectly straight, white teeth shimmer and shine in the early morning sun, and I swear, they can probably see it from the space station. It’s that big.

  She’s also sporting a black mustache drawn above her full top lip. It sort of pisses me off that even with painted on facial hair, she’s still gorgeous.

  I wonder how long that eyesore’s been there. I haven’t been home for a while, so it must’ve gone up in that time. No way I could miss something like that.

  I study Tiger’s image on the billboard, and a hot, ugly thing stirs in me. It’s a faded, long-ago memory, and not something I consciously think about anymore.

  I feel bad for what I said after she left me high and dry on the dance floor. Telling my buddies she ran off because I’d turned down the blowjob she offered was not one of my finest moments. I can still taste the vicious lie all these years later, but nothing’s nastier than a teenage boy with a wounded pride.

  Not an excuse, just a fact.

  Besides, after she found out what I’d said, she got her shots in too. And she did it in front of the whole football team.

  I’d never offer the likes of you a blow job, Cash King. These lips wouldn’t be caught dead on any part of your body. Especially there.”

  It stung, because I knew it was true.

  A week later she was back with Brad, and she never spoke to me again.

  Ugh, thinking of Tiger Lyons always makes me feel like shit. I mean, it’s been twelve damn years. I’m a thirty-year-old franchise quarterback in the NFL. I should be over it. And I am, but I’d be lying if I said that night hadn’t left a mark.

  The ring of my cell phone blares through my car speakers, and my business manager’s name pops up on the dashboard display. I punch the button on the steering wheel. “Talk to me, Marty.”

  His low chuckle rumbles through the car. “Good morning to you too, Cash.”

  “Sorry, I’m anxious to see if they accepted my offer.”

  “They did, indeed. For what it’s worth, I think you overpaid. But be that as it may, the Wayland Estate in Ryder, Texas, now belongs to you.”

  “My mom.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The house belongs to my mom. I’m surprising her with it today.” It didn’t matter what it cost. When I was young, my mom used to say, “Look at Wayland Estate. Can you imagine what it would be like to live there?” Now she’ll know. Well, she could know, if I can get her to leave the old neighborhood.

  “When are you coming back to Fort Worth?”

  “I’ll be back for the game, Sunday. I need to spend some time with my mom. And since I’m on injured reserve, I don’t have to be there every day.”

  “Are you working with Duke?”

  “Yeah, I got the go-ahead from the team trainers and the front office to work with him.”

  I have every intention of rehabbing my shoulder and getting back my position. But I don’t want to struggle in front of the team. All my attention needs to be on getting healthy and reclaiming my spot with the Thunder, and I can’t do that if everyone’s watching to see if I’m getting better or not. I don’t need that kind of pressure. “Well, I better let you go, Marty.”

  “One more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  Paper rustles on the other end of the line. “There’s a stipulation on the house sale.”

  I wave at a carload of high school kids as they drive past. “What kind of stipulation?”

  “Says here that the project manager has to be allowed to live in the pool house until the renovation is complete.”

  “That’s fine. It’s good to know that someone will be on site at all times.”

  “I’ll text you the realtor’s info. I set up an appointment for you to meet her in an hour. Does that work?”

  “Yeah.” That gives me enough time to swing by my mom’s first.

  “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I disconnect the call and stare out the window.

  The Wayland Estate is mine. Or should I say, my mom’s. I could never live there. It used to belong to Tiger’s family. Too much emotion tied up in that name and memory.

  I call my mom. Nothing like a little maternal TLC to make me feel better. But the phone goes straight to voicemail. I hang up and shoot her a text.

  Hey, Mom, I just got into town. I have a couple of things to take care of, but I thought I’d drop by to see you first.

  Immediately, the screen alerts me that my message has been read and then the little bubbles pop up, so I wait for her response.

  Oh, darn, I won’t be home. Your Gran, Joe and I are going out.

  Where will you be? I’ll join you.

  Oh, no. there’s no need to bother.

  It’s no bother.

  Talk later, son.

  That’s bizarre. I told her last week I was coming to visit. Maybe she forgot.

  I’m disappointed she’s not available. I could use a little ego stroke right now. I’m not proud of it, but it’s been a shitty couple of weeks. The media has hounded my ass. The sports talk radio hosts have analyzed the dog out of my prospects of returning. My teammates keep bitching about Hartly McKay, my backup, and what a shit job he’s doing, and I keep getting texts from the team owner checking up on my progress.

  I start the car and notice I’m low on gas. I hook a U-turn into the convenience store across the street and maneuver the car to the premium gas pump. I slap a pleasant expression on my face before I get out of the car because there are several people filling up, and I know they’ll want to chat.

  The cool North Texas wind hits me as I get out of the vehicle. I insert my card into the pump and follow the prompts. A quick glance over my shoulder tells me that no one is waiting to talk to me. Good, I wouldn’t want to be rude.

  I lean against the car with my hands resting by my hips. I pride myself on always being open to random conversation with the locals. I am their favorite son after all. Even after all these years, that last bit still picks at the wound that’s never completely healed. I bury any historical resentment and paste a smile on my face.

  The woman at the pump across from me glances my way. I dip my chin in acknowledgement. She quickly averts her gaze, gets into her car, and pulls away from the pumps. Poor girl, I get that from women sometimes. They’re a little too intimidated to approach me. I don’t normally get the creepy lip curl like I did from this lady, but maybe that’s just her smile.

  A truck door slamming has me glancing at the other vehicle to see Mel Barlow behind the wheel, his elbow sticking out the open driver’s door window.

  I raise my hand to wave. “How are you, Mel?”

  A grunt is all I get in return, then he starts the truck and pulls away from me. He must need to get back to his pig farm because I usually have a hard time shaking him once he starts talking.

  I remove the nozzle, replace the gas cap, and head inside to get a drink. It’s a good thing I have forty minutes before I have to meet the realtor because I can see Kevin Jones is behind the counter. That kid is a local sports aficionado, and he’ll talk my leg off if I let him.

  The bell above the door rings when I pull it open. Kevin glances over at me, and instead of the enthusiastic welcome I expected, he says, “Why are you here?”

  “Um … I … I beg your pardon?”

  He snorts and mumbles something under his breath that sounds like, “I think you need to beg the whole town’s pardon.”

  “What?”

  “Nothin’.”

  I make my way to the cooler and grab a water. I can see Kevin’s reflection in the glass doors, and if I’m not mistaken, the kid is giving me a death stare. I turn around to make sure, but he’s got his head buried in a book.

  “So, the Lions are doin’ all right this year,” I say when I place my drink on the counter.

  “Uh-huh.” He places the bottle under th
e scanner. “One ninety-nine.”

  I pay him, and his attention goes back to his book. I scan the store to see if there’s anyone else around that he might be showing off for, but we’re alone. “Okay, well, I’ll see you around.”

  There’s another mumbled reply, but I’m 100 percent sure that he said, “Not if I see you first.”

  What. The. Hell.

  Two

  Tiger

  I hook the strap on my outfit and glance down at myself. The steel toe boots required on the construction site peek out from under the rolled up hem of my overalls. The white long-sleeved Henley I wear stretches across my chest that is now a cup size larger thanks to Dairy Queen dip cones and real cream in my coffee. Good thing the bib I embroidered with Tiger Lyons, Lewis Construction on the front covers most of my breasts.

  My hand glides over the logo. Love, pride, and a lot of fear went into each stitch. Who would’ve thought that I’d be a project manager for a construction company? Not me. Certainly not my appalled and deeply disappointed parents, not my ex-husband, Mayor Brad Watson, and not this town that thinks I don’t have a brain in my pretty little head.

  I trace the letters of my name with an index finger. Tiger Lyons, not Tiger Watson. That woman is dead and buried … well, mostly dead. Sometimes Tiger Watson still rears her ugly head. There are times I still worry about what people think of me and doubt I’m good for anything but being arm candy. On occasion I’m concerned my parents were right, and men don’t like women who are strong-willed, opinionated, and who think they deserve to be valued for who they are and not what they look like. And that men really don’t want a woman who’s broke. Which I am because I gave away every last penny of my trust fund earlier last year. That’s really why my parents are appalled and have very little to do with me. And why Mayor Brad Watson is no longer my husband.

  Thankfully, my family is so secretive about everything, no one in town knew I had a trust fund coming to me. And my parents sure as hell made sure no one knew that I divested myself of the inheritance, going so far as to insist I put a clause in my divorce agreement that Brad cannot speak of it to anyone for fear of litigation. Good thing too, or I’d still be answering questions from the residents of Ryder about why I gave away my money.

  But I have no regrets. That money had so many strings attached to it that I couldn’t keep it. All of those threads tethered me to a life I no longer valued or wanted, and the three charities I gave it to desperately needed the money.

  Tiger Watson was my beauty queen self, most beautiful in high school, and a sparkly accessory to my ex-husband. And if Brad is any indication of what men want, then my parents were 100 percent right.

  It was made very clear that if I didn’t bring anything to the table—see money and prestige—then I was of no use to him. He craves both, but prestige is his real drug of choice. He’s also vindictive. That’s why he put up that god-awful billboard at the Ryder city limits, and why he won’t take it down, even though my image is regularly defaced.

  I can’t judge Brad too harshly because I used to care a lot about prestige and notoriety too, but that was mostly because the people in my life loved me best when I was in the spotlight. Tiger Watson would’ve been horrified at the humiliation of the billboard vandalism.

  Tiger Lyons, on the other hand, is a project manager for the biggest construction job of her life. She wears overalls and steel toe boots to work and hasn’t looked at herself in a mirror in six months.

  How does a former beauty queen who’s only ever been valued for her appearance take back her life? She stops obsessing over how she looks by getting rid of every mirror in her house.

  Drastic? Maybe.

  Dramatic? Definitely.

  Necessary? Most assuredly.

  I braid my hair into a long blonde plait, grab my Lewis Construction baseball cap, and stick it on my head backward. I like wearing it this way. It gives off the signal that I don’t give a crap about my appearance, and I don’t.

  Not anymore.

  Not much anyway.

  “You’re a work in progress, Tiger.” It’s the pep talk I give myself every day, especially on the days when I’m tempted to backslide and obsess over how I look, or care about what people think of me, or I’m tempted to call my parents and beg to be taken back into the fold.

  My phone rings, and I grab it on my way out of the Wayland Estate pool house where I’ve been living. I check the screen and see that it’s my boss, Donny Lewis, calling. “Morning, Donny.”

  “Morning.” His tired voice barely makes it through the phone line.

  “Late night?” I make my way around the pool and into the back door of the main house.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’re not as young as we used to be, huh?”

  Donny’s been in South Florida working on a renovation job for one of our biggest clients. That’s why I’m overseeing this project and why the pressure’s on. He’s given me more and more responsibility over the last year, and I really want to do a good job for him. Especially because he’s been so damn good to me.

  “Not even a little bit. I’m trying to wake up some before I call Maggie, or she’ll for sure give me shit about being a lightweight.”

  “Yeah, she will, but she’ll do it so sweetly that you’ll barely notice she’s laughing at you because you’re old. Now, if this had happened a few years ago, she would’ve publicly humiliated you.”

  “That’s the damn truth. Sometimes I miss BC Maggie.” His tone is overly wistful.

  “You know she hates it when we call her that, but you’re right. Before cancer Maggie was definitely a pistol.”

  We laugh. It’s been a year and a half since his wife and my best friend nearly died from breast cancer. Maggie’s still as mischievous as ever, but since her near-death experience, she’s turned over a new leaf—no drinking, no cussing, no bad attitude. She’s so cheerful that it’s sometimes nauseating. That’s where the mischief comes in. If she knows it bothers you, then she’ll use it like a weapon.

  Donny clears his throat. “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  My stomach knots uncomfortably. “What is it?”

  “First of all, you’re not in trouble.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “Honestly, Tiger, I don’t know why that’s your automatic assumption. You’re amazing at your job, and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Prohibitive conscience maybe. I’m workin’ on it.”

  “Prohibitive conscience …” He laughs. “Well, work harder.”

  “Yes, sir.” I adjust the cap on my head. “So, what’s up?”

  “If any realtors show up there, can you tell them the house isn’t on the market anymore?”

  “You sold it?” I try and fail to calm the anxiety in my tone.

  He chuckles. “Yes. Don’t worry, I made you living in the pool house until the reno is done a stipulation of the contract.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I wish you’d let me help you more.”

  “I’ll be fine. I just needed a few months without paying rent to get my financial feet underneath me.” I transfer a set of plans from the counter to the island. “You’ve done plenty, Donny. You took a chance on me and gave me a job.”

  “Pretty sure I’ve benefited from that as much as you.”

  I take a sip from my travel mug. “And I’ll relay the news to the realtors. Do you need me to take it off the website?”

  “No, I’ll have Kay do it. You’ll never guess who bought it.”

  I pull a barstool over and sit. “Who?”

  “None other than—oh, shit. I’ve got to take this. I’ll call you back.”

  “Alright.” I disconnect and fight the bitterness crawling up my throat.

  I glance around the house in various stages of renovation and all I feel is sad. Not because it’s not my home anymore, but because it never was a home. Wayland Estate stood as a monument to the wealth of the Lyons family. Sterile and col
d, it was more a museum than a warm family dwelling.

  Those words could be used to describe my parents too. I don’t have any memories of them hugging or playing with my brother Quinn and me. The only time we ever received any attention was when we won something. We both rebelled, but Quinn’s rebellion was quieter. He just stopped trying, and now lives abroad on his trust fund and has never worked a day in his life. I love my brother, but I don’t want to be him.

  The sounds of a buzz saw, stomping feet from overhead, and country music fill the air. I’m glad Wayland Estate is being rebuilt from the studs up. Maybe the next family can fill it with love and happy memories.

  Technically, this place should’ve been mine. It’s been handed down to the daughters of the family for a couple of generations, just like my name. But when I gave my trust fund away, my parents decided to sell the house out from under me.

  My phone rings again, and I grab it before looking at the screen. “Hey, Donny.”

  “Um, it’s not Donny, Tiger. It’s Collette Parks.”

  “Oh, hi, Collette. What can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to make sure we had everything for the meeting at the rec center tonight. I, um, know you’re busy and all …”

  A string of cuss words a mile long threatens to spew from my mouth. Collette isn’t calling out of the goodness of her heart. She’s checking up on me to see if I’m doing my job for our Save the Rec Center campaign. “Yes, I’ve got it all under control.”

  “Well, it’s just that … the thing is, people are worried since the Cash King Foundation turned down our grant request, and you being the one to fill out the paperwork for the grant … You can see our concern, surely?”

  “No, actually, I can’t see the concern, Collette. I completed the grant proposal correctly and turned it into the mayor’s office like I was supposed to, so if our request was turned down, it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the man whose name is on the letterhead of the foundation.” I try to keep my voice even, but I know it’s rising with every syllable I utter.