ways to fill the seats.
But for the players’ manager there wasn’t a whole lot to do other than study scouting prospects and give feedback on the upcoming draft next June. To that end Jayson had set up a tryout camp, which would start in the next few weeks. They were usually long shots, but he liked being proactive.
“Did you hear me?”
“You mean what you said after you barged into my office without knocking?”
She had the sense to look sheepish. “Sorry about that.”
Jayson decided boundaries were really the least of his concerns. She was his priority.
“Scout, I don’t think you are ready to work.”
She was standing in front of him in a pair of ripped jeans and a stained T-shirt. Her hair looked as if it hadn’t seen a brush in days, and the bags under her eyes were nearly black. He didn’t need to guess that she hadn’t eaten or slept in days. It was all there on her face, but he could see she’d sworn off the drugs. Her green eyes were clear and focused.
Knowing Scout, she wouldn’t have wanted to take anything that might have diluted her pain. No doubt she would have thought she was being disloyal to Duff by not grieving him hard enough.
It made him ache, but he knew deep inside he had to hold himself back a little. For example, he couldn’t get up and walk around his desk and hold her. He couldn’t try to help shoulder the burden of her grief for her.
He would look after her, make sure she was still upright. Because he’d promised to do that. But it was as far as he could go.
Or it would happen again, like it did the first time. He’d fall for her. Hard. Jayson was fairly certain he’d never survive a second round.
“No, I can do it. We’ve got the tryout camp coming up in a few weeks and I should be there. Not to mention high school fall ball is starting. The Rebels are going to want me out at games.”
“I talked to Greg and Reuben. They were at Duff’s service, of course. Reuben said to give you all the time you needed.”
Jayson didn’t want to think about the underlying tone of that conversation. Scout didn’t need anything else to worry about in her current state.
Scout’s jaw dropped. “Wait a minute. You talked to Greg? My new boss? What right did you have to do that?”
Jayson just looked at her and she immediately backed down.
“Okay, I appreciate you covering for me for these last two weeks, but I’m telling you I’m ready to get out there and start working. Even if I’m not ready, I still need to get out there and start working.”
He leaned back in his chair. Scout moved forward to put her hands on his desk.
“Jayson, my mother isn’t leaving. She’s staying in my house. She’s unpacked suitcases, filled up dresser drawers. I don’t think she has any plans to go home. Neither does Samantha, for that matter. She just keeps waving her phone in my face and telling me she can work from anywhere. Do you know what this is doing to me?”
“They’re trying to help you,” he reminded her. “They are your family and they love you despite all the drama of the past. If you would stop being so stubborn, you might see that. You might realize that we’re all of us here for you, Scout.”
She grimaced and crossed her arms over her chest. Typical Scout defense mode.
“I don’t need their help. There is nothing anyone can do. He’s gone. There is no bringing him back. What are they going to do? Wave some magic wand and fix me? They can’t. I’m broken and that’s all there is. But I’ve still got two eyes and two ears and I’ll know if a sixteen-year-old hitter has the stuff.”
Jayson did stand then and walk around his desk. He tried not to feel hurt when she took a deliberate step back. Sometimes when he was around her he felt like his skin was laced with some kind of poison, that the merest touch might kill her.
“Scout, you’re not eating, you don’t sleep. You’re not...strong enough to be out on the road day in and day out. I won’t let you do it.”
That apparently was not the correct thing to say. For a man walking a tightrope, mistakes like that could be fatal.
“You won’t let me?” she screeched.
And there it was. It was one of Scout’s least attractive traits. When she was angry, truly angry, her voice would rise five octaves until she sounded, as her sister Lane so accurately described it, like a howler monkey.
“Let. Me,” she screeched again.
“Scout, calm down.”
“You don’t get to let me do anything. Am I or am I not a member of the New England Rebels scouting team?”
She was. The decision had been made by the Rebels prior to Duff’s death. Scout was to take a sabbatical to care for her dying father, but when she was ready to return she would go back to her old job of scouting, reporting directly to Greg.
He really couldn’t stop her from working if that was what she wanted.
“I’m broken and that’s all there is.”
Finally, she’d said it, Jayson thought. As if she was never not going to be broken.
That’s why I brought you here, son. You’ve got to fix her.
Jayson shook his head. He hated when that happened. When his subconscious called up these sentences, which sounded in his head as if Duff were talking directly to him. Which of course was ridiculous because he was dead.
Jayson’s very Catholic mother would have said it was Duff talking to him from heaven.
Either way it mostly scared the crap out of him.
“Answer me!”
Yep. Full-on howler monkey.
“You are.”
“Then I get to determine when I go back to work, and I say I’m ready to go back now. I’m going to call Greg and let him know myself.”
“Fine. Then why did you even come down here? You obviously weren’t asking for my opinion.”
“Because...”
He took some satisfaction in that. She’d come down to tell him because she did want his blessing. Maybe his support, too. She couldn’t help herself.
In the months leading up to Duff’s death, he and Scout had basically called a time-out on their own personal drama. Neither really had the energy to deal with what they’d once meant to each other and the anger that was still there on both sides four years later. He’d been this quiet presence in her life and she’d let him be there.
In the past two weeks, though, it seemed like that temporary freeze was beginning to thaw. Scout was getting pricklier and more defensive. For his part, that tightrope was getting
