Chapter 17 #2
“Miles.” Ryland interrupted his ramble and squeezed his elbow. “Come over tonight. Right now. We’ll get the rest of your stuff tomorrow.”
“I’ve got the essentials in my truck.” Miles’ smile was more of a lopsided grimace. “I planned ahead, hoping you wouldn’t mind.”
“Dumbass,” Ryland muttered affectionately, bumping their shoulders. “As if you even have to ask. I prepared the guest room for you weeks ago, hoping you’d take me up on my offer eventually.”
“You did? That’s . . . ” Miles glanced away, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “That’s more comforting than you know. Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
Miles rose. “I’m going to hit the showers. Then I can follow you home.”
Ryland showered too, and they were on the road within twenty minutes since no one was signed up for show-and-tell tonight—one of only a few gaps in the show-and-tell schedule.
His single-story ranch-style home with the finished basement in Upper Arlington was modest compared to the houses of many of his teammates.
He’d fallen in love with it immediately, no matter that Des had tried to convince him that what he really wanted was the ten thousand-square-foot, seven-bedroom, six-bathroom monstrosity that had been selling for two and a half million.
Ryland’s house had character with its white siding, blue front door, and the flowerbed out front.
He’d modernized the kitchen and put hardwood down on the main floor.
It was open-concept, airy, let in tons of natural light, and with its three bedrooms, he had plenty of space when family and friends came to visit.
And it reminded him of his childhood home in Maplewood. Not the aesthetics, necessarily, but the feel of it. It felt like a home, whereas the 2.5-million-dollar mansion had reeked of bland, boring, and basic.
He parked in the garage, Miles in the driveway behind him, and met his teammate on the front stoop.
“You’ve got a package.”
Ryland glanced up from his phone, where he’d been disarming his house alarm. “I do?”
“Did you order something?”
“Not that I can recall.” Ryland unlocked the door. “Who’s it from?”
Miles angled it closer to the porch light and wiggled his eyebrows. “Kyle Dabbs.”
Tripping his way into the house, Ryland rounded on him. “What? For real?”
“Kyle Dabbs,” Miles repeated, his blue eyes dancing. He stepped into the house after Ryland. “Maybe you forgot something at his place?”
“He’d just hang on to it until next time.”
“Maybe whatever this is is payback for the twenty loaves of apple bread,” Miles said.
Ryland couldn’t help but laugh at the memory of Dabbs calling while Ryland had been in the car with Miles.
“Twenty loaves, Ry?” Dabbs had said, his voice made gruffer by the car’s speakers. “There’s no way I can eat all of these before they go bad.”
Miles’s jaw had dropped. “Twenty? Jesus, Ry.”
“There’s tons of room in your freezer,” Ryland had pointed out, ignoring his friend. “The only thing in there is frozen steak. You don’t even have ice cream.”
“But twenty loaves?”
“I had to replace the ones I ate.”
“You ate three of them,” Dabbs had said, his laughter echoing in the car. “Not twenty. Bellamy’s cursing your name right now.”
Shaking his head as the memory gently faded, Ryland took his package into the kitchen.
It was a square box and fairly large, roughly the size of a moving box.
He took scissors to the packaging and ripped at the brown paper.
It revealed a plain cardboard box—exactly like a moving box—inside which was enough bubble wrap and packing peanuts to keep the most delicate crystal safe.
What he extracted was not crystal. It was a package of apple bread.
And another.
And another.
And another.
Ten to be exact.
“Dear god,” Miles muttered.
Taped to one of the loaves was a note in Dabbs’ handwriting.
We could go together like apple bread and butter.
Ryland let out a sound of delirious happiness that he’d deny if anybody asked.
He’d said something similar to Dabbs in Maplewood, hadn’t he? Something about going together like donuts and coffee?
No, Timbits and coffee.
And Dabbs had remembered.
Gah!
“Wow.” Miles popped the bubble wrap and read the note over Ryland’s shoulder. “That’s the corniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I think I love him.”
“Aw.” Wrapping an arm around Ryland’s neck, Miles gave his temple a messy kiss. “I love that for you.”
Ryland laughed and pushed him away. “Get off me.”
“I’m going to bed, loverboy. See you tomorrow.”
Miles disappeared down the hall, leaving Ryland bouncing on his toes. He had no idea what he was going to do with ten loaves of apple bread but—
Okay, yeah. He could see Dabbs’ dilemma now.
Disregarding that it was after eleven, he called Dabbs.
“Hey,” Dabbs’ smooth voice said in his ear. “I was just thinking about you.”
Momentarily diverted, Ryland grinned so wide his cheeks ached. “That’s nice to hear.”
“How are you, Rya?”
“Good. I’m looking at enough apple bread to feed my entire team though. Is this payback for the twenty loaves?”
Dabbs’ laugh was a quiet rumble, the way it got when he was sleepy. “No. I thought I’d send you some since you liked it so much. Figured you didn’t order any for yourself when you ordered mine.”
“I didn’t.”
He’d been focused on replacing the loaves he’d devoured in less than a week and hadn’t thought about ordering a few for himself.
“Thank you,” he said. “This’ll last me . . . ” If it had taken him five days to go through three loaves, ten would last about . . . “A little over two weeks?”
“You’re welcome.”
On Dabbs’ end, one of the dogs barked, and Dabbs shushed him. “It’s too late to be barking at nothing, Castle. Settle down.”
“Sorry about your team’s loss tonight.”
“Thanks. You had a good game though.”
Grinning at nothing, Ryland sat at the island. “You saw?”
“I just finished watching the highlights. Nice goal in the third.”
His grin faded, and he picked at the countertop. “One of the reporters asked me about you after the game.”
“I saw that too. You handled it well.”
“Did I? I was feeling snappish, so I don’t remember what I said.”
“Reporters asked me about you after our game too. I told them it was new and to respect our privacy.”
“That’s probably more eloquent than what I said.”
Dabbs chuckled, the sound wrapping itself around Ryland’s chest. “I’ve got an early day tomorrow, so I’ve got to go. Our teams play each other in a few weeks, right?”
“The week before Thanksgiving.”
“So I’ll see you soon.”
“Yeah,” Ryland said, anticipation already tingling through him. “Yeah, you will.”