Chapter 11
Every morning for as long as Ryan could remember, he’d gone for a run. It was something he’d started to do as a way to destress before his usual stressful day. Anxiety had always been his worst enemy, and running had helped him control it over the years.
But that morning, when he’d grabbed his shoes like always, he stopped himself.
What if he went surfing instead?
Would that be too forward to show up with his surfboard, at her spot? Especially since he had his own, safer part of the shoreline in his front yard?
He stared at his phone and opened her text from last night.
After the fireworks, she’d taken off before he could ask her out.
When he’d gotten home, he’d sent her a text, inviting her over to his house, but she’d only replied with a, Thanks for a great night with a pink heart emoji and a firework emoji.
As he reread the text, that’s when he realized he had forgotten to write tomorrow. He had invited Thea over that night.
“Oh, dear.” He rubbed his eyes, wishing he had just grabbed his readers instead of hoping what he had typed was correct.
Want to come over and surf? was what he had written. What had he been thinking? Why had he even written to her last night? It sounded like he’d been making a booty call.
He’d had another night of having a few too many drinks, and now he was paying the price. He should’ve scrutinized what he’d written before sending it off. He should probably lay off the alcohol at this point.
He slapped his forehead with his hand, and like a freight truck hitting him, he remembered that creep Johnny from the golf cart place. The image of bopping him on the head made him wince.
It’d started when the bicycle guy had kind of hung around their spot on the town’s green as they’d waited for the fireworks.
When Ryan had offered to grab some pizza for everyone, he’d sat at the bar to grab a drink and gather his nerve to go over to Thea’s shop.
That’s when the bicycle guy had come out of nowhere and swooped in beside Ryan at the empty stool.
“Great night, right?” he’d said to Ryan, whose drink had just been placed down. Then, to the bartender, “I’ll have what he’s having.” He offered Ryan his hand. “Let me pay for your drink as a welcome to Isabel Island. I’m Johnny.”
“Hi, Johnny,” Ryan said back, shaking the unusual man’s hand.
Ryan had plenty of people come up to him for one thing or another—a signature, a photograph, had men and women ask him to kiss them, hold their babies, and had even had a man offer his daughter for marriage after the Super Bowl.
“No, thanks.” He smiled at the man. “I’m good, but thanks.”
He had stopped taking free anything from people, because nothing, he’d realized after becoming semi-famous, was free.
Often it was used as a tool to make him do something.
They’d suggest that since they’d paid for his drink, he’d have to do something in return.
He had fallen for that plenty of times, and in the end he could see how his ego had played into it.
“Well, at least let me give you a free rental from my shop.” Johnny reached inside his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, where he retrieved a business card that was also a free coupon for a golf cart rental.
Ryan held it up, reading the business name: Johnny’s Bicycles and Coffee. “You know what, I’ve been meaning to get to your shop. I heard you have good coffee.”
“The best.” Johnny picked up his glass of beer, which had just arrived. “Wish I had these to offer, though.”
“You want to offer alcohol where people drive vehicles around curvy, rocky roads that plunge into the Atlantic Ocean?” It seemed ridiculously dangerous. The people on the golf carts, who already drove haphazardly around the island, were mostly tourists. “That’s a really terrible idea.”
Johnny laughed. “I want to open a bar, separate from my bike shop. Separate the drinks and the play, if you know what I mean. We don’t have anywhere other than an inn and a pizza joint to grab a drink.”
Ryan had noticed the lack of places to go on the island after the tourists left. Once the pizza restaurant closed, or the inn, that left nothing else.
“A local watering hole sounds nice,” he said.
Johnny completely latched on once Ryan said it, even when Ryan said he had to go.
“I’m headed to the gift shop before it closes,” he said, hoping the guy would take a hint.
“Let me show you some of my carts,” Johnny said, jumping off his stool after Ryan paid his bill. He pointed at the waitress. “Put it on my tab.”
Ryan noticed the waitress rolled her eyes as she picked up his empty glass. “Sure, Johnny.”
Ryan left an extra twenty when Johnny said he’d “forgot cash” for his own tip.
“What do you need at the gift shop?” Johnny asked him as they left the restaurant without Ryan’s pizzas. He’d have to go back and grab them. “I can get you whatever you want.”
“Ah…” He stopped at the crosswalk. He was about to tell the man to mind his business but realized that this guy wasn’t a reporter or an agent, but potentially his neighbor. “Do you live on the island?”
The deflection worked perfectly, because no matter if he was a neighbor or not, he wasn’t talking about his real reason to anyone.
Johnny pointed to the harbor. “See that beauty?”
Ryan looked out to see a beautiful white yacht where his finger directed. “Wow, that yours?”
“She sure is.”
They began walking across the street as Johnny explained how he stayed on the island during the summer months renting out his golf carts and selling coffee, then headed down to the Keys for the winter months.
“What a life,” Ryan said, admittedly.
Johnny nodded. “So many women down there love the yacht.”
He realized two things in that moment. First, the guy walking him to the golf cart shop was a jerk. Second, he wanted nothing to do with him.
“I’m going to stop at the gift shop,” he said, but when he looked over, there was a line out the door.
“Come check out my carts,” Johnny said. “I’m happy to make a deal for a good review.”
There it was, Ryan thought to himself. He sighed, having dealt with enough of these guys before. He looked at his phone. The shop closed in a few minutes. Although, he did want to get a cart for the summer. If he got a discount for an honest review, why wouldn’t he look?
“Sure,” he said, turning down the sidewalk.
If only he had just gone to the gift shop, none of that would’ve happened. What if that loser sued, or worse? He could lose everything.
Ryan slapped his forehead again, shaking himself out of the memory of listening to the bull coming out of that guy’s mouth.
He also couldn’t believe that guy was Thea’s ex—or, whatever he was, as she had tried to explain their very strange, decade-long relationship.
She’d stayed with a loser like that for ten years?
Then he thought of all the women he had dated.
Had he strung them along, too? He’d known he hadn’t wanted to get into a serious relationship really ever, yet he’d gotten into semi-serious relationships, and when the women had wanted to move to the next level, he’d crushed them. It’d happened over and over again.
Wasn’t that the literal definition of a player?
Ever since he’d quit football, vices like drinking and treating women poorly had seemed to creep into his way of life. No wonder his mother was so upset with his decisions lately. She could clearly see he wasn’t thinking with his head or his heart.
He glanced over at the Bible his mother had placed on his nightstand. There wasn’t a bigger hint she could give him. When was the last time he’d opened anything besides a playbook?
He didn’t necessarily think he was a bad man, but he was making bad decisions, and maybe he needed something in his life to guide him to do the right thing. Like a father figure might have done for him.
Not that Cece hadn’t done her best, but now what? He was about to turn forty, and all the men in his circle of friends went through women like chewing gum. If they did start a family, their marriages often ended in extramarital affairs. Many of the “steady” guys became tempted on the road.
He couldn’t blame his bad behavior on his lack of father figure or mentor. He could really only blame himself. He needed to stop playing the victim.
He walked downstairs, where his Uncle Denny was cooking up some bacon.
“Smells good,” Ryan said, grabbing a mug. He poured himself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter.
“It’s a nice kitchen,” Denny said, placing the cooked bacon on a plate. Then, with a spoon, he dropped some scrambled eggs next to the bacon and a slice of buttered toast on top. He handed it over to Ryan as he walked up to his uncle to give him a good morning hug.
“I don’t often eat this early,” he said, shaking his head. He walked into the mudroom and plucked his running shoes off the shelf. He sat down, exhaling heavily as he bent over to tie his shoes, giving in to the idea of running.
“You still training?” his uncle asked, taking a bite of his eggs.
Ryan shook his head. “Nah, just enjoying a run.”
“Guess that’s good, with all the booze you like.” His uncle looked at him. There was more to the comment. Ryan could feel it.
“Yeah, I need to take a break from that,” he agreed.
“You know I love you.” His uncle put his plate down and put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “But I won’t watch you drink through the rest of your life like your father had.”
“Had?” Ryan hadn’t heard that his father had passed. “Did something happen?”
His uncle shook his head. “I just think of that man as dead.”
Ryan sighed. “He might as well be.”
“You know, I would’ve bet everything I own that he’d have come out of the woodwork by now.”
Ryan hadn’t thought his father showing his face after he became famous. In fact, he wondered if the fame had made him more ashamed that he’d left the way he had. Leaving a young mother and son alone in the city with nothing but their things in an unpaid apartment.
“Your mother’s worried about you,” Denny finally said. The meat of the matter.