Chapter 6
Chapter Six
After dinner, Lara had set her paints up on the back porch.
She’d been so busy with Ty lately she hadn’t done much in the way of her art.
She supposed it didn’t matter. She had an attic full of paintings and drawers full of drawings.
Sure, Grandma displayed some of them here and at the museum, but mostly it was just a silly hobby.
But silly hobby or not, after the run-in with Bruce, she needed something to settle her, and she knew Grandma wanted to talk to Ty one-on-one about the whole ordeal, so this would give them some privacy.
And, okay, she was also trying to settle herself from that moment after Bruce. She needed to work through it and compartmentalize away, because obsessing over it was not going to work.
Maybe she’d had the strange, fluttery yearning thought that Ty was going to kiss her in that moment, but Josie had stepped in with her waft of perfume and given her the good sense to realize that he hadn’t been.
Or, if he had, it was a reaction to…his dad, his life. Not her.
Not her.
She didn’t want to think about it or dwell on it. So she turned to her paints. The autumn sky. The cold around her. Just her. It was how she’d learned to cope.
Sure, the grief counselor Grandma had made her go to for a long time had talked a lot about staying open to relationships, to life. To feeling the pain and accepting it so it didn’t become a ghost in her head, haunting her at every good turn.
Lara had understood that to an extent, believed it to an extent, but there was a certain…line she had to draw. Too much good, too much happy, it brought on all the anxiety she’d learned to manage and live with.
Not that anything right now was particularly good or happy. Or bad or sad. It was just…life. The careful, quiet life she’d arranged to her perfect specifications. So nothing changed or altered on her without a careful decision to let it.
She could keep doing that even with Ty home for good. It just required deciding what lines to draw. Like ignoring Ty touching her face and looking like he was about to kiss her.
She bit down on her lip, a physical reminder to focus. On color. On brush strokes. On bringing to life the scene in front of her.
She saw a figure out on one of the rocks surrounded by ocean. Sure, maybe there was actually a bearded guy in a hat standing out there in the fading light. Maybe it was a trick of said light bouncing off the ocean that his clothes looked old fashioned.
But she didn’t believe that. She believed that what she saw was some kind of apparition of a man who’d lived two hundred years ago.
So she added him into the painting.
And tried not to think about how the hit of Josie’s ghost perfume had kept her from ruining a lifelong friendship, all because Ty’s mouth had been a little too close to hers.
And how much she wished Josie hadn’t made her appearance.
Ty stood inside, looking out the sliding glass door at Lara. She was perched on a little stool, her back to the windows. The wind teased her hair, and in the falling light it looked redder than it usually did.
He hadn’t seen her paint in a while. Her face was mostly hidden, but he could see enough hint of her profile to know her eyes were focused, her mouth set in concentration. He could see most of the painting, and the scene beyond it that she was bringing to life on canvas.
He saw the man she was painting, though he wondered how the guy had gotten out to that rock.
He had to be wet and freezing, but he just stood there, looking out at the horizon.
And if he looked like the same guy from Lara’s picture in the museum, and that old dream he’d had once upon a time, well…
That was just his brain playing tricks on him.
Like this afternoon.
So he focused on Lara. What had this afternoon been? Or that moment she’d fallen on top of him? What was all this swirling around inside of him? Because it was damn familiar, the kind of thing he’d always pushed away.
But staying put changed things. It changed the choices he’d be making all his life, because the next wasn’t about baseball anymore. It was about life. Staying here in Wild Rose Point for good changed…a lot more than he’d anticipated.
Ty wasn’t afraid of change, but he was afraid of fucking things up. Things that were too important to fail at.
At what point did the things he was feeling overcome the failure that kept holding him back? Because the bottom line was… He loved Lara. Always had. And he’d convinced himself it was a platonic kind of thing. Family.
But a man didn’t think about kissing family. Not like he’d been thinking about kissing Lara since this afternoon.
He hadn’t realized Mary Lou had entered the room until she came to stand next to him. He felt a little uncomfortable that she’d caught him staring, but there was no way she could read his thoughts, so…
“She’s got some real talent. I don’t know why she won’t use it.” He tried to smile down at Mary Lou, like he was paying attention to Lara painting and nothing else.
Based on Mary Lou’s bland look, he didn’t think he fooled her grandmother any.
“Yeah, there seems to be a lot of that going around. You still haven’t talked to Mr. Stolt, which means I see a boy with some real talent he plans on not using.”
Maybe if his dad hadn’t stopped by today, he might have answered better, but he was feeling sorry for himself he supposed. “That’s not talent. I’m a washed up nobody.”
“You’re a man with a lifetime of knowledge,” Mary Lou said stubbornly.
“You’ve got the experience, and more, Ty Wagner, you’ve got the heart.
You know what it is to have a man who sees only what you can do for him.
Whose ego was driven by his son’s talent.
You aren’t unique, I imagine. Just think of what you could give to a boy who’s in the shoes you once walked, Ty. ”
He hated the thought of any kid in his shoes. The pressure. The way his dad used to twist something fun and exciting into something…horrible. A game winning hit was never good enough if he went one-for-four.
Sure, some coaches along the way had eased that, but they couldn’t erase it. They couldn’t change the beatings, the lack of meals, the pressure of being somebody so Dad would just lay the hell off.
Still, if he really thought about what Mary Lou was saying, he couldn’t deny that…
Things would have been even worse without that easing, without some really amazing coaches along the way.
Without Mary Lou and the Townsends. He’d had a shitty break or two, no doubt, but he’d had something better than baseball and his father in the people who’d stepped up and meant something to him.
If he looked at coaching that way, was it really such a terrible idea?
“I heard about Bruce,” she said quietly.
Ty sighed. “I’m sorry he came into the museum. I—”
“You don’t apologize for what that man decides to do. Ever.”
“Right.” She’d always said that to him. Always. “Sorry.”
She fixed him with a hard look. Too many apologies and they started not to mean anything.
That’s what Mary Lou had always taught him.
Because she had been family. She had been his foundation.
Not Bruce or baseball. This place and this woman who’d taken him in because he’d stood up for her granddaughters once.
“I always had you guys. I was lucky. You were more of a father than he ever was.” And since he wanted some of this sincerity to lift, he went for a bit of a joke. “Hell, you bought me my first condoms.”
She snorted. “Yeah, because I thought you were going to use them on my granddaughter.”
Everything inside of him stilled to a terrible, embarrassed stop. “Jesus, Mary Lou,” he managed to croak. That had never been the plan.
“Well, what else was I supposed to think the way you two were connected at the hip?”
He hunched, feeling inexplicably like a kid again. “I don’t know. Not…that.”
“Are you telling me that never crossed your mind, Ty Wagner?”
He stared at her, utterly speechless, and it was quite possible his face was turning red out of embarrassment, which wasn’t something he knew how to deal with. He thought he’d grown to be something like embarrassment-proof thanks to dear old dad.
He wanted to lie. He should lie. This conversation was…not right.
But it would be a lie to say it never crossed his mind, particularly recently.
“You’ve both got every reason to be afraid,” Mary Lou said to him very seriously. “You’ve each been tasked with a lot of hard that isn’t fair. But if you’re always afraid, it doesn’t change life still knocking you sideways.”
He looked down at Mary Lou, not doubting her words so much as…what he was supposed to do with them. “Just what are you getting at?”
She sighed heavily. “Promised myself I’d let you two figure it out yourselves, and I certainly wasn’t going to push when you were always gallivanting off again, but I’m getting damn tired of waiting.” Without explaining that, she walked off into the back hallway that would take her to her bedroom.
Ty stared after her for quite a few minutes, trying to make sense of any of it. It was hardly the first time in his life someone had assumed something more went on between him and Lara. He’d just always assumed Mary Lou of all people understood their relationship for what it was.
He looked back out the window. Except, Mary Lou knew the two of them better than anyone. Maybe… Maybe he didn’t fully know what she was getting at, but he got the general gist.
And he wasn’t leaving again.
With that certainty ringing in his head, he reached forward and slid open the door, stepping out into the cold whipping air of falling twilight. He didn’t know how she managed to do anything as amazing as what she’d put on that canvas under these conditions, but she did.
“I don’t know why you don’t take these up to one of the galleries and sell it.”
She frowned at the painting, shaking her head. “It’s not that good.”
“It’s amazing.”
“No offense, Ty, but you don’t know art.” She started putting her supplies together, carefully wiping down brushes and what not.
“I know if something’s beautiful,” he replied. And he meant her.
He always meant her.
In a day of terrible realizations, it wasn’t terrible. Just…hard. Hard to unwrap years of denial. Of drawing lines and reminding himself he wasn’t a permanent fixture in her life.
But now he could be. And he was afraid of that. It had been a hell of a lot easier coming and going knowing he didn’t have to deal with failing anything when it came to friendship. Because they both knew and understood baseball came first.
But it didn’t anymore. Nothing came first anymore.
Could he trust himself to put her first? Them? To change something that had been the foundation of his life?
Something had to change though. They had to change. And maybe she was in a different place in her life—more settled, more sure of her next steps, but she’d said it herself the other night down at the beach.
She wasn’t happy.
And she should be. If she couldn’t do it for herself, he’d find a way to do it for her. She deserved that.
And you really think you’re the one to do it?
He didn’t know. Maybe it didn’t have to be more than friends helping each other, pushing each other. But maybe there was…more underneath that. Or could be.
But first things first.
“Monday is our day off. So here’s what we’re going to do.
You’re going to take, let’s say…five paintings down to the gallery and see if they want to display any of them for sale.
And I’ll…” He thought about what Mary Lou had said about good coaches, thought about everything he knew about the game of baseball.
At the very least he could see if this was what he wanted.
“I’ll meet with Mr. Stolt and see what he has to say about the coaching job. ”
It still left a sickly kind of feeling in his gut, but talking to the principal didn’t mean he’d get an offer, didn’t mean he’d have to accept one if he did. It just meant he was keeping an open mind.
Lara’s excitement was palpable. “Really?”
“Really. And then…then we’ll go out to dinner to celebrate.”
Some of her excitement dimmed. “I won’t sell any paintings, Ty. I’m really not that good. It’s not a lack of confidence. It’s an understanding of art.”
He doubted it, but he didn’t need to argue with her. “We’re not celebrating success. Just because I meet with the principal doesn’t mean I’m qualified for the job, or they’ll want me for it. We’re celebrating just going out and trying something.”
“But I don’t want to try this. If I do it, I’m only doing it so you’ll take the meeting with Mr. Stolt.”
“And I’m only taking the meeting so you’ll try selling your paintings.” He had to shove his hands into his pockets not to rub at the anxiety squeezing his chest.
“So, we’re both miserable?” she replied, fixing him with a disapproving look.
He shrugged. “Maybe.” Misery didn’t seem like the right word though.
Uncomfortable maybe. Still, one thing he had learned from a lifetime in sports was you had to be uncomfortable to grow and change.
And if that made them both miserable for a while, did it really change what they were feeling right now?
Besides. “At least we’ll be miserable together.”