112. Carte Blanche
CARTE BLANCHE
LAYTON
Emberleigh, Braxton’s fiancée, sits at the dining table in Pop’s kitchen tapping away on a laptop as if this is a regular occurrence when I putter in to grab something to drink.
She has an office at his house and, to my knowledge, doesn’t ever work here.
She’s hell on wheels when it comes to damage control, public relations, and image rehabilitation.
Her presence signifies yet another thing I don’t want to consider. Namely, my reputation, my public image, needs rehabbing.
Or, if I’m lucky—I scoff at the word—she just needs a quiet place to work, and Colt’s activity and chatter make that hard at her house, and she prefers the company of the curmudgeon I’m becoming.
“Hey.” It’s an offering. I haven’t lost all my manners, even if Pop thinks I have.
“Hey. Can I grab you something to drink?” She rises from the table to give me a quick hug. She doesn’t linger and moves quickly into action. “Iced tea? Coffee? Water?”
“Coffee.” It comes out as a grumble, so I quickly add, “Thanks.” I stand, shifting weight from foot to foot, not knowing what trap I’ve stumbled into.
I’m not happy about it, but my sister-in-law-to-be is on a mission. “Take a seat. I’ll bring it to you. How do you take it?”
“Black please.” Aiming for a distraction, I throw out a question I don’t really want an answer to. “How are the wedding plans coming?”
“Well, we’re in a holding pattern at the moment.” She gazes down at her ring. “I have enough contacts and manage enough big events that our small family affair won’t be too challenging.”
“You call more than one hundred and fifty guests a small affair?” I ask as she sets a mug of coffee on the table in front of me, alongside a scoop of peach cobbler with a dollop of whipped cream.
“Easy enough. We’ve weathered far more challenging things.”
She’s talking about the challenges last fall on the ranch and then again a few months later.
“Fair enough.” I sip the coffee, dealing with the hunger that roils in my belly alongside the nausea that perpetually settled in my gut months ago.
“I was hoping to talk with you about a few things.” She bites her bottom lip, hesitant to continue. She’s a tiny thing but formidable nonetheless.
I bite the inside corner of my mouth and look between her and the coffee, lifting the cup in a salute. “Shoot.”
“Did you know your agent reached out to Pop?”
My head snaps up to hold her gaze. I shake my head twice before the nausea roils again.
“I only know this since I was here with Colt when the call came in. You know those two are thick as thieves.” Her voice trails away as she waits for more from me.
“Go on.”
“George was beside himself when he couldn’t reach you. Said he tried emailing you and texting you. Those went unreturned. His calls went unanswered. He said he sent packages to your apartment and never got a response.”
“And?”
“Well, he was concerned when he couldn’t reach you, for obvious reasons, and because y’all are friends. That’s, in my estimation, what prompted Pop and Exton to go to Florida to bring you home.”
I clench my jaw, grinding my teeth until I can feel the soreness in my cheekbones. Fucking hell. No one will leave me be. It’s constant interference in my life.
“I can see you’re mad,” she rushes out her words. “But he mentioned one of your contracts and the idea you could lose it from being MIA. I’ve worked with athletes before and I thought perhaps I could lend some expertise in this area. I want to help.”
She turns those deep blues on me and waits, fully confident in her ask. The hesitancy earlier is gone and replaced with conviction.
She reaches under the table and grabs a laptop I’ve never seen before and hands it to me, careful to offer it to my right side. It’s that act of thoughtfulness, considering my strengths and playing to it, that makes me give in.
“That’s yours. We’ll need to get that set up to your liking, but if you’ll login to iCloud, that will get us a long way in the short-term.”
I open the computer to that very page and look up to find her staring. I can’t be sure, but I think a small smile plays at my mouth. Hers mirrors mine.
“Am I a sucker? Or easy prey?”
She scoffs. “Pshhh. You’re a Ranger. So neither, but you’re smart. Besides, walking away from a good thing because you’re ornery is left to the eldest brother.”
I’m sure about my smile this time.
“I saw that. Your secret is safe with me, though. No one has to know.”
I scratch my beard and tip an imaginary hat to her. “I’m in. Now what?”
“I don’t suppose your phone is available…”
“It could be if I knew where it was.”
“That’s a nightmare for people like me. But we’ll get there. You can ping it from that screen, by the way. Send a signal to it, and I’ll find it.”
I hesitate. I don’t really want it.
“May I manage that for you? Find it and do what needs to be done—with your permission, of course. I could take that off your plate.”
I hit an icon to send a sound and shrug. Between gritting my teeth and smiling, my face hurts. She can go on a wild goose chase if that makes her feel better.
She leaves the table and stands in the middle of the living room listening. I take a small forkful of cobbler and savor the buttery crust, making sure it stays down before having another.
Three bites in, I’ve had my fill. The peaches are heavy like lead in my stomach, and the sugar swirls in my veins.
“Found it!” I hear as the dinging gets closer.
A hand drops on my shoulder. “What do you want me to do? Handle it all? Line it all out and you prioritize? Put together a strategy and get back together?”
“Whatever you think, Emberleigh. Are you good if I lie back down and find you later?”
She turns the phone to my face to unlock it. “Well, the beard is messing with your facial recognition.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
“What’s the code? I’ll sort out what I can, and when you get up, I’ll have some direction.”
“9999.”
“Worst passcode ever. I’ll fix that too.” She opens the phone and cringes before looking into my eyes. “You might need two naps. I like a challenge, but… damn.”
“Wouldn’t want you bored after all.”
I crutch away, smiling inwardly.
Today’s the first day I’ve felt like myself in months.
I fight the déjà vu as I walk into the kitchen to find Emberleigh at the table, laptop in front of her, though this time, there’s a notepad full of scribbles. Where does the time go? Has it already been three days since she took me on as a project?
In the place I sat last time is a blank pad and pen, a cup of coffee and a glass of water. The closed laptop with my phone perched on top is off the top right, past the water.
“This is what I imagine it’s like to get fired in corporate America.”
“Nah. That’s having a cardboard box of your things and letting a guard to escort you out the building.”
“You know this from experience?”
“Me? Being escorted by a guard? Only behind stanchions.”
“Touché.” I sit and sip the coffee. I tip my head to her notepad. “What’s the damage?”
“You Rangers are a full-time job, that’s for sure.”
“We Rangers.”
“Yes, you Rangers.”
“No. We Rangers. You’re just as much a Ranger as the rest of us. Unless you’re going to pull a runner, in which case, I need my phone back so I can call Brax.”
She rolls her eyes. “I got through all your emails and texts. Those I printed and eventually shredded since I needed to see all the data in one place. Certain ones needed to be addressed immediately, which I did. Others need a more measured response.”
I nod and take another sip. Emberleigh Carrington is in control, and she’s good at what she does. Meanwhile, I don’t want to touch my phone, and I’m damn well not going to pen an eloquent email to any-fucking-body, so she can knock herself out.
“I have limited the most immediate needs to five things we’ll address today. The tier two and tier three things we can hold on or I can move forward. Is that okay?”
I take another sip of coffee and look around the table. “No cobbler today? You were buttering me up last time, weren’t you?”
“Yup.” She pops the p at the end of the word. “But there’s pineapple upside down cake after we get through the first five.”
“Ah, the claws have come out.”
“Here we go. In no particular order, here is what we need to game plan. Excel. The team’s medical requests. Insurance and litigation. Your homes. Rehabilitation.”
Ice runs through my veins at the last one. However, I can get out of that conversation with enough time on the others.
“Let’s go in order, but I’m going to need that cake.”
She hops up and slides a pre-plated slice from the microwave, complete with fork, on the table at my right hand.
“Let’s go.”
We volley back and forth on the contract. One that I have broken in so much that I haven’t been seen in their clothes, much less after a victory or a play-off game. I’m not interested in repping them anymore, but nor am I interested in losing the revenue.
“I have an idea. I don’t know that you’ll like it, but it links with number five, and I think it’s foolproof.”
“And that is?”
“You doing your rehab in their gear. Documenting the progress in a series of posts after you’re back in fighting shape. Nothing on daily social channels. But a story that we tell when you’re ready.”
“What if I’m never ready?”
“We’d cross that bridge when the time comes.
But it keeps the revenue in your account.
It defers any decision on your part until the appropriate time and it saves them the hassle of looking heartless, which they surely would if I unleashed a campaign against them.
A big-name sponsor doesn’t want to tuck tail and run when the chips are down.
Their brand is about strength and resiliency.
It won’t appear that way if they decide they really only mean that when it’s easy. ”
“That’s diabolical and genius. But—” I hedge. “I can’t imagine I’ll ever be back to full strength.” I don’t see a time when I won’t be in pain. Why would I want to document that for the world?