Fireside Susan Wiggs (best free ebook reader for android .txt) 📖

made of awkward silences, studied stiffness, inappropriate language and a veritable symphony of ambient noises—shuffling feet, throat-clearing, heavy breathing into the mic, sloshing water glasses.

I’ve got my work cut out for me, she thought.

When the interview ground to a halt, Bo’s image stayed frozen on the computer screen. He wore the haunted expression of a man facing a firing squad. In the ensuing vacuum of silence at the end of the video, everyone around the table seemed to be at a loss for words.

Finally, Daphne passed around a plate of pastries from Sky River Bakery, helping herself to one. “Have one—better for your mental health than an hour of psychotherapy.”

“But higher in calories,” said Kim’s mother, taking a bear claw.

“How’d I do?” Bo asked, clueless.

“Honestly?” Kim’s appetite was gone. “You were like a prisoner under interrogation.”

“C’mon, I wasn’t that bad.” He grabbed a powdered doughnut from the plate. “Was I?”

“Yes.” Everyone around the table answered at once.

“Listen, don’t be discouraged. It’s a learning process. That’s why there’s fame school,” Kim said, going into rahrah coaching mode. “That’s where I come in. It’s training, like anything else. You have thirty seconds to make them remember you.” She indicated the frozen screen. “All they’re going to remember from that is being bored.”

“Ouch,” said Dino, wincing.

“I think they’ll remember when he called Roger Clemens ‘dumber than a bag of hammers,’” Daphne said.

“Well, he is,” Bo insisted. “So’s any other juicer. I hate that shit.”

“Hate it all you want,” Kim said, “but keep the interview about you. Honestly, you’ve got a lot to learn. That was, to put it mildly, a complete disaster.”

He put on a fake announcer’s voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, and it’s Kimberly van Dorn out of the bullpen, warming up for what promises to be a great game.”

“I’m not playing games.”

“Whoa, look who woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning. You agreed to do this,” he reminded her.

“For AJ’s sake. Remember, that’s how you talked me into doing this. I like AJ.”

“What about me? Don’t you like me, even a little bit?”

She sniffed, forbidding herself to think about the way her nerve endings fired every time she was around him.

“The jury is still out on you. Just don’t start acting like one of my usual clients. You’re not like them.”

“Right. They’re all rich and successful. And I’m not.”

“But you aspire to be.”

“I aspire to play ball. It’s what I’ve always aspired to do.” His eyes lit with passion. “The rest—money and fame—it may or may not happen. But if I’m in the game, then I’m happy.”

She stared at him. “Oh, my God.”

“Now what’d I do?” He held his hands with his palms up.

“I can see it in your face. You’re really not concerned about being rich and famous. You genuinely love the sport.”

“Well, excuse the crap out of me. Of course I love the sport. Why the hell else would I play year in and year out for no money, tending bar and doing odd jobs just to buy groceries? If this was about the money, I would have bought into a car dealership or gone to work on an oil rig in the South China Sea. But baseball for the money?” He threw back his head and offered up his signature Bo Crutcher laugh, showing the easy humor that was so conspicuously absent from his interview persona. When he realized he was the only one laughing, he quit. “What? How come you’re looking at me like that?”

She couldn’t help herself. When she was in the grip of inspiration, she tended to stare, mouth agape. “That’s genius,” she said.

“What?” He bit into the powdered doughnut, showering his chest with white flurries. “Me?”

She caught herself staring at his white lips. “Right. No, I mean, what you just said—that’s who you are. You spoke from the heart and you told the truth, and that’s going to endear you to people. Everyone will remember your sincerity.”

“The baseball player who likes baseball? How is that different from any other player?” he asked.

“It’s not the sentiment that’s so different. A lot of athletes like their sport. It’s your delivery I liked. Everyone’s going to like it.”

“Yeah?” He grabbed a napkin and brushed at the powdered sugar, which merely served to smear it on his navy blue sweatshirt. “Hey, Dino,” he said, “I’m a genius. Kim here just said I’m a genius.”

Dino eyed him briefly, focusing on the powdered sugar. “Uh-huh.”

“The thing I always used to ask my clients to do is to tell their story,” Kim said. “Unfortunately, a lot of them don’t do it well. Or their story is boring. Some of them—too many—started training for their sport at such a young age that they never had a chance to decide for themselves whether or not they love the game.”

“And Bo simply loves the game,” her mother said, beaming. “That’s lovely.”

“It makes my job easier, having a client people are going to like. I’ve had my fill of clients I had to persuade the media to like.”

“Cool,” said Bo. “So I’m good to go?”

She shook her head. “Not even close.”

“Fine, then just tell me what I need to do. It’s your specialty, right? Turning a diamond in the rough into a polished gem.”

She regarded him skeptically. “Assuming there’s a precious stone under that exterior.”

“Ha. You know it, sugar pie.”

“New rule,” she said. “Don’t go around calling women names like sugar pie.”

“If I called men names like that, people would think I’m queer.”

“And don’t say queer.”

“Everybody says queer. It’s even in the name of that show.”

“It’s a matter of context. And judgment. Just do yourself a favor and don’t use that word.”

“What should I use? Ho-mo-sexual?” He separated the word into obnoxious-sounding syllables.

“How about you avoid the subject altogether? People can go for long periods of time without debating sexual orientation.” She assessed him with her eyes. “Unless this is a preoccupation of yours.”

He snorted. “Right. You slay me, lady. You really do. First, you rag on me for being a Lothario. Which,